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The most powerful experiences in sport are when you find common ground with someone from another world. These insights enable a much deeper, richer understanding of your own craft.One of the best examples I can think of features our guest this week, Dr. Nicholas Romanov, the developer of the Pose Method of running. He was participating in a little back and forth Crossfit Journal interview with Greg Glassman and Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell fame.Without a doubt, the entire series is worth a watch. Knowledge bombs abounds, friends. It’s refreshing to see such disparate figures agree on so much, especially when it comes to training. One of the more relevant points for most athletes and coaches is speed, or as Louie would call it, “Perfect speed.”Dr. Romanov’s take was that strength work was not enough on its own, not for the athlete. If you were a high jumper, for example, grinding away to increase the squat wouldn’t necessarily help you jump higher, not unless there was a concurrent effort to improve your rate of force development.Strength on its own won’t do you any good. You need it right on time, as close to instantaneous as you can get. That’s when you perform at your best. You need to develop your maximal AND explosive strength. It’s not enough to just complete the reps on your work sets. Regardless of whether the load is heavy or fairly light, move that barbell as quickly as you can possibly manage. This will keep your nervous system fine tuned and ready for maximal effort all year round. You’ll make the most out of your training.What was Louie’s idea of perfect speed? Well, when you lift you must try to get from the start to lockout as quickly as possible. Until the rep becomes instantaneous you have to keep fighting for more speed. Always faster, faster, if you work at this you too can become incredibly strong. You can jump higher, and run better.Read more of Chris Moore's show notes here: http://daily.barbellshrugged.com/776/

this week on barbell shrugged we’re going old school. It’s just me, Mike and Doug talking training. We sort of geek-out on the topic of strength progressions. It’s a discussion that you need to hear if you want to become strong. “What program do you guys think I should do? No matter what I try, I can’t gain muscle. I’m lifting 6 days a week, but still, my lifts are going nowhere!” It happens all the time. This week marks the 148th episode of Barbell Shrugged. That’s a lot, but I can promise you that I’ve been asked this same programming question at least 150 times this year. The cycle repeats. People get very excited and motivated early on when it comes to training. I know the habits because I have been there before. You use three different colors of dry erase marker to graffiti the training goals across your whiteboard. Also, we cannot forget the name-brand gear, the crispy clean weightlifting shoes, or the finest lululemmon board shorts that money can buy. It all seems important enough, right? All of that stuff is great, I guess, right up until you go window shopping for the actual training program. That’s how it usually goes, right? You click around on the internet, or ask around at your box, “What program are you guys doing right now?” You end up doing whatever seems cool and exciting at the time. Forget reason, evidence and personal experience, this is more random chance silliness. How could you be surprised with a random or negligible training result? You cannot. You have a certain amount of years to pursue the development of your training career. It’s like any other career path you would take. It comes in phases. For a few years you pay your dues and put in your work. Before long you’ll do well, but you always have to be learning and hustling to build your skills and keep your edge. That process doesn’t ever stop, not if you want to keep making progress throughout the progressively harder years ahead. You will climb and climb, with clear markers of progress all along the way. But then one day you’ll know things are getting a little too hard. You won’t be able to keep up that relentless edge. Retirement or a brand new challenge become what you need most. Do you know what program hoping really is? It’s quitting a job 3-6 months in because the retirement benefits aren’t coming fast enough. Or, how about this? Would you ever consider working 2-3 jobs at a time? Probably not, but have you ever done more than one training program at once? Right, this sort of mixing and matching can be done with some experience, but you have to be really careful. Most athletes are reckless in practice. What everyone needs to understand is that strength is the result of intense, persistent and cumulative effort. Your $30 eBook or weekend long training seminar is worth little more than a pamphlet at the local job fair. You’ve still got to commit to something and do some real focused work if you want a real reward. Strength is rooted in the fundamentals. Before you think about switching programs, make sure you’re sleeping 8-9 hours a night. Eat more real food. Make sure you utilize basic recovery methods, including sauna and message. It really does make all the difference. And when it comes to training, just try being there for a while at first. Find a gym that has some strong members…And then be there, 4-5 times a week, every week for a year or so. You’ll always have a better understanding of training if you do that first. You can search for the secret sauce later on. When you are ready to pick a training program, start with your needs and nothing else. What do you what to get really good at? What must improve? That will take the focus of your programming, along with a series of very similar assistance movements that will bring up your lifting skills quickly. It’s only then that the brand of progression becomes a critical thing. To get really strong, you have to add weight to the barbell. At first you will do it weekly, or just about every time you come to the gym. Be patient, 5 pounds a week adds up. This is simple and linear, but you’ll be a lot stronger than you are now with zero fuss. It’s an amazing way to train. To skip this phase is foolish. If you do that, you’ll never reach your full potential.  The only time you ever mess around with your progression is when the progress train stops. In that case, you rest for a while, eat some fattening food, and you come back at it. If you ever find yourself failing and failing again, then you know you’ve graduated. You now need to consider spreading out the loading to every other week, two weeks, etc. These styles of programs look more like undulating waves if you graph them out. The most ideal, in my view, is when you ramp up your work to a tough record attempt on week 3, then unload. That works so well it’s silly. I would only recommend one other approach. It’s something I arrived at in my powerlifting training after years and years of trial and error. My wave was still 4 weeks. I still went for my really heavy record attempts on week 3. The last week was devoted to unloading work and recovery. The difference is that week 1 was my second heaviest week, with target loads around 95% of my best. I then used my second week to restore speed to the barbell, explode through t 70-85% weights. That left me feeling explosive and bulletproof for my record attempts on week 3. Those are just a few ideas. In truth, there are endless ways you could progress your strength work. I think you’d be wise to get yourself two books in the beginning, “Starting Strength” and “Practical Programming.” Both are authored by Mark Rippetoe. You need those books. Learn all you can starting now, the rest will sort out. Just keep your barbells heavy. Cheers, Chris Moore

This 52-yr-old man strapped a 93 pound fridge on his back and traveled across the UK.  He's about to do it again in the United States.  You won't believe why.

Pittsfield, Vermont is a small town of just about 400 people. You don’t notice much when you first pass through, apart from the beauty and unspoiled quality of the place. It’s a perfect spot for mountain hikes and star-gazing. The town itself is just a two-lane road dotted with farm houses and picture perfect Inn’s, hugged tight on either side by lush green mountains. One of the only stops is The Spartan General Store (at least that’s my unofficial name for the place). There's a small gift shop and grocery inside, but this is mostly a refueling spot. Breakfast plates come piled high with giant farm fresh eggs and thick slices of local bacon. Tall glasses of fresh pressed green juice act as the perfect recovery tonic for legs left for dead by 5 a.m. obstacle course climbs. By now you know this is no average town. This is the home of Spartan Race. The punishing early morning burpee sessions and mountain runs come courtesy of Joe De Sena, the highly driven founder and leader of the Spartan movement. The lovely eggs and green juice are made possible by the daily grind and passion of Joe Pumentei, or Farmer Joe as we know him. He is just the sort of guy you need to feed a growing Spartan army. He’s also having an amazing impact on local towns all over through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). A farmer's job might not seem very impactful at first, but like most things it’s not what you do it’s how you do it. When it comes to farming, Joe brings a bright Boston edge. He and his wife were lured to Pittsfield by that other Joe and his Spartan crew. It was a chance to run their very own farm, according to their rules, and up to their very high standards. It’s clear that Sweet Georgia P’s is an amazing place. The food is great, but that’s not the only reason for Joe’s impact. It’s got much more to do with that edge. He’s up at dawn with his family every day. He drives endless miles to spread his CSA and product to every town in his 200 square mile territory. And most importantly, he never turns down an opportunity to bark loudly about the big problem here - Most people don’t know what real food is, and it’s slowly killing them. “Real” is a funny word in this context. Judging by the regulations that Joe is subject to, you would think he was harboring toxic waste, but no, in this case it’s just milk. Raw goat’s milk to be specific. Joe’s milk is alive. It’s teeming with all sorts of cultures and enzymes. The protein is super-duper high quality. The fat is full and rich, just what your nervous system needs. You’d be hard pressed to find a higher quality recovery and muscle building beverage. But the legal reality is that Joe must keep a warning sign posted prominently on his Sweet Georgia P’s property. “WARNING! Unpasteurized, raw milk can be hazardous to your health.” In just that one paragraph there were three references to baby or fetal damage/death, not unlike cigarette package warnings. Sneak that stuff over state lines and you’d be committing a felony, despite the fact that raw milk has been found to be a low risk food. The same thing goes for many local farmers and all they produce. Getting real food to market now-a-day’s is all uphill. It requires the fight. You could use some edge. Maybe that’s the right mindset. Most people know that they should be eating better quality food, especially when it comes to vegetables and common animal products. But that’s not always the decision that gets made. So, why not try a new motive? Why not call this a fight?There’s a mighty industrial machine out there pumping out bleached milk, flavorless veggies, runny eggs from sick chickens, the list of sins is long. The machine is fed by our dollars. It exists precisely because our decisions haven’t been the best. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take action now. We have to start putting our money where it matters most - Back into real food. To those who would say local organic food is too expensive, Joe’s bright edge bites back, “Have you priced out cancer lately? It’s not cheap.” People need to understand the value of real food. They need to learn. They need access to great farm fresh products, so Joe’s work continues. He keeps up his grind and passion every day. He continues making his impact. If you want to improve the health of your communities, support local farmers and CSA programs when you are able. Seek them out. No, a few farmers will not make much of a difference. But if a few hook-up every few hundred miles or so they can build a supply network that really could make cheap, super nutritious food readily available to more people. That kind of movement could make a real difference in public health. Demand better quality in your food. Put your money where it matters most. The value will come right back to you in the form of better health and improved performance, just see for yourself. Joe, I had a blast. Keep up the good fight.Cheers, Chris Moore