Recent Posts by Sean M

Hamstring disaster. I got totally frickin' destroyed during that FC workout...maybe as sore as I have ever been. Then two days we had a film crew come in here to film Joe and Scott doing a promo for the new book. They wanted somebody to demo som exercises so I was elected. (first bad decision). Gave the lady a bunch of upper body demos and then she asked for lower body movements. I agreed (second bad decision). Showed her some stuff and then demo'ed a sumo DB squat. (third and final bad decision). Felt a twinge during the first rep of that that demo and now my right hamstring is so sore I can't even flex it. Hurts to walk even. NOT COOL!

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I am in no way a functional athlete. LOL. Can't do cardio right now, can't do posing right now and have been icing it non-stop since it happened. It had better be healed completely by the time I get to MA for camp...because I have to bury Jordan in the squat rack!

The goal on stage for everybody is always the same: as big, hard, full, crisp and as shredded as possible.

That said, you give me a choice between depleted/flat vs. too full/soft, I will take flat EVERY time. Because while flat is not ideal, Flat IS hard...and hard will beat soft/spilled over nearly all the time. All things being equal, conditioning is king in this game.

I think people get FAR too hung up on body weight. There are no scales on the stage. I can't tell you how many people ask me "What are you going to weigh on stage?" and I always say something to the effect of "I have no idea". HA! You just have to look as good as you can. So as it relates to this, you just have to know that you train hard and always improve. Sometimes you see that on the scale. Sometimes you don't. The key is improvement. That is why we all play this game.

I assume you are feelin better, Kristin...because youa re talking smack now. LOL

NANBF what?!?!? I think you mean INBF, right Layne?

I knew that squatting was not my best...it felt a little shallow and I felt too far forward once I got north of 225. I really think the mistake on my part was not squatting for 2 weeks before that workout. Its one thing to not squat for 2 weeks...but its something else to not squat for 2 weeks when you are really working on your squat form. So I am going to really integrate squats every week now in some form in the foreseeable future, simply because I need to get that form just dialed in a perfect.

What chaps me up though is that I have some less than pretty squats on video now. As Joe will attest to, I did take 295 down to perfect parallel a few weeks ago. Uhhhhg....

Glad that you guys can find some levity in all this. LOL!

Not a whole lot to update here. Strength is good and food is low. ;)

Got 315 this weekend at camp this weekend. I felt myself pitching forward too much, but I'll keep working on it. Overall though, I am pleased with how my body is staying strong. The last time out(dieting), my strength tanked quite a bit, so I am seeing good progress there.

My last weigh in was 182.8. Then about 4 days passed and then I started creatine this last weekend and I can tell I am storing water (in a good way). So the next weigh in will be interesting. I am actually thinking that I will have lost about 2 more pounds but then gained about 3 or maybe 4 pounds because of the creatine. So my weight loss may be skewed a bit this week. But the cool part is that based on how I look right now, its clear to me that I have added some quality muscle. The real trick now will be to see how hard I can get before the stage.

Time will tell!

Where can I even start?!?!?! TONS OF FUN!!!! We had GREAT campers and UNBELEIVABLE staff. I know I speak for Joe and Kori when I say that this is one of our favorite weekends of the whole year. And I can't think of a better way to kick off 2009!

Thanks to EVERYONE involved and lets start posting up some pics. When Lucas gets the vide edited, we'll post some of that up here too.

Oh yeah...Woody's...Team K is 2 for 2 now. That local dive bar is now a certified tradition. HA!

I like the suffering actually. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside...knowing that somewhere there is some poor sap who is not dieting hard enough and I will inevitably stand next to him. :)

Like I told Joe the other day, when you diet for a show, you simply can have no regard for your own comfort. As such, I don't care what I have to go through. The goal is worth it.

That's just me. :)

Mary, thanks for the great analogy! I've always thought of myself as exotic...but your Italian blood got the best of you when you called me an Italian sports car...you should have called me an Aston Martin. Thats MY heritage! ;)

Joking aside, the metabolic anaolgy is true. The 250 a day I am on now is as low as I have ever gone and it feels to me like 50g a day or less would feel to an endomorph. I am tired, lethargic, hypoglycemic and my brain generally doesnt fucntion right. LOL. So its all relative.

You want proof of my metabolism? Ask Dog about my Dream Tan backstage at the NE Classic in 07. I was back there and Dog had just got done DTing Cordova. So he is standing there and she starts in on me. Gets my tan on, stands up and just looks puzzled. Looks at Jim. Then looks at me. And does it again. His tan looks like it is "drying" (as much as DT can dry that is) while mine is frickin mess. She asks me what the hell is going on. LOL. I tell her how hot I am...and I was standing there in my trunks, in a cool room backstage doing nothing. She grabs my arm and utters some vulgarity. LOL. Long story short, I was on 500+ grams of carbs a day during that peak week and was a metabolic inferno. When your body metabolizes glycogen (or any substatrate for that matter), heat is released...that is why we are warm. Metabolism is actually quite inefficient and thus, we give off a lot of heat. Well in my case, I was freaking cooking back there...so much so that the DT never really cured/dried. Which was fine...it just meant I needed less oil. LOL. I digress. So to illustrate this whole deal, compare that to an endo who is wearing 2 sweatshirts back there just to stay warm. Different bodies. Different met rates. But I promise you....when you hit that setpoint, it sucks no matter who you are.

Oh, and here is a pic from that show. Note fellow Team K'er Melissa Kelley on the left (my right). :)

New marching orders:

325p/250c/50f for 5 days a week with two 300p/500c/50f days in there.

I.

am.

going.

to.

starve.

to.

death.

Tall yes? Extreme? Not so much. LOL. I'm just a hair over 6'1" barefoot...so I'm huge. But for this sport, I am pretty much gumby.

Pics? You guys have to be kidding me. As those Fantasy Camp this weekend will attest to, I have no business being photographed until I am on the stage. LOL. If I start to look decent, I'll post up a shot or two...but not until I am presentable. :)

I would be a big fan of that Raph. When I typed up my summary for our show for the mag, I went back and watched each class on the DVD (took notes for later) to make sure I was accurate everything I said. As it applies to the the WNBF Pros, I think it would be great to see some good, positive constructive criticism. I really dont think it would be all that hard to do either. You just look at the judges notes as you type the article. Mentions some pros and some cons, ect.

Personally, I would love to see that done for pro and amateur alike actually. Anything we can do to help the competitors. :)

In my case they can just save the ink. Sean : too scrawny.

In the case you just described, I would have you go into a front squat. Repeating the same exercise is just fine and there is not a reason on the planet why you can not do that, particularly in light of the fact that the overwhelming goal here is to just royally mess yourself up with high volume. So go ahead and do that for sure.

For the record, my plea for people to email me after the workout was not aimed at you. LOL! You do a GREAT job of staying in touch and that is AWESOME. I am just always trying to get my people to talk to me as much as I can...because if I don't hear from them, I don't know what changes to make. So I used this post as a soapbox on which to stand and beg people to email me. HA!

NLP = Non-Linear Periodization. :)

Thanks Jane...but you saw me in sweatshirt!!!! I have become highly skilled at sucking in my gut when in public.

I just hope I dont have to go shirtless at Fantasy Camp...ohhh, the horror!!!!

HA! I knew you would going to comce back at me with that Pam!! HAHAHAHA!

The question was pretty general though, hence my first response. LOL.

With regards to that particualr exercise, its placement, the rep counts and the overlying goal...in THAT particular instance, the goal of the hack squat is just to put you in the dirt. As per the program, in that moment we are looking at higher volume work here, which means we are not looking for strength gains at that point. We are looking to tax your oxidative systems and allow you to work at 110% of your maximum capacity. We are tapping into some different muscle fibers than you would otherwise tap into...which is a good thing! We are building endurance, pushing you to your lactate threshold and beyond and putting you in a position to be able to push harder on the heavier work.

But don't think that its that particular machine that does that. Its the protocol that is associated with it. I chose that machine, at that time for a different reason. :) For you, within that particular program, if you wanted a substitute, I would steer you towards a V-squat if you have one. If not, a front squat on a smith would work nicely. If need be we can use a leg press, but I would prefer to keep you squatting at that point.

As for "traditional" set counts...they have their time and place and we use them (as per some of the other protocols you have, Pam). But there is also a time and a place to go outside the box with this stuff. The reasons are numerous. The biggest one in my mind is adapation. If you stick to traditional rep counts, you are handicapping yourself and your body is simply going to adapt very quickly and you will stagnate. That's not what people pay me for. LOL. So as you well know, I will throw all sorts of different stuff at you, I'll change exercises, order of exercises, rest counts, set counts, rep counts, volume, frequncy, ROM and everything else for that matter all in the name of staying ahead of that adaptation.

When clients give me that great, consistent feedback that I ask for, I am then able to go one step beyond sending regular programming changes...I can and do make instant changes on the fly within their existing programming. So this is where the communication is just huge. So to everybody who works with me on PT...email after your training sessions. Don't make me beg. ;)

As for what this kind of training is called? It doesn't have a name. A lot of my clients follow a sort of modified NLP program, but that is not the case for all of them. If you ask me what to call this, I call it effective. LOL. :)

Just weighed in at 182.8

And I am frickin obese as hell. HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!?!?!?!?! The only thing I can come up with is that I have lost all my skeletal muscle.

HA! Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you too!

Santa didn't bring me a pro card, so I guess I have to win one this spring. All is well with the diet and everything is on schedule. Now if I can just scrape all the fat off my carcass, I'll be good to go.