Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Weightlifting: Juggernaut Method 2.0 Review


Powerlifter/Strongman Chad Wesley Smith's Juggernaut website is a great resource for anyone interested in strength training. Their Youtube channel in particular regularly puts out excellent content, and Chad's the real deal, a record holder in the shotput and squat with a 905 lbs lift. His female powerlifting team also includes IPF champ Marisa Inda, so you know he's an accomplished coach. Because of their excellent content, I decided to purchase the Juggernaut Method, a training book designed for competitive athletes. Of course, I'm not a competitive athlete--I'm just a guy lifting weights in his basement--but I figured Chad's training could help me improve my own lifts, and I was right, for the most part.

The actual Juggernaut program is very straight forward, which is great, because I think complicated training is ridiculous. It's basically block periodization with an adjustable training max. If that's all voodoo to you, let me explain. You have four lifting days, with each one focusing on the squat, deadlift, bench press, and press, a la 5/3/1. Your first week consists of a high volume workout, the next week a slightly heavier workout with slightly less volume, and the final week is a testing workout where you work up to a as-many-reps-as-possible set. These three weeks are considered a wave. You then follow that testing week with a deload or you just skip it and go heavier for the following wave. So for the squat, let's say you use a training max of 400 lbs.

Week one: Accumulation: 60% of training max for 5 sets of 10.
Week two: Intensification: 67.5% for 3 sets of 10.
Week three: Realization: 75% for as many reps as possible.
Wave one complete. Next wave.
Week one: 65% for 5 sets of 8.
Week two: 72.5% for 3 sets of 8.
Week three: 80% for AMRAP.
Deload.

Does that make sense? There are four waves: a ten's wave, an eight's wave, a five's wave, and a three's wave. That last week, if you get more reps than required (say for the 10's wave you squatted 75% for twelve reps), then you adjust your training max with a formula. All of this might sound complicated, but it's really a simple program. As for assistance work, Chad gives quite a few suggestions. I went with 5/3/1 for my assistance, with my lifts being the front squat, rack pull, and close grip bench press. I also added pullups, rows, curls, pressdowns, calf raises, and leg raises, all for around five sets of ten to twenty reps. For the lower body assistance lifts (rack pulls, front squats), I did as Chad suggested and only did the prescribed reps rather than go for PR sets. All in all, the program worked very well for me. I ended up squatting 360 lbs for five reps, which was a five rep PR; I deadlifted 390 for seven, which was also a PR (I didn't have a 7 rep max written down in my PR log; benched 250 for five (five pounds off tieing a PR); and pressed 155 for 7, tieing a PR. The training volume for the lower body lifts is just about right, but I had to add an extra bench day after my five's wave in order to avoid disaster. The bench is a lift that loves volume, and twice a week benching (I did my close grip benching on my press day) just wasn't enough.

Much of the Juggernaut Method 2.0 consists of strategies for implementing speed and power work. Remember, this isn't a powerlifting manual; it's more of a guide for athletes. I didn't do much of this stuff because I work a manual labor job, and I train with very spare implementation, but doing such work would probably pay off, even for a powerlifter. The book's only about seven bucks on Amazon for the Kindle version. There are too many grammatical mistakes for my liking, but such errors don't distract from the content.

Sunday, June 16, 2019

New Music: Light the Way

On old song I had in the cupboard. Wanted to put some keys in it, but the guitars are slightly out of tune, so I couldn't. The lyrics are supposed to conjure images of Victorian gentry out on the town. No idea where I got that idea.







Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Video Game Reviews: Dusk vs. Turok


Dusk is a retro shooter released last year by New Blood Interactive. It is heavily influenced by Quake and Blood, and it is designed to sit alongside those classic ninties shooters. Dusk has a pixelated look reminiscent of Quake in software mode; it looks pretty good, in my humble opinion, and it gave my antique PC no problems. The levels are intricate, packed with secrets, and often require you to go key hunting in order to progress. This design approach has been abandoned by modern games, but I seldom found myself lost, since the level design is pretty good. Sometimes it is hard to tell where you are because of the limitations of the graphics, but I enjoyed exploring a level without having an npc up my ass or obvious barriers bar my way. The shooting is pretty good and features a classic arsenal inspired by Quake. The Lovecraftian/backwoods cult theme is excellent, and Dusk really feels like an artifact of a prior era in the best of ways. All in all, I'd recommend it to any retro shooter fans looking for something to play.


After finishing Dusk, I thought I'd play a ninties shooter that I'd never played before, and since I love pulpy dinosaur adventures, I bought Turok, a classic for the N64 recently remastered by Nightdive studios for the PC. The original Turok was infamous for its heavy fog that obscured vision past ten feet (the N64 couldn't handled the game, basically), and Nightdive have cleaned up the graphics and implemented support for modern resolutions, mouse and keyboard control, and Steam achievements. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone played this game at 320 by 240 resolution with heavy fog using an N64 controller. I'd really love to know if anyone finished it, because at normal difficulty, Turok gets pretty hard on the later levels. The best thing the game has going for it is the setting and its enemy design. You fight cybernetic dinosaurs (raptors, Triceratops, and a T. Rex), lizard people, aliens, and mercenaries. The end boss is a alien terminator dressed like Conan the Barbarian. It's pretty awesome. What's not awesome about Turok is the ridiculous amount of platforming involved. Having been designed as a console game on Mario's home system, the original developers probably thought they had to implement some jumping puzzles, just in case anyone thought they were playing a pure first person shooter. Lots of ninties shooters had the occasional platforming bit; Half-Life's Xen levels come to mind, but I've never played a shooter that had as much jumping in it as Turok. Most of the jumps aren't hard, but Turok has random save points, so if you fail a jump, you might have to repeat a whole section. The levels are vast, which is cool, but using the automap feature is a requirement if you don't want to get lost. Enemies respawn constantly, often seconds after you've killed them, which makes harder difficulties really unfair, because you'll run out of ammo quickly. The arsenal is pretty great, featuring shotguns, an assault rifle, a minigun, quad rocket launcher, and some alien weapons. The shooting is fine; getting lost looking for keys, not so much. You can easily miss a key and have to repeat an entire level.

Turok is a hard game to review. I almost loved it, due to the unique setting and excellent enemy design. I also have more patience for combing through levels to look for keys than most people. If you've played Doom and its ilk, then you'll probably enjoy much of Turok. If you've been raised on modern shooters, then you probably should skip it.

Sunday, June 2, 2019

New Music: Song of Songs





A very simple, crunchy tune with angry lyrics and a brain-dead chorus, just like rock 'n' roll should be. I'm coming to the conclusion that my 300 dollar Epiphone Dot that I got for my sixteenth birthday might be my best sounding guitar. Used the Big Muff and a shitty Peavy pratice amp that sounds way better than it should.

New Music: Firefly

  A twelve-year old song that I wrote in Cincinnati. I don't believe it was ever played live, which is a shame, since it's a nice li...