Bulking Up?

The story of my first dedicated bulk requires grit because hurting is the first step to bulking. 

            A time machine brings us back to my early days of training…

Then a motivated young Corporal newly promoted, meritoriously. The board was not a phony “paper” one where they simply review our records. No, this was a full Marine Corps review: Junk on the bunk and wall locker inspection, close order drill, physical fitness test, rifle, camouflage, Alpha and Charlie uniform inspections. Ending with questions before the board. Members include the dickhead supreme company gunny and stern sergeant major. My highest scoring PFT ever is this day: still four points shy of a perfect 300. My stubby legs are nearly invisible when moving at that pace. It took a lot getting my run that fast, an 18:30-ish three mile. I run far, often. I weigh just 135 pounds. I stand 5 foot 5 inches short. Training only running, swimming, and calisthenics.

Front row standing at the end on the right.

               Not long after I change duty stations to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. There I am assigned to 3^rd Platoon, Fox Company, 2^nd Battalion 9^th Marines. After a few months I am promoted to sergeant then transferred to headquarters platoon Fox Co. because the company has enough sergeants already in the line platoons to man squad leader positions; plus, they are more experienced. This mattered greatly as we are headed to Ramadi, Iraq very soon. This last minute intra company move put me in the armory and Company office where I found plenty of time to train. When I discovered weights. It is September 2008.

               The deployment ends with good progress on a few chosen lifts. While I read a lot of muscle rags on paper and online my actual training is random, effective mostly because I am a beginner trying hard. I remember clearly the 115-pound weighted chin up and the 405 deadlift, pulled without a belt. I weigh a mere 142 pounds. Funny because in the months before the deployment I drank and ate enough booze and garbage that my weight ballooned up to 160 pounds. I looked like trash, knew it, and felt the same way.

We return in May of 2009 and most everyone thought I would quit lifting. I did not and have not. Those first seven months of hard lifting was a cut, shedding the hard drinking from months – years before. I hardly drink anymore.

               Towards the end of the Ramadi deployment some of the gym rats are "influencers". Their kindhearted jabs even if viciously worded is genuine encouragement. Pushing each other towards extremes as Marines are known for. Such friendships and mentors are rare and should always be remembered and called upon for inspiration when needed. There is a good size group of dedicated lifters in Fox Company. Solidified when Fox is selected to go on ship. A short three-month stint for a Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force in the Gulf of Mexico. Extra muscle for DEA and Coasties.

Happens every time you forget them, classic blunder.

The break between pumps is not long and starts with a decision to “bulk up". At nearly 140 pounds I am too small. Still able to run decently, grinding teeth through a messed-up knee. But honestly… my lifts are weak and I am pretty much weak in general. I had to get stronger. To do this I had to get bigger. I knew it because everyone around me told me so. Stubbornly I resist, but quickly cave to their positive influence.

               “You bulking up?” Asks 1^st. Lieutenant D. My old 3^rd platoon butter bar, now the company executive officer during our time on ship. He is an absolute unit of a man. Tall, broad shouldered, with biceps looking about as big as my tiny head. For him sleeves up is not comfortable but that is the look everyone is after.

               Yes sir! I respond, mouth full.

He questions me many times this morning at the armory. Every time he passes the window I take a bite. My salad bowl is full of instant mashed potatoes with ground beef and bacon mac ‘n cheese. The spoon is too big. The corners of my lips almost tear when like a basking shark I inhale the casserole.

This is my usual lunch, or a similar dish thrown together from the inner most shelves of the grocery store. Those isles every health advocate tells us to avoid. That is where the calories are at: boxes of instant carbs and canned fats. A quick lap in the back is where ground meats in tubes of plastic pinched shut with metal clamps are found. This is the cheap stuff. The good stuff. The best stuff. That is, for bulking. Someone from Boulder, Colorado, drunk on two liters of bathtub kombucha, high on hydro weed, stuffed with two health bars and vegan Chipotle disagrees. Who cares? Nobody is rich enough to bulk shop at Whole Foods. Can it even be done? (No that is why they are all skinny.)

Still in a box and the cheese is old, how is this better again?

I try to finish a bowl of this insta-slop every day before I get home. There I try to eat but often fail to put down anything substantial. A ton of potatoes, breads, and pasta will do that. I struggle to eat more. Breaking past 155 pounds requires going on ship. Doing next to no ‘cardio’ (running). But lifting and training martial arts every day. Most important of all: lining up continuously for chow and asking my friends to get extra chow on their plates so I could eat that too. Those friends that are not bulking as hard that is. All meals end with multiple dishes: bowls for cottage cheese or yogurt, extra meat and hard-boiled eggs from the salad bar and whatever number of plates gathered around me from numerous trips through the mess and those plates I took from good friends. Food on ship can be bad but it can also be good. Most days it is okay enough to eat fast, for utility: purpose over nourishment over enjoyment.

Here the timeline will pause a moment so we can reflect on the way we eat today, culturally that is. We consume for happiness. Allowing our experience with it to be limited by this desire. We want to like what we are eating. We want it to taste and look good. Both are important to the modern civilized man who eats with distinction to feel good. Choosing flavor parings and savoring them. Enjoying small meals of elegance and nuanced taste. Perhaps a hearty steak is enjoyed, but never so frequently as a Caesar salad, light on the dressing, please.

This knowledge of eating must be forgotten, or at least staunchly ignored, when completing a successful bulk. I had the massive luck of learning how to eat fast at boot camp. There is little time to eat so shoveling a tray full of unrecognizable mashes and boneless formed meat patties gets easier after a few months at the recruit depot. This skill I polish while on ship. Eating quickly, knowing that volume gets harder as time drags on. This did not mean I quit eating when it got hard. Circling back in line was enough time, most days, to give a break for round two, or three, four, five; plate number this Marine can’t count that high. But I sure can stack ‘em.

Trouble tracking macros?

Count this, not that.

I stack plates daily to gain weight. Counting plates matters more than counting calories at this point. Calories are deceiving. They say I ate thousands of something. It seems like a lot: but it is not. Full plates ate clean and stacked higher than the cup is a lot. 

When not in the mess or lined up for it I am snacking near my bunk. Tasty treats, like cookies and pop-tarts but also a bag of whey protein and a tub of weight gainer bought at the Gitmo exchange. The tub I brought on ship ran out a week prior. I also bought two tubs of oats at the exchange, bringing those on ship to munch on with protein shakes like cereal between meals. Living in this environment is hazardous to one’s health; breathing the noxious gases in cramped quarters I mean. Many guys are eating a lot. ‘Bulking up’ becomes a meme thanks to a certain legendary article. It inspires the motivating call to gain. To eat everything in sight: “You bulking up?” You goddamned right I am, sir. 

Links of story provided by Dave Tate of EliteFts. 

1. 13,909 Cheat Meal.
2. Table Talk Podcast #13 - JM Blakely.
3. The Secret Diet for Gaining Weight.

While on ship I re-enlist with a lateral move to the Community Services field, MOS 4133. This is the group of Marines who run Exchanges (PX; “business operations”) and fitness for the Corps: from facilities to ordering equipment. MCCS guys and gals are closest to the barbell so that is where I put myself. Sadly, I leave my infantry friends behind. I remember them daily. Cherishing the motivation, the hard workouts and the final swims we took in the warm waters of the gulf. Returning from ship I achieve my goal bodyweight of 160 pounds; lean and still small. Too little muscle mass for my liking at least.

Left. About 160 pounds here. Months more bulking left to do.

The bulk continues for months, now at least six. The last three demanding hard eating every day, resulting in only five pounds gained. I was happy to have broken past a ceiling, or what felt like some limitation of 150 to 155 pounds bodyweight. While on ship I learn how hard I can go in the gym. This lesson carries me through the military job change that requires a move across the country. From 2/9 Fox Co. to 29 Palms, CA; a silly joke from the green weenie. Here I have no training partners, no one to inspire hard eating and lifting. All required for good bulking. Persistence carries me and slowly training partners are made. They start bulking up too. I am a good influence. Week by week we get stronger.

This interim period of going from infantry to other-than was a boon simply because the smaller unit of PX is left to our own physical training, most times. There is no longer a 20-mile hike to train up for and die through. Crushed under eighty pounds of gear, plus water, ammo and weapon; nearly 100 pounds of orniments. It helps that I now work in the exchange. Here I am around food all day and I do not ever have to wear a flak jacket. I never have an excuse for feeling hungry. When bulking the rule is: never be hungry. (When cutting: always be hungry.)

Some people want to die. Totally avoidable. Just eat.

Eating changes as the long bulk drags on, now for nine months. My sights are set high. I’ve already gone from 140 to 160, why not shoot for 180? This destroys the motivation to eat. In that destruction only will remains. That and a reliance on the near spiritual quality working out provides. It is a ritual where my hands are full of barbells and dumbbells, not forks or spoons. I learn to love one far more than the other. The workouts rarely hard like before; a respite away from the torment of so much goddamned food. Lifts and body weight creep up. I get bigger and stronger. Reaching 165-pounds in half the time it took to go from 150 to 155 thanks to the new job. The infantry makes it hard to gain. It is hard period. Not impossible, simply demanding the best to do any better; halfhearted attempts at anything are ridiculed to death. And so fucking be it.

When selected to deploy again, my first in the new “PX” specialty, I become resolute: None of these people know me, first impressions matter. I am still bulking the fuck up. Small fields, like the one I re-enlist into draw personnel from bases across the Corps to form “detachments”. From Virginia to Japan then assembled together under a parent command temporarily just for the deployment. Day one I see two familiar faces. Both guys from my first duty station. When I was near 30 pounds lighter. Totally unexpected. One recognizes my efforts.

“Lefever, you have been bulking up.” Says Brown.

“Ha ha. Yeah…” Now is not the time to discuss the effort. It is only the first day of this pre-deployment segment. The final ten weeks of a long bulk. I would be lying if I did not say his immediate recognition feels good.

Sitting at 170 pounds newfound motivation and new gym friends means my pace quickens. Everything quickens. We all are headed to Afghanistan. There are roadside bombs everywhere and our job is driving candy, tobacco, energy drinks and workout supplements across the desert hellscape. It could be worse. My job could be getting shot at, like my old infantry friends. Instead I will be selling them a taste of normalcy in Marjah, Afghanistan. Just two months away. Before we leave for “the ‘Stan” that familiar face, old friend and PT-stud Sergeant Brown, challenges my bulking prowess. His bulk starts hard out the gate. His motivation is to beat me to his goal weight before I make mine. His tactic: Just eat more than Cody. This short ‘work-up’ is when I discover how easy it is to drink eggs. Some lack the heart.

Everyday I mix three or four raw with whole milk and a scoop of protein powder in a full shaker cup. It tastes like cake batter, sort of. (A better recipe and means is provided at the end of this post.) I choke down the sweet slime first thing every morning, usually in hand with a breakfast burrito. Another eggy shake is drank in the evening. All day I eat. Some days training twice. Not everyone in this group is a ‘lifter’ and only Brown is bulking up. He gains fast. I gain fat, mostly, as I breach 180. He is taller but thinner, trying to go from 170 to 190. He makes 200. Chasing his beginner gains made me go overboard with mine. Though with so much food and competition between us I wonder what could have been achieved if Brown and I locked ourselves in the gym. Doing nothing but eating, lifting, and cajoling when not sleeping. Looking back, six to eight eggs a day was too much. More likely it was the daily California burritos for lunch; stuffed with fries, steak, cheese, and guac. Those last five pounds consistently putting me over 180 are 90% eggs and burritos; the latter plentiful aboard Camp Pendleton, California. Thank you Chesty. 

Plump. With just a hint of pecs; traps and delts finally coming in.

Abs barely there. Forearms still small. End of first bulk.

This period of ‘my first bulk’ was about a year long. Stretched perhaps needlessly an extra month; but that was when I made the greatest strength gains. Something about competition between Brown and I being in the air that affected the muscles, surely... “Bulking up” spanned from early summer 2009, after returning from Iraq, until late summer 2010 before leaving to Afghanistan. There I would cut gradually over the course of nine months. The long bulk meant I had muscle to hold on to during the period. It was difficult to get back to 160 pounds, but when I did the aesthetic difference was stark. Of the 180 pounds ‘walking around weight’ at the end of the bulk it could be reasonably figured that six to eight were “water weight”; this is less when cutting because such a diet results in less bloat. The remaining 172 to 174 pounds was around 15% body fat, not nearly as lean as I had been before at a paperweight 140-nothing. Cutting to 160 did result in some muscle loss but the results were worth it: I achieved a look I envisioned years before. Much like others have said before me:

You must build first what is to be carved away later. 

Just a few weeks ago. Starting another bulk.

Weight: 20 pounds less than the pic above and 10 years later.

After numerous bulk and cut cycles. 

Nowadays I do not bulk like this. Not that I would consider this a totally ‘dirty bulk’ but it would be borderline since I was eating some candy and drinking soda infrequently. Lots of sugar makes for a dirty bulk, purely opinion there. The sheer volume of food I had to eat everyday is something I relearn a little bit every time I enter a bulking phase. Volume does not make a bulk dirty. Some people are more active than they know, so they must eat a lot more than they think. That is the ultimate lesson: under eating is normal, enough is hard, eating more than enough is a challenge not meant for some.

Presently my bulks are much shorter, typically three to six months in length. Trying to gain four to eight pounds in the period. If I am feeling hungry a small snack, not a four-egg shake is had. Whereas before when I realized calories were a bad thing to focus on, they are more important now; predominately because I am older and not doing nearly as much ‘cardio’ and other physical activity. Early during my first bulk I was swimming often. This burns all the calories. Meat, principally beef is the protein source of choice. Followed by whole milk and yogurt, both Greek and non. I sill eat burritos, often, rarely filled with fries and guac. More often rice and green chilis. Point being: it still takes volume, but composition changes person to person; changing too as the person changes – needs change. Accept and welcome change: it means you are growing.

A new lifter who is hungry for the weight room should be loose on their bulking restrictions. Focusing heavily on volume as that is a skill they are probably lacking and must learn. Calorie dense foods, in large proportion, like baby sized smothered burritos are critical. Such is on their menu more often than the experienced lifter trying to gain 10 pounds before summer, then trying to cut a few; hoping to be a bit heavier – bigger – than last fall when the cycle resets.  

If you can't handle me at my worst,

you don't deserve me at my best.

There is not a right or a wrong way to bulk (or cut). It only depends on how fat you are comfortable getting, honestly. The issue people have is their perception of what that extra bit of fat is and how little muscle they have actually gained. Many turn back too soon regardless of how clean or dirty they eat. Keep in mind, this long bulk of mine took me from 140 to 180 pounds bodyweight. Sub 10% body fat to somewhere between 15 and 20 percent in just over a year. My lifts went up (height did not, still 5’5”) notably bench and squat. Going from low 200’s to upper 200’s for bench. Even when I started cutting I held on to my PR 285 bench, which felt great as I shed fat going from 180 to 160 in Afghanistan.  Squat gained nearly 100 pounds during the bulk, going up to almost 400 without “powerlifting specific” training or equipment. Squat did not lose much during the cut either. A three-hundred-pound squat when I was 140 seemed like a lot. After bulking that was nearly my bench. Deadlift increased by 50 pounds during the cutting phase. To me this was crazy. Pulling 455 in boots and utes at Kajaki is vivid to this day.

These were results I did not anticipate. Strength skyrocketed. I knew I would get stronger bulking up but was not expecting hundreds of pounds stronger in a single year. It is the first reason to resume another bulking phase, which now last until strength plateaus; then I cut, briefly and with more precision. Bulking forgives reckless behavior, like eating too many cookies and drinking too many brewskis. Bulking is hard but it is also fun. Too many fear it like I did but they should remember the end result and not wallow in their temporary fatness. Dad knows it is just a phase. Going full Lee Priest is not necessary. Defeatist “hard gainers” talk more than they eat, everybody knows it. Short and tall both grow, but each must eat. So have a friend to bulk with. Race them. Momma bird them if they quit; be a good friend. Much like how block periodization is accepted, so should dedicated bulking and cutting cycles. Find the nuance of execution that suits you, whether that is counting macros, calories, or plates. 

TBH both look great in their own ways. 

GOAT bodybuilder? No. GOAT bulker - yes.

So, are you bulkin’ up?

Scrambled egg recipe for frozen blended shake add in:

1. Wisk three to four large eggs in a metal bowl; add a half cup to a cup of heavy cream or half and half. (Quantity of eggs and cream dependent on bulking needs and taste.)

2. Flavor with ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. Real, not imitation. You deserve it. (Also try almond extract.)

3.  Wisk in salt and other dry flavorings, like cinnamon, to taste; experiment here.

4. Scramble in a hot pan with butter. Turn frequently to avoid burning the eggs.

5. When the eggs are fluffy and dry remove them from the pan and after cooling to room temperature place them in a bag for freezing.

6. Add these frozen eggs into any shake recipe, making a custard like high protein and calorie dense snack in your blender at home. I recommend a Vitamix because the consistency is always primo. Absolutely no problem with ice, frozen eggs, fruits, or nuts.

100 Days

           The last one hundred days have gone by fast. Life moves quickly. At times so fast we can hardly keep up. In these periodic maelstroms our will can be washed away; quitting is easy in the chaos. The storm exists when we are surrounded by things: big and small, real or imagined, tangible, abstract and ethereal. Something petty or vain and seemingly insignificant as a single workout can then be easily scratched from the record; scribed earlier but written off later so weakly that the pen is fumbled. In that moment knowing the difference between will and strength is learned. Without the first the second shudders.

Outsiders, especially the ones who know me best, might perceive these last hundred days of training without a rest day as a small feat compared to what I have already experienced and accomplished. It is the opposite. The thing is, the hardest part is upfront. I had to know not working out was from week one and then on totally off the table. My day would fit it. I would lift whether it be 0400 or 2300; both happening just once or twice out of necessity. All sessions completed before the clock strikes midnight. None of them did I succumb to crawling my way through – if I could not do well in one aspect, I changed another to command greater effort.

For example, limiting weights due to fatigue but then too limiting rest or seeking improved technique. Strength could not be accurately trained, making then an adjustment towards endurance in this example session. Another example might be phases of high specificity and weight over so many sets. One example from this period of my training would be 21 days of squatting, pressing, and deadlifting every session. These sessions added weight each week to the rep maxes, therefore prioritizing intensity over volume in a three week ‘block’. These short high specificity blocks with an intensity progression bias give break from so much volume if doing many sets; not “peaking” and certainly not a deload. Just a brief redirection of effort, exactly what is needed to maintain consistency.

Easy. Again. Finally. Thankfully.

Small factors play a bigger role in daily training. With rest days intensity is the typical focus of progression, without them consistency. Such a change in vision determines actions taken in the gym. Within a month momentum is generated. A force unlike anything felt when it comes to training. Stopping then or after becomes a creeping fear, both in self and the world outside; I am lucky to have a gym at home, easily accessible. But others have trained every day too without such a luxury. It is easier as the days continue but difficult at the onset because of commitment and then on intermittently as learning how to progress improves. What actions to take inside and outside of the weight room to ensure that the next session is not the one resulting in a catastrophic failed lift or a body too worn out to produce quality effort or a day too full to lift a barbell. Why sleep is important, nutrition, hydration, logistics; even who in our lives are supportive or cynical – outsiders might perceive mental illness rather than will. They are wrong but kind in their hearts. To see if I can. Because I must. These are good enough reasons to continue when faced with this obstacle, often being the strongest one drawing us away from achieving what we set out for ourselves. Outside forces, especially friends and family, are the hardest to plan for and say no to. This was not a gym hermitage. I tried to limit the unnecessary while refraining from also cutting out what matters most. If it meant driving all day just to get back home to train, I did it. Thus, a handful of late-night or early morning workouts; most of my workouts were mid-morning to early evening.

Using my General Gainz framework for progression made these last one hundred days easier because it is simpler. Not every rep max was a ‘hard’ effort, undulation here proved critical. I chose to extend the number of sets I did after my Rep Maxes on almost all main movements. Typically doing six sets after a T2 RM rather than the normal limit of four for half-sets. Likewise adding three singles beyond any T1 RM. In these actions I biased my training towards strength-endurance not maximal strength. Likewise prioritizing adding reps to a weight versus adding weight to a RM. In other words, choosing to (push) a 5RM to a 6 or 7RM because the weight felt light enough to do so, rather than add weight and keep the target RM (find). If finding a rep max at a heavier weight seemed a bad choice and pushing that weight to a higher RM equally bad, then I would (hold) the weight over from the workout prior for the same target RM and (extend) my sets after. Since the earlier workout would have used the same weight and for the limit of follow-up sets already my progression choice was made for me: reduce the rest between sets or improve the quality of the lift at that weight. Again, endurance biased but here forcing the prioritization of technical endurance; stamina with good form. I hope this paragraph clarifies the nature of progression when employing General Gainz and how it is simple in the best way.

"Suspect membership sign on just $25 for the week.

Try it out. Please..."

These actions: Find, Hold, Push, Extend (FHPE) give scope beyond intensity towards consistency. That ultimately being how to get strong. No program, template, percentage recommendations or anything of usual form is necessary for this purpose. Only days, which come by the grace of our existence, and the will to lift a weight for many reps and sets until that weight becomes easy. Then strength has been achieved. People have done this without barbells, lifting only stones. We have many things in our favor when it comes to getting stronger, the hard part is upfront: commitment. I was my first naysayer. That thought evicted quickly, never to return. Pushed from my mind because that was the action my body took in the gym. Anger at self-doubt being the fuel to advance a weight up to a higher rep max, making it easier, lighter in a sense; getting stronger mentally out of physicality. I grew to appreciate how daily training affected the day, more positively as they passed. Having a defined course of action to take for advancement in the gym makes us more decisive. This quality shines outside the gym, let me tell you. Daily training bolstered qualities I already had in a way I did not know they needed to be. Those around me recognized this as much as my physique, which improved too. Had it not then this post would not have been written. 

Strength and aesthetic improvements were parallel goals to the primary: training every day for one hundred days. I knew that if I could manage honest effort everyday with General Gainz then the two would follow; I did not know intangible qualities like character traits would benefit. They did, but all I can expect is my word to be taken in those regards. Training data proves strength gains. Photographs proves aesthetic ones. While I did not take daily photographs, I did wait until a random day, near the end of the 100-day experiment to gauge physique improvements. I noticed a significant reduction in body fat, especially around that ‘hard to lose’ area around my navel and love handles. My forearms and shoulders grew approximately 1/8^th an inch and ½ an inch respectively. My waist lost almost a ½ inch during this period. Looking at me, I look different. My wife says “denser”. I am happy about that.  It is a look few achieve. Maybe daily training unlocks it. I bet John Henry was dense. All he ever did was be great at swinging a hammer. Died by indomitable will because of it. 

"May God grant that we always respect the great and the strong 

and be of service to others."

My strength, while not yet folklore, improved alongside my physique. Up to this point I was prioritizing my strict press. Thirty-one days in I hit a PR of 200 pounds weighing just 158 pounds. This lift did not improve beyond that mostly because from that point I took a more balanced approach, seeing that high specificity would quickly erode any attempt at consistency. On day 99 I squatted 315 pounds, not a PR at a current body weight of 161 pounds (+3 pounds and likely leaner) by any stretch but a huge gain because a year ago this seemed impossible due to nerve and other damage to my hip. I am happy to have done it without a belt, knee sleeves, and for six singles with limited rest; both strength and confidence has been improved with this lift. 

Decent pasty ripplage there if I say so myself...

Now here is where things can be known and unknown for lifters. I will explain my best, but a few may not understand. My deadlift improved. Not that I tested it again, but 405 pounds went up as a ‘PR’ much like the squat I described above. Halfway through the 100 days I pulled it easily and confidently, a weight then untouched for some time for similar reasons. I have not tried it again since, but I know I am stronger. How? Because 135 pounds feels so much lighter in my hands every day. Every time I handle just 135 pounds, I feel it becoming lighter – not 135 pounds anymore; weights are not always the same, to counter what Henry Rollins might say.

Across these hundred days I learned not only what actions to take to get stronger and stay consistent, but also what heuristic measures are meaningful in self-assessment. Outsiders, non-lifters especially, do not care about heuristic measures of strength. Either you are or you are not. They know it when they see it. But lifters understand what I mean here, about how strength feels different when it is stronger. Becoming familiar with such a gauge of improvement helped immensely: while my data may not have shown an improvement, I could feel it. The spreadsheet tried to defeat me but could not for I now see through its superficial information; nearly lies they omit so much when on their own. Eventually I will find another, heavier weight. I will act on that when appropriate. But for now, I have no desire to test my deadlift – or any other lift for that matter - simply for the fact that I like the mystery of this feeling of getting stronger. Unknowing of potential yet fully confident in it. Stronger not because a one rep max improvement. Stronger because over the course of one hundred days average became easier until it was almost imperceptible. This happened with all my main lifts. I know my strength improved, even if untested. I became stronger than the desire to test. Crusty lifters with years of chalk built up in the wrinkles of their well worn and flimsy Inzer belts know what I am talking about. Training for one hundred days in a row without a rest day was a good experience for this alone, to know what it is like to be stronger without having to demonstrate it.

This post covers a lot of ground while also not giving much concrete information. For that I apologize. Honestly, I do not understand the impacts of this experiment fully, as it has been somewhat profound for my own training. I do not mean to brag of what amounts to a small achievement, or sound like a salesman, use whatever ‘program’ you like I still recommend daily training. I simply hope to communicate the progress I made so that you can too. Big and small, real or imagined, tangible, abstract and ethereal.

Going on 102 days...

"I'm gonna kill the bear," say it.

Again, say it again.

Say it until you kill the mother fucker.

The Greatest Gym You’ll Never Lift At

            This was a few years after I got really into lifting, around late 2010 to early 2011. At this point I was one enlistment in the US Marines and had reenlisted with a lateral move into a new job field. By request, for what you’ll soon understand as obvious reasons. I no longer wanted to hold the primary Military Occupational Specialty 0311 Infantry Rifleman. It was a great time being a grunt, don’t get me wrong, but they ran all too often for my tastes. I’d rather lift. 

The new job of mine was surreal. When I read up on it I was amazed that it was in fact, a real thing. Is the Green Weenie up to something again? Truth be told it wasn’t my first choice. Initially I had gone through the process of trying to become an 0241, or topographic intelligence, but that wasn’t approved. Perhaps because of lacking intelligence? Probably. Anyhow, I was undeterred. I loved the grunts around me but was loving gains more. Researching for possible jobs I found the MOS 4133, Marine Corps Community Services, then at the time experiencing a shortage and thus suffering a very high individual deployment rate. I did an interview with a Master Sergeant in the field, who being a prior Drill Instructor was… lively, but it went well. Before going on ship my lateral move request was submitted. While at sea it was approved. 

Aboard USS Wasp, SPMAGTF 2009.

Behind me the Marines of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion 9th Marines.

It was perfect. A gift from Chesty. Thank you. Wherever you are.

MCCS Marines are literally in charge of gains. Not kidding. Here’s what I was looking at:

-          Many deployments. OK sweet, that’s what I’m in for anyways.

-          Run the Post Exchange, state side and in country. Even better, now I control the supplement supply chain (and all important tasty treats) wherever the Corps sends me. Pre-workout and protein always. Chips, candy, cookies, precious sips – you name it, I slang it.

-          Order and disperse gym gear in country. You gotta be kidding me… 

-          Other things related to morale, aka, “having a good time”.

My entire career was shifting towards my love for lifting. The process of going from grunt to PX Marine wasn’t much, six months on the job training, at the end of which I was augmented for my first deployment to Afghanistan; my first as a newly appointed PX Marine. That lively Master Sergeant told me it was a hard but rewarding hustle in the sandbox. I was genuinely excited to be going for this was a new adventure. 

Once in country we did the usual environmental awareness and operational security training. Some range time to dial in our weapons and walk example improvised explosive device lanes, so as to familiarize ourselves with what invisible wires in the sand look like. Following that I spent some time on a small Forward Operating Base (FOB), Delaram II (said D2), where I helped manage a ‘tactical field exchange’. Meaning a 7-11 inside a tent. It was a good gig to have. A consistent schedule where I could train every morning, get consistent meals, supps, and sleep – everything a gainer like me needed. The gym at DII was nice, but it is not the gym this story is inspired by.

DII Supplement Wall.

After a few months at DII I was rotated to work at Camp Leatherneck, the main USMC hub. There I would run Warrior Express Service Teams (WES-Teams as they were called) to combat outposts and forward operating bases in the northern part of Helmand Province. From Marjah north to Sangin and up to Kajaki Dam. Where this gym, a fucking great gym, once lived. WES-Team missions were the best. Myself and another sergeant would stock up as much as possible on candy, drinks, chips, tobacco, and of course workout supplements. Marines, of all branches having the greatest ratio of gym rats. Explains me quite well, honestly. Once fully stocked we would head out for weeks, typically on a convoy, sell out, then return home. Press repeat for six months.

Gains and deliciousness in a 20 foot shipping container.

The selections on a convoy WES-Team.

Similar to that taken to Kajaki.

We sergeants ran our own show outside the wire and it was fun. The Kajaki Dam mission was slightly different though. The terrain was rugged and hostile. To bring those Leathernecks their well-deserved taste of home we had to fly in. No problem. Rather than shipping containers and convoy for two or three weeks we would pack large boxes, 4-foot square each and full of product. Then fill two helicopters with those big boxes and be off to Kajaki. There we were left and stayed until the Marines had no more money to spend or we ran out of sellable product. This was the workflow of the WES-Team sergeants on Camp Leatherneck at the time. Either convoys or Kajaki Dam. Kajaki was our “vacation” mission. 

It wasn’t that the dam was easy going, no, far from it. FOB Zeebrugge was hopping full of artillery Marines who were happy to be blowing up baddies across the water. Have no doubt, my life at Kajaki Dam, the location of FOB Zeebrugge, was easy – I just sold snacks and lifted. The arty Marines around me were dirty, foul mouthed, smelled like Hell itself and from heaven they rained hell at will. There is a vibration in strong people and it is stronger in each when in groups; growing stronger as the group becomes larger. This was a large group of strong men from whose great gym rang the familiar chime of weight plates. The ground shook from deadlifts and the boom of howitzers alike. The cannons themselves singing to me that sweet familiar sound. The vibration started in the marrow of the artilleryman and extended to all around. From the dirt to the dumbbells. This open-air gym had a life, it was that resonant vibration, and I could feel it when I lifted there.

Tasty treats atop FOB Zebrugge.

Hauled to service the Marines on duty at OP Shrine.

The M795 155mm projectile weighs 47 KG (103 lb.) and is the standard high explosive round for Marine howitzers. The range for E1 variants is 37 kilometers. It is 30% more lethal than its predecessor the M107; then a featherweight 43.2 KG (95 lb.) Newer, highly capable artillery rounds named Excalibur weigh about the same as the M795, still over 100 pounds per round. It pushes the range to approximately 57 km (35 miles), is GPS guided, and packed full of octogen high explosive. In 2012 a US Marine Corps howitzer team at FOB Zeebrugge killed a group of insurgents 36 kilometers (22 miles) away using a single Excalibur round. This set a combat distance record. The lethality and precision of the artillery Marine increases with technology, but with it comes weight. Which is why so many of these guys were jacked, strong, or just damn sinewy and capable out of spite of their build or revenge against it. I’ll never know where such strength wells up from in men like that.

Marines from India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 12 Marine Regiment

newly aboard FOB Zeebrugge, October, 2010.

Source: Scott Olsen/Getty Images Europe

On FOB Zeebrugge lived this great gym of the Marine artilleryman. Whose job it is to load 100-pound rounds into 9,000-pound cannons at a maximum rate of five (hundred pounds) rounds per minute. To some, fitness is a hobby, others may call it a way of life, in these ranks fitness is life. Let me rephrase for clarity. A weekend warrior who loves biking may enjoy greatly their hobby, but it will not deter their profession or impact their family in a negative way; it is a hobby. Even if taken seriously, not so seriously as a promotion at work. Those who call it a way of life see things differently. A clear example would be someone who abandons everything to go train under a coach, we’ll say none other than Louie Simmons, whose gym and presence alone beckon those who wish to live a life of lifting. People have, and will continue to, change their lives so they can study and lift under Louie’s tutelage. That is their way of life, a means about it, put another way. Their method to bring satisfaction to this thing we all have.

But without strength, without fitness, the artilleryman has no life. They become useless to their crew mates and are less a threat to the enemy. In each case the weakling dies easily. Emotionally at the hands of tormenting brothers and leaders or physically by the stronger will of the enemy. This truth etched on the faces of Marines as they pushed one another toward greater ability at the Kajaki gym. If not to save their own lives, to be better at taking the enemy’s. 500-pounds per minute. The maximum rate of fire. A good artillery Marine would never let themselves or their mates be the limiter of that fire rate. And so, they trained, and trained hard, in one of the most austere and spartan gyms I’ve ever seen or lifted.

Lifters say training environment is everything. I agree that it is important, and to some much more important, sure. There are gyms of legendary training environments. That of Super Training or like mentioned previously, Louie Simmons’ Westside Barbell, and more recently Barbell Brigade. These environments ring with the vibration I describe for they are populated by strong individuals. It is more than equipment selection. More about who lifted on that equipment before you and those around you. The smell of sweat and blood pungent with individual reward for fluids lost and time spent. A difference exists in this vibration, however. It is not of survival, but reward. These people are a different kind of strong; strong none the less. They live to be strong and so the environment around them feels different.

Me, not the Kajaki gym. Just 300 pounds or so in bumper plates.

In fact, it is different. It is perfectly built to make the process of becoming strong easier. I’ve seen incredibly strong lifters become weak, defeated, because their “warmups didn’t feel right.” Worse yet those who cannot, somehow, lift without a special apparatus or specific bar. An inarguable weakness of their strength’s nature, or character. Not to say it is a lesser strength, or weaker, but it could be considered picky. Certainly specific, analogous to specialized; which is like saying prone to failure when subject to undesirable circumstances outside of their controlled environment. As legendary as it may be. This imparts something to the vibration I speak of, which is why these sorts of places feel different than Kajaki’s gym. The leadership and comradery of Westside ringing its bell, creating its powerful vibration. The gym at Kajaki rang with each of those too, just more violently. Amplifying it drastically. Coupled with this the environment itself commanded respect and required strength. This is something ‘hard core’ gyms strive after, but never fully achieve. Not quite like Kajaki. A gym in a warehouse in a commercial district in suburban America does not capture in its location the same feeling or emotion. No matter how hard the members try to make it so.

Such strength and their inspired gyms are unlike those who must be strong because their job requires them to lift 100 pounds all day and night upon commander’s orders. Maybe that day will come tomorrow and so they trained today. Trained yesterday and the day before that, and countless days leading up to what may eventually be the moment where they must load 100 pounds into the cannons for hours, with no end in sight. Should their weakness inhibit that somewhere a grunt may die. A grunt like I once was. To prevent this, the gym was built, and wouldn’t you know it, the artillerymen put it in the center of FOB Zeebrugge.

Kajaki Dam, to the far right the location of FOB Zeebrugge.

Witnessing their purpose for strength gave an understanding of what made this gym so special. So different. It was not outfitted well compared to anything you would see stateside. Just barbells, weight plates, a squat rack, two benches, a rack of matching dumbbells, and a Hammer Strength “deadlift” machine. The matching dumbbells being by far the fanciest thing on the whole FOB. With only two walls and a thin tin roof everything was lightly rusted. It gave the equipment a character reflective of the men who used it. Hard, worn, enduring. Should they break a dumbbell I could get them a new one; a shame it wouldn’t match. With use the new dumbbell vibrates with the same frequency of the artilleryman, matching eventually, in a way. 

Being a PX Marine allowed me the opportunity to lift almost anywhere there was a gym in our area of operations. It was my section who ordered and dispersed the gym equipment after all. I lifted at all kinds of Marine gyms. Some well outfitted with a litany of free weights and machines, like those on Camps Dwyer and Leatherneck. Others nothing more than a pulley rigged somewhere overhead, a sandbag bench, numerous filled and partially filled sandbags about, and other various heavy things: truck batteries, tires, large broken wrenches, fouled heavy machine gun barrels, etc. Marines will get their lift on, wherever, I learned. 

The amazing part was the imperceptible difference in these places. At Leatherneck, the main USMC base in country, you could see senior staff noncommissioned officers running the fat off desperately on a treadmill. Tired, weak, and frail from their lack of appreciation of strength. While a Marine, still, maybe intel, like I once wanted to be. Their comfortable office job ruined their sense of duty to physicality. The SNCO on the treadmill did not have to load 100-pound bombs as a private to kill the enemy, and so now he is fat and killing himself on a treadmill instead. This gym, with his presence in it rings differently. Less like Kajaki’s gym and more like an LA Fitness with its fatness and civilians. I saw no fat bodies at Kajaki. Perhaps the higher percentage of upper body adipose tissue dulls the vibration otherwise felt so sharply at places as violent and unforgiving as Kajaki. Populated by fit, strong, combat hardened Marines.

Stunning vistas. Lots of Taliban unfortunately.

I had the luck to visit Kajaki two or three times during my first deployment to Afghanistan. Each time I brought with me dozens of tubs of protein and pre-workout powders. Each time they sold out. Soon thereafter the gym would be packed full of Marines high on untold amounts of caffeine, hatred of the enemy, and love for their brothers. Personal records had by all, no doubt. Good thing the gym was open air because their body odor alone had the effect of tear gas. No telling the effects lingering protein farts could have had. This gym was unlike other Marine gyms, even many infantry gyms, which honestly were not ‘infantry gyms’ so much as battalion headquarters’ gyms (meaning all the non-grunts who support the grunts within the infantry unit). The guys doing the fighting, often a platoon or squad in size, stay at small, incredibly spartan patrol bases. In these cases, a TRX system was a blessing. These too I brought and issued out. Everywhere there is a Marine fitness is impressed upon them, much more so to those on the killing edge; the artillery, infantry, recon and raiders.

Kajaki’s gym was special. I’ll never forget it. There I deadlifted 455 pounds for the first time, in just boots and utes’, and I never surpassed that weight for a year. Not until I picked up powerlifting training specifically, back in the states, on a good schedule; fragile. I remember only being able to deadlift 405 to 415 pounds – not at Kajaki. I’ll joke that the rust wore some weight off, but the real reason was the vibration of the men around me and the resonance that carried beyond them; into everything, into me. I could sell out of all my product in two days and be stuck there for five more. Each of those I’d lift and joke, enjoying my vacation. “Bring an extra box of blue razz NO Explode next time POG,” they’d say, and I would, because maybe they’d be weaker without it, and I couldn’t handle that, truly. Though it was my own narcissistic judgement. 

That strength, a life itself, existed before me and will continue without me. I merely eased the means of execution and progression by bringing Marines equipment if needed, and snacks and supplements as often as my duties as required me. It was I who benefitted most, not those Marines from my services. Who temporarily became nasty and somewhat undisciplined whenever the WES-Team vacationed at FOB Zeebrugge, Kajaki, Afghanistan. There I learned what a different need for lifting felt and looked like, from that need what a gym could exist as, and where such a thing might be born again. In a place austere and inspiring. Unforgiving and respected. Inaccessible. Wild. This calls the strong. It is their vibration. 

I also learned there was no better pre-workout than howitzer fire. A lot of vibration. 

The reservoir from atop the south west hill looking east.