In-the-Trenches Strength Training Unveiled
by: Josh Bryant
Fresh out of the clink, Brother Barrett was determined to go straight – or as straight as a former meth cook, moonshiner, and pool hall hustler could go. He decided to channel his entrepreneurial spirit into a new venture: a duck hunting operation in the heart of western Arkansas.
Now, Brother wasn’t exactly your typical businessman. He didn’t have an MBA or a team of consultants. What he had was a bucketload of grit, a whole lot of redneck ingenuity, and a knack for improvisation. He’d learned the tricks of the trade from the old heads in Arkansas, the seasoned duck hunters who knew the land and the birds like the back of their hands.
His competition, on the other hand, was a group of Dallas billionaires who had bought up a massive chunk of land and brought in a team of experts, geologists, biologists, the whole shebang. They were armed with the latest science and technology, ready to revolutionize the world of duck hunting.
Brother chuckled to himself.
He knew that their fancy gadgets and data-driven strategies wouldn’t hold a candle to his old-school methods. He remembered the time he’d hosted an amateur bikini contest at his mobile home turned pool hall to boost business. The crowd went wild, and he made a killing. If he could attract a crowd for a bikini contest, he could sure as hell attract ducks to his spread.
So, Brother dusted off his old crop hopper and took it out for the day. With a mischievous grin, he flew over his 30-acre spread, dumping a generous load of wheat over the fields. It was a simple, low-tech solution, the hunting equivalent of “bro science,” as some might say.
As the day of the big hunt approached, the anticipation was palpable. The billionaires’ team, armed with their fancy gadgets and data-driven strategies, fanned out across their vast acreage. Barrett, meanwhile, sat back in his rickety old truck, waiting for the ducks to come to him.
And come they did. In droves.
The ducks flocked to Brothers’ fields, ignoring the carefully-curated feeding grounds of their competitors. The billionaires watched in disbelief as their expensive equipment and elaborate plans proved no match for Brother’s, “bro science” that been proven time and time again with trial and error in the trenches.
As the sun set, the billionaires trudged back to their posh lodges, their faces etched with frustration. Barrett, on the other hand, was beaming with pride. He had outsmarted the experts, not with science or technology, but with a little bit of redneck know-how, a trusty old crop hopper, and a few tips from the old heads.
And so, Brother Barrett became the king of duck hunting in western Arkansas, proving that sometimes, the old school is still the best school, and the best science can be bro science!
Some of the best athletes and coaches have exclusively shared some of their top in the trench’s advice with us exclusively for this piece!
Ed Coan
“Stabilizing muscles are still muscles, get them strong!”
Tom Haviland
“Trust your own training experience/intuition over the evidence based articles/studies and scientific based experts, even when the two may contradict each other. Too many sacrifice the development of their own training intuition/IQ by blindly following and parroting others opinions/studies. If you want to build a life of strength with long term success, embrace the idea of it being a marathon, not a sprint, and finely hone your training intuition/IQ through a process of studying the theoretically, while constantly experimenting within your own training through an approach grounded in critical thinking, open-mindedness and cognizance.
In this game, 10 years of practical experience will be far more valuable than 10 years of study.”
Alexander Cores (AJAC)
“For me one of the biggest victories of Broscience was the bodybuilding adage of “working all the angles” to fully develop a muscle. Regional hypertrophy we now know is REAL, you can emphasize different sections of a muscle. The Bros were correct in recommending multiple exercises for hypertrophy, because IT WORKS”
Fred Hatfield (RIP)
(Disclaimer: Paraphrasing a conversation over numerous Sakes in Japan)
“The most significant distinction between the world’s strongest individuals and average lifters lies in their utilization of Compensatory Acceleration Training. Whether learned or instinctual, they grasp the concept and apply it to their training lifts.”
Eduardo Barrecheguren
“Training hard but not smart beats training smart but not hard. There is no substitute for training hard, period. If you can train hard AND smart, you will achieve amazing results, but no studies can make it up for lack of testicular fortitude.
Back in the day there were no scientific studies, only empirical evidence and hard work. Hard workers have always got results, and they always will.
Nowadays we have a lot of pencil neck evidence based “experts” but in the words of the late Charles Poliquin (R.I.P.): “Success leaves clues”.
Josh Bryant
“Here’s how you can improve your ability to intentionally focus and contract a muscle when performing an isolation exercise.
Always initiate the isolation exercise by contracting the targeted muscles. If you can’t start the movement by connecting with the targeted muscle, you won’t fully engage it during the exercise.
Adding an accentuated negative to an exercise helps you mentally connect with the targeted muscle. If you’re doing a skull crusher, add in a steady-pace, 5-second negative to each rep.
If you’re having trouble mentally connecting with a muscle, isometrically contract that muscle as hard as possible for 6 seconds prior to starting the set. Once you start to feel it, you can continue to focus on the targeted muscle as you do the exercise.”
Dave Tate
“The most important thing I learned from the bro science crowd in the gym was to auto-regulate what you do. While this is simple to grasp in text, it is another thing to know when to push harder and when to back off. It is easy for this to become an emotional decision. It feels hard, and you know it and get pissed off and use that rage to get through the work sets. This may be what was needed, but it also may be something that just wrecked your next training week. On the flip side, you may feel like shit and back off – and that could be the factor that sets you back. This is only masted by screwing it up enough to know what is the better choice and then learning how to proceed forward after that choice was made. I can say this to you and others who have been in the trenches for a long time, and you know exactly what I mean. Those who haven’t don’t have a clue what we are talking about. I believe this is where the art of training really comes into play.”
Travis Mash
“Cory Gregory turned me onto “Squat Every Day” back in 2015. I had heard about this, and thought it was nonsense. I gave it a try, and I quickly pushed my raw squat back into the 700’s not to mention my joints hurting less. Now if an athlete is struggling to increase their squat, high frequency squatting normally fixes the issue. I use it for my athletes in short seasons like 12-weeks, and then shift the focus on their specific sport.”
Cory Gregory
“The body will adapt to “overtraining”. It is funny because most of the world doesn’t know how to push themselves to that level so it’s not even part of the equation. I force my body to adapt and change.”
Charles Poliquin (RIP)
“If your warm up takes longer than your workout, you are a twatwaffle.”
Donnie Thompson
“I watched those that came before me. I watched those that were the current champs. How can l not only be in that company but go beyond what nobody has done before? First l had to prepare my body. I noticed none of the top guys of all time spent much thought in preventing injury and strength preparation I determined to make my body an ideal conductor of force. A body that could take on trauma (heavy crushing poundage’s week after week) and dish trauma out & still hold together! So, l set out to make the secret places stronger. Building resiliency Everyone went hard on the linear lifts. What would separate me from them. What would deliver me WRs? The day after heavy squats l spent two hours or more working on injury prevention. Using KBs, Bands and body distraction. Compression therapy. All the things that l knew no one else would do. Over the years, this type of strength training left me confident l would never be compromised under heavy load! To me, the best way to fix a ruptured pec is not to tear it in the first place! The best way not to fix a quad tendon rupture…you guessed it, not to rupture it in the first place. By putting an emphasis on the little things that made the body strong, I did not sustain a career ending injury like my comrades did. I referred to that day after heavy day as ‘The Strength Glue’ day. The glue that tied the strength together. “
Zach Even-Esh
“I remember at Diamond Gym I was finishing up a training session and speaking with John Kemper, who owned and founded Diamond Gym. Diamond Gym was the Westside Barbell of Bodybuilding. I told John I had hit a wall and could not seem to gain strength or size. I was hovering around 198 lbs or so. He asked me about my nutrition and I shared my breakfast and daily meals. Breakfast was always 8 egg whites and a bowl of oatmeal. After training I would drive home about 30 minutes and then make a protein shake. Most meals were chicken and rice. John asked me in shock!? Where’s your fats in your diet? Where’s your sodium? How do you get your vitamins and minerals, don’t you eat salads? I replied, “I can’t eat fats, I’m NOT ripped! I don’t have a 6 pack!? He replied, “That’s exactly why! You don’t consume any healthy fats or sodium!” From now on, do this: – After training, have your protein shake HERE at the gym. Then, go home and eat 2 spoons of peanut butter and grill a steak. – Eat one salad every day and put oil and salt on it. – Breakfast is going to be 4 whole eggs + 4 egg whites. Do that for 4 weeks and let me know how it works. I followed John’s advice and also began using creatine. Back then it was Phosphagen from EAS. I went from 198 to 208 and started making steadfast gains in size and strength!”
Joel McCain
“CNS fatigue – science says it doesn’t exist and that fatigue only resides in the muscle and pathways trained, but try maxing out your deadlift 3 days in a row and then take a bench max on the 4th day and see if you hit a new PR…All compound lifts testing/displaying limit strength need to be respected and accounted in their ability to affect each other regardless of muscles trained, the stronger and more aggressive the lifter, the greater the effect.”
Craig Bongelli
“The most important thing in my view is old school lifters believed in what they felt and observed personally. If it felt better or made them better they didn’t worry about what expert said what or what study showed what. They experimented on themselves, for themselves.”
Try one of Josh’s Programs, knowledge learned in the trenches, HERE.
