Totally separately, on the ZEN and the art of weightlifting front, I’d love to read anything you felt like writing about the rhythms of the olympic lifts. I’m a tyro – just started taking lessons last fall as a 51st birthday present – but I find the whole complex progression of tempos to the clean & jerk fascinating: the chug-chug-chug of the train leaving the station on the first pull, the explosion once the bar reaches the hips, then the glide (hopefully) down into the squat, the pause at the bottom, the deliberate rise to the upright position, the little pause before the dip, and then the second explosion into the jerk. At the level of learning, it’s a lot to absorb and do. But it’s also a lot to experience. Since you’re a reflective guy, I wonder how you regard it all.

I’ll keep you posted on my fasting progress….also just started Mike Burgener’s 23 day bulgarian cycle. any thoughts on that regimen?

*aside: I actually did one of the heaviest days recently near the end of a 24 hour fast and had no problem whatsoever. Just drank some BCAAs throughout and hit all my lifts which were multiple singles(snatch/C&J/BS) at 95%…Pretty cool.

(Have you seen this one on how to radically reduce the time it takes to reach your daily max in the squat?)

I was recommended Ditillo’s book The Development Of Physical Strength by Charles Poliquin who said it was the best he’s ever read.

I decided to read it 3 times over on that recommendation and my results have hugely improved because of that.

Thanks

I’ve read a lot of Ditillo’s stuff, as well. I remember being very inspired by his stuff in the old MILO’s. he was a big proponent of heavy daily training, pushing things WAY farther than most people would be comfortable with. I remember him discussing his friend Detzo Ban (I think that’s the name) who trained daily, doing heavy shoulder work in every session. That made an impression on me, for sure.

My own lifters and I train in a way most people would consider impossible. But, since switching over to this style, we’ve all made MUCH faster progress.

Guys like Ditillo were right all along!

The trouble with not counting calories is that you can accidentally eat too many! LOL

The way I go around that was making sure I got a minimum of one or two 24 hour fasts in a week. And when I lost the 15 in 4-weeks, I was doing a full 24 hour fast almost every day. You do that, you’re almost certainly going to lose weight. It’s a rare person who can overeat in only one meal a day.

Water weight fluctuations are certainly normal depending on what you eat. I eat a lot of salt, and I don’t skimp on carbs, so I’m gaining and losing water like crazy! I can shift 8 pounds up or down no problem.

The pure lean gains didn’t work for me because it requires that you are methodical. The Brad Pilon version is more my style.

But it was when I started combining them that I got the best results. Lean gains most days, and at least 1 or 2 24-hour fasts is what did it for me when I was losing weight and still getting stronger.

Straight up hard-core 24-hour daily fasts for when I was killing it.

Hope that helps!!
Nick