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Kettlebell Dice Rolled Training Article - Perfectly Timed

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I think the die rolling technique has loads of potential. I’ve resently noticed I do way better on programs with the load and volume waves around a lot. This seems like a fantastic way to get that “randomness” (though do it long enough you do spend 1/6 of your time with 3rm, 5rm,and some lighter wieght and 1/3 of your time with about 8-12 rm).

Seems in line with a lot of strength training. A little time w heavy weight and light weight+ most time with moderately weight.
 
@kennycro@@aol.com I like the fact to you don't mind disagreeing with the crowd and that you do it usually in a well informed style, citing research, etc... Most of these discussions even stay polite, which is amazing on the internet. The problem with the conventional wisdom is that it comes from a paradigm in which there is supposedly an "optimal" method of training. I don't say you wrote this, but people believe that there is a "magic bullet". That is, for example, if you want to have the biggest deadlift you can follow a certain program, among all the programs that exist, that will allow you to deadlift the biggest weight possible in say 3 months. That is, you can perform certain movements at certain times in a specific manner that will allow you to optimize one variable. Unfortunately, that paradigm is not very useful for most people and extremely likely inaccurate, if not false.

Background

I don't want to win "by authority", but want to show that I studied these things. I followed graduate courses in "systems methods in physiology", "chaos theory", "signal processing" and other similar subjects. I will not be citing specific papers, but I don't pull this post out of thin air.

Elite athletes

I will mostly leave these out of the discussion. They are a special case in that their life is more controlled and they have more feedback about their training and physiology. They are also trained by an experienced trainer who knows (hopefully) how to make adjustments when needed to the program. In that respect, they don't really just "follow a program", but basically adjust the program on the fly.

Optimal strategy

Biological systems are very complex. Even optimizing a simple system can be difficult. The fact that many training approaches work is proof that the optimum is probably not very sharp. In other words, in parameter space, the "optimal program" is probably a plateau of programs, instead of a very sharp peak at very specific variables.

Hidden variables

That is the main problem here. The optimal training program depends on a very large number of factors, most of which are unknown. Genetics, general stress level, ... and anything else we don't know could influence results. I just read about a study that showed that when people were told (falsely) that they had a gene for poor endurance, they performed worse, even if they have the "good" version. (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...u-have-poor-endurance-genes-changes-your-body). It's just a single study and may fail to replicate, but I read in the past similar things about performance and belief. Saying that one can design the "optimal" training program is simply false. You cannot optimize a system without knowing all the variables without feedback.

Feedback

That's where I agree with you that "progressing intuitively" is the way to go. That is adding feedback. to the system. Ideally, you would have a more quantitative manner of assessing how to adjust, but I think that most recreational lifters don't want or can't go there.

Randomness

As other have mentioned, the program is not completely random, it has variability within specific parameters. As also mentioned by other, it is similar to the PlanStrong programs. I think the PlanStrong programs wave a bit more systematically, but that is only what I can deduct from what I have read as I did not attend the class. However, rolling the die seems very close to this randomized undulation, only you randomize on the spot instead of randomizing in advance. Given the flat nature of the optimum, you are most likely not going far from the optimum, if there is such a thing.

HLM

The program is probably close to a traditional "high low medium" approach. However, instead of having specific days for each "toughness", you vary randomly. Since you never repeat the same workout twice, it may look like LHMHMLMHLM... You are very unlikely to do two hard or easy workouts in the same week.

Quote

My computer somehow refuses to insert a quote, but:
"Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan"

The key to maximizing your training come down to a well written and executed plan. No successful business, sport team or athlete just shows up and rolls then dice.

Because nobody does it doesn't mean it doesn't work. I will also not go into this much as we will go very far from training, but success and planning is mostly a myth in business. Yes, you must no do stupid things, but saying that planning is the key to success is mostly false. Adaptation is. In business and everything, the way to go is to add feedback, that is wave the load according to measurements, not blindly following the plan. That is not "plan your work, work the plan" in the way people understand it. Now, if you have feedback, both approaches are likely to give very similar results.

Just another example. A "classic" powerlifting program would have me do 5 sets of 5 every week and increase the load by 10 pounds every week, starting well within my ability. I cannot see how that is an optimum. I cannot see how all lifters who say can deadlift around 350 pounds would progress optimally doing this. Some could probably go faster, other should go slower. It's a good rule of thumb and works, but I would bet a fortune that it's not an optimum for everyone, for the reasons I wrote above. Even "Starting Strenght" has feedback. If you fail your lift, you reset.

Conclusion

The method proposed in the blog post is not complete non-sense. Will it produce an "optimal" strategy. Probably not. However, no method does. If you select your parameters right and add a bit of feedback, it will work. Undulating load works. You like it. Making the undulation random within reason will also work. It's an "N" of 1, but it worked for the author of the blog post who bent press 60 kg (not a very strong argument I admit)

Opinon.

The following is more of an opinion, but based on a lot of reading on psychology and neuroscience, control theory,etc... rings truer to me than the alternative.

We humans like to control everything, or at least think we control everything. That is a complete illusion to maintain our ego. We barely manage and do damage control when needed. There is so little we control in life that we don't want to think about it. We each have in our life someone, probably more than one person, who can make our life go sideways really badly if they take a certain action. The fact that is doesn't happen more often is almost a miracle.

Having a set program gives the illusion that we at least control our destiny in the gym. That's fine for those who like it. Having more randomness however will not necessarily give worse results. You will just lose the illusion of control. Who knows, it may even help. I'm not saying that for example the US weightlifting team should start throwing dice tomorrow for all their training. They could however experiment with it in lower stake training.
 
In the article, if a roll was the same as the previous session then you roll again. If dice rolling leads to waviness and unpredictability via random number fluctuations then intervening like that seems a little less random.
Would it not be better to rule out random fluctuations and plan the waviness to begin with?
My last run through rop illustrated how random fluctuations can be counter-productive - every snatch and heavy day I rolled double 6s. I had to modify my approach to one based on feel/recovery from the pressing on the day. Figuring that 7 was the most probable outcome of a roll and you are 6 times more likely to roll a seven than a double 2 or double 6.
So rop rolling will be more often than not a 7 - so a medium session.....you could say a 6,7,8 the most likely, 3,4,5 and 9, 10 next and less frequently 1,2 and 11 and 12. OR, for every 6 average session, you can have 1 easy and one hard and autoregulate from that broad structure. If it is just a time variable.
So you can work out the odds, roughly and base waviness from it. Random fluctuations can and do produce random fluctuations......you could roll a double 6 for every heavy session. Unlikely but random. It doesn't seem a plan if you roll a dice and if it is the same you roll again.....a bit like brexit!
If you roll the dice for randomness and it rolls the same every time, tough cookies. If you then chose to intervene, are you not just better off preparing a wavy structure to begin with? You know, more or less? Wave all the variables, or just one?
If you were to plot the resulting wave structure enough times it would even out to be more equal comparing a planned wave and unplanned wave with dice. But an individual one-off could all end up too easy, or too hard due to random fluctuations.
Weighing all that up, I'm not sure about dice rolling, unless in a casino, where, let's be honest, you are more likely to lose.
 
@kennycro@@aol.com
We humans like to control everything, or at least think we control everything. That is a complete illusion to maintain our ego.

I love your whole post about optimizing complex systems - spot on. But I really like the quote above. It reminds me of something out of Antifragile: you can't control the variables, but you can set your life up to have a convex response to them. By trying to optimize, you're running on the razor edge of ruin - might be ok for elite athelete, but not for regular folks. Us regular folks should work in a intensity/volume regime where our response is convex to the training. You won't get maximally (optimally) better, but you'll stay away from ruin and continue to make gains.
 
Just saw the article titled Simplify your Strength Programming Using Die-Rolled Variability and want to say the timing couldn't be better. I'm heading to visit my family in Florida in a few days and it seems just the right way to still train as without being too beat up to still do my martial arts training at the dojo down the road from my parents' house.

It was just what the doctor ordered for my leave period strength and conditioning work and in the span of my lunch hour I drew up a kettlebell program complemented by easy roadwork and basic calisthenics at easy volumes as I already do.

For the exercises, I selected the military press and goblet squat for the grinds (done in a press with one arm, press with the other, then the goblet squats in a slow circuit). Ballistics will be kettlebell snatches @ 24KG. I'll be sure to post an 'end of the cycle' review.

I only have three kettlebells at my parents' house, a 32KG, a 24KG, and a 16KG. It looks like the probabilities of me getting the middle intensities have therefore doubled (the 2-5 faces of a die are for the 24KG bell with the '1' value being for the 16KG bell). That's not strictly a bad thing. I also considered having even probabilities for all three, i.e. 5 or 6 equals use the 32KG, 3 or 4 the 24KG, and 1 or 2 the 16KG as well. I'm still ruminating as to which would work better, but I've got a few days yet.

Thank you @Arryn Grogan for the article. It was just what the doctor ordered.

For your press, I'd do this: 1 & 2 = 16kg; 3 & 4 = 24kg; 5 = 32kg; 6 = re-roll or bottoms-up press 16kg
That's assuming 32kg is a 1-3 rep max.

For your squat, I'd do this: 1 = 16kg; 2 = 24kg; 3 & 4 = 32kg
32kg goblet squat probably isn't that heavy if you're snatching 24kg. So it should actually be your middle intensity, even though you don't have a weight for your die faces of 5 & 6.

Does that make sense?
 
This might work also for folks who just don't plan a lot of variation. I usually plan my load variations by lift - plug in an exercise that lends itself to the L or H in the plan rather than use the same exercise with different loading.

For situations where you don't have a lot of gear to vary load and rep range you might use it to tweak how many cluster sets you do etc.

In my case I might even roll a die to determine rest periods as well as my loading scheme. Get out the 20-sided!

Personally I like the idea of setting my own waviness, but this could work...I'd still probably roll em all out ahead of time.
 
@miked Yes, Antifragile is very good. I think Pavel had a good intuition of how to apply it in S+S: most days, do your reasonable training. Once in a while, go overboard, shovel the driveway of everyone who is on your street, etc... That is a great way to exploit non-linearities and complexity. Staying away from the "optimum" is also a good point, to leave room for uncertainty.
 
Yet another thing I forgot to mention. Highly technical and I don't have time to explain in less technical terms. I may if I have more time later, but I have to do the work that puts the bacon on the plate.

In training, we usually have a weekly cycle. However, there is nothing "natural" to that cycle. It's just for convenience. It's "not bad", but there may be other effects that we can take advantage of.. By adding randomness, we probe different frequencies in the system (just like white noise has all the frequencies). We don't know how the system (human body) respond, but other frequencies will be excited, which may lead to surprising results.
 
Rolling The Dice

Take Home Message

1) The Rolling the Dice, CrossFit's WOD is and effective General Physical Preparation Training Method for conditioning.

2) It an effective method for Novice Liters; since anything and everything pretty much work for them.

3) It frees your mind so that you don't have to think. Yea, that's sarcasm.

Kenny Croxdale

Hey Kenny, thanks for taking time to read my article! In my opinion, it is absolutely effective for GPP and conditioning. But I'd also say it's effective for intermediate and advanced (not elite, however) lifters. This program combines intensity and volume waving of the load, but also the simplicity of Easy Strength. Which is very much what StrongFirst teaches at our certifications. Also, what's the problem with not putting that much mental effort into one's programming? Anyone who follows a program written by someone else is essentially not thinking. I think that is okay, especially for those who don't spend all their lives in the gym, unlike you and I.
 
What a waste of time if you're not. I wasted many years, personally. The primary reason for not training optimally was due to not knowing or being honest about what I was training for. Once you really know why you're training, I say train optimally just to not waste time.
I was referring to a Kenny’s use of the word “optimal” which I believe he meant it as maximizing gym performance results.

This may be a more clear example: if a runner enjoys going on runs everyday but is not doing a highly structured program, he will not be maximizing his potential, but so what? If’s that’s what he enjoys and is still making progress, there is nothing wrong with that (same applies for die roll programs). There is also nothing wrong with training to maximize your performance even if you are not enjoying your training. It really comes down to what your goals are and also finding a balance between performance and enjoyment. And in this case, it may come down even more to each person’s view of what “optimal” is as it relates to training and life.
 
@LoneRider

To add to


For your squat, I'd do this: 1 = 16kg; 2 = 24kg; 3 & 4 = 32kg
32kg goblet squat probably isn't that heavy if you're snatching 24kg. So it should actually be your middle intensity, even though you don't have a weight for your die faces of 5 & 6.

If you don't mind mixing movements, you could do double front squats with an uneven load (say 16+24) as your "hard" day. That way, you have something to do on a 6 or on a 5+6.
 
For your press, I'd do this: 1 & 2 = 16kg; 3 & 4 = 24kg; 5 = 32kg; 6 = re-roll or bottoms-up press 16kg
That's assuming 32kg is a 1-3 rep max.

For your squat, I'd do this: 1 = 16kg; 2 = 24kg; 3 & 4 = 32kg
32kg goblet squat probably isn't that heavy if you're snatching 24kg. So it should actually be your middle intensity, even though you don't have a weight for your die faces of 5 & 6.

Does that make sense?

A lot of sense, actually. 32KG is a 2 RM in my lifting. What would you recommend for the five and six values for the squat?
 
@Arryn Grogan

Thanks. For volume I'm good for ten singles each arm for the clean and press with the 32KG. What are recommendations you have for volume?

The program I drew up yesterday had the following loading for the presses and goblet squats:

Value of 6, intensity is five total reps per arm at 32KG in the 1-2 rep range.
Value of 5, intensity is 8 total reps per arm at 24 KG in the 1-3 rep range.
Value of 4, intensity is 11 total reps per arm at 24 KG in the 2-5 rep range.
Value of 3, intensity is a total of 15 reps per arm at 24KG in the 3-6 rep range.
Value of 2, intensity is a total of 18 reps per arm at 24 KG in same rep range as 3.
Value of 1, intensity is a total of 20 reps per arm at 16 KG in the 3-8 rep range.

I am intrigued and actually plan to attempt your suggestion above. What's our recommendation for the bottoms up press? I've never actually attempted that lift before, honestly.
 
Not a bad plan what you have there, but it's probably a bit too much with the 24. Below is something you could do when you only have 3 intensities. This way, you're still applying the same-but-different principle.

1 = 16 x 5, 6, 7
2 = 16 x 10, 10
3 = 24 x 5, 7, 4
4 = 24 x 6, 8
5 = 32 x 1 rep / 4-6 sets
6 = Bottoms-up press 16 x 4-6 reps / 2-4 sets

Here's a video on how to grip it and then one on what the lift looks like.



 
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