Link Theory Vol. 3

Image by Toni Lazano

Way back in 2002, the Crossfit journal had this great piece about building a garage gym (the checklist at the end is particularly helpful).

Gary Taubes shows up at T-nation for an interview.

Also at T-nation, Dan John brings back the 40-day program from his Feb. 2005 newsletter. And over at Elite FTS, Darren Mallette tells us about how he went from bombing on the bench at 315 to hitting a personal best at 345 in two months on this plan.

I've been reading about how the body can store fat even without carbohydrate here and here. This is why you have to be cautious with your overall calories, not just carbohydrates.

That wraps this edition up--stay tuned for more in the Pulse series, Mnemonic techniques, and some lifting platform advice.

Heavyhands-an 80s fad that deserves another look

I'm getting sick of kids in neon clothes and big Ray-Ban sunglasses like it's 1989. Some fads deserve to stay buried. That being said, I think there are some 80's exercise fads that didn't deserve to die. No, I'm not talking about Jane Fonda, Jazzercise, or Nautilus circuits.

I'm talking about Heavyhands.


Dr. Len Schwartz, Creator of Heavyhands, in his 80s.

Heavyhands is a fusion of weightlifting and aerobics that improves both strength and endurance. It's easier on the joints than running, yet works the entire body, can be done in a small space in front of the TV or in the great outdoors and uses inexpensive equipment (light hex or padded dumbbells ranging from 1-10lbs with a few exercises calling for slightly heavier, 20-40 lb. dumbbells). It spreads the cardiovascular load across your body and allows you to burn more calories at any given level of perceived effort (meaning, it SEEMS easier to burn MORE calories, as your whole body is participating in the effort). For bigger guys like myself (I'm 220 lbs right now, down from a high of 270+) it allows me to get a pretty tough aerobic workout in without the pounding on the joints that running entails.

In its simplest form, heavyhands is just walking while holding weights and using an exaggerated "biceps pump" maneuver. Just this simple move can really boost the calorie burn of your walks. To vary the difficulty, you can vary your pump height, pace, or walking speed. There are, of course, many other maneuvers to try, from overhead presses, shadow-boxing, and double ski-poling (think of the maneuver you use with ski poles to propel yourself forward). All you really need to get started is a couple of 1-5 lb weights and a route to walk or room to march in place.

So what happened? If this system was so darn good, cheap, easy to do anywhere, and effective, why isn't it still with the masses? I can think of a few reasons.

Dr. Schwartz, the creator of the system says (at Clarence Bass' webpage) "Even huge weights don't evoke much aerobic work when hanging inertly... You have to act boldly." That means you actually have to pump the damn weights, high, fast, or both. This had two effects: one, to get a good workout, some people really pumped the weights, and then realized, "hey, this is still hard," and stopped. Runners found that the weights "threw them off their stride," meaning, of course, that even though they were getting a better work out, their egos couldn't get over the fact that they had to go slower. The second effect was that some people just carried the weights around, then found, "Hey, this doesn't work." And these people went back to just walking. You've got to pump the weights high to get the effect you're looking for.

Two: it looks funny. Though I imagine jogging looked funny at first to people as well. I just try to ignore the funny looks I get, pumping weights, but some people aren't as able to ignore it. To those people, I suggest working out in front of the TV.

Three: ironically, I think Heavyhands kind of killed itself because there was so little equipment to buy. Besides a couple of books (Heavyhands: The Ultimate Exercise System and Heavyhands Walking: Walk Your Way to a Lifetime of Fitness With This Revolutionary, Commonsense Exercise System) there were only the weights to buy. The weights have a little handle, but honestly, regular hex dumbbells have worked just as well for me, so it seems likely that there wasn't as much money to be made in the Heavyhands specific dumbbells as they thought initially.

My recommendation? Give 'em a try. In the meantime, you can do a bit more reading about heavyhands at Clarence Bass' website here and here or at the heavyhands blog (which looks defunct but has a good archive). If you need more info, grab the books. They're packed with good information.

I've got more on heavyhands coming up, plus another post on home gyms in apartments, plus the rest of the pulse series, and a mnemonics series, plus some other surprises. Stay tuned.

My Current Workout

Hey, I just wanted to give you guys a taste of what I'm doing with all my home gym equipment right now. This is the basic format that I build my workouts around. I'll give you some of the twists that I've come up with to burn more fat later in the Pulse series.

Here's the basic progression, which comes from Pavel Tsatsouline in his book Enter The Kettlebell! Strength Secret of The Soviet Supermen.

This is my version of the "Rite of Passage" program. The Rite of Passage is to be able to press 50% of your bodyweight and snatch a 24kg (53 lb) kettlebell 200 times in 10 minutes.

M: Light workout
T: "Variety" or off
W: Medium workout
R: "Variety" or off
F: Off
S: Hard workout
U: Off

On variety days, feel free to perform other workouts: do other kettlebell drills, calesthenics, just keep it light and easy. Or take the day off.

On the light, medium and hard days, what I do is alternate sets of chins and presses in a ladder format. You could easily substitute dips and chins if you don't have kettlebells or dumbbells, or just do the presses. You could also alternate bench presses and rows.

I do these as "ladders", meaning you take a short (5-90 second) break in between the sets. You can take a longer break after all the sets in a series are completed. Clarence Bass explains the technique here, and the reasoning here.

These are in the sets x reps format.
Week 1: Light 3 x 1; Medium 3 x {1,2}; Hard 3 x {1,2,3}
Week 2: Light 4 x 1; Medium 4 x {1,2}; Hard 4 x {1,2,3}
Week 3: Light 5 x 1; Medium 5 x {1,2}; Hard 5 x {1,2,3}
Week 4: Light 5 x {1,2}; Medium 5 x {1,2,3}; Hard 5 x {1,2,3,4}
Week 5: Light 5 x {1,2,3}; Medium 5 x {1,2,3,4}; Hard 5 x {1,2,3,4,5}

On the light days, do one clean and many presses, the medium and hard days, perform a clean before each press.


A kettlebell clean and press in good form

Take two days off and test your new maxes with a heavier kettlebell or dumbbell, or test the number of pullups or dips you can now do.

I vary the pullup type on each workout as follows:
I roll two six sided dice and the result indicates the pullup type that I do:

2: Towel Chin
3: Mixed-Grip Chin
4: Wide-Grip Chin
5: Narrow-Grip (hands touching) Chin
6: Standard chin
7: Standard Pullup
8: Narrow (thumbs touching) pullup
9: Wide Pullup
10: Neutral (palms facing) grip pullup
11: Side-to-side pull (pull to left hand, then pull to right hand)
12: Side grip pullup

If you know about probability, then you know that I will be spending most of my time doing numbers 5-9 and less time doing the outliers, so I designed the workout to focus on the basics in the center and only occasionally get into the weirder pullup variations. This is the idea of "different, but the same". You want enough variety to force your body to keep adapting, but not so much that the stimulus is random. Not enough variety leads to staleness (the guy who is still doing the workout that he learned as a beginner) and too much leads to a failure to adapt (just doing Crossfit WODs). The key words then are, "different, but the same".

Each workout is "finished" with swings or snatches. I roll two six sided dice again to determine the length of the finisher, from 2-12 minutes, and I perform 50-60% of my max snatches on the light day, 70-80% of my max swings on medium day, and 100% all out on the hard day. Again, this uses the "same but different" principle, by changing the difficulty and length of the rounds every workout.

I've just completed another cycle with the 32kg (70 lb) kettlebell. Since I weigh 100kg (220lbs) this is 32% of my bodyweight. My next "official" bell is the 40kg (88lb-40% of bodyweight) but I also have another 70lb kettlebell with 10lbs of plates duct taped to the bottom. This throws the weight distribution all off and makes it harder to clean the weight properly, so I'm hoping to bypass the 80lb "ghetto 'bell" altogether and move straight into the 88lb 'bell.

Coming up on Wednesday, a post about an 80s fad that I think should come back. Stay tuned.

Solving the Home Gym Conundrum

I think it's time for some more specifics on building and outfitting a home gym.

Let's take a few different scenarios and see what we can come up with:

1. Unlimited space, unlimited budget. (Suburban livin')
2. Limited space, unlimited budget. (City livin')
3. Unlimited space, limited budget. (Country livin')
4. Limited space, limited budget. (Solitary confinement)

Suburban livin'
The first, and easiest is unlimited space, unlimited budget. Just take exactly what you do at your commercial gym and take it into the home arena. Get the biggest, nicest power rack that you can find, a great olympic set with bumpers, and fill in with whichever other pieces of equipment strike your fancy--adjustable cable crossovers, a full rack of hex dumbbells, glute-ham raise, monolift, leg press, etc. Basically, you can replicate your gym right now, but eliminate the waiting, and increase the quality of some of the equipment (nicer bars that won't bend, nicer bumper plates, better power rack, etc.)

City livin'
A little more interesting is a situation where you have very limited options in terms of space. In this situation, think about the most space efficient equipment that you can: a lifting platform and olympic set, a chinup bar and rings, and kettlebells can all be options if you don't have enough room for a fully fledged gym. I would probably go with some power blocks or some other selectorized or adjustable dumbbell equipment in this scenario, and a simple flat bench. You can store the dumbbells under the bench and push them out of the way when they're not in use. I would probably go running or do calesthenics for cardio.

Country Livin'
If you're set up in a barn or an open field, but you have less than a hundred bucks, this would be your situation. I would prioritize your equipment needs and try to scavenge as much as possible. You can use sledgehammers and hit an old tire (free if you've got the sledge) or calesthencs or jump rope (five bucks) for cardio. For resistance training, I think I would look to do rafter pullups or look for a playground to do dips and chins. Again, try to get a basic olympic set and build a platform, or hang some playground rings for pull ups, muscle ups, and dips. You can push a wheelbarrow filled with scrap metal, build your own sandbags, build your own medicine balls, get a keg from a liquor store, or build your own isometrics devices for very cheap as well. Cinder blocks make for good ways to adjust the height of your exercises: you can do all kinds of varieties of push ups with your feet or hands elevated to change the emphasis.

Solitary Confinement
If you're a teenager living at home, or you live in a dorm, or if you are actually in prison, this is the scenario you find yourself in. A lot of the same things apply to you too. Calesthenics are your friends: burpees and jumping jacks for cardio, pushups, squats, pistols, and pullups if you can find the space. You can vary the height of your pushups using your bed.

Even this very abbreviated type of program can get results, and you don't even need any equipment or much space to begin. So start here, if you have to, and build from there.
Of course, a lot of you are going to have some combination of these, a medium amount of space and a small budget, or a medium budget and medium space. Combine these suggestions appropriately.

So given the time and space, what are the biggest bangs for your buck?

1. Homemade equipment: Ostensibly, this is the cheapest, and you can get a lot of benefit out of filling a bag or a keg with sand.
2. Inexpensive equipment: jump ropes and ab wheels make this very short list.
3. An Olympic set: Just with this, you can get a lot of the benefits of having a home gym. Deadlifts, rows, military presses, curls, Turkish-get-ups. (Add a lifting platform if you need to).
4. A chinup bar: The lats are the biggest muscles in the upper body, and nothing builds the lats better than a chinup bar. Pullups, chinups, hanging leg raises.
5. An adjustable bench: A lot more pressing options open up to you with this piece of equipment.
6. Dumbbells: These can definitely be an option to complement or replace the Olympic set. I would suggest getting adjustable ones to get the most bang for your buck, both in terms of money and adjustability. You can get hex dumbbells, but then you end up spending the same money over and over again. (I.E. if you buy a 70 and 80 pound hex dumbbell, you have to pay for 150 pounds of weights. If you buy a dumbbell handle with 80 pounds, you have both a 70 and 80 pound dumbbell). These are also good if you don't have a training partner or a power rack to spot you.
7. A power rack: If you're really serious about training, eventually, you're going to need a power rack. The issues are both space and money. A power rack can take up as much as 3x3x8 feet, and cost up to $5000. If you're serious about training by yourself, though, there is no replacement for a good power rack. This is where home gyms can become real replacements for commercial gyms.
8. High/low pulley systems: This opens up woodchoppers, lat pulldowns, pullthroughs, low rows, and some other fun options.
9. Adjustable/cable crossover pulley systems This is another fun addition, a little nicer than the last.
10. Serious training stuff If you've gotten to this point, and you're still building up your gym, you probably know what's going to help you reach your goals at this point. If you're trying to lose fat, maybe some cardio equipment would help. If you're gaining muscle, then some machines would be nice. If you're a powerlifter, Dave Tate has advice for you. Start with what I've suggested above and then start thinking in this direction as your budget, space, and ability level allows.

Also, check out this thread to give you some ideas of how other people have solved the home-gym conundrum.

Link Theory Vol. 2

Here's what I've been reading this week.

On the Mind Hacking front:
Michael Lewis talks about the stat revolution coming to the NBA in The No-Stats All-Star.
Po Bronson discusses what's more important: intelligence or effort? in How Not to Talk to Your Kids (The inverse power of praise.)
And I've been reading some new Malcolm Gladwell in How David Beats Goliath.

Please note that I don't like watching NBA basketball (though I do enjoy it when the Nuggets roll over all comers) but I did enjoy all three of these articles.

On the bodyhack front, Johnny Bowden explains why Waist Size Predicts Heart Failure and Dave Tate asks: Are you Sick of your Gym? (parts two-four are very powerlifter-centric).

Coming up: posts on why you should have a home gym, more in the PULSE series, a series about posture and shoes, and a series about memorizing and memory. Stay tuned.

Pulse: Generate GH with GBC

So, from earlier in the Pulse series, we know that you have to generate GH (Growth Hormone) to create fat loss. I'm going to detail here the best way that I know of to release GH when weight training--something called GBC (German Body Composition) by Charles Poliquin.

Here's the short version:

1) Super set all exercises. For instance, do a set of a lower body exercise, and follow it up with an upper body exercise.

2) Keep rep ranges, in general, between 8 and 12 (although you may want to do some sets of 15-20).

3) Rest only 30 to 60 seconds between sets. If your first movement in an upper/lower body superset is squats, you might want to rest 60 seconds before attempting your second movement. However, if your first exercise is a fairly "easy" exercise, like leg extensions, you might only wish to wait 30 seconds before doing the second part of the superset.

4) Do a different Body Comp workout each day, doing three or four workouts a week. (Charles' actual program involves 12 separate workouts, done in succession. After the 12 workouts are completed, you simply start with the first one again. This whole "cycle" can be done up to three times, depending on how much fat you want to dump.)

5) Work larger muscle groups, such as quads, back, and chest, earlier in the workout.

6) Try to keep a balance between all body parts so that none are neglected.

From TC Luoma's How to Deep-six Holiday Fat.

There's a sample workout in that article. For another sample, click here.

For more on this topic, read an article by Charles Poliquin on Advanced GBC, or check out his book on the same topic (Manly Weight Loss: For Men Who Hate Aerobics and Carrot-Stick Diets, Finally, a Weight-Loss Program That Melts the Fat and Spares the Muscle) that explains it in much more thorough detail.

Our take-home point today is simple: to lose fat, incorporate short rest intervals (30-60 seconds) in your weight training.

Coming up in the Pulse series, how to conduct your "aerobics" sessions in order to release more GH, how to release GH by fasting, and how to put all of this together.

Why I have a home gym, and why you should have one too

Why do I have a home gym?
I find working out in a commercial gym annoying. First, there's constantly a wait for the benches and the other equipment that you want, especially if it's busy--try working out in January sometime. Trying to do circuits in a commercial gym is suicide. And don't even get me started on the "no deadlift rule" that a lot of gyms have instituted.

When you add to that the idea that most machines are inferior to most free-weight exercises, then think about all the time and money that you spend on the gym. How much is your membership--$50 a month? And how many people live in your house that use the gym? two? three? How much is gas? And how often are you waiting for equipment? You begin to think that maybe "hey, I could do this better at home."

The truth is, I've had a lot of my best workouts at home. At home, you have complete control over the music that's being played. Trying to have a PR session in the squat or deadlift just doesn't cut it when you're listening to the oldies station that the gym owner insists on. There is no one who wants to talk to you, no one to bother you and no one staring at the weird crap that you do. (Try lifting a kettlebell in a commercial gym sometime. Though I imagine this has gotten better since I last set foot in a commercial gym in 2006, probably not much.) Plus, the ever-present old dude in the shower is conspicuously absent, unless you are the creepy old dude in the showers. (Why is he in the shower when you get there? and still there when you get done, drying his nutsack with the hand dryers: what is that about?) In addition, it forces you to stay with hard, basic exercises, and keeps you off of the leg adduction machine.

So how do you go about building a home gym?
First off, start up with the basics. I will eventually get a power rack, but I started with just a dip/chin station and some kettlebells. Figure out how much you're spending a month on gym memberships, then save up about three months worth. You can get started with that. Garage sales, craigslist, and sales at Sports Authority or Sears, going-out-of-business sales for gyms, plus Play-It-Again Sports. Weights have definitely gotten more expensive with time, but some people have not gotten the memo. Around here, it's 69 cents a pound for used weights at Play-It-Again, and 89 cents for new, but I got my weights for 31 cents a pound with an adjustable bench thrown in for free. I've heard stories of people getting 300 pounds Olympic sets for $20 at garage sales, and dumpsters filled with 100 lb. dumbbells. It happens, and it's all about keeping your eyes peeled for equipment. Once you've set up enough space and set aside some money every month, you'll be surprised at how fast your home gym starts to become very respectable. Let's take a look around my home gym and you can see what I've got:

I've had a home gym since about 2001. I started simple, with some dumbbells, a flat bench, and some cinder blocks. (You can see some boxes 18" and 24" here, as well as some sledgehammers). Soon I added a chinup bar and olympic barbell set.

After a couple of moves, I was down to kettlebells and dumbbells when I moved into my current place. No bench, no chinup bar, so the first thing I bought was a combination dip/chin station. (You can see the corner of my desk in this shot, too: that's my printer.)















I live in a college town, so the entire month before everyone graduates, I comb craigslist to see what's on there. People often have stuff that they don't want to move, and you can have it for a song. You may be able to achieve the same effect by looking from about March through May or June for "spring cleaning". Some people have failed at their New Year's resolutions by then, and their failure can be your gain.















I've got a whiteboard. This is handy for recording your workouts in real time. I'm thinking about putting up a "gym records" board for my PRs (personal records) and a few posters as well.
















The calendar is really for planning my workouts out in advance. As you can see, I haven't gone out too far-right now my performance on this week's workouts determines what next week's workouts are supposed to look like. If I was doing a longer cycle, I would note down all of my workouts in advance here. You can also see my "cardio machine"-two jump ropes.




Here I've got four homemade medicine balls, some lengths of pipe that I need to make into standard dumbbells, and an adjustable isometric system like the one Bruce Lee used to use. You can start as low-tech as you want and move up from there. Not pictured is a bag of play sand that I use to weight my home-creations.















Here's a shot of my new weight bench--the whole works was $100. Keep your eyes peeled for deals!


The byline of my blog is "hacking MIND and body since 2007". I know there's been precious little in the way of mind-hacks lately, but I have some articles about memorization and memory coming up. I've also got another article about home-gyms and more PULSE coming up, as well as a few surprises, so stay tuned.