I am careful to eat what I think is good for me rather than what tastes nice or what other people think I should eat.  Most of the time, I reason that a moment’s enjoyment is not worth the consequences (I do let my hair down at Christmas, however).

So, I’ve given up more foods than I can count, I can’t remember the last time I had a piece of cake or a biscuit and I have been known to eat broccoli at breakfast time to get more green vegetables into my day.  Weird, I know.

But I want to live a long life without being plagued by the so-called “diseases of civilisation”.  I don’t want diabetes, I don’t want heart disease and I certainly don’t want to spend old age hobbling around with gout or hitching a huge belly over my belt buckle before I can pull my trousers up.

I don’t want to take so many pills that I rattle when I walk and I certainly don’t want to die of what Carl Lanore inventively calls “polypharmacy” (being given so many medications that your system just shuts down).

And I don’t want to be a human guinea pig for medications whose sole purpose is to keep certain levels of cholesterol within certain “acceptable” limits, while the same medications wreak havoc on my testosterone levels and cause memory loss similar to that cause by Alzheimer’s disease.

So I try to follow the paleo diet as far as I can.  (For a great introduction to the paleo diet, you can check out Anna’s blog.)

However, I do have an Achilles heel.  I confess that Just like Dan John, I like beer.

The three beers I enjoyed last Saturday.  The one in the middle is brewed in Derby, which is not far from where I work.  The one on the right is brewed in Oakham, Rutland, which is not that far from where I live.

I like beer too much

I know that beer is bad for me.  Not only does it contain alcohol, which is basically poisonous, but it’s also based on grains, which are decidedly not paleo.

But I still drink it.  Why?  The same reason that you might tuck into a chocolate bar after lunch every day or take sugar in your tea.  We have both decided that the short-term enjoyment we gain from eating or drinking something that is bad for us is worth more than the long-term benefits of not eating or drinking it.

But if you can get the sort of hallucinogenic enjoyment out of a chocolate bar that I get out of a pint of beer, then your pancreas is probably faulty.  Or you’re five.  And if you’re five, what the hell are you doing reading my blog?  Go outside and play in the garden or something…

A damage limitation strategy

So during the winter, when it’s grim outside and we can’t go for walks in the evening, I maintain a damage limitation strategy of only drinking a maximum of three pints, two days a week.  It’s usually Saturday and Sunday evenings, as I tend to do my hardest workouts on these afternoons and then collapse in front of a film.  In the summer, I usually drink less than this because the weather and the light permit being outside more.

I also drink only darker ales, which are very bitter and have almost no sugar.  You know that sugar is bad for you, right?  But darker beers also supposedly have more resveratrol, which is good for recovery.

Will my strategy work?  Only time will tell.

“What do you think?” He asks. “I’m going to do squats and heavy cleans on Mondays, deadlifts on Tuesdays, high intensity track sprints on Wednesdays, squats and heavy cleans again on Thursdays, chins and dips on Fridays, followed by a specialist bench workout on Saturdays and some fun cardio on Sundays.” 

The correct answer, of course, is “I think you’re probably doing too much.”

A more helpful, and less weary, response might be “cut out half of it and it might work, depending on how good your work capacity is and how much you are prepared to eat.”

Squats and cleans, a digression

(Personally, I think if you can do squats and heavy cleans with good technical form then not only should you do them but I believe that you have an obligation to do very little else.  But that’s just me having sour grapes about being a really bad squatter and having poor mobility.  I suppose there is something much sexier about squats and full cleans than about pull ups and dips.  Ah well, the grass is always greener).

But I digress.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the excitement of doing something extra in the hope of additional rewards.

I am guilty of doing too much

Well, I confess that I am also guilty of doing too much.

I start with a simple programme, of say, single leg squats, pull ups and dips.  But then I want to improve my bench so I add that in.  But I need to balance that with some rows, so in go some one-arm rows.

After a while, I get irritated by the lack of progress on my bench so I try some pressing instead.  At the same time, though, I can’t bring myself to let go of the bench pressing, so I end up with bench press and press in the same workout.  More rowing ensues.

All the while, I know that unless I practice my front lever regularly, it won’t straighten out.  So that has to go in too.  Because if I don’t keep it in, then I will never be able to start work on my one-arm front lever and one day have my own Wikipedia page, just like John Gill…

And so it goes on and on.  The voice in my head is like a dealer pushing the fitness drug.

How about some hybrid cardio?

I saw this great article yesterday about adding in additional cardio to avoid fat gain while bulking and straight away I was re-evaluating my routine.  Could I fit in some more farmers’ walks? I ask myself.  Perhaps I could go for a short walk around the block with a weighted rucksack before work? Maybe after work? No? Before bed, then?

No? Just a few sprints then

I have this great hill just 5mins jog from my house that I can run sprints up.  It’s probably around 150m long and the gradient is even all the way up.  It’s not a through-road so it’s quiet (unless there is a golf tournament).  I read an article a while back about hill sprints being great for improving hamstring strength and now whenever I stall on glute-ham raises, I’m dying to go and let rip up the hill instead.

Don’t forget to ride your bike!

We’re planning a cycling holiday in March so I feel the need to keep some miles in my legs.  Just a little ride on a Saturday morning, only 25 miles.  And the same again on Sunday? Why not?  Look, you’re not really doing anything on Thursday evenings, so how about another one then?  It all keeps adding up.

Wrist curls don’t count though, surely?

I read an article about improving grip by working on wrist strength a while back.  Soon I found myself wondering whether to include some weighted wrist curls and extensions in a “feeder workout” or after a lower body session.  It’s a small body part, I argued.  It won’t impact on my recovery very much.  A feeder workout! My subconscious will try anything to prolong my pernicious gym habit!

Enough is enough!

I try to keep my enthusiasm in check by writing workout plans and then sticking to them.  If I want to try something new, I might mess around with some light weights to get the feel of it but ultimately if I want to load it up then it has to go into the plan.  By writing it down, I prevent my workouts from escalating too badly.

It’s not really working 100% but it’s a step in the right direction, I feel.  Let me know if you have any other tips for keeping your workouts under control!

So I’ve decided to kick off a new type of blog post – the confessions files – with this most sacred of strength-building cows – the 5 sets x 5 reps routine.  So here I confess: 5 sets x 5 reps routines don’t work for me. 

***

What! What? 

Well, yes.  I do feel a bit embarrassed that I don’t get good results with a programme that has been endorsed, over the years by none other than:

• Bill Starr
• Reg Park
• Dan John
• Mike Robertson

And if you find it works for you, well then I’m slightly jealous.  It doesn’t work for me.  

***

What does work for you then?

Well, for me a programme works if:

• I get stronger;
• I put on a little muscle;
• I don’t have to get fat in the process;
• I don’t get injured;
• I recover easily; and
• I can go for a bike ride or a walk at weekends and not derail my progress.

It’s kind of a long list but it captures most of what is important to me.  Yes, I am hard to please sometimes.

***

So why exactly does 5 sets x 5 reps not work for you?

You might be able to see why the classic 5 sets x 5 reps scheme doesn’t work for me from my above priorities.  You can tick off the first two requirements straight away, although you might argue that a 5 sets x 5 reps routine would do more than add “a little” muscle.   However, you would start to struggle with the rest of the list and I think that the main reason for that is the problem of recovery.  With poor recovery, I find that:

• I need to eat lots;
• I need to eat more carbohydrates;
• I tend to get injured;
• I can’t train as often; and
• I can’t do any cardio without risking my progress stalling.

In the past, when I have tried 5 sets x 5 reps, I’ve hit all of the above problems.  Typically, what happens is: 

• First workout: start 5 sets x 5 reps routine.  Make all 5 sets of 5 reps.
• Second, third, fourth etc workouts.  Progress normally.
• Fifth or sixth workout.  Drop last couple of reps on final couple of sets.
• Stall.
• Up calories.  Up carbohyrdrates.  Progress a bit.
• Stall.  Get fat.  Stall again.  Swear a lot.
• Give up.

***

So what’s going on? 

I’m not entirely sure.  I could go away and read up on exercise physiology and come back with something about the creatine phosphate system only lasting 6-10 seconds but ultimately that would just be seeking justification for my observations.  It might be the energy systems.  Or it might be my fast-twitch vs slow-twitch ratios.  I don’t know.

The weird thing is that I can easily do more volume of lower rep sets (such as 10 sets of 3 reps for a total of 30 reps) with the same weight.  I just seem to burn out on the last couple of reps of the last couple of sets of a 5 sets x 5 reps programme.  It doesn’t feel like strength is lacking, it’s just like there’s no fuel left.  Like when you’re sprinting and you just find yourself slowing down and there’s nothing you can do about it.

A powerlifter would probably say I’m just not eating enough.  And they’d probably be right.  But I don’t think it’s possible to use this technique with bodyweight moves because you’d be adding weight faster than you could gain strength and you’d go nowhere.  And since my first love is bodyweight exercises, I guess I’m stuck with it.