Flagellator - Chanelling the Acheron

Black thrash featuring Nyktalgia and Judas Iscariot members. Now that i have your undivided attention, im done, so check it out.

Channel

Hobbs Angel of Death - Hobbs Angel of Death

Hobbs Angel of Death were one of the first aussie bands i can ever remember hearing, and always considered them to be like a sign of what was to become, like later on with the aussie masters Bestial Warlust and Destroyer 666. Hobbs played thrash metal not so different from american bands like Slayer and Dark Angel. Would probably have been more popular had they had they longevity Slayer did.

Crucifixion

Unconsecrated - Unconsecrated Cemetary/Dark Awakening

Unconsecrated from Spain, playing pure death metal the old swedish way. Songs about zombies, death, and horror with great catchy lyrics. Everything here is done very well and will please any fan of true death metal.

Drinking their blood...

Goatsnake - Flower of Disease

Was just listening to this and forgot how fucking cool this band was. Funny thing is, i dont even listen to much stuff like this so excuse the clumsy description. I enjoy a little, i always liked Kyuss, who i would compare this to. I would describe this as Stoner Doom although i hate that label, as im sure most bands of this ilk do as well. Also worth mentioning, this band featured Greg Anderson of Sunn O))) fame (and countless other bands) and some of the better vocals you will ever here in metal/rock.

Watering this flower of disease

Warbeast - Krush the Enemy

Warbeast play good old thrash from good old Texas featuring ex Rigor Mortis vocalist and ex Gammacide guitarist, so if that doesnt get you interested, i give up. If you arent into thrash, this probably wont convert you but if you are then you should find plenty of enjoyment here. I recently caught them live and it was a fucking amazing show (if anyone cares).

Krush the Enemy

Vital Remains - Dechristianize

Ok, we all know Vital Remains, and probably all have heard this album a million times and love it. Sure i could post a slew of obscure demos you probably havent heard, but none of them will ever add up to the brilliance that is this fucking album. This is a perfect 10/10, and their best work in my oppinion. From Dave Suzuki's excellent lead work (and drumming as well) to Tony Lazaro's perfect rhythm playing, and lets not forget Glen Benton's ferocious as ever possessed growlage. Just figured if anyone hadnt heard this in a while, or even worse, hadnt EVER heard it (blasphemy), this would be a good reminder.

At War WIth God

Monarque - Ad Nauseam

Monarque is a black metal band from Canada which features a sole member whose name is... Get this... Monarque. He has two full-length albums under his belt, 2007's "Fier Heretique" and 2009's "Ad Nauseam". The better of the two albums is being posted here for you to enjoy. Good songwriting, it's catchy, has competent musicianship so any black metal fan should enjoy this. A live album was also released in 2009 which I have yet to hear.

monarque

Trust me...

I never lie.

Don't have to.

Come on down.

I have...

I have over 1000 pics on my iPhone already.













Spring is coming, finally, my hands are always cold.

Run and You'll Only Die Tired, The Science

At this point, I think, the "evidence" behind the supposition that humans are naturally predisposed to long distance running has been thoroughly debunked.  From an anthropological standpoint it's nonsense, and from a training standpoint it's even moreso- running long distances is fucking ridiculous.

(if you missed the previous installments of this series, they're here, here, here, and here)

Low-intensity/high volume training raises cortisol levels, reduces testosterone and GH levels, causes harmful oxidation, and can disrupt immune system function and cause whole body inflammation, which is an anathema to any hard-training motherfucker who's ever considered moving into a cave to revel in their hatred of the human race and lift insane amounts of weights while wearing a fur loincloth and banging a similarly-clad cave girl.  ( Daly et al, De Vany 100, Faigan 267)  If that's not your cup of tea, running might be, as is hemp clothing, "Kumbaya", and any food product composed of soy.  Given, however, that low intensity exercise like jogging is our hormonal Anti-Christ, it makes sense that we do what we're really suited to- alternately walking and sprinting. (De Vany 98)

On second thought, there's no reason a cave girl should be clothed at all.

Happily for me, the most metabolically efficient, and natural way to go about running is also about the only way you'll see me run.  My personal preference is to go to a track (for ease of timing) and sprint the fuck out of the straightaways, and then walk or do what people in the Army call the "Airbone shuffle", which is essentially simply looking like you're jogging while moving at the pace of a crippled snail.  A mile to a mile and a half of that and I'm cashed, but it was interesting, increase my VO2 max far faster than steady state running would have.  Additionally, studies have shown that sprint trained athletes maintain a GH level 10 times that of baseline for an hour following their workout, which confers far greater anabolism and protein synthesis than endurance athletes are able to achieve.(Di Pasquale 29)

Sprinter Dwain Chambers seems to have gotten a hell of a lot of anabolism out of his sprinting workouts.

Though my favorite may not be yours, the message remains the same- interval training is eminently superior to steady-state cardio, and there are plenty of studies to prove it.  On top of the studies, there's anecdotal evidence- Randy Couture, for instance, long considered the best conditioned athlete in mixed martial arts, doesn't even mention steady state cardio in his training book, Xtreme Training.  Instead, he recommends damn near every kind of training but typical endurance fare like jogging.  Similarly, and thoroughly surprisingly, Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week By Week Training Guide spends more time detailing and promoting interval training than they do steady-state work, which appeared to be included just so triathletes would know how much it fucking sucks before race day.

In the aforementioned training guide, Triathlete's workouts rely tremendously heavily on intervals, which they classify into four categories:

• speed- very short, high intensity workouts to increase speed
• lactate- longer, medium intensity workouts designed to increase aerobic capacity
• threshold- longest interval sessions with much lower intensity "sprints" designed to increase overall mental and physical endurance
• power- generally very similar to speed workouts, but with added resistance (either changing the gear on the bike or increasing elevation to build strength

Intervals, Triathlete maintains, are necessary to increase max speed, efficiency, and athletes' ability to recover.  Without them, they maintain, you're fucked.  That falls right in line with every bit of evidence I can find on the subject, as a study have shown that the Tabata method increased aerobic capacity 4% and anaerobic capacity nearly 20% more than the steady-state cardio training group over 6 weeks. (Tabata)  For those of you who've been living under a rock, the Tabata method involves doing virtually anything for 20 seconds of balls-out effort, followed by 10 seconds of rest 8 times in a row.  I've done these with overhead presses and front squats, and they're fucking brutal.  The rest periods on Tabatas are shorter than the typical interval workout (which has a rest period roughly equal to the sprint portion), which makes them far more brutal... which makes them far more efficacious.

Sprinting does a body good.

If you're interested in interval training, I suggest you read up on it, as it comes in about as many disparate permutations as porn does, and ranges in usefulness in much the same way.  I personally love the aforementioned sprint-the-straightaway-walk-the-curves training, in addition to Tabatas and Fartleks (which is simply light jogging over varied distances interspersed with random bouts of sprinting.   A reader who trains people for PT tests in the military has a vastly different take, however.  He combines running with some type of contrast, threshold runs, and a weekly two mile run (and the sick motherfuckers who liked to participate in 5k runs would replace their 2 mile run with a 5k).  The running workouts usually followed  a max effort workout, so that all runs were completed while fatigued.  The running workouts themselves started with a 1 mile run with different movements during the run...high knee, heel to ass, etc, to work on mobility. After one week of that, he had them run with contrast, so trainees would wear a weighted vest of 25-70 pounds and run a half mile as quickly as possible. Then rest and repeat, totaling 3 half miles. This apparently sucked shit, but was key to improving their 1.5 mile times.  He combined this with days of long sprints and optional distance runs to get pretty impressive time improvements in his trainees.  His weekly workouts consisted of:

Sun

Benching- 3x9

Bench-like movement- sets of 2-6 totaling 30-50 reps

Body weight upper body movement done for what we call ASAP- usually 60 reps DIPS ASAP. so 60x1, 30x2, 15x4, and so on...

Back work

Mon

ME movement where they would do doubles and eventually just work up to heavy doubles...more of  DE day ending with heavy lifts. 

Heavy barbell hamstring movement- sets of 2-6 until 30-60 total reps is met. usually we used dimmel dls, rdl, clean pull with shrug, anything like that with a bar. 

another hamstring movement for reps- ghr, band legs curls, reverse hypers

"Fatigued run" 2-4 half miles. 

Tues-Run Workout

Half mile with 40 pound vest for men, 25 for women

Repeat

Repeat

Wed- 

ME bench movement-

Barbell movement 2-6 reps

Heavy body weight movement- dips, pushups, hand stand push up...trainees must add resistance and perform 2-6 reps until reaching 30-50 reps

Thurs- Squats and Running-

20, 15, 10 in the back squat and run 400s in between 

Friday-

Box squat- doubles, light

Repeat of Monday

no running.

Saturday morning- optional 5k

Although he failed to mention them, I think it's safe to say there were likely handstands and dozens of cameras involved in each workout.

He's gotten tremendous results out of this Crossfit-esque combination of 5/3/1 and running, though I would not recommend it for the average strength trainer, due to the fact that "same day training impedes development more than concurrent day training of strength and endurance."(Zatsiorsky 166)  This is due to the fact that the conflicting demands placed on your musculature during a combined endurance and strength training session impede the body's ability to adapt.  This, in turn, may lead to a decrease in muscle fiber size, which is a big bag of bullshit.  (Ibid)  Obviously, for the military types listed above, improving their musculature was not priority number one- endurance was.  

Frankly, I could give a fuck about endurance training, as I move quickly through my workouts and detest running.  Should you find it absolutely necessary to do some endurance training, make that training intervals, as they kick the fuck out of traditional, steady state cardio... no matter what a pack of filthy, scrawny Indians might have to say otherwise.

... and if you're planning on doing endurance training so you can outrun shit, you might as well make yourself strong enough to beat it with your fists and feet.  Bears can outrun you, and can outclimb you as well.  As such, spend your time lifting weights and fuck all that running nonsense.

And for those of you who were bitching, fear not.  There shall be no more cardio posts.  The next two will be a continuation of the Find A Way Forward and one on Captain Kirk.

Sources:
Couture, Randy.  Xtreme Training.  2010.
Daly W, Seegers, Rubin DA, Dobridge JD, Hackney AC.  Relationship between stress hormones and testosterone with prolonged endurance exercise.  EUR J APP PHYS.  2005 Jan 93(4):375-380.
De Vany, Athur.  The New Evolution Diet.  2010.
Di Pasquale, Mauro.  Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete:  The Anabolic Edge.  2nd Ed.  Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2008.
Faigan, Rob.  Natural Hormonal Enhancement.  2000.
Fitzgerald, Matt.  Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week By Week Training Guide.  New York: Warner Books, 2006.
Tabata I, Nishimura K, Kouzaki M, Hirai Y, Ogita F, Miyachi M, Yamamoto K. Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1996 Oct;28(10):1327-30.
Zatsiorsky, Vladimir.  Science and Practice of Strength Training.  2006.

Morrigan - Plague, Waste, and Death

Classic debut from the german legends, Morrigan, previously known as Mayhemic Truth (will post THAT album at a later time). The primary influence here is of course Bathory, and Morrigan are one of the best at this style. This album is much more raw and violent sounding then later work, although they hit the mark every time. Excellent band that you should be familiar with.

Plague, Waste, and Death

Valkyrja - Contamination

Second album from this Swedish Orthodox Black Metal band, on metal blade at that! Hey they can still sign some real metal here and there. I prefer their first album but if you like Swedish BM such as Watain, Ofermod, Ondskapt (Valkyrja even shares some Ondskapt members) then this should do you well.

Contamination

Christ Beheaded - Open the Gates of Hell

Debut EP and most likely side project of The Gates of Slumber and Demiricous members (among a few others im not familiar with), what is new about this band for these guys is that this is black metal, as opposed to what they normally are involved with. Ill admit, most reviews i have read of this EP are somewhat mediocre, not terrible, but mediocre. I for one am no critic, nor do i pretend to be, but i enjoyed this release, enough to go out of my way to post it here. Im not going to go any further to convince you to listen, i really dont care, but i feel it would be worth your time.

Save your prayers

Nasum VS Warhate

What a great split, 8 tracks clocking in at just over 8 minutes of pure fucking mayhem. All of you should be familiar with the mighty Nasum (RIP), they were considered by most to be the greatest grind band since Napalm Death, and i love what they did with this split. The Nasum material here is more raw then usual, and straight for the fucking throat grind like always, although i sense a bit more death metal influence here which is certainly welcom. Black/Death part timers Warhate compete as best they can with their grinding tales of war and mass destruction. I have to give it to Nasum, and not just because they are Nasum, but because the material on this split just completely destroys, but dont take my word for it, find out for yourself.

The Nasum/Warhate Campaign

As above, so below

Hey kids, the other day i sent out some emails to a few people who used to frequent the old blog Garrett and I used to contribute to. Would be cool to have the majority of those guys chatting it up with us here, just like the days of old. And to those mentioned, pass this along to the others i missed, if you can. 

Merciless Crucifixion - Airesis

So, what do I know about Merciless Crucifixion? Well... They are from Greece and they released this Cd/demo of noisy grinding blackened death metal themselves. Fans of Blood and Blasphemy might want to give this a listen. Features a cover of the Sarcofago song I.N.R.I.

airesis

Grand Belial's Key - Mocking the Philanthropist

Grand Belial's Key are truly one of the pioneers of the USBM scene in spite of never receiving such notoriety, much like Black Funeral. Although many of us hardcore fans are familiar with these guys, for the casuals; here is your introduction. "Mocking the Philanthropist" is the debut full-length LP from GBK and what I particularly enjoy the most about this album are the rerecorded tracks from the epic demos "Goat of a Thousand Young" and "Triumph of the Hordes". Although GBK's music comes across as straightforward black metal you can still find traditional metal, thrash and punk influences in their sound. I've seen pictures of the band standing amidst Iron Maiden posters which makes a ton of sense as you will find Maiden-esque guitar melodies in their work. I'd consider this disk an essential listen for black metal fans.

mocking the philanthropist

Molested - Blod Draum

No doubt about about it, one truly essential Scandinavian death metal release. For those who don't know, Molested features Borknagar guitarist/founder Øystein Brun. Supposedly, Øystein grew tired of playing death metal and yearned for a more melodic sounding band and through this yearning Borknagar was born. Another noteworthy musician on this album is former Gorgoroth drummer Erlend Erichsen. In spite of Brun's boredom with this particular project, this album is anything but boring. Fast, brutal, swarming death metal riffage with blasting drums and a few folkish tendencies. In my opinion, this is easily one of the most underrated death metal albums of all time. Any fan of the genre would be hard pressed not to find something enjoyable here.

get molested

Plague Bearer - Rise of the Goat

If you ever wonder what Herb and Kelly from the US Death Metal band Drawn and Quartered did prior to D and Q? This was it, Plague Bearer. Its just as dark and evil as their current band, and they have in fact turned it into a side project.

Drawn and Quartered

The Lurking Corpses - Smells Like the Dead

Not many bands these days are combing death metal and punk respectively. At least not in the way the Lurking Corpses do it. They owe as much to the Misfits as they do Impetigo and in addition to the growling there are plenty of Danzig esque sing a longs, this is definitely a metal album suitable for punks.

When there is no more room in hell...

Find a Way Forward

Everyone hits a snag when lifting, be it a plateau, injury, or simply stagnation. In my estimation, the vast majority of lifters simply quit when they hit the wall, while another significant portion of the populace continues to press forward in a completely identical manner to what got them mired in the mud in the first place. Anyone who's ever gotten stuck in mud or snow knows that spinning your wheels rarely gets you out of the shit you're in- instead, you have to try something different to get you out. For whatever reason, that analogy never occurs to half the people in the gym, as they're so wedded to the program that once worked for them they refuse to deviate therefrom come hell or high water. You also have, of course, the kids who jump from program to program like they're a middle school girl with a new favorite song every 60 fucking seconds. Either way, both groups end up whining like fucking bitches when they cannot make progress, and lash out at anyone who does as having cheated in some manner, rather than reexamining the bullshit they did to get them stuck and finding another way forward.

Ironically, the face one makes when Max Hardcore gets a chick to ram her fist up your ass and the face one makes when hearing Rebecca Black's "Friday" are exactly the same.

Clearly, the latter group is fucking retarded, and hardly bear mention, much less an in-depth investigation of the nonsense they employ in the gym- blame the entirely fantastical affliction ADD, MTV, or whatever bogeyman you want, but there's no getting around the fact that some people simply suck balls, no matter how fucking hard you try to blame their behavior on some external and ultimately bullshit excuse. The former group, however, generally seems to suffer from loss aversion. On its face, having a sensibility that amounts to a fear of losses might seem eminently reasonable, as few people want to lose at anything they do. The phenomenon of "loss aversion" however, is actually a fear-based emotional response to external stimulus, in which people overreact to perceived losses. People tend to "sacrifice a little bit to avoid a potential loss" (Brafman 18), and in doing so limit the shit out of their own potential due to their irrational fear of failure. For this reason, people will often stick to programs that worked for them in the past, in spite of the fact that they're making little or no progress. A similar phenomenon is referred to as "chasing the loss", which focused on avoiding losses rather than maximizing gains. You'll find evidence of this phenomenon all over the internet, which is lousy with idiots who proselytize cookie-cutter programs and decry any and all deviation therefrom, claiming that everyone should do the same mediocre bullshit because of it's purported universal success... however minuscule, mediocre, or otherwise generally unimpressive. They completely ignore the fact that those who always are the ones to grab the brass ring took a lot of risk doing so, and rarely (if ever) took the "tried and true" route to accolades and immortality. (Brafman 28)

Dirt Diva- Living proof that you probably want to take the road less traveled... at least to the stop before Crazy Town.

Clearly, I'm not into the tried and true, but I know for a fucking fact I don't always have all the answers, either. Last year, after 3 months of 10+ workouts a week, at least 4 of which consisted of squatting, I found that I looked awesome and kicked fucking ass at squatting, but hit a gigantic wall at full speed, face-first, and kept on pushing for a while. I developed a pretty impressive knot in the IT band in my right leg, and found that continuing to squat with the protocols I had been using merely exacerbated the problem. Thus, I essentially became a modern day Sisyphus, pushing a big assed rock up a hill with my face, one legged, and yelling the entire time about what bullshit it was that my body had the audacity to defy me in a quest so idiotic that even the cast members of Jersey Shore would take pause at its display.

Zombies or robots? Fuck that. These are the harbingers of the apocalypse.

I began doing a ton of research into methods for eliminating that knot (and I'm sad to report I found jack shit), but in my research happened upon two studies that showed that:

1. quick descent on the squat increases the rate of musculoskeletal loading, so athletes should descend quickly to maximize their rate of descent, and
2. following a strength exercise immediately with a power exercise increases test levels drastically, so training strength exercises followed by power exercises appears to be the most effective way to increase strength and power.

This intrigued me, because I had not been training full range-of-motion lifts, and had only been working power lifts, rather than strength. In case you're unaware, sports scientists have broken down types of strength into different categories. Vladimir Zatsiorsky, for instance, breaks down strength into three types (Science and Practice 147):

• maximal strength (grinding strength, like that in powerlifting)
• speed strength (explosive strength, like in Olympic weightlifting or plyometrics)
• strength endurance (repetitive cyclic shit like rowing)

Conversely, Yuri Verkhoshansky and Mel Siff separate strength into five distinct groups (Supertraining 151):

• Isometric strength (static holds)
• Quasi-Isometric strength (low velocity, powerlifting style)
• Strength-Speed (more explosive, but still low velocity)
• Speed-Strength (explosive at intermediate velocity)
• Explosive strength (explosive at high velocity)

For me, pre-exhaustion always=leg extensions... and you know how I feel about leg extensions.

Though I had never really considered any of this, I knew it, as I'd read it in Science and Practice of Strength Training a couple of years ago. I'm not sure what's more sad- how far behind the East we are in sport science, or the fact that I'd completely discarded this bit of knowledge. I'd chalked that shit up to the "pre-exhaustion" bullshit bodybuilders always carry on about, and have always considered to be a giant pile of horseshit. Besides, I figured, I'd just kicked a decent amount of ass at that powerlifting meet, I had no need for anything but quasi-isometric and isometric/maximal strength.

In my conceit/loss aversion delusions, I ignored Zatsiorsky's recommendations for structuring one's workouts with this priority:

1. Main sport exercises
2. Dynamic before slow exercises
3. Larger groups before smaller

This, of course, makes perfect sense, and I'd ignored it due to a fear that if I stopped what I was doing, I'd backslide and lose the progress I'd made. Luckily, I got to the point by January that full squats or ultra-heavy partials were completely out of the question. Thus, I was forced to make a change, and I did.

My leg, saying to me: "Oklahoma kid. That's me. I'm the Oklahoma kid. You fuckin' varmint! Dance. Dance. YAHOO, YA MOTHERFUCKER!"

In an effort to work on my flexibility and hopefully stretch out my IT band (which ended up working), I started doing rock bottom jump squats. Initially, I just focused on doing sets of 5 with 135, in an effort to get a good stretch and really explode out of the bottom. On days where my leg wasn't acting like Joe Pesci in every fucking scene of Goodfellas, I followed that with a few sets of partial front or back squats. The number of sets varied based up on feel, but usually went along the lines of 3x5x135, 3x3x225. I didn't actually get back to a 315 jump squat until early March, but given the amount of shit my IT band was giving me, I felt pretty good with my progress.

"Soviet studies show that utilization of explosive lifts prior to maximal efforts increase the likelihood of Jamie Koeppe spontaneously materializing in the vicinity of a lifter by 64.7%" (Verkhoshansky 864)

In the next installment- how I changed my mindset, more science behind how this works, the workouts I did to take my 5RM on jump squats up 50 lbs and get my 1RM on them up to 375. Here's a teaser trailer for the vid, and the next actual blog will be the conclusion to the running series (finally).

...and yes, that is a Zombie Jesus tshirt. 

Sources:

Brafman, Ori. Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior.

Zatsiorsky, Vladimir. Science and Practice of Strength Training.

Siff, Mel, and Yuri Verkhoshansky. Supertraining.