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Who is Crusty Ninja for?

Crusty Ninja is for the older crowd who not only want to look good, but feel good and perform like an athlete - a ninja if you will - okay, maybe an older slightly crusty ninja.

Crusty Ninja is for those who not only want to look good, but want to throw a football or get down on the floor and play with your grandchildren. If you want to be able to climb a tree. Don't need to climb a tree? What about climb a ladder or climb onto a roof?

Crusty Ninja is for adults who want to live their life to their fullest physical potential.

That doesn't mean you can't look fantastic and be freaky strong. Using these methods, I built a foundation that allowed me to easily transition into bodybuilding and earn a Pro Card in Masters Natural Bodybuilding and also win a world title in masters powerlifting and several national titles while breaking many records in the process. All the while I was participating in Parkour and obstacle course running. If you are strong, lean, and athletic, it's easy to excel in other physical activities, whether those sports are biking, golf, tennis, basketball, or pickleball. And yes, you can even perform well in natural bodybuilding and powerlifting.

Crusty Ninja emphasizes not only strength, but also body movement and incorporates gymnastics and Parkour. The goal is to climb ropes, do cartwheels, body rolls, and even some break dance moves. "But Crusty, I can't do a cartwheel! I have weak inflexible shoulders." You probably also can't run a marathon, but with proper training you could. I've encountered very few people who couldn't do a cartwheel with the right training. Are your shoulders weak and inflexible? We'll work on fixing that. Be aware, this is not a quick fix, instant gratification thing. It may take you a year or even more to get there, but most people can get there if they stick with it. Where are you going to be in a year otherwise?

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What is Crusty Ninja Training Like?

Crusty Ninja training is a combination of Fitness, Agility, and Strength Training (FAST). The goal is to not only get strong and fit, but functional. To develop the ability to run, jump, climb, and move large unwieldy objects.

The irony is many people say they want to look strong and fit, but nobody wants do what it takes to get strong and fit. They just want to "look" strong and fit. Well, here's some news for you: "It's easier to look strong and fit if you are strong and fit".

And you are never going to get either strong or fit by going to the gym and doing an hour of every variation of deltoid exercises. Sure, if you're in the final stages of prep for your Mr. Olympia appearance then pump your already massive delts. If you want to build massive delts so that you have something worth pumping up, then do overhead presses. You can't put icing on a cake you haven't baked yet. Bake your cake first - then add the icing.

Crusty Ninja is based on the principles learned by the ancient Greeks training for the Olympic sport Pankration (a submission sport that is a combination of wrestling and marital arts). While this doesn't focus on the fighting skills needed for Pankration, it relies heavily on their methods of strength and conditioning. It has been modified to suit the needs of older athletes and make use of modern equipment, but still follows the basic principles.

Why this style? Because it works.

Ancient civilizations were masters of trial and error. They would try something; if it worked, they kept doing it. If it didn't, they'd try something else. By this process of trial and error, they learned what worked and eliminated what didn't. If you do this for hundreds, even thousands of years, then you develop methods that produce the best results. And while the equipment we have available has changed over the centuries, the human body hasn't changed much. The ancient Greeks trained mostly with rocks, sandbags, and body weight. So now, instead of a room full of variously weighted sandbags and rocks, we now have loadable barbells and dumbbells. But the underlying principles of building strength and athleticism that worked a thousand years ago still work today. What has changed is the introduction of muscle-building drugs. Crusty Ninja style training is intended for older drug-free trainees and is built on principles that work best for drug-free trainees. If you're not on steroids, then you shouldn't train like you are.

The 4-day training cycle:

• Day 1: Neurological Training
• Day 2: Muscle Building
• Day 3: Recovery and Relaxation
• Day 4: Body Movement, Coordination, and Mobility

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Two Sets vs. Three

You may have noticed that this training uses two sets per main exercise versus three.

"It's intensity that builds muscle in natural athletes."

With two sets, you can give it your all for max intensity in both sets.
If you have anything left for a third set, then you didn't give it your all on your first two sets.

You get about 66% of your strength gains from your first set.
You get another 25% of your strength gains from your second set
(this is of course assuming that these sets are done with intensity).
And while the third set can offer some gains, it also adds significantly to your neural fatigue load, which can actually reduce gains over time. This is especially true of the big compound lifts such as squats and bench press. For isolation exercises involving a smaller total muscle mass, the neural fatigue factor isn't as pronounced and a third set may be beneficial.
Also if you are young or intentionally gaining weight (both of which improve recovery), then a third set might be beneficial.
If you are older and restricting calories, you may not have enough recovery, and a third set might actually be counterproductive.

My rule of thumb is try two sets for a few months. If you are making gains, congratulations, stick with what works.
If you are not making gains, add a third set and see what happens. Everyone is different and there are few hard and fast rules about sets and reps that apply to everyone. Sometimes you need a little trial and error to see what works best for you. I have found that two sets on the big exercises works best for me.

The bottom line is intensity is required to build muscle in a natural athlete. So all your work sets must be intense. If your third set feels dead and lackluster, you're doing more harm than good. If your third set feels strong and refreshed, then your first two sets weren't intense enough - FIX THAT!

If you Google the "Reg Park 5x5 Routine" that was popular in the 1950s and early 1960s (before steroids took over), it is similar to this. He had people doing full body three times a week with only two working sets per main exercise. This is how many professional bodybuilders trained back in the day before steroids made more volume possible and even necessary.

If you insist on doing a third set (I know a lot of you will), lower the weight for the third set by about 15% and do as many reps as you can to get a good pump.

"But I saw a study that showed three sets grew more muscle than two sets."
Don't get me started on study fallacies. The study you saw probably involved only exercise a portion of the quads (typically the vastus lateralis and.or vastus medialis). There's a huge difference between exercising a few isolated muscles and exercising the whole body. Neural fatigue almost becomes a non factor when only exercising a few muscles. Neural fatigue is a major factor when exercising the whole body. What builds muscle best when only exercising only a few muscles doesn't necessarily apply when trying to build the whole body.

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Full Body vs. Split Routine

Crusty Ninja training incorporates full-body strength training every fourth day (Other days are used for balance, fitness, mobility, etc.). A typical Crusty Ninja strength session will have 4 to 5 main exercises with about 2 working sets per exercise. This is enough to trigger muscle growth across the whole body. Numerous studies have shown that you get maximal muscle growth by training a muscle about twice a week. So if this is enough to trigger maximal muscle growth for most people, why do most pro bodybuilders do split routines?
Mr. Pro Bodybuilder has been training for years and has a lot more muscle than you or I. If you're 260+ pounds of muscle, at some point, it becomes necessary to split up the muscle groups simply because it's too much muscle to train in one session. Very few people ever reach that point, but yet they train like they have. It's not the most efficient way to train, but at some point it becomes necessary. And again, very few people ever reach this point. Also, as mentioned in the steroid section, people on steroids with more muscle than their joints can handle have to incorporate low intensity/high volume training in order to stimulate muscle growth without risking injury. Trying to do this amount of volume for every muscle group on a 260+ pound bodybuilder in a single session is just untenable. A split routine makes more sense for them. But if me who is only a fairly solid 180 pounds tells you what I do and a pro bodybuilder who is 260+ pounds ripped tells you what he does, who are you going to listen to? Most people are going to listen to the pro bodybuilder and follow his routine. I get it. That's why the gym is full of newbies who can't even bench their own body weight doing split routines when they would get better results doing full body training 2-3 times a week. They're doing a type of training that is not appropriate for the level of training they're at. Also, what they don't consider is that Mr. Pro Bodybuilder is leaving out the critical ingredient of his training style. It would be like someone giving you their cake recipe, but leaving out flour as one of the ingredients. Your cake will not end up like theirs.
On a historical note, before steroids came on the scene, almost no bodybuilder/strongman did split routines. Most trained full body 2-3 times a week. Even Arnold used a full body routine 3 x week early in his career as did many others such as Mike Mentzer. Eventually, they reached a point where they needed a split routine. Again, very few people ever reach that point. Honestly, ask yourself, "have you reached that point?" If not, why are you training like you have? This is what worked best before steroids came on the scene and changed the way the pros train. Full body training is how the ancient Greeks trained because through many years of trial and error they found that this worked the best. If they had found that split training worked better, they would have done that.

But Crusty, it takes me 2 hours to train a single body part. It would take all day to train every body part in the same session.

A full body workout is not doing a dozen different isolation exercises. It's typically a warm up followed by 4 to 5 main exercises with about 2 working sets per exercise and can be done in about an hour. Here's two typical full body training sessions:

Routine A

• Warm up
• Bench press (chest, front delts, triceps)
• Barbell row (lats, rhomboids, traps, rear deltoids, and biceps)
• Seated one arm overhead press (front delts, triceps)
• Hanging leg raises - (abs, core, hip flexors)

Routine B

• Warm up
• Incline press (upper chest, front delts, triceps)
• Stiff leg deadlifts (hamstrings, glutes, lower back)
• Dips (lower chest, front delts)
• Hammer pull ups (lats, biceps)

Each of the above routines work just about every muscle in your body. If needed, you can add an accessory exercise.

It has been long established that the sweet spot for building strength is working a muscle about twice a week. In fact, most split routines are based on hitting the muscle groups about twice a week. This accomplishes that in only two training sessions.

If you Google the "Reg Park 5x5 Routine" that was popular in the 1950s and early 1960s (before steroids took over), it is similar to this. The choices of exercises are slightly different, but the philosophy is very much the same. He had people starting with full body routines, with about four main exercises, three times a week, and only two working sets per main exercise. The Reg Park 5x5 was just focused on putting on as much muscle as fast as possible. Even Arnold used Reg Park's training in his early days. Crusty Ninja is targeted to an older crowd, and while it is still about building muscle it also includes an emphasis on well-rounded athleticism, thus the difference in exercise selection, but the overall philosophy still works.

Reg Park also had some advanced routines that were geared for elite fulltime bodybuilders in their 20s. If you reach that level, you may want to look into those.

Note: When I was younger, I trained full body 3 x week, but as I got older, it was too much for me to recover from and I have dropped to 2 x week. Now in my 60s, I only train heavy once every four days. Time is cruel master.

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WHAT! Only Strength Train Every Forth Day!

Crusty Ninja training consists of heavy strength training every 4 days with the days in between devoted to fitness, balance, coordination, mobility, flexibility, and getting you preparing for your muscle-building day.

Yes, only strength training once every four days. I know you don't believe me (no one ever does - until they try it), but most people will make faster gains by strength training about twice a week as opposed to four to five times a week. I know this for a fact. I have trained many older gym rats. Many came to me because their training had stalled and they hadn't made gains in years. They were typically doing at least four days a week of weight training; some as much as seven. I would cut them back to two days a week of strength training and one day a week of mobility, balance, etc., with rest and general fitness on the other days. Without exception, everyone of them began making gains again. Sometimes, quite dramatically. These people were just simply overtraining. They were not allowing enough recovery time for their muscles to grow. Also, if you don't get enough rest and recovery between strength training sessions, you won't be able to put in the intensity of effort needed to stimulate new muscle growth in a natural athlete. Now, I'm not talking about newbies. Newbies get decent results almost no matter what they do and most can't train hard enough to overtrain even if they wanted to. I'm talking about people who had been training for at least a year and are long past their newbie gains and are stuck in a rut.

One of the first things you'll notice when you switch to the Crusty Ninja style of training is that your joints start to feel better and you have more energy for training.

What? You mean not beating up my joints four to five times a week will make them less achy? IKR, sounds crazy but it's true. And imagine if you spent the days in between doing joint health and healing exercises? What would your joints feel like then?

Overtraining is one of the biggest detriments for typical drug-free gym goers. They almost all do it. That's because that's what the pros do. But remember, the pros are genetic outliers and taking substances that allow them to train more than the average drug-free trainee can. Copying what they do does not work well for most people. Your training should be more like what people did before steroids came on the scene and changed the way the pros trained.

One of the things overtraining does is decrease your testosterone production leading to poor training results. Don't forget, your pros and influencers are getting their testosterone externally. When you do steroids, your natural testosterone production drops to almost zero. So someone on steroids doesn't have to worry about training in a way that lowers or increases their natural testosterone production - because they couldn't get their natural testosterone production any lower or higher if they tried. Their testosterone levels are dictated by how much they inject. Their body has shut down its own production. As a natural trainee, you have to train in a way that maximizes your natural testosterone production. I don't mean to harp on steroid use, but it is critical to understand the difference between training naturally and training on steroids. Crusty Ninja training is based on how people trained before steroids existed.

Advantages of Heavy Training Only Once Every 4 Days

• Decreased Joint Issues

  This allows more time for joints to recover and allows for training sessions on the other days that focus on improving overall joint health.

• More Energy for Your Training

  With only training once every four days, those days are going to feel like killer days. If I train heavy on Monday: Tuesday: I know I'm not ready to train again. Wednesday: I could train again, but I know I'm not 100%. Thursday: I really feel like I'm ready to train, but I don't. Friday: Heavy day again, my energy is through the roof, my joints feel good, and I kill it. I have enough energy to train with the intensity needed to actually work the muscles hard enough to make gains.

• Less Time in the Gym

  With less strength days, your life isn't spent in the gym. Most of the other day's training can be done at home.
  Note: Some people would see this a bad thing, as going to the gym is their escape. Some people go to bars and clubs to relax and unwind, others go to gym. Ironically, this can be one of the hardest parts of Crusty Ninja style training - staying out of the gym. I'm subject to this as well. Some days I'll go to the gym just to do stretching and mobility work, even though I could easily do these at home. I like and enjoy the atmosphere at the gym.

• Weight Loss

  Strength training is an important part of a weight loss program. Burning calories and getting fitter are critical to fat loss and keeping it off long term. Less time spent strength training means a lot more time that can be spent burning fat and getting fitter.

  But Crusty, doesn't weight training burn just as many calories as cardio?

  Yes and no. If you are doing circuit-style weight training with very short rest periods between sets, then yes you can burn just as many calories as running on a treadmill. In fact, circuit training is a very good way to do weight loss/cardio sessions. But this style of training won't build much muscle (except for newbies) and generally shouldn't be considered strength training.

So Crusty, why do so many weight loss gurus shun doing cardio and say it is not helpful for weight loss?

There's some truth to that. Most people aren't fit enough (or willing to push hard enough) to burn a significant amount of calories during an hour of cardio. Most people, especially out of shape people, can only burn 200-300 calories during an hour of cardio. A really fit person can burn 1,000 or more calories per hour. Four cardio sessions at 250 calories per session equals 1,000 calories, or less than a 1/3 pound of fat (3,500 calories in a pound of fat). Four 1,000 calorie cardio session equals 4,000 calories burned or a little more than a pound of fat. This is why getting fit is so important to maintaining weight loss. It's a lot easier for a fit person to lose and keep the weight off. And this why many people say cardio isn't that important for weight loss. If you don't get fit enough to burn significant calories, then yes, doing cardio isn't going to help that much. The Crusty Ninja training is designed to make you fit enough so that you can burn 1,000 calories or more per hour when doing cardio. If you want to look strong and fit, get strong and fit.

Real life example:

A new gym member had just finished a treadmill session and called me over to tell me he had been going the gym every day for a month trying to lose weight but had gained 4 pounds. I looked at his treadmill and there was a coffee cup in the cup holder. I asked what he was drinking and he said it was some "double mocha with cream", etc. that he needed for energy to do his treadmill session. We looked it up and there were almost 700 calories in his drink. I then looked at the summary for his treadmill session and he had only burned 177 calories. So we did the math: 700 - 177 is a little more than 500 calories *GAINED* every session. Multiply that by 30 days and you have 15,000 calories gained during his cardio sessions. Divide that by 3,500 (calories in a pound of body fat) equals 4.2 pounds. He was pretty much right on track for the expected weight gain, the numbers don't lie. But this is common. People will do cardio and then reward themselves with a treat that has more calories than their cardio session burned.

• Muscle Gains

  As hard as it is to convince people of this (until they try it), they will make faster muscle gains with a hard session every four days, than they will doing a 4-5 day bro split.

Here's a typical case study of switching to 2 x week:

Older male in his early 50s comes to me because he hasn't made any strength gains in over two years. He was training 6-7 days a week 2-3 hours a session. I cut him back to my traditional 1-hour sessions of 2 x week strength plus 1 x week mobility/functional. In about a month (it typically takes about a month to recover from overtraining) he started making gains again. This went on for several months of steady gains until he stalled again. He was showing definite signs of overtraining, but he swore he was resting on his off days. This didn't make any sense until one day I was talking to a friend of his who told me about the "killer workouts" the two of them had been doing at another gym on his off days. They had started these sessions just a few weeks before he stalled - what a coincidence. I convinced him to stop the extra sessions and lo and behold, he started making gains again. If you are drug free and not genetically gifted, then you can only train so much before it becomes counter productive.

I wish I could say this was a one-time occurrence, but this is an ongoing problem with Crusty Ninja style of training. Stopping people from doing more than is prescribed. I can't even count the number of times people have sabotaged their training by adding in extra gym days. One of the problems is that if you train just the amount needed and no more than that you start feeling good. Your muscles are rested, your joints feel good, and you just start itching to go the gym. I know, because I fight this myself. I'm obsessive and compete at a very high level (former World Champion) and am semi-retired and have lots of free time on my hands. If I thought I could get better results training seven days a week for four hours a day, I'd do it. But through trial and error (much like the ancient Greeks), I have found the max that I can do before I start going backwards is at most about once every four days of strength training with cardio, mobility, balance, etc. on the days between. That is what gets me the best results. That is what gets most natural older athletes the best results. That is the optimal training. And that is what Crusty Ninja is based on.

The Elevator Theory.

Take the example of using an elevator. You go in and press the button for the floor you want. If you keep pressing the button, will the elevator get there any faster? No, all you're doing is wearing out the button. The human body is much the same. Do enough strength training to "push the button" to stimulate muscle growth and then give it a chance to happen. Doing more than this is just wearing you out. And to stretch this analogy a little further, what if you go into the elevator and push ALL the buttons? Now, it's going to take even longer for the elevator to reach its destination. Same with your body. At some point "pushing all the buttons" by extreme overtraining will actually slow down your gains.
Once you have done enough to stimulate growth, STOP. You can only stimulate so much growth per session. Additional training will not stimulate more growth. You've pushed the button. Doing more is at best just wasting time. At worst, you're actually impeding your gains.

I have the hardest time convincing people that this style of training will work for them. They see me at 65 years old doing cartwheels and gymnastics-style bar exercises while maintaining a decent lean muscle mass and moving fairly large weights around and ask what my training is like. When I tell them, they always say they would never be able to make gains on once every four days of full body strength training. They are convinced that they must do a 4-5 day bro split. The handful that I get to try it and stick with it soon become believers (until they get bored and start missing the gym - and start adding in those counterproductive extra sessions).

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Stretching and Yoga

The Crusty Ninja program includes stretching. The value of basic stretching is hard to overstate. You don't need to become a yoga master, but you do need basic flexibility. Along with reducing injuries, basic stretching also helps strengthen tendons and ligaments and speed up recovery. Luckily, you don't need much. Ten minutes 3-4 times a week is plenty. When doing static stretches, as mostly used here, holding the stretch for 30 seconds is all that is needed to get most of the benefit that you are going to get from the stretch. If your goal is to improve flexibility, then after that the law of diminishing returns applies. Repeating the stretch in the same session will only marginally increase its benefit. Sort of like high intensity strength training. You get most of the benefit from the first working set, not as much benefit from the second working set, and only a little bit more from the third.

If each stretch is held for only 30 seconds, then in 10 minutes you should be able to get about 10-15 different stretches in (add in time for transitioning, catching your breath, etc.). You can easily cover stretching your whole body with this.

"But Crusty, if I only need 10 minutes of stretching per session, then why are most yoga/stretching classes an hour or more?"

Several reasons. Most yoga/stretching classes include other things along with them, such as strength, meditation, and breathing. These can add significantly to the overall time of the class. Also, there is an unwritten rule that gym classes, especially ones you pay for, must be at least an hour long. Are you going to pay $8 or more for a 10-minute class? So, instructors will lengthen the class by repeating stretches, even though this adds little benefit.

If you enjoy doing longer yoga/stretching classes, then by all means do so. There's generally little harm, but it won't improve your results much. And if it includes mediation, breathing, and relaxation, these can have benefits on their own.

Warning! Only do the basics. You only need to do beginner's stretching. For many people, doing the advanced stretching poses more risk than benefit. Some people are naturally flexible and willing to spend the time needed to master advanced stretching. These people become yoga instructors. The average person will only hurt themselves trying to copy them. I think a lot of yoga instructors suffer the same problem that old rock musicians suffer. They've been playing their hits from the 1970s for years and are sick and tired of them. So we go to their concert hoping to hear our favorites and the first thing they say when they get to the stage is the dreaded phrase, "Tonight, we're going to be playing our new stuff". I get it, you've been playing the same songs for over 40 years and you're sick of it. But I didn't pay for an overpriced concert ticket to hear your new stuff (rant, rant, rant). Anyway, yoga instructors have the same problem. They've been doing, cat, dog, camel, triangle, etc. for years and they're are bored doing them. So they have people trying to stick their head between their legs while standing on one foot. Impressive to watch them do it, but you'll most likely just get hurt.

• Don't do any pose that feels wrong for you
• Don't stand on your head or put pressure on your neck
• Don't put you leg behind your head
• Don't try to balance on one hand
• Don't do anything beyond beginner's level

For someone who just wants to feel good and move well, there's no need for anything beyond beginner's stretching/yoga.

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Protect Your Joints

You'll notice that some of the descriptions of how to do various exercises are different from what you might have seen elsewhere. That's because the focus of Crusty Ninja training is developing long-term strength and fitness while protecting your joints from damage. The exercise form that allows you to lift the biggest weight or get the most reps may not be the best for your joints. Most exercise descriptions, especially from your gym bros, are based on what allows them to lift the biggest weight and impress the other gym rats. But this is where you have to check your ego at the door.

A good example is the bench press. Many people, especially beginners, can bench more weight with their elbows flared out from the sides as opposed to elbows tucked nearer the sides of their body. If you've ever done narrow grip bench press, you know exactly what I mean. The problem with benching with elbows flared is that it puts the shoulders and rotator cuffs in a vulnerable position for injury. This is one of the reasons that the bench press gets such a bad reputation as a shoulder wrecker and why so many bench pressers have shoulder issues.

But Crusty, won't my muscles grow faster if I lift the biggest weight that I can handle?

This is a misunderstanding and one of the basic principles of strength training. Yes, in general the bigger the load you place on your muscles the faster they will grow. But the biggest weight and the biggest load are not always the same thing. That deserves repeating: "the biggest weight and the biggest load are not always the same thing". With all else being equal, yes the bigger weight will create a bigger load, but if you place a muscle in a mechanical disadvantage you can create the same load forcing the muscle to work just as hard with a smaller weight. It's all about leverages. In the case of the bench press, moving the elbows closer to the body puts the muscles at a mechanical disadvantage, thus even with a smaller weight they are under the same load and working just as hard. The advantage of course is that now your shoulders are in a better protected position making it less likely to injure them or do long-term damage to them. So, there'll be more damage to your ego, but less damage to your shoulders. And your muscles will grow just as fast because they are working just as hard.

That being said, as a former world champion powerlifter my competition bench press style is very different from my day-to-day training style. In a competition, my goal is to bench the biggest weight that I can. Outside of competition, my goal is to make my muscles as strong as possible without doing damage to my joints. Two very different goals and they need very different lifting styles. Grinding your shoulders a couple of times a year for competitions is not going to do much lasting damage, but doing it all year long will. As I often say, my success in powerlifting is based more on longevity than being all that great. I compete full raw. Most people by the time they reach my age either have bad shoulders and can't bench, or bad knees and can't squat, or a bad back and can't deadlift. Powerlifting is based on your total for these three lifts and most people my age have at least one lift they can't do well due to joint damage. So while I'm not great at any of these, I don't suck at any of them either, so my total is generally good enough to win.

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I Can't Squat

Almost all my older lifters when they start will tell me that they can't squat because they have bad knees, hips, back, etc. They ALL eventually squat - and squat significant weights and ironically those issues that they complained about lessen as they get better at squatting. Classic example: Had a guy in late 50s who worked standing all day and when he got home would ice his knees because they hurt so much. Just like everyone else, when we started training he said he couldn't squat because he had bad knees and was bone on bone. Two separate doctors had told him the only cure for his knee pain was knee replacement surgery. We squatted… and squatted… One day he tells me he hasn't iced his knees in over a month. He hadn't stopped on purpose, but his knees just weren't hurting anymore. So what happened? His knees were still bad, the cartilage was still worn, this hadn't changed. What did change was his legs were stronger. Think about this. When you stand, it's your leg muscles that are supposed to support you. If your leg muscles are too weak to support you, then it's your bones that have to support you. Instead of your muscles holding you up, it's now bone grinding on bone. Do this all day and your knees are going to hurt - even if you have good knees. I've noticed that most people's knee issues go away (or at least are greatly reduced) when they can squat a bar loaded with their body weight. This makes sense if you think about it. When you squat a bar loaded with your bodyweight, your legs are actually supporting almost twice your bodyweight (the bar + your own weight), which means each leg is supporting close to your own bodyweight. Likewise, when you're walking and raise a foot the other leg and knee are supporting close to your bodyweight. If your muscles are not strong enough to do this, then it's up to your bones to support you. Do this all day and you will have knee and probably hip pain. Even if you have good knees and hips. If you have bad knees and hips, it's going to be that much worse. To make matters worse, when someone's legs are too weak to support them, they will drive their knees together for support. You see this in very overweight people when they are standing. This will definitely cause knee pain over time.
If you can't properly squat a bar loaded with your body weight, then you will be forced to grind your knee bones together when you walk. And you are going to have knee pain - even if you have good knees.

The problem with squatting, is very few people do it correctly. I see this in the gym all the time, especially among beginners. The most gawd awful squats you've ever seen. They are generally doing more harm than good. If they do this long enough, then they will eventually injure themselves. This is how squats get a bad name. Learn how to squat correctly and learn how to squat deep.

Why do we squat deep?

Squatting deep maximizes muscle growth, improves knee ligament strength, and boosts glute and quad activation. Contrary to popular beliefs, research shows deep squats strengthen ligaments and improve long-term knee stability.

Why does everyone else squat to parallel?

Mostly because it's easier and you can squat more weight. Secondly, because that's how they do it in competition.
Squatting to parallel (or thereabouts depending on the federation) was chosen for competitions because it's easier to judge.
What was the best depth for training was not even a consideration. Remember, a competition is for demonstrating strength, not building strength. Training is for building strength. I don't know why people get these two confused.

Don't squat with your heels raised

The two main reasons for squatting with your heels raised is to 1) target the quads over the hamstrings and 2) to make up for lack of mobility. The Crusty Ninja program is about building a balanced musculature, thus we rarely target muscle groups and focus on building muscles that work together in balance with each other.
If you have mobility issues, that needs to fixed, not just compensated for. The Squat progression below will develop the needed mobility.

What to do for my legs while learning the squat progressions?

The squat progressions require that you use fairly light weights. This will not likely present much stimulus for muscle growth. So while you are learning the progressions, add alternate exercises to your routine.
Squat Alternatives
• Belt squat. This is your best alternative if you have access to one.
• Single-leg leg press. Why single leg? Because if you don't have the mobility to do a squat, you probably don't have the mobility to properly do a double-leg leg press. When doing the leg press, you should have your hips pressing against the seat, not your back. This is difficult to do if you have poor lower back mobility. So people sit on the leg press with their back pressing against the seat. When they press, this creates shearing forces on their lower vertebrae. This is an injury waiting to happen. When pressing with just a single leg, it's much easier to get your hips against the seat.
Another advantage of single leg pressing is keeping the left and right leg muscles in balance. On a leg press, if one leg is stronger than the other it tends to do most of the work and gets most of the benefit from the exercise and the imbalance continues to increase.
Note: Always start with your weakest leg.

Squat Progressions

Phase 1) ATG Goblet Squats

Ass-to-Grass (ATG) Goblet squats force you to engage your abs to keep your chest up. This will protect your spine. Many beginner squatters lean forward curving their lower back doing what almost looks like a weird variation of a good morning. Very dangerous for the spine. Goblet squats will cure you of this.

Going ass-to-grass forces you to engage your hamstrings (back of the legs) and glutes. Many beginner squatters use primarily the quads (the front of the legs) for the squat. When you are ass-to-grass, the quads are fully stretched and can't contribute as much to the squat forcing you to use your glutes and hamstrings. The hamstrings help stabilize the knee. If you have weak hamstrings, you will likely have knee pain, especially on the inner side of the kneecap. When I was bike racing, a lot of racers would develop knee pain. Road cycling tends to develop the quads more than the hamstrings. When they get out of balance, the quads can push the knees harder than the hamstrings can stabilize and knees gets pulled out of alignment. This will cause pain. Having bikers do hamstring exercises, such as ass-to-grass squats, almost always fixed the problem.

A good rule of thumb: Almost anytime the muscles around a joint are out of balance with each other, joint pain will follow. This is part of why so many gym rats have elbow issues. Really strong upper arms and weak forearms. Nobody skips bi and tri day. But who does forearm day?

Start with 3 sets of 10 reps goblet squats with no more then 5 pounds going just as deep as you are comfortable with. If you need to, squat to a good sturdy bench so that you don't fall over. Keep getting deeper with them until you can get 10 Ass-to-Grass reps. When you can do 10 Ass-to-Grass reps, go up to 10 pounds. Keep progressing this way in 5-pound increments until you can do half your bodyweight. DO NOT sacrifice depth for weight. If you can't do Ass-to-Grass, keep working with that weight until you can.
Don't use slant boards or heel lifts of any sort. Those are crutches for those who lack hip and ankle mobility. The purpose of this program is to develop proper hip and ankle mobility, so a heel lift would be self defeating.

While you are working on this, work on developing the shoulder flexibility to hold a bar behind your neck.

When you can do 10 reps of Ass-to-Grass goblet squats with half your bodyweight, you are ready for the next step.

How long does Phase 1 typically take?
Everyone is different. It will likely take several months or more. An absolute beginner with poor mobility should expect at least 6 months. An strong lifter with good mobility may already be there.

Phase 2) Barbell Box Squats

Box squats teach you to drive backwards (imagine sitting on a toilet), forcing you to engage hamstrings and glutes and reducing the load on the knee.
These are done a little higher than the ATG Goblet Squats, with your thighs reaching just below parallel.

The goblet squats taught you how to brace with your abs and core, box squats will teach you how to drive with your hamstrings and hips and not just your quads.

The goal is to drive the butt backwards while the knees and shins don't move, like they were cast in cement. When working with clients I will hold a stick about an inch in front of their knees and their goal is not let their knees touch the stick.

Start light, with just the bar. When you have the movement down, add 10 pounds (or 5 kg) to the bar.

When you can do those perfectly, add another 10.

Repeat until you can properly box squat a barbell loaded with ½ your body weight for 10 reps.

Phase 3) Low Bar Squat

Now that you can brace with your abs and core and drive with your hamstrings and hips, you are ready to squat. If you can't do those things, your squats will get ugly and you likely get injured.

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The Elephant in the Room - Steroids

The Crusty Ninja style of training is NOT appropriate for people on steroids.

I don't like to harp on anabolic steroids, and I only bring it up because it's important to understand the difference between training on steroids vs. training as an older natural athlete. If the training was the same, then I wouldn't even mention steroids, because it would be irrelevant. But the training is not the same. If you are not on steroids, then you have to understand that what works best for someone on steroids is not what what will work best for you. I have the hardest time convincing people of this basic fact. This is not a moral position. I personally don't care if someone uses steroids. I don't even think it should be illegal. I have friends that use steroids and I support them in their training. That is their choice. It's just not my choice. As an adult, you can drink, smoke, overeat, all things that can potentially harm your health. It's your choice.

So what is the difference between training on steroids vs. training as a natural older athlete?

• Anabolic steroids improve recovery.

  Anabolic steroids improve recovery, so training can be higher volume with fewer rest days. If a natural tries to do the same volume of training that someone on steroids can do, their body will simply break down and they will get minimal gains. It is during recovery that you actually build muscle. And unless you are genetically gifted (there are a few rare people that are) then your recovery time has to be longer than someone on steroids.
  This reminds me of the story of a Russian Olympic gymnastics coach from long ago. He was only interested in training athletes that could compete and win at the Olympics. His style of coaching required his athletes do many hours of skills training to develop the level of skill needed. This was much more training than the average person could handle before their body would simply break down. He didn't want to waste time with trainees that would not be able to handle his style of training. So, when a new trainee would start he would put them through a few months of heavy volume training. The vast majority of people couldn't handle this much training and their bodies would break down and he would eliminate them from his program. But every so often someone would come through it okay. He then knew this person could handle the volume of training it would take to become a star gymnast. There are a few people who are genetically gifted with seemingly endless recovery and can train extremely high volume to no ill effect. But they are as rare as world class gymnasts. And as we get older and crustier, our ability to recover diminishes - sad but true.
  The Crusty Ninja training is relatively low volume training designed to be within the limits of most older people's abilty to recover.

• Steroids allow you to build more muscle than your joints can handle.

  Everyone has a biological limit on how much muscle they can build naturally. This is dictated by things such as genetics, age, health, lifestyle, and joint size. One of the biggest factors on how much muscle you can build is joint size. That's because your body won't naturally build more muscle than your joints and tendons were designed to handle. This is nature's way of preventing you from getting strong enough to rip yourself apart. Anabolic steroids do away with these limits and allow you build more muscle than your body was built for. This is why so many people on steroids tear their tendons and muscles loose.
  Most people on steroids are aware of this danger. They know that if they were to train with the biggest weights they could lift, they would destroy their body over time. So to prevent injury, they train with lighter weights than their muscles can handle. To compensate for the lower intensity training, they must increase the volume, generally to a level a natural couldn't handle.
  Here's a good question? If you can get big muscles with lighter weights and higher volume, then why even train with heavy weights? Because high intensity training builds more muscle faster than lower intensity training for most people. This should be obvious. You don't build big legs by running marathons. Marathon running is epitome of low intensity/high volume training. But if you can't do the high intensity training that is most effective (because you're on steroids and you've built so much muscle mass that your joints can't handle it), then lower intensity/higher volume training is your next best choice.
  High intensity training works best for most naturals. When you use sub-maximal intensity, then you must compensate by increasing the volume. And most naturals simply can't handle the extra volume without their body breaking down. This is why copying the routines of the best pros rarely works well for most individuals. They simply don't have the ability to recover from that much training.

• Steroids suppress your natural testosterone production.

  Everyone's body has a set level on how much testosterone it will allow. If you artificially add testosterone, then your body will simply produce less testosterone to compensate so that eventually you end up back at the same level. This was discovered in the early days after testosterone was first used experimentally. The recipient's testosterone levels would rise in the beginning and they would feel great at first, but eventually their body would reduce its own production to compensate so that they ended up back at their original level even with the injections. Because of this, it was falsely assumed that injecting testosterone wouldn't be effective. It wasn't until they realized that they had to inject a large enough amount that even when the body wasn't producing any of its own testosterone, their levels were still higher than normal. This is when the steroid era began. Before that, most strength training involved exercises that would convince your body that it needed more testosterone and thus would raise your testosterone level naturally. But, while you're on steroids, your body is not going to produce testosterone no matter what you do - period - so these old-school training techniques have been dropped; simply no point in doing them as it is impossible for them to have their intended effect.
  Strongmen and bodybuilders of the pre-steroid era also avoided training styles that reduced their natural testosterone, such as high volume overtraining as is typically practiced by most gym rats today. Think about it: If your natural testosterone production is already at zero, there's no way to produce less, so you don't have to be concerned about reducing it further.

• Steroids increase your max muscle potential (MMP).

  This is an incredibly important point to understand. Everyone one has a MMP that is primarily determined by your genetics, age, health, and lifestyle. The farther you are from your MMP, the easier it to make gains. For example, if you have a MMP that would allow you with proper training to bench 300 pounds and you currently only bench 80 pounds, then you will make gains in your bench press almost no matter what you do. High reps, low reps, split routine, full body, once a week, 5 times a week, it almost doesn't matter - you will make gains. This is why newbies make progress pretty much no matter what they do - they are a long ways from their MMP. On contrast, look at the seasoned lifter who also has MMP bench of 300 pounds and is currently benching 280 pounds. He will struggle to make gains and his training has to be on point to add weight to his bench press.
  Anabolic steroids raise your MMP. That guy with a natural MMP bench press of 300 pounds may now has a steroid-induced MMP bench of 450 pounds. For all intents and purposes, he is a newbie again from the perspective of how far he is from his MMP. And just like a newbie, he will make progress almost no matter what he does. But if you remember from above, if he starts training with weights above his natural MMP, he risks serious injury to his joints and tendons. Joint and tendon size are one of the factors that limit your natural MMP to prevent you from getting strong enough to tear yourself apart. So, by necessity he has to train with weights lighter than his anabolic MMP would allow to prevent injury. To compensate for this reduction in intensity, he has to add volume. This type of training rarely works for anyone near their MMP, but his MMP has been artificially raised and he is no longer anywhere near his new MMP.
  If you are near your MMP, then high intensity training is what is required to trigger new muscle growth. If you are near your MMP, then you will not make good progress training with the high volume training like those who have a much higher steroid-created MMP as do most of today's top bodybuilders. And if you are natural and your intensity is high enough to induce muscle growth, then you must limit the volume of your training to allow recovery. This is why the training of most modern bodybuilders does not work well for naturals. Especially older naturals. It will work well for newbies - at least for a while.

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It's Easier to Lose 20 Pounds Quickly than to Lose 20 Pounds in a Year

No, That is Not a Typo: It is easier to lose 20 pounds (9kg) quickly than it is to lose 20 pounds in a year. Why do I say that? Because, I see plenty of people lose 20 pounds or more in a short period of time. I see very few who keep it off for a year. Obviously, it's easier to lose it than keep it off. That's why I don't get too excited when someone tells me about the new fad diet that they are on and how much weight they have lost over the last few months. If your goal is to lose it and then gain it all back, then that's just fine. You laugh, but I knew a trainer who specialized in that. Every year, right before New Year's, he'd lose a bunch of weight, then go around bragging about his weight loss, and then sign up weight loss clients - even though he was still clinically obese. And it worked. He got lot's of clients that way. And most of them lost weight, and almost all put it right back on - including himself. This is typical of people who go on quick weight loss diets. They stick with it for a while, but it's not a lifestyle that they can maintain, so they get off the diet, go back to their old ways and gain the weight back. Unless someone is extremely overweight, I encourage them to only lose ½ to 1 pound (0.22 to 0.45 kg) a week AT MOST! No, you're not going to get a million Instagram followers, but you'll have a better chance of overall long-term success.

Story Time: A potential weight loss client come to me stating he wanted to lose 35 pounds (16 kg). He seemed pretty motivated, so I started describing a goal of losing about a pound a week. He stopped me and said that wouldn't work because it would take too long. I asked him how long he had been trying to lose weight? He said a couple of years. So I asked him how many pounds did he lose last year? He gave me a sheepish grin and said he gained 10 pounds. I responded, "If you had lost only ½ pound a week last year that would have been 26 pounds. Subtract the 10 pounds you gained and you would be at your goal right now. Losing ½ pound a week is relatively easy." A few minutes later, I overheard the above mentioned trainer telling him he would teach him "the secrets of weight loss". A year later they were both fatter. There are no secrets of weight loss.

My Own Story: Years ago, before I got serious about my health I took a job sitting behind a desk all day 60 to 80 hours a week - and gained a lot of weight. Went from a healthy, but skinny, 145 pounds to over 210 pounds. I realized I needed to make a change. All I did was change my lunch. Breakfast and supper stayed the same, typically two eggs and oatmeal for breakfast. Supper was whatever my girlfriend of the time would make. She was a pescatarian (no meat, but fish is allowed), so it was typically tofu or fish with lots of vegetables and some bread or starch. Twice a week we would go out to dinner and I would order whatever I wanted. That doesn't mean I would pig out, it just means I ordered something I liked. The big change was lunch. Every day for lunch I would ride my stationary bike for 45 minutes while watching Judge Judy. I would cruise during the main parts of the show and go as fast and hard as I could during the commercials. Then I would eat some rice, tuna salad (a can of tuna, spicy mustard, dill relish, and a hard boiled egg mixed together). Twice a week my girlfriend and I went out to eat and I would order something I enjoyed. Nothing crazy, not three desserts and tons of appetizers, just something I would enjoy. It's a lot easier to have restraint today if you know tomorrow you will have something you enjoy.
That was it. That was my big weight loss plan. I'm not going to claim it was the world's best weight loss plan (probably shouldn't eat tuna every day), but it worked. I started losing about a pound a week. In addition to losing the fat, I got very fit. In fact, the fitter I got, the faster I rode the stationary bike and started losing fat even faster. I eventually added in some weight training sessions a couple of times a week and developed a pretty good physique. And to boot, I got to like biking so much that I started biking outdoors and even racing. Yes, it was slow. But I've kept the fat off and remained lean and fit for over 30 years now.

That should be your goal. Lose fat slowly while getting fitter, stronger, healthier, and living a lifestyle that's maintainable. That's how you will keep it off. Small changes to diet and an hour a day getting fitter, stronger, and healthier. You won't feel deprived, because you know you'll be eating your favorite foods soon. You don't feel hungry, because you're eating enough to stay satiated.
"But I'm busy with work and kids, I don't have an hour a day!" If that's the case, then find something you do every day that's less important than your health and quit doing that. And then use that time for something more important - YOUR HEALTH! If your health isn't worth an hour a day, you may need to reevaluate your priorities. An hour a day doesn't mean you have to be at the gym. It may mean doing some stretching or walking in place while watching TV. My personal rule is to avoid idly watching television. I have a stationary bike in front of my TV. When I watch TV, I riding the bike, or jogging place, or stretching. Something besides just blobbing out.

Story Time: I have a friend who swears the only way she can lose weight is on a keto diet. And she does - for a few months. And then she puts it right back on - plus some. And in her mind that works. Apparently her definition of "works" and my definition of "works" is different. My goal for people is to lose weight and keep it off. Not to just lose it.
Her diet deprives herself of all the things she likes to eat. Sure you can do that for a while. But for the rest of your life? Know that you can still eat the things you like, just not every meal and snacks inbetweeen.

Take it Slow: If you wanted to run a marathon, would you go out the next day and try to run 26.2 miles? No, of course not. But this is what dieters do. They say I'm going to cut my calories down to 1600 calories a day and they try to start with that on the very first day. As a result, they are hungry, their body is unhappy, they have trouble maintaining their glucose levels, get brain fog, and after a couple days give up.
Don't do that. Ease into your diet. Your body needs time to adapt to changes in your diet.

Start with small changes and work up over time. Go out and walk a 1/2 mile. A month later, bump it up 3/4 mile. Swap out that sugary drink for something with less calories. Have a treat once in a while.

The weight loss information on this site is based on losing fat in a healthy manner and keeping it off. No extreme diet plans, no quick weight loss, no gimmicks, just lose the fat, get fit and get strong.

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My Trainer Says Bench Press is Bad for Your Shoulders

Because very few trainers know how to train the bench to be done safely.

You can Google "proper form for bench press" and get a lot of good and bad advice.

But to bench press safely requires a lot more than just using proper form during the exercise. It also requires conditioning and strengthening the upper back and shoulder girdle so that it is strong enough and stable enough to safely handle the load your chest can push. And this is where a lot of gym rats get hurt. They become bench press specialists, doing bench and pecs and tris every workout while neglecting everything that holds your shoulder together.

"The fastest way to increase your bench press is to only work on your bench press.

The fastest way to an injury is to only work on your bench press."

Story Time: Had a client who had a fixation on benching. He was benching 260 pounds (118 kg) and although he moved the weight fairly easily, I could that he wasn't able to fully stabilize his shoulder. He wanted to try to bench more. I explained that while his chest and arms were strong enough to bench more, his shoulders weren't ready yet. We'll work on strengthening the shoulder and then we'll go up. He got mad and even accused me of "holding him back", which made no sense. As a trainer I want my clients to excel, I definitely don't want to hold anyone back. Anyway, he got mad and said if I didn't let him bench more he was going to quit. I told him, I rather you quit than get hurt during our training. So he quit. About two weeks later I saw wearing a shoulder sling. He came up and told me he hurt his shoulder trying to bench 275 and that he wished that he had listened. When he shoulder healed, he started training with me again. The bad part was the gym gossip was that he got hurt WHILE training with me. I had to nip that rumor in the bud.

"Doesn't matter how strong your arms and chest are, if you can't stabilize the weight you will eventually get injured benching."

This general rule applies to all the big lifts. If your are unsteady, shaking, wobbly, you are an injury waiting to happen.

Story Time: A while back, I was in the gym and a friend was doing safety bar squats. He told me he had to use the safety bar because he couldn't reach back far enough to use a regular squat bar. I warned him that if his shoulders are so tight he can't reach back, it's unlikely he can get in the correct position to bench safely. He ignored me, and a month later he was wearing a shoulder brace. He said he tore something in his shoulder while benching. And he was even up to his heavy sets yet.

"Mobility without strength is useless. Strength without mobility is an injury."

Without proper mobility in the shoulders, you will eventually tear your shoulders up benching.

Benching is a lot more than just using correct form while benching. It's preparing your body to safely do a big bench. All the correct form in the world won't save you if you have weak unstable shoulders.

Machines Are the Worst For Bench Pressing
Yes, you can build big muscles using the bench press and Smith machine. What you can't do is build stability into your shoulders if that's all you use for bench. To be fair, the machines can be useful for developing your chest and bench, but should be considered an accessory exercise - not your main bench exercise.

Story Time: My very first client had benched exclusively on machines and could bench 150 pounds. But when doing an actual bench press, he couldn't even bench the empty bar. Couldn't stabilize it. It was all over the place.

One of the problems with bench machines (and other machines as well), because it stabilizes everything for you, you don't have to engage the muscles that are needed in order to stabilize the bar. To be fair, someone who has been benching correctly for years probably can engage all the necessary muscles when using a machine. But if you haven't learned to do this, it is unlikely you're going to learn it on a machine. And if you don't engage those muscles, they won't get stronger.
This is why bench machines can be useful for advanced lifters, especially when trying to break through plateaus and such. But they are terrible at teaching you how to bench correctly and preparing you for a safe bench press.

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Protein Powder vs. Chicken

I catch chicken leg quarters on sale all the time. When it's on sale, I can buy 10 pounds bags of leg quarters with skin and bone for $6 = 815 grams of protein, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 80 grams of fat, and 900 calories. I just bought 60 pounds the other day.

That's about 32 servings of 25 grams of protein (typical protein drink = 25 grams of protein).

25 grams of protein from whey isolate cost about $1.17

25 grams of protein from chicken quarters cost about $0.26

The chicken is a win because it is much cheaper and also gives me much needed fat and more satiety.

And I'd rather eat chicken than a protein drink.

I cook all 10 pounds at once and freeze to reheat as needed.

Eggs are also a bargain compared to protein powder. 3½ large eggs cost about $0.50 to get 25 grams of protein.

Nutrition information is from CalorieKing

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Why You Should Ignore Studies

When I first got serious about strength training, being the nerd that I am, I began reading exercise studies. Not the popular newsstand magazine articles, but actual medical journals. One of the first things I learned is that you can find a study that supports practically any method of training you desire as being the best for muscle growth. High reps, low reps, once a week, five times a week, you name it, it was the best. How can that be? How can they all be the best way to train?

First you have to understand how exercise studies work and the fallacies they typically fall victim to which make then meaningless for the average trainee.

• Newbie Fallacy
Many studies use untrained subjects. An untrained subject will get similar results almost no matter what they do. It's called newbie gains. High reps, low reps, fast tempo, slow tempo, it almost doesn't matter for a newbie. If they train hard, they will get similar gains almost no matter what they do.
And while studies on newbies are important for newbies, they have little relevance for someone who is beyond the newbie stage.
Exercise programs that work great for a newbie may have little to no benefit for someone who's past the newbie stage.

• Isolation Exercise Fallacy
Almost all studies fall into this fallacy. Exercise studies tend to only train a single muscle or muscle group (typically quad muscles such as the vastus lateralis and.or vastus medialis). They do this because these muscles are easy to isolate and easy to study.
There's a huge difference between exercising a few isolated muscles and exercising the whole body. When exercising only a small muscle mass, neurological fatigue isn't a factor. However, when exercising the whole body, especially when using multi-joint exercises, neurological fatigue becomes a major factor in a long-term exercise plan. I can do leg extensions five times a week and won't experience neurological fatigue. But as soon as you some add in some real exercises, like bench press, rowing, squats, deadlifts, neurological fatigue sets in real fast and has to be factored into your training play.
This is why so many show that 3-5 sets is optimal. Sure, if all you are doing is leg extensions, then 3-5 sets is probably best, because it is almost impossible to overtrain if all you are doing is leg extensions.

What builds muscle best when exercising only a few muscles doesn't apply when trying to build the whole body.
If I want to know how to build just my vastus medialis, there's hundreds of studies for that. But that's not what I want to know. I want to know how to build a whole body. So, these studies don't apply to me and probably don't apply to you.

• 10-Week Fallacy
Most studies are limited to 10 weeks or less. We all know that just about everything works at first. I'm not that interested in what will work for 10 weeks. I want to know what will work over a lifetime; years, decades, not just days and weeks.
Just about any thing that you do that is different from what you have been doing will work for a while (even this program). The question is will it work for years.
And to be fair, this program will get most people well into the advanced stages. It is NOT an elite program. To win the world championship I switched for about six months to a program that was focused on peaking for the powerlifting championships. That program was unsustainable for long term. It was, however, doable long enough to peak for competition. And then back to a year-round program.

• Study Quality
Most studies barely qualify as a scientific study. Small groups sizes and the fact that's it's impossible to do a double blind, placebo controlled exercise study. All results have to be taken with a grain of salt simply because bias can be introduced simply by the administrator having expected results.

• So What Studies are Worth Paying Attention To?
Sadly, very few actual studies are worth using for training advice. They can be useful for learning about muscles and how they work, but it's almost impossible to find a clinical study that investigates what you need to know: How to build and maintain muscle across the whole body and be healthy over a lifetime.
The best advice is to follow the tried and true. What has worked for hundreds of years. What works for people like you in the real world. That's how the ancient Greek wrestlers figured out their system of whole body strength training. Hundreds of years of trial and error, weeding out what didn't work and keeping what did work. That is what the Crusty Ninja program is based on. What has been shown to work, keeping focus on what worked before drugs were introduced into weight training.

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Who is Crusty Ninja?

I am a former World Champion Powerlifter, a Natural Pro Masters Bodybuilder, personal trainer, Parkour enthusiast, and 65-year-old guy who wants stay strong and keep moving like an athlete for as long as possible.

My training philosophy is to focus on strength, fitness, and agility. If you have those it's easy to transition to other things, such a baseball, martial arts, even bodybuilding and powerlifting. I never considered myself either a bodybuilder or powerlifter. But when I tried my hand at those I was already lean and strong and easily dominated the competition. If you are lean, strong, and fit, everything else comes easy.

Do I really train like this?

Yes. At least since 2024. Before that I was doing something very similar. Heavy compound lifting twice a week with mobility, agility, and fitness the other days. The only real change is instead of heavy compound lifting twice a week, I now only lift heavy every four days. When I first started weight training, I did heavy compound lifts three times a week. Why? Because that's how almost every famous bodybuilder/weightlifter trained before steroids came along. Even Arnold trained that way in his early days.
I was much younger then and eventually I found I couldn't recover from three heavy days a week and dropped it to twice a week with a medium day in between. Eventually the medium day became an easy day.

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