Old Man Disciple Training Wisdom

BIG DAWGS, welcome to very rare RESAVAGER poast on training. I have trained consistently for over fifteen years now and this one in particular will be focused on longevity. Most posters in our sphere are probably younger than I am. I was very fortunate in my youth to not accumulate injuries, but post-30 has been a different story. Hell, even around 28 I started waking up wondering WHY IS MY BACK HURTING THIS IS S FUCKING OUTRAGE. Post-30 has been the story of setback after setback.

In my YOUTHF, I enjoyed hill sprints which came from the WENDLER program NORTH OF VAG. Where I lived, there weren’t any hills, but there was a levee which I would sprint up as many times as I could. Doing this helped put me in the best shape of my life at the time. Hills, mountains, and hiking mountains are all very fond to me and I still try to run up as many as I can. Post-30, however, struck like thunderbolt and I started getting calf injuries during these hill workouts. Pop in the calf would abruptly end workout.

How serious were these pops? To be honest, almost all my experiences with “dOcToRs” have been terrible, so I used barbaric and antiquated methods of healing such as icing and elevation. But it happened enough that I dropped hill sprints off the routine to avoid further injuries. Still hiked, still tried to sled pulls and farmers walks up hills, but it wasn’t the same which is something I’ll talk about later on. When 35 hit, I got my first real back injury. How did it come about? No idea — just woke up one morning and it was there. Sat on the couch and when I tried to get up it was over. Took probably a couple months to get over and to this day, no idea how it happened. There was no event where I was like, “damn, that’s going to hurt in the morning.”

I spent the following year addressing that as a weakness which thankfully, has yet to return. I apologize for spending so much time talking injuries(the latest being my quad popping after what was supposed to be easy 10-second sprints), but durability goes down as you age and you should be prepared for this. There are instances where you want to avoid this advice, say you are professional bodybuilder or competing in powerlifting. Something along the lines of keep doing what’s best for your sport. But if you’re a general RW bodybuilder, you should be thinking long-term. Bodybuilding is NOT a complete sport and it opens you up to issues down the road if they’re not accounted for.

Much of what you see on RESAVAGER is about being a warrior, but in our time there are many methodologies floating around that aren’t conducive to this. Bodybuilding, for example, is not going to help you be a warrior. It works wonders for being healthy and looking the part, but more is required. It is a skill set. For most people, I’m buying into the idea that a hybrid training program is the way to go. You don’t think about longevity now, but once the injuries start racking up, you will wish that you had. After high school(maybe even before, I don’t know how much physical education had declined since I went), physical preparedness falls on you.

How many men stop sprinting after high school? Stop running? How many stop jumping or playing any kind of sports? Certainty, a fraction find their way to bodybuilding and that IS something, but you must remember Rippetoe quote, “Specialization is for insects.” Obviously, Rippetoe is also a specialist when it comes to strength training, but it is a good quote nonetheless. Strength training and bodybuilding will go a long way to fortifying your body for future endeavors, but they can still leave glaring deficiencies.

Becoming a more complete BEAST