Half-way point in Easy Strength... where to next?

A

aondia

New member
I'm nearing the 20 workout mark of the 40 suggested by Pavel/Dan John and I'm loving kettlebells for being able to strength train at home. Just finished reading Easy Strength and I like it, but I'm wondering if something a bit more intense would support endurance running (half marathon) and cycling (100 to 200k, eventually randonneuring).

No real goals for either for the moment; I think I've plateaued with running/cycling until I get stronger and that's what I want to focus on for the moment. Plus, Neupert's strong enough standards sound like fun as does the GS long cycle. If I progressed to either standard with 24kgs, I'd be stoked.

This is what I've been doing 5x a week (Mo,Tu,We,rest,Fr,Sa,rest).

Gear: one 16kg Walmart bell, a bar to hang from, an ab roller

2x5 goblet squat

2x30s hang or 5x chin ups

2x5 clean and press (R,R,R,R,R,L,L,L,L,L)

2x5 ab roller

2x50m suitcase carries or waiter carries

5x15 swing

I'm rarely, barely sore and the last set of swings is the only thing that gets my heart going around 140-150bpm. I've seen great improvements in my overall fitness, posture, bike fit, and sleep. I'm in decent cardio shape already and have leg strength from running and cycling. My weak points are my core and upper body for sure and I'm glad I've found a fun way to work on them.

For the record, I'm 6'3"(1.90m) and 200lbs(90kg).

The question... What should I do next if I want to pursue Neupert's 24kg strong enough standard long term? (and put running, cycling on the back burner for the moment)

Edit: I know one is never done with Easy Strength. I'll come back to it when I decide to ramp up greater running or cycling specific fitness.
 
@aondia Your plateau from endurance work isn't from not being strong enough, it's far more likely from being too big. Go have a look at Kipchoge and see if he looks like he needs to be stronger to run faster? Or, better yet, at about the same as you is David Goggins. Do you look like him? If not, the answer isn't trying to get stronger, it's losing all that heat producing excess weight. (And you never see video of Goggins doing pure strength work, always high reps).

If I were picking a program with running/ cycling in mind, I'd at least pick stuff from author's who were into those things. Neither of those guys has ever run further than across the road to get a cab. (And I say this as someone who actually knows them both in person and has spent a lot of time with them).
 
@googs I guess I buried part of the headline ... I'm also in the trades and need some strength to do the occasional hard day (pulling several hundred feet or more of cable a dozen times all day, lifting rigid conduit, just moving heavy stuff like transformers etc). There's too many guys I work with who need new shoulders or knees by the time they're 50 because they didn't take care of themselves. Now, I don't use tobacco nor am I on the gas station diet, but still, I'd like to make the hard days easier when they rear their ugly head once every few months.

Those guys are also elite. I'm sure I could learn a lot from them in terms of training but I'm not setting out to be competitive; I want to be well rounded and keep a large aerobic engine because I enjoy those activities.
 
@seekingsalvation9867 I don't know about the triathlon, but I know he's a track and field guy. He frequently references marathoners needing to deadlift double their body weight and bench their body weight (he cites Cerutty?)
 
@aondia LOLOLOL. Again, go look at Kipchoge. Does he look like he has a double bw DL? That myth needs to fuck off and die finally.

The amount of misquoting he does of Cerutty is equally as bad as most of his other stolen material. He takes a single sentence from an entire book and uses it to try to justify his own biases, and in most cases ends up saying the exact opposite of what the author actually was saying.

And DJ was a thrower, not a runner. That's important because a thrower needs to put out fo 1-3s multiple times in a row on big rests, and their base "fitness" is good numbers in big lifts. Everything he writes is looked at through that lens as it's all he's experienced. No one who actually understands running would ever try to get a marathon runner to a 2x bw DL or bw bench. What an utter waste of valuable training time and a guaranteed way to make them slower (through heavier bw and less available time for endurance work).
 
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