One of the main principles of Westside style Conjugate training and Old Man Conjugate training is to work your weaknesses. So, with that in mind today I give you an update on what I am doing in my training which specifically addresses my highest current priority weakness. I hope you enjoy Old Man Conjugate: Address Your Weaknesses.
As far as weaknesses go, I’m pretty self aware. I have a bunch. I used to have a few, and now I’m a shell of the former man I once was. If I had to make a list of them, in no order I’d say they are:
- Mobility/Flexibility
- Balance
- Limit Strength
- VO2max
- Declining lean body mass (loss of muscle)
- Increase in body fat percentage
These are the BIGGEST ones. I feel that have honestly evaluated myself and my issues that need the most work. The one that bothers me most is the loss of muscle mass.
Why?
Because the older you get, the more important it is for activities of daily living. Looking jacked doesn’t hurt either.
Listen, we can’t all look like Harry Selkow at age 65, but we can try.
There are a few reasons why I’m, losing muscle at such a high rate including:
- Not being able to train hard enough to maintain it due to two major surgeries in two years
- The normal loss of muscle that occurs with aging past 50
- Low testosterone
Now, any one of these is a cause for alarm when you are trying to maintain muscle. Add in an one more, or two on top of the first and you have a recipe for being weak and puny.
I’ve seen my Endocrinologist to rectify the low t situation and it seems it be working well. I wish they would prescribe GH or us Old Mans over 55 to compensate for the lack of that as well. That’s a topic for a whole ‘nuther article.
Looking at my training I realized that I need to adjust it to attempt to build, and in the last case, maintain what muscle I have left.
I have decided to try a modified version of Mentzer’s Heavy Duty Training which is what Dorian Yates did and was pioneered by Arthur Jones. Jones performed the Colorado Experiment with this style of training and it was a huge success. (See what I did there?)
I’m not going to explain the Colorado Experiment, look it up. It’s very interesting.
I will however tell you what I am doing now in Old Man Conjugate: Address Your Weaknesses
to compensate for Mother Nature.
Heavy Duty training has a singular focus that has a nice by product. The singular focus is to pack absolutely inhuman amounts of muscle mass on you as possible in minimal time. And it seem to work.
Minimum training and maximum recovery are part of the process as well. 2-3 days a week of training is enough. You can’t handle more if you do it right. This type of training was very misunderstood back in he day when it was popularized.
Heavy Duty training involves doing one work set to absolute failure or past with forced reps.
People got ripped apart because they thought it meant go in the gym and do 1 set with a shitload of weight to past failure. That’s not how you do it.
To do it right, you’ll warm up with however many submaximal sets you need and then do 1 all out set to failure or beyond. And it’s one “set” per body part.
You can use drop sets, forced reps, rest pause or any other combo of methods to prolong the misery, you just have to give it 100% effort and only do the 1 working set.
I’m modifying this method to suit my age and needs.
I’ll be using a lot of High Kinetic work with my Bandbell bars and doing more drop sets to failure versus forced reps with a max weight.
I don’t think at my age that I can handle the pounding of forced reps with max weight. But I do think I can work up to something heavy, like a 5 rep max and then do drops to failure.
I also think it’s going to work.
A week of training will look like this:
Day 1: Max Effort Lower
1 primary 100% all out set
1 Assistance Exercise-maybe all out, maybe more traditional
1 or 2 easy Accessory lifts
Day 2: Max Effort Upper
Same as Day 2, but upper body work
Day 3: Repetition Day/Sad Day
(Sad=Stay Athletic Day)
As an example, yesterday I did 1 all out High Kinetic Drop set on the Bench Press
Decline Dumbell Bench to neat failure with 60’s x 5 sets
100 reps each in total in as few sets as possible
Pulldowns with 180 pounds
Facepulls with 100 pounds
That’s it.
Here’s a video of the drop set.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDdOg3vg9mO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
And, here’s a video from Monday of my High Kinetic Deadlifts that almost killed me.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDYJukfyU3v/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Sorry I couldn't embed them. I tried for a half hour!
Hopefully this Old Man Conjugate: Address Your Weaknesses experiment works and we can call it the Malden Experiment (not the Colorado Experiment). I’ll keep you posted.
Did you miss last week’s log?
Read it here.
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Vincere vel mori
C.J. Murphy
December 12, 2024