Wolf's Log: From Cub to Direwolf

[Michael Wolf]

I get so mixed up by 5x5, and 5x5.
well, you know what I meant

315x5x5 obviously means 315 pounds times five reps times five sets. Writing 315x5x5 to mean 315 pounds times five sets times five reps...quite frankly, disgusts me. If you do that, you might as well not even train.

Also, I'm too lazy to find it now in my phone but the "notation thread to end all notation threads," started a couple years ago by Mr. Josiah Moye, IIRC, was pretty fun.

[Nick D'Agostino]

Congrats on the PRs buddy! Your squat is really looking strong.

[neilc1]

so,

W*R*S

=

W
S*R


damn I still hate albraga,

wink, wink,

[Effrim]

so,

W*R*S

=



W
S*R


damn I still hate albraga,

wink, wink,

Ha. Order of operations

[Michael Wolf]

Congrats on the PRs buddy! Your squat is really looking strong.

Thanks Nick.

so,

W*R*S

=

W
S*R


damn I still hate albraga,

I see what ya did there.

[Michael Wolf]

Didn't get much sleep last night after yesterday's volume-fest; was tired and groggy all morning. Also first time pulling the day after volume squatting, so was wasn't sure today would go well, but got my shit together and turned out fine.

Squat Warmup (naked knees)
45xa bunch, 95x5, 135x5, 185x5
Notes: Knees felt great.

Snatch Grip DL
355x3 - DOH
385x3, 405x3, 425x3, 445x3 @6.5 - Straps
Notes: I actually think some of the lighter work sets were harder than the top set of 445, due to focus. DL fatigue does tend to stay with me even when the RPE isn't so high (i.e. was still clearly fatigued yesterday from Friday's DLs, even though volume wasn't very high and only did one set @8.), so stopped at 445 for today.

Bench Press (regular grip, beltless)
135x5, 175x5, 205x5, 235x5, 260x5, 275x5, 290x5 @8, 265x5 @6
Notes: Haven't tried a regular grip (which is now about 1-1.5 inches narrower than my regular grip bench used to be) in a while, but was very pleasantly surprised that - especially after all of yesterday's pressing and the nearly three months since I've been able to bench heavy - it was pain free and reasonably not weak. Hopefully this continues, I don't want to get too excited but this was a very pleasant surprise.

Chins
BWx3x3 just to test. Felt fine! Another very pleasant surprise.

C2 Erg: 25/85 x 8
Paces: 1:50.6, 1:41.6, 1:34.6, 1:34.6, 1:31.9, 1:30.5, 1:37.6, 1:28.0
Notes: Still didn't push very hard here, but at least I got them in.

[Michael Wolf]

Decent training day but missed conditioning - again - because I first allowed myself to get into a "discussion" with someone at the gym about LBBS for weightlifters, then didn't extricate myself from it early enough when it became apparent that it was not going to be at all productive. I will write about this in a separate entry below, because it was a very telling incident.

Squat (rehbands)
LBBS, paused & beltless: 275x3, 305x3, 325x3, 345x3, 355x3
HBBS, first rep paused w/3 inch belt: 275x2, 305x2, 325x2, 345x2, 355x2
Notes: All pretty easy. The HBBS were way easier than last week's. Alternated LBBS then HBBS at each weight, then added the next weight.

Press (belt+wraps)
190x3 @6.5; 215*x3 @8; 220x3x2 @8.5, 9;210x3x2 @8, 8.5; 205x5 @9
Notes: *215 was supposed to be 210 but I misloaded it. It was harder than what I was expecting for 210, but when I realized it was 215, I knew I had more without a problem today so went to 220. Press continues to inch back to better, bit by bit.

Power Clean
45x position work, 135x2, 165x2, 190x2, 215x2, 235x1, 245x1, 255x1, 265x1cp+1, 275x1cp+1, 285x1cp+f+1cp+1
Notes: Added a clean pull before the clean at 265. At 285, I missed the first time by pulling WAY early, literally when the bar was at my knees. I did another clean pull+power clean immediately thereafter and made it. Not pretty, but I believe this ties my PR. Considering I did it at the end of the workout, somewhat still distracted by the earlier events, in a hurry for time, and still fatigued from Monday's squat volume, I'll take it. A little more time grooving the lift and then doing it when reasonably less fatigued from squat and DL volume, and I should be able to leave that PR - which is really quite mediocre for my strength level - far behind.

https://instagram.com/p/3zaO8LmIXE/?...=wolf_strength

[Michael Wolf]

So, this infamous "conversation." I use scare quotes because it wasn't really ever allowed to be a conversation, but was very telling about how deeply entrenched and emotional this issue is for weightlifters and coaches. I'm not saying everyone responds this way, but it may be illustrative of some of the difficulty in getting this topic even considered. The entrenched opinions are so deeply and personally held, it may create an environment poor for learning. I think it also can serve as an illustration of how it very well can occur that no or exceptionally few WLers or coaches have ever legitimately tried it.

Before I go on, I am writing this mostly as a personal memoir while I still remember it, but putting it in a public forum to help explain some of what we're up against when we try to get these ideas some airtime. I'm not going to reveal the identity of this person and, if all you're going to do is respond by insulting the guy, then do us all a favor and don't participate in any further discussion that may ensue. I'm not interested in nutswinging high-fives about this on my log. Productive discussion, however, is always welcome.

I don't remember all of exact words and order of how things went, so much of this will have to be paraphrasing.

Earlier today, I was talking with a guy I've recently met at the gym (let's call him Bob), between sets. He has a S&C and WL background, then did crossfit for a while, and is currently working on basic strength. He doesn't use SS methods, but seems casually familiar with SS as a thing but not really what it entails. He said something to the effect of he thinks some olympic lifters might benefit from doing the LBBS. I agreed, and said if they're front squatting, and doing the lifts themselves and necessary variants, I think he's exactly right.

A friend of Bob was lifting nearby at the time, let's call him Steve. Steve is a personal trainer who, from what I can tell of seeing him train now and then over the past 6 months or so, mostly does weightlifting but also some crossfit. He overheard us and entered the conversation to deliver what he was sure would be a check mate argument against what Bob and I said. It seemed to me that he had a gleeful look in his eye as he said it, like he was going to drop the ultimate knowledge bomb that was invalidate any possibility of us being right. He asked something to the effect of "Do you really not know why that's wrong?!"

I replied that I've heard many counter arguments but none of them have convinced me, though maybe he's thinking of something I hadn't heard before.

His big bombshell? Clearly and obviously LBBS is inferior and HBBS is essential because no gold or medal winner has ever done used LBBS to get there. He was really sure that information was a knockout blow.

Of course, I didn't immediately accept his argument (because it's not actually an argument or any type of analysis whatsoever, as hopefully everyone reading this is familiar with). I tried to explain that I know that, and why it still doesn't convince me that LBBS isn't a valid and possibly a better option. But he got really upset. He started yelling and trying to talk over me whenever I started a sentence; literally wouldn't listen to anything I said, and raised his voice before I could finish a sentence.

I stayed calm and tried to engage for a minute or two. Tried to explain the difference between analysis and phenomenology. But when I used the word "phenomenology," noticed Steve looked confused, and asked if he knew what it meant, things really went off the rails.

Something like this:
"PHENOMA-WHAT?! WHY SHOULD I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?! YOURE JUST MAKING STUFF UP. LIKE CHAKRAS AND STUFF. JUST MADE UP. GUESSING. FLOATING IN THE AIR. I HAVE FACTS. FACTS!!!! Everyone who has ever won a medal has high bar squatted. You're just making stuff up out of thin air!" etc and on and on.

Without responding in kind and yelling, I couldn't get more than a few words in edgewise.

He appeared to be quite upset. At this point he continues yelling, but now it's about how I'm so dogmatic because I think LBBS is the only squat style worth doing and that my dogma and bias - WHICH MAKES NO SENSE BECAUSE EVERY GOLD MEDAL WINNER HAS USED THE HBBS! - is the only reason I don't accept what he said. He literally kept saying/yelling this over and over whenever I tried to speak, calmly and collectedly.

This is of course ironic, since by definition, dogmatic is exactly what he was being, not me. I listened to, and understood, his argument and was attempting to explain why I don't find it persuasive. But he was already so absolutely certain that he was right and I was wrong, that the mere suggestion that it could be otherwise upset him to the point that he was raising his voice and couldn't even bring himself to listen to me explain why I don't find his argument persuasive.

Literally yelling at me erroneously about being dogmatic, while being dogmatic.

After that I said he is making himself look foolish and we can't have a discussion if he is unwilling to even listen to me and engage. Steve was still upset, trained for another short while, and then left the gym seemingly angrily, and without acknowledging Bob's goodbye.

So that actually happened.

Let's get a few things clear. My thoughts on LBBS are that there is a lot of analysis in favor of SS-style LBBS being a better option for olympic lifters. But also that it hasn't been tried enough for us to know with a high level of confidence whether this works well and consistently in practice. Of the small number of people who have tried it, most have had good results. But considering how poorly our country does in weightlifting in general, we certainly don't have much to lose by trying, especially since there is a good amount of analysis that suggests it would be a good idea. (See my articles here and here for some of this analysis, if you aren't already up to your ears in this stuff and tired of it. Tom DiStasio has already written some nice short updates on Rip's Q&A about his work with his lifters using SS methods.)

During the short amount of time I was speaking before being yelled over, I tried to clarify that I am not saying "LBBS is definitely better than HBBS, HBBS is stupid, and anyone who says otherwise is dumb." I clearly said that there are reasons of analysis why I think it would be a good option worth exploring, and that I know some people who have been successful doing it. But this was basically ignored and the words were put in my mouth that I was being dogmatic about insisting LBBS is superior when the OBVIOUS FACTS are that it's no good. Because all the medal winners, etc...

And when I began to explain why that type of reasoning is a logical fallacy, and used the word phenomenolgy, the immediate assumption was that I was trying to invoke some spiritual, new agey stuff. He compared it to chakras and things floating in the air. Instead of being humble and asking what it meant. He literally didn't understand why what he was saying does not constitute a rational and logical argument, but in his attachment to both HBBS and being right, was unwilling to even entertain the possibility that anything I said could possibly be relevant.

My opinion on "All successful X's do Y" is that it's a great place to start and look for clues to success. But it can't possibly be the end of the search and the last word. Correlation does not equal causation. Why do we do science experiments? Because sometimes the results are unexpected. Something the hypothesis is proven wrong, or right, or sometimes some other unexpected information or organizing principle emerges.

Sometimes everyone is doing the Western Roll till someone discovers the Forsbury Flop. Sometimes everyone is using leeches as medicine till someone discovers something better. If "everyone who is currently the best and/or the authority on X, does Y, so Y is automatically correct and optimal" was actually true, then technological and medical and human performance progress would have stopped long ago.

This doesn't mean LBBS is better. But it does mean that the argument from history is not a valid argument. And he was so blinded by his own dogmatic adherence to that, that he couldn't even bring himself to listen to me long enough to understand why.

It seems to me that, given that this can never be a "proper" study in the sense of double blind and with all other variables controlled for (genetics, sleep, nutrition, effort during training sessions, etc...), all medal winners have done HBBS because 99.9999999% of olympic lifters in history have done HBBS. We have no basis for comparison. It's not as if we have any meaningful data from any large amount of lifters who have really tried using the LBBS as their main squat variant. There's no experimental and control group. Everyone is in the control group, so you can in no way conclude that therefore the intervention/squat variant of the control group is better.

Most of the few people I know of who have tried LBBS have had great success with it. We need more people and more data to see if our analysis is correct in practice. But when this is the attitude we come up against amongst most weightlifters, it's no wonder that no one is willing to try it. The logical fallacy(/ies) and circular reasoning behind the attitude don't seem to lessen its impact.

[KyleMask]

Another way to frame Steve's fallacy: he is attempting to derive prescriptive/normative judgments (i.e. what ought to be done) from descriptive statements (i.e. what is done). There's no point arguing with someone this stupid. He needs to read David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, or just take an introductory logic course. He won't be capable of engaging you in conversation about training until he remediates some of his more general knowledge/reasoning deficits.

[tdood]

Remember kids, correlation is not causation - Album on Imgur

Next time maybe try explaining the whole correlation/causation difference using some of the examples from the link above. My favorite is how're number of annual pool drownings correlate with the number of movies Nicolas Cage appears in.