Do you have the courage to change it up?

The first time I opened Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding I was 6. That’s when it began. Thanks for the awesome gift and motivation Dad! A few years later I got inspired by watching Rocky train to take down Ivan Drago (I’d eventually dye my hair bleach blond as Drago for Halloween). As a young teenager, my 10’x 10’ room consisted of a bed, punching bag and free weights. I used to play the Rocky soundtrack my awesome mom bought me and get to work, creating an orchestra of leather on leather for our apartment neighbors to enjoy. My first wide-grip pull-up was in grade-10 gym class. Ever since that pull-up I’ve averaged 5 strength training days per week (3 at the very least). I haven’t missed a week in over 15 years. Really. 

I lift on the road. I lift when I’m sick. I lift when I’m injured. My commitment is impressive but it can be ignorant. Now at 30 my shoulder pops out when I try to hit a volleyball, I get random injuries from no obvious cause and my frontal plane flexibility is comical. Did I mention I’ve plateaued on nearly every lift? Know anyone like this? 

As a Kinesiology graduate and former strength and conditioning specialist I’m trained to know the importance of rest, periodization and variety. However, with the exception of the last 4-months I've stayed religious to bodybuilding movements. I won’t claim that repetitive bodybuilding is solely responsible for my physical challenges considering I work at a desk, could sleep a bit more and am not a spry 18-year-old anymore but I know they’re a major factor for me. 

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend introduced me to Tim Ferriss. I know, I was born yesterday! As you might expect, I’m on a Tim Ferriss podcast binge and am ripping through Tools of Titans. To be clear, I haven’t done my full diligence on Tim's and his interviewees’ suggestions to the point where I am ready to adopt all of them just yet. What has me inspired is how Tim and his guests take an experimental approach to their learning, wellness, finances, etc. Nearly all their recommendations are born out of real-world experimentation vs. pure theory.

Thus, I arrive at the title of this post: “Do you have the courage to change it up.” It takes real work, commitment and a ton of courage to change our habits and routines. Over the next 12 months I’ll be experimenting with a radically different training focus each month. For instance, one month will be dominated by rock climbing, another will include a high volume of animal flow training followed by a month filled with battling ropes.

The hardest part of my new adventure will be having the courage to lay off the “biceps curls.” If you’re committed to bodybuilding on any level, it’s likely you’ve experienced some degree of body dysmorphia throughout your journey. We get addicted to certain ways of training because we feel we’ll lose it all if we back it off or change it up. Sometimes we go crazy and over-train out of fear of losing muscle or packing on body fat. It’s illogical and even harmful but it’s a thing for many of us despite what we know and read.

To say I’m grateful for the musculoskeletal foundation, knowledge and grit the last 15 years of heavy strength training has helped me build would be an understatement. Nonetheless, getting older has gifted me self-awareness and I’m excited to commit to this change in my approach. January will include the completion of a current hypertrophy phase followed by lots of swimming in February.

I’ll be posting videos of the routines and progress on my blog: ultimategrityyz.com and Instagram account: ultimategrityyz. If you’re that person who can’t stand to miss a chest workout or the guy who sticks to the elliptical, I’ll keep you updated on how this works out. On the flipside, some of us are too comfortable with not moving. I implore you to have the courage to get moving in 2017 (whatever that might mean in your world).

To complement the training experiment, I’ll be keeping the below constant over the year:

1. 16hr:8hr fast to feed intermittent fasting schedule
2. "Attempting" a 3-day fast on the first Thursday of each month (borrowed Dominic D’Agostino in Tools of Titans, p.21). Will need to be sure this is a fit for my body. 
3. A generous cheat meal on Sunday afternoons
4. 7 hours of sleep/night
5. Macro breakdown of 65:25:10 FAT:PRO:CHO on a 3000-calorie diet.
6. The following measurements in January, July, December 2017:

• Body fat
• Free testosterone
• Resting Heart Rate
• Blood pressure
• Cortisol/inflammation
• Blood sugar
• LDL/HDL Profile
• Bodyweight
• 1RM extrapolations of the compound lifts mentioned below

7. Three strength training sessions per month consisting of high-intensity, low-volume compound strength training movements: Deadlifts, Power-hang cleans, multiple varieties of bench press

8. One strength training session per month consisting of multiple high-intensity, low volume, single-joint strength training movements

Here’s to gettin' after our best year yet!