Running, burpees, turkish get ups, kettlebell swings, and…pain. That’s what Johnny Pain’s new e-book, “50 More Greyskull Approved Conditioning Workouts for the Modern Viking“, consists of. The model for all of the workouts is the infamous Bony, who apparently is a glutton for punishment.
This e-book is pretty straight forward: it consists of 50 conditioning workouts that will make a man out of you. When I program conditioning for someone who is training for something, I primarily the entire workout to consist of efficient, large-scale movements that utilize a lot of muscle to use up as much energy as possible to induce the stress. In FIT I also talk about how to properly program the conditioning in accordance with your strength training. If you combine these elements with this e-book by JP, you have a repertoire of workouts to plug into your program.
There are a few workouts that use some slower movements, like floor whipers, lunges, and leg raises (interspersed with chin-ups), yet there is something to be said for getting through grueling sets of exercises. It does a few things: it provides a mental challenge without superfluous chipper-type workouts, it gets lots of muscular contraction which can assist in developing the look of muscles (see Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding if you’re confused), and they still provide a much higher relative stress compared to just straight lifting. In other words, the slower, arduous movements may not get maximum levels of stress, but for most people they won’t need those high levels of stress and can receive a benefit to conditioning and musculature with these other movements. Besides, a movement like the backwards crab walk — influenced by JP’s Airborne infantry background — is a good way to work on agility, mobility, and pissing blood.
Workout #14 is very similar to something that I have used once a week for a while: burpees alternated with kettlebell swings (this workout alternates them in 30 second increments). JP uses creative exercise and rest period combinations that I’m sure will give you plenty of ideas for your own training. The best part of it all is that the workouts are all short and intense; you get a lot of bang for your buck so that you can bang when you fuck. God damn, I should copyright that.
Purchase it HERE.
22 thoughts on “Villain Conditioning”
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i didn’t buy it. the more options i’ve got, the higher chance ill go into full OCD mode and change shit that works. And, sprints are good enough for me atm.
Roger that. I think that these rando workouts can work well for people who may want ancillary muscular work for definition purposes.
–Justin
50 more, huh.
StrengthVillian’s next title. “YET ANOTHER Linear Progression program with curls and neck work”
I think the title should be “How to Do CrossFit without Calling it CrossFit”.
^ Cool fucking legs on Fonzie; I can only imagine what he fucking curls.
zozz,
People were doing hard, intense conditioning long before crossfit existed. And these workouts all have a 10 minute cap on them, while crossfit workouts often last 30-60 minutes for some people, which is a different stimulus. So your title wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
That said, hill sprints and basketball work fine for conditioning for me.
Unrelated (so sorry) . . .
A Weightlifting Meet will be held on Sunday November 6th, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois at Windy City CrossFit. This will be a last chance qualifier for the American Open to be held Dec. 2nd-4th. This meet will be a sanctioned Olympic Lifting meet. This event is open to all. All USAW rules will be followed in accordance with a sanctioned meet.
Naturally, I will be a judge for the men’s heavyweight division. I <3 Guys that are 70's Big . . .
If this event tickles your fancy, you can check out additional info here: http://www.windycitycrossfit.com/wccf_weightlifting/
Why the Greyskull hate?
Eh, not hate from me. JP seems like an ok guy. But sometimes it looks like he is pushing more towards the how much money can I get out of this side of things. Like on the old diet q board every other post was “yeah you need to drop 100 dollars for a consult”. Granted he answers more questions now, but then he releases 14 page “books” for 30 bucks a pop. FIT didnt even cost me that and it was an actual published book, not a PDF file…
^ this
Whether you like JP and his business practices, he offers straight forward insight. I think his perspective on lifting and life in general are entertaining and honest. I respect anyone who has the balls to put themselves out there and say “Fuck You” if you don’t like it. I won’t buy the conditioning books because I have the knowledge to put together those types of workouts. I bought the GSLP and Swole books; both were nothing new, but were simple and easy to understand. I would encourage anyone looking for a simple and effective program to read these.
This isn’t necessarily addressed to you, webb, but all of the criticisms in this post.
I like John and know that anyone would if they ever met him. He’s probably the funniest guy I know, he’s very knowledgeable, and he tells awesome, witty stories. He’s a very good programmer, and is a nutrition practitioner that can tweak people in size up or down depending on their goals. He’s an experimenter and an innovator. You guys won’t see all of that shit on a message board since you aren’t in his gym or not having conversations with him. He’s derives everything he does from experimentation, logic, and observation — the smart people do.
Even though I know all or most of the material he presents in his e-books or lectures, I still can glean ideas from them. Was this recent 50 conditioning workouts monumental? No, but I got a variety of ideas on how to use set/rep schemes, how to use exercise combinations, and stuff like that. I get ideas from people all the time. I’ve gotten ideas from Klokov, James Henderson, Kelly Starrett, Nicu Vlad, and even Louie Simmons. I learn from everyone, and I see these materials as ways to further that learning. It’s understandable if that doesn’t apply to you, as a lifter, but it applies to me as a programmer, a coach, and a writer of strength training and musclarity.
He also stands up for not getting shit on or not going with the flow with silly shit. That’s irrelevant to his coaching or his way of helping, but it’s respectable nonetheless. His e-books provide a product to try and make his work tangible, and I don’t think there should be any shame in doing so. If you think the price doesn’t coincide with the content, then the great thing is that you don’t have to buy it. And as for charging for consultations, it’s not possible to fully go in depth to help every person. I know because I have tried and I literally had 800 unread e-mails in my inbox recently. It’s hard being a strength coach that doesn’t fall in line with conventional methods, and John and I are part of that small community that tries to make it. I consider him a colleague, but I also consider him a friend, and don’t appreciate people coming into my home (this site) and mocking him.
Fair and objective criticisms are okay, but talking shit about a friend of mine isn’t. It’s objective to say that you don’t get a lot of content for the price, but don’t make assumptions on his character or him as a person when you don’t know the fuckin’ guy.
–Justin
I have nothing against JP but I do think this book would be a waste of money when you consider that these type of conditioning workouts are easy to create yourself, and are free all over the internet. All you need to do is list the movements that you would like to use, then put them into a circuit. Once that is done just figure out the rep schemes- tabata rounds, amrap for time, pyramid sets, etc. Make up a bunch of these and youve just made yourself a free conditioning book.
Then what the fuck do you care? Don’t buy the thing then! Look, if there was a video product that taught you how to read, but you already knew how to read, would you go on and on about how stupid the product was? No, you just wouldn’t buy the god damn thing because you don’t need it. I reviewed the product and pointed out some aspects of it that would be useful. I never said, “You NEED to buy this product.”
–Justin
The Fonz could take that shark for seriously.
Didn’t this Viking book come out like a year ago?
The first 50 came out a while back, this is a second book containing 50 more.
I’m more interested in know when the Texas Method Part 2 ebook is coming out.
Stroup, it’s a business, man. He gives out a lot of free information over on that board and did so on the old nutrition board over at SS.com as well. No one has to buy those books or get a consult, but you also can’t expect specifically tailored programs/nutrition advice without shelling out some dough.
Where you see a money grab, I see a good business model. To each his own I suppose.
Coil I totally get that. I just dont prefer his business tactics. Honestly if strengthvillain’s forum wasnt so fucking heavily moderated I would have no problem with him selling 4 page PDF files for 60 buck a piece.
Patrick, you are a pussy for not being a moderated villain.
Vamshi,
Hahaha
“Besides, a movement like the backwards crab walk — influenced by JP’s Airborne infantry background — is a good way to work on agility, mobility, and pissing blood.”
Try them with a chem suit, gas mask and 60 lb. ruck on your back. Absolute fucking smoker.