Fighter Pullup Program by Pavel

Once I am sure a client can perform pullups with safe technique I usually ask them to buy a pullup bar and get this work done on their own.  The Fighter Pullup Program is one of the most successful and easy-to-follow programs currently in use by many Hardstyle Kettlebellers.

Start with your max number of pullups.  Let's use 5 pullups as your max.  Your first goal will be to do 5 sets of 5 reps.  I like 5x5's because they are great strength and muscle builders.  Remember that once you can do high-rep pullups, something like 5 sets of 10 reps they become more and more like conditioning work and leave the arena of strength training.  If you can do 5 sets of 10 reps any style pullups your next goal should be to tie a weight around your waist and get strong at weighted pullups. If you want to do high-rep sets you are in the wrong place, we're doing pullups to build muscle and strength, not conditioning.  

The FPP is a workable progression because it asks your so start at relatively comfortable place and then add a rep each day.  We will add the additional rep to our lower rep sets which will give us a good chance of hitting that daily goal.

Your first day on the FPP will be 5,4,3,2,1 reps with about 1-2 minutes rest in between sets.
The 2nd day on the FPP will be 5,4,3,2,2 reps with 1-2 minutes rest in between sets.
3rd day is 5,4,3,3,2
5,4,3,3,3,
5,4,4,3,3,
5,4,4,4,4
5,4,4,4,4,
5,5,4,4,4,
5,5,5,4,4,
5,5,5,5,4
5,5,5,5,5

How many days a week should you practice pullups?  Anywhere from 2-5 days a week depending on your recovery ability and overall training schedule.   In the earlier stages of the program you can get away with training your pullups every day but as you get closer to your limits, when the last reps start feeling difficult, you will need to throw in some recovery days.   You can schedule this plan mostly by how you feel.  If you are sore from other training or sore from the previous days pullups definitely take the day off from pullups.  Always remember that you grow while you rest not while you train!

Is your Yoga practice at a dead-end?

Did your yoga practice come to a dead-end the day you started practicing arm-balances?

The handstand, crow, crooks-pose and other arm-balances are extremely challenging and can become roadblocks to progress for 90%+ of yoga students.

Why is this?

Your flexibility has limits. Your not going to get into an elevated lotus pose if your hips are not open enough to do lotus. You are not going to perform crooks pose if you can not comfortably put your calf on top of your shoulder. You're not going to balance on 2 hands with both feet behind your head because, well, you are not able to put your feet behind your head!

Your bodyweight. Most people can not balance all of their bodyweight on their hands and as yoga students are by definition not doing what they need to do in order to get stronger. This is assuming that you are taking classroom yoga which lets face it is what 99%+ of the US population practices. The basics for getting strong at an arm balance require the student to spend multiple hours each week practicing that arm balance and its progressions to develop strength. They will need to work that arm balance hard enough that next day they will be sore and need recovery. In a yoga class you will be lucky to spend 10 minutes on any individual posture and that is what most people end up spending on their arm balances. 10-15 minutes a few nights a week when what they really needs is 3-4 hours a week! This is a serious roadblock for students trying to get strong at the arm balances. The 10,000 chatarungas + up/down dogs you did over the past 5 years did absolutely nothing to prepare you for what is essentially holding your entire bodyweight in the palms off your hands.

Your diet. Yes, your diet plays a big role how your yoga progresses. You may have progressed a couple of years on a low fat/low protein diet but that is because beginner yoga is just not that stressful on the body, you can eat in almost any manner and still improve your general flexibility, strength and stamina. You are able to improve through a combination of CNS adaptations (this basically means getting better at a certain skill) and strength/flexibility/conditioning gains but the longer your train the more progress depends on increasing your actual muscular strength. Once your have trained religiously for 2-3 years you are close to hitting your maximum flexibility potential and the practice becomes largely strength oriented. If after 2-3 years of practice you have not gotten to 90% of your potential flexibility-wise you have not been training hard enough! Once the practice becomes basically a strength practice then your diet becomes extremely important. Eating more protein and less refined foods becomes very important. The protein is important for building muscle and strength. The refined-food-restriction is necessary because these foods make you tired and your will need a very high level of energy if you are pursuing what amounts to the most advanced yoga poses.

What is the solution to this yoga-roadblock? I want to be honest and say that yoga teachers are not really the best at teaching the arm balances. The yoga teachers you see executing yoga asana (postures) at the highest level either started their yoga practice in childhood or trained in some other modality during childhood (usually gymanstics or dance) at a very high level and that is where they really learned to do these moves. These people are often lousy at figuring out progressions for yoga students to follow. I spent over 10 years as a yoga student and never saw any teacher do anything other than lamely try and grab the students ankles in handstands or to ask the student to squeeze their forearm between the thighs. These are great progressions but there are many others that most yoga teachers are not aware of because ultimately they are not S&C or Gymnastic coaches, they are yoga teachers.

I offer 2 different solutions to improving your intermediate yoga practice and they both ask you do to some form of strength training.

You can either attend a gymnastics school or start seriously studying some form of strength training. Gymnasts are the best at standing on their hands so they know all the proper progressions. Simple weight training, especially standing overhead presses, are great links to the handstand and improving your ability to hold the other arm balances. A standing overhead press is basically a handstand turned right-side-up. This way we can use less than our bodyweight, get a chance to strengthen the arms, back and core, and improve our chances of eventually being strong enough to hold our entire bodyweight in various positions.

Fat-loss tips for men

Why for men?

Men were the primary hunters as we evolved.  Hunting expeditions took a long time and men often had to go without food for days.  If you bitched about being hungry on these trips the other males would kick your ass.  Men are designed through evolution to prosper during times of limited resources.  The modern diet, especially the Standard American Diet destroys this manly ability.

Men need testosterone for robust health.  Cholesterol is the primary precursor to testosterone production.  As men pass the age of about 30  our T levels naturally  go down  as a part of the normal aging process.  Men can boost their T levels by healthy lifestyle which includes eating plenty of saturated fats/animal products.  

The final reason this is an article for men is that it eliminates 90% of the people who disagree with much of this, mainly fruitarians and vegans.   If that is the way you eat then you have a different belief system this approach is simply not for you!

1) Eat saturated fat.  Lots of it.  Saturated fats (and monosaturated fats) are safe for humans in unlimited doses.  

2) Go to bed early - there are no true "night-owls"  Every human has a circadian rhythm.  Our circadian rhythm tells us when to go to sleep and when to wake up in a natural manner.  When we live against this basic biological mechanism we increase our general stress levels = higher daily cortisol = belly fat!

3) Eat only a little below calorie maintenance levels.  If you go too low in calories you will lose muscle tissue which effectively slows your metabolism.  Every day on a too low calorie diet and it gets harder and harder to lose bodyfat.

4) Eat 1-3 meals a day but not more than 3 and only eat 1 meal a day 1-2 days/week.   Metabolism is flexible and changes in response to our diet.  If we eat the same amount of food/meals every day fat-loss will stagnate. Its a good idea to have some days where you eat only 1 meal and other days where you eat 2 or 3 meals. This is a way better way to increase metabolism in response to diet than the traditional way which asks you to graze like an herbivore  and eat food all throughout the day.

5) Lift weights progressively.  More muscle = more calories burned at rest = you can eat more food and still lose bodyfat than your less muscular peers.

6) Walk.  Often.  Walking is great for fat-loss because it will not burn precious muscle tissue unless you walk for some ungodly length without eating any food.  You can probably walk 60-90 minutes a day 5-7 days a week and your fatloss will prosper.

7) Eat vegetables at every meal.  I eat moderate portions of vegetables so I can have good digestion and get the few micronutrients that are not in animal products.  Most people underestimate the amount of micros (vitamins/minerals) in animal products but they have everything we need for good health.  That being said, since most of us are not consuming bone broth and eating many different parts of the animals (which contain different micros), plants are our best resource to fill in the nutritional gaps.

8) Avoid fruit - Fruit is simple sugar with some fiber and some micronutrients.  You are better off getting your fiber and micros via vegetables as they are about 90% lower in sugar!

9) Avoid cooking in vegetable/man-made cooking oils -this is really more for a mans health than fat-loss but they health and fat-loss are very much related.   Vegetable oils are terrible for cooking because they oxidize at low heat.  Cook in lard, butter, ghee (clarified butter) or coconut oil.  My favorite oil to cook in is the excess fat I get when I cook uncured bacon!  Olive oil is good for salad toppings but not great for cooking although you will find cultures that do well cooking in olive oil so I consider it an in-between cooking oil which can go either way.

10) Control carbohydrate intake  but not too much!  Since you are lifting weights you need some carbs to fuel the training but not so much that you are eating more than your burn while lifting.  Most guys can lose fat eating between 200-800 calories a day from starchy carbohydrates.

11) Relax!  Practice yoga or meditation but do something that will help you lower your daily stress levels.   High daily stress levels (high cortisol levels) signal the body that trouble (famine in this case) is coming and tells the body to store fat.  Even the leanest of us have trouble losing our last bit of bellyfat because modern life is stressful at best.



 http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/09/saturated-fat-reduces-risk-of-stroke-and-heart-disease/

 http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/10/389596946/circadian-surprise-how-our-body-clocks-help-shape-our-waistlines

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/28/6/1485.long

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23019316

http://www.thankyourbody.com/vegetable-oils/

https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/press-release-archives/2010/testosteronedecreasesafteringestionofsugar

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16353426

Hardstyle Theory - What size/How many Kettlebells do I need?

Kettlebell professionals would love to market the kettlebell as a single unit tool that can fill all of our training needs but in real life that is not the case.  You can definitely start with a single bell but if you  find yourself catching the Hardstyle bug you are going to want to own at least a couple more!    That being said once a person is trained in Hardstyle kettlebelling they can make amazing use of a single heavy bell.  It is great for travelling and/or any time you just can not get to the gym.    I am warning you that once you realize that you can fulfill 90%+ of your training needs with a few bells you are going to want to throw away that $30/month and parking hassles at your local Globogym!  

As a beginner you can get away with buying a  single bell for learning and practicing.   The smallest bell anybody will use for Hardstyle will be an 8kg/18 lb bell.  If you have been exposed to those classes where they hold 1-5 lb dumbells and call that strength training 18 lbs may seem big to you but it is not!  We are learning to move these kettlebells with good body mechanics and full body movement which means even a small 90 lb female  will be using 90 lbs to move 18.  That is why anything less is considered a paperweight.  

Here's a guideline to help you figure out what your first bell size should be.  I will ask you to use reasonable-man standards on the words sedentary/active/strong.  If unsure choose the smaller size bell.  

 sedentary females with little or no strength training experience - 8kg

 sedentary males with little to no strength training experience - 12kg

 active females with some strength training experience - 12kg

 active males with some strength training experience - 16kg

 strong females with strength training experience - 16kg

 strong males with strength training experience - 24kg

The next bell you will want to buy is bell for heavy 2-hand swings.  You will probably still use the above bell for getups but once you get a little stronger you will be able to do getups with your 2-hand swing bell too!.   In most cases it's best to jump a bell size.  A bell size is usually 4kg.   If you are swinging the 24kg competently for reps  you may want to just jump straight to a 32kg bell.

The next bell you will want is actually 2 bells!  At this stage you got a big swing and big getup so its time to start learning the double bell techniques.  I love double bell work - the best way to describe it is that it makes me feel like a fucking gorilla, that I can pick up heavy shit and nothing can stand in front of me.    Since you are relatively strong at this stage I can say that most men can start with a pair of double 16kg bells and women double 12kg bells.  If you were strong from the start you may choose a bell size higher but those people are generally very rare so again, err on the side of caution.  If you are in love with this approach it can be a lifetime of effort so there is no rush.    

I would love to say there is a last bell that you will buy but who am I kidding?  If you bought the above 4 bells and are swinging em and hammering away at heavy getups you are doomed to a lifetime of buying ever bigger and bigger bells!    Some of my clients own up to 32kg and 36kg bells for home use and one guy (a 150 lb dude) has a 40kg he does getups with.  Since I am a professional I get to be the lunatic with a 56kg and 70kg in my home :)  

Hardstyle Theory - My take on "never train to failure"

All Hardstylers know that the Chief says "When you train to failure you train to fail".

If you know real-life lifters you know that plenty of big dudes takes their sets to failure and do very well.  My younger brother is the one of the biggest guys I know with 15+ years lifting experience and he takes at least a few sets to failure every session and prospers.

It's my opinion that the concept of "never train to failure"  falls on something of a spectrum.  There are certain lifts you almost never want to go to failure and others where I believe it is fine.  I also believe the higher the rep range the safer it is to take a set to failure.

Which lifts are bad/dangerous to failure?

It's a tie between the barbell squat and deadlift in my opinion.  When you watch the best powerlifters in the world train they hit 99%+ of their training lifts even as they reach the higher percentages of their max.  If one of my clients misses a rep at these exercises I know I made a mistake in programming and need to re-asses their baseline numbers.

Bench presses, standing strict presses fall somewhere in the middle.   We should probably avoid going to failure in these lifts in the lower rep range but it may be slightly safer to fail at higher reps.  I personally try to never miss a bench press but still somehow manage to miss some overhead presses.  Failing at an overhead kettlebell press is relatively safe because you simply re-rack it and get it to the floor safely.  

All ballistic moves!  Snatches, swings, cleans, jerks.  In this case when you watch the worlds best Olympic lifters move weight they almost never miss a rep.   They do a good deal of heavy singles but they almost never miss unless they are attempting a PR.    This applies to the kettlebell variations as well because if you "miss"  a kettlebell swing or snatch you are well on your way to hurting yourself.

What lifts are safe to take to failure?

Almost all of the isolation/bodybuilding type exercises are IMO totally safe to take to failure and this level of safety increases as the rep-range goes higher.  This all assumes good form as certain forms of cheating reps can be dangerous.  Doing a set of 5 reps in dumbell curls is probably more dangerous than a set of 12 or higher reps.  I feel that the isolation movements do best at at least 8 reps+ and most bodybuilders agree.    Most bodybuilding style trainees take at least their last set or 2 of  curls, tricep extensions, cable laterals, pec dec, etc to failure and grow very big muscle!

Loaded carries are also good to take to failure but there is a tremendous amount of suck in carrying a pair of heavy kettlebells to failure.   I usually put the bells down just before it feels like I am going to lose my grip.

There's my take on "never train to failure"

Outlier Diet basics

These are the basics of what I call "The Outlier Diet"

Your version of the Outlier Diet can be different than mine so long as you are truly self-experimenting and finding what works for you.

Outlier Diet respects all form of eating so long as the dieter is truly reaching their goals whether they be athletic, body composition or spiritual goals.

My version of the Outlier Diet

Based on how we evolved.

Eat as much living food as you can.  Living food defined as any raw produce, meats cooked no more than a rare or medium rare state, raw milk, raw eggs, raw fish.  It will be too difficult to get all of our calories from raw foods but the more the better.

No processed foods

No  grains but we do eat rice and potatoes as primary source of starchy carbohydrate.

No refined sugars, including derivatives like agave, maple syrup, corn syrup.

Less frequent eating - 2-3x/day for men, 3-4x/day for women.  Some days eat 1x/day and others 3-4.

Lower carbs as you age

Lower carbs in general at all ages to lose bodyfat

Find a food combining theory and follow it - I use chinese and ayurvedic food principles

90/10 - Stick to the diet 90% and eat whatever you like 10%

No fruit if trying to lose bodyfat otherwise all forms of fruit is allowed

1/2-1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight depending on goals, more for strength athletes, less for endurance athletes and even less for sedentary.

You can follow this diet and be sedentary but it will be a low-carb diet

Some variety in food choices but not too much.  Just enough to avoid food allergies which can occur if we eat the same foods every day for years on end.

Experience some sort of low-carb/low-sugar diet for 2-4 weeks regardless of your goals.  I have a theory that most people do not know what true hunger is.  IMO true hunger is protein hunger, our what I consider a primal hunger.

Why Outlier?

Have you been to a WalMart or Target lately?