Dumb boy’s

Book of Oats
A list of conditioning ideas by dumb boy

(that’s me, I’m dumb boy)

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 Table of contents

Table of contents 2

Introduction & Inspiration 3

The autoregulation of daily conditioning 4

Altering ideas: “where are the burpees??” 5

Death trap 6

Snake Way 7

Wildcard 8

Match the bells 9

Edamame 10

Widowmade/Triple Threat Triad 12

Edgerunner 13

Tower of Widows 14

Xmas Squats 15

2, 3, 5 - Increasing the kettlebell press 16

The Revenant 17

4’s for 4’s for 4’s 18

C.A.C’s 19

Olympus 20

Farmcase 21

Bonus propaganda (“I can’t squat 4 times a week, my knees hurt”) 22

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 Introduction & Inspiration

I believe that conditioning does more for your physique than lifting alone ever will, you will
simply be stronger and look better if you integrate conditioning into your routine. If you have
enough time to brush your teeth a day (4 mins at least, hopefully) you’ve got time to do
conditioning.

I personally make the distinction between cardio and conditioning, cardio is conditioning - it’s a
spectrum. But when I say ‘conditioning’ I mean lifting-based or ‘barbell’ conditioning.

A lot of these ideas use kettlebells, which are expensive but probably the best investment you
can make to be able to do good quality conditioning at home. Use what you have available
though.

I’m no expert in conditioning, but I have been doing it daily (unless an injury comes around) and
have shared some of what I’ve done with others. A few people have asked if I’d make a book of
ideas in the same style as our conditioning prophet; Mythical strength. Who released his little
book of bad ideas (found at http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/ or follow this link:)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dE8hMSQdnWTzwOitrJjzJq2EeZ4ZzoJT/view

I don’t feel like I have anything close to offer in comparison, but I don’t mind sharing my ideas,
as they are already collated in a google docs anyway as I write and update them after testing.

It should be clear that Mythical Strength is a key inspiration for my style of conditioning, and I
also want to give full credits to Dan John as well. You will see elements of their training in a lot
of my ideas.

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 The autoregulation of daily conditioning

I do conditioning every single day, on top of running 531 and running 45+ mins twice a week,
and yet I am never beat down by my training, because it is regulated.

You do not need to do conditioning every day. But it is probably easier than you think to
achieve, too many guys think ‘conditioning’ means 30 straight mins of pushing a prowler and
nothing else. Conditioning can take as little as 4-5 mins.
In fact, my first week of daily conditioning was nothing more than variations of tabata goblet
squats, it was over within 4 mins.

The key to doing conditioning everyday, (and doing it period to be honest) is autoregulation, I
do not plan my conditioning one bit. Most of the time I chose my conditioning the night before, or
on the day. Sometimes seconds before starting.

You should vary the duration and severity of your conditioning on a daily basis, and don’t worry
because it’s not as hard as it sounds - basically, you do the right amount. You get a feel for the
right amount pretty quickly. In fact you may need to change what you do on the fly, because it's
hard to tell how difficult a new conditioning idea is before you’ve tried it.

Sometimes you’ll be two rounds into something and think ‘this is too easy’ and up the amount of
something, or change the rep scheme to make it harder. And sometimes the inverse happens.
Here’s a simple example, let’s say you plan to do 15 rounds of Edgerunner, you may get 5
rounds in and feel terrible and end it at 10 rounds, or it may be easy that day and you go to 20
rounds.

Apply the same concept to the days of the week, you probably shouldn’t do a very hard
conditioning thing three days in a row, a typical week will have peaks and valleys in terms of
how much effort you’re using.

Side note: I count carries as part of my conditioning, just to make sure they get done. Some
carries really are conditioning (see Revenant or C.A.C’s), but even something like Farmcase,
which does not give the same hit as “real“ conditioning, I will log as my daily conditioning and
move on with my life. I do carries at least once a week (and so should everyone).

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 Altering ideas: “where are the burpees??”

If you like to do conditioning, you may look at these ideas and see a few glaring omissions;
where are the front squats? Where are the burpees? Where are the (insert another here)???

The answer is that personally I cannot do them, I have a pretty severe spine condition (11 fused
vertebrae, reduced mobility, pain, etc) and physically cannot get into a front squat position, or
hop in and out of burpees. There's a few things I cannot do, and the following ideas are made to
accommodate that.

An example: I had to alter mythical’s tower of babel (which uses front squats/burpees) to use
back squats or zerchers & overhead pressing. Did I still do ‘tower of babel’? Maybe, maybe not,
I don’t care either way.

With that said, you have full permission to alter any of the ideas to suit you. There’s value to
doing something as written, but If you see zerchers and want to front squat, do it. If you see
push ups and want to do burpees, do it. If you don’t have the equipment required to do
everything, alter it so you can.

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 Death trap

We’re starting with a hard one. The first time I tried this I went to a top set of 11 EMOM, and that
was so hard that I implemented a rule that EMOM is a max of 10 reps, and I only used 87kg on
the trap bar.

● Use a trap bar (high handles)

● Do 1 deadlift & 1 chin up, each set add one rep until 5 deadlifts/chin ups (no rest)
● Once you hit 6 reps, do 5 push ups after each set
● Hit a top set and work your way back down to 6 reps
● Reverse the chins/deadlifts down to 1

This can be done EMOM if the top set is 10 or less, only start the timer from 6 reps onwards, do
the deadlifts/chins as fast as you can.

If this isn't clear, it works like this (if your top set was 10, red sets can be done EMOM):
● 1 deadlift, 1 chin up
● 2 deadlifts, 2 chin ups
● 3 deadlifts, 3 chin ups
● 4 deadlifts, 4 chin ups
● 5 deadlifts, 5 chin ups
● 6 deadlifts, 6 push ups
● 7 deadlifts, 7 push ups
● 8 deadlifts, 8 push ups
● 9 deadlifts, 9 push ups
● 10 deadlifts, 10 push ups
● 9 deadlifts, 9 push ups
● 8 deadlifts, 8 push ups
● 7 deadlifts, 7 push ups
● 6 deadlifts, 6 push ups
● 5 deadlifts, 5 chin ups
● 4 deadlifts, 4 chin ups
● 3 deadlifts, 3 chin ups
● 2 deadlifts, 2 chin ups
● 1 deadlifts, 1 chin ups

Bonus - The death trap challenge, did you know a top set of 15 and back down is a total of
225 reps? The challenge is to do that with 225lbs on the trap bar. Good luck.

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 Snake Way

If you recognize the name, you’re a real one. This is one of my favourites, you’re going to have
to start light on these, olympic lifts take a lot out of you; I used 40kg/42.5kg/45kg for the first
time and added 2.5kg each week to it.

● 3 waves of Overhead squat & push superset

● Reps per wave: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1
● Every overhead squat set starts with a power snatch
● Add 2.5 kg to the squats each wave
● Push: dips, overhead pressing, push ups (one per wave)
● Totals: 75 overhead squats, 25 dips, 25 OHP, 25 push ups, 27 snatches

That means you’re going to do 1 overhead squat, and 1 dip, then 2/2, then 3/3 until you get to 5
and work your way back down. Then you add 2.5kg (quickly, please) and go again. I pretty
much always pick dips for wave 1, trap bar overhead press for wave 2, and push ups for wave 3
(you’re gonna want the easy one on the last round).

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 Wildcard

This one is good, but it requires a lot of equipment at once. You can try to use less by pressing
the same kettlebells you clean, or pressing out of the same rack you’re squatting in.
If you don’t have a home gym there’s also the bonus of bringing a deck of cards to the gym,
where everyone will think you are very cool.

● Take the ace - ten of each suit from a deck of cards and shuffle them
● Turn over the cards and do that many reps (55 total)
● Spades: a squat
● Diamonds: push ups
● Clubs: double kettlebell cleans (each club is a set of 10)
● Hearts: an overhead press

This one is good because you can get screwed by luck and end up having to do 30 zerchers in
a row, and there's nothing you can do about it.

You can do swings instead of cleans if you like, they are always sets of 10, because it never
made much sense to me to do just 2 cleans or swings. So there’s 100 total of those.

You can use a full deck if you want to, I find ace - ten more manageable.

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 Match the bells

This is more like a challenge than a conditioning idea you repeat, maybe something you do
every now and then to see if you can get a better time. The final squat set of 40kg I always do
40 reps for, I’m not sure why.

The first time I did this I used a pair of 20kg kettlebells and it took me 10 mins 27 seconds,
which I’ll aim to beat next time.

● Load up 2 plates and a pair of kettlebells

● Do 20 back squats then 10 kb thrusters (squat into a press)
● Remove half a plate (20kg total) from the barbell and go again for 20 reps
● Keep going until the weight on the bar matches/is less than the total weight of the kbs
● E.g with 20kg bells; 100kg -> kb -> 80kg -> kb -> 60kg -> kb -> 40kg -> kb

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 Edamame

This is my go-to for an easy day, it’s either a 9 or 18 min EMOM. Each minute you will do a total
of 12 reps, starting at 5 chins/dips/push ups & 7 double kettlebell front squats, down to 1 chin &
11 squats and back. That will take 9 mins. You can repeat with a different lift or do the mixed
version for 18 mins instead.

● Chins/dips/push ups (pick one): 5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5

● Double KB front squats: 7-8-9-10-11-10-9-8-7
● Repeat with another lift for a 18 min EMOM
● Mixed version: swap between two lifts each minute (5 chins, 4 dips, 3 chins, 2 dips, etc
then start the next 9 min block with 5 dips, 4 chins)

The mixed version makes the chins more manageable if you can’t keep up with them.

This is good with a weight vest, although when I use one I will only pick push ups or dips, and
do goblet squats instead of double kettlebell front squats.

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 Widowmade/Triple Threat Triad

Dumping these two together as they are similar. This was a take on the whole 20 rep squat
straight into 20 rep deadlift thing from Jon Anderson. Where you did some take on each
movement (squat, deadlift, bench, overhead press) for 20 reps. I only have one olympic bar so I
had to settle for push ups & dumbbell overhead press.

Widowmade (all four widowmakers giant set)

● Squat x 20, get bar to floor, deadlift x 20, pushups/bench x 20, press anything x 20

The good news is that after a squat/deadlift widowmaker superset, push ups and dumbbell
pressing is tough, you’ll need surprisingly light dumbbells.

Triple threat triad

● Squat x 20, deadlift x 20, push ups x 20
● Squat x 10, deadlift x 10, push ups x 10
● Squat x 5, deadlift x 5, push ups x 5
● No rest

This speaks for itself, you’ll either have to use two bars or be prepared to clean the deadlift back
into the rack for the next squat set. I just used a trap bar for the deadlifts instead.

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 Edgerunner

This ones good because it can either be very easy or pretty hard depending on how you set it
up and how many rounds you go for. It’s very open, I use my 20kg bells.

● Rounds of: 2 chins, 4 push ups, 5 double kettlebell clean & squat
● Clean before each squat rep
● 15 - 20 rounds or set a timer
● EMOM:
○ 21 rounds of 2 chin, 4 push ups, 5 kettlebell squats (no clean)
○ 21 rounds of 2 chins, 4 push ups, 5 kettlebell thrusters (squat into a press)
○ 21 rounds of 2 chins, 4 push ups, 1 Armor Building Complex (Dan John)

This is simply just - 2 chins, 4 push ups, something with kettlebells. I’ve done more variations of
this than I can remember. I prefer EMOM because it forces you to keep going.

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 Tower of Widows

Very much inspired by tower of babel (check the link at the top of the document), only focusing
on higher rep back squats instead. I don’t think I’ve done more than 80kg on these, and
normally pair them with trap bar press.

● Do a widowmaker, then a set of 2 reps, and add 2 reps each set until 20, then back
down
● After each squat set do: 5 trap bar press, or 10 swings, etc
● Squat reps: 20, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 (total:
220)
● If you don't want to work back down from 20, stop there (baby) or use: 15, 10, 5

Look, there’s no other way to say it - you’re gonna have to be a high rep squat kinda guy/gal to
do this one, and expect it to take like 30 mins.

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 Xmas Squats

The first time I ran tower of widows I actually started with a set of 50 squats with 1 plate
(60kg), which wasn’t right for that conditioning idea, but gave me this one.

All it is, is squatting 1 plate (60kg) for 1 set of 100 reps on Xmas day.

Christmas 2022 was the first chance I had to do this, but it’ll be a tradition from now on I think.
Unfortunately I was losing grip on the bar and failed this challenge.

My results for 2022 were: 60kg for a set of 70 reps, 41 seconds rest, and then a set of 30 for
100 total. Time: 5 mins 48 seconds.

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 2, 3, 5 - Increasing the kettlebell press

Firstly, the 2,3,5 rep scheme is from Dan John and is good applied in a lot of places - I use it for
weighted chins, and pause bench too for example.

This is a 9 - 15 min EMOM meant to be run once a week for a little while.

● 3 - 5 rounds of the following 3 min EMOM (with double kettlebells)

● Min 1 - 2 cleans, 2 presses, 2 squats
● Min 2 - 3 cleans, 3 presses, 3 squats
● Min 3 - 5 cleans, 5 presses, 5 squats
● After 3 rounds rest 1-2 mins and set a press AMRAP
● Next time do 4 rounds and try to match the amrap after, when you can move to 5
● When you can do 5 rounds and match the amrap, next time do 3 rounds and push for a
higher amrap

If you are successful each time, this will take a minimum of 3 weeks, but could take longer or
can be repeated with a higher amrap. This was my ‘after deadlift day’ conditioning for a good 6
weeks once.

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 The Revenant

Get it? because you’re running away from the bear? Please laugh, I thought this was very
clever.

This requires enough space to sprint a bit, the example given is with a 80 foot stretch of grass.

● Set up a barbell and trap bar 80 feet apart and do 5+ rounds of the following:
● 2 bear complexes
● Run 80 feet (to trap bar)
● Carry trap bar 160 feet (to barbell and back)
● Run 80 feet (to barbell)

A bear complex is a barbell clean into front squat into overhead press into back squat into
overhead press and back to the floor. If you don’t know it, look up a video, it's not as
complicated as I’ve made it sound.

You can choose anything to carry really, it doesn't have to be a trap bar if you don't have one.

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 4’s for 4’s for 4’s

I usually run this once a week, directly after squat day because I have no respect for myself.

Credits to the book tactical barbell for bringing the idea of stopping a run to do some lifting
every so many minutes to my attention.

● Circuit: overhead press x 4, chins x 4, dips x 4, push ups x 4

● Do 1 circuit then get on the treadmill
● Every 4 mins on the treadmill clock do a circuit
● You can use the first 4 mins to warm up walk

There’s no way around either needing a treadmill near a rack, or knowing a run route that
passes by some equipment you can loop around to.

I normally do this anywhere from 24 - 32 total mins.

For incline walking with a weight vest I also use this:

● If weighted: 2 chins, 3 dips, 4 push ups

● Do 1 circuit then get on the treadmill (incline)
● Every 3 mins do a circuit for 30 mins total (33 total reps)

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 C.A.C’s

Or, Cleans and Carries. You need a bar to clean, something to carry, and a stretch of land.

Within the same month, my brother totaled his car, and my dad found an old gas canister in his
shed; so I use a 50kg bar (old barbell with car tires on it), and a 40kg keg (gas canister filled
with water).

● 9 sets of cleans, each followed by a 160 foot carry

● Clean reps: 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3

That 160 foot carry is just moving the keg to the end of the garden and back as fast as possible,
just end back up at the bar for the next set and it’ll be fine.

After running this a few times I started to press the first rep of each clean set, then the first and
last rep.

I’ve also used the following reps for light deadlifts instead of cleans for 11 total sets - 4, 4, 4, 4,
5, 6, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4

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 Olympus

As shown in snake way, I’m a fan of light olympic lifts for the sake of conditioning - If there's two
tips for making conditioning effective it’s these:

1. Get something overhead

2. Level changes (get on and off the floor for example).

Not to mention olympic lifting just makes me feel more explosive/snappy in general, but use light
weights.

● Rounds of the following:

● 2 overhead squats, 2 chins, 2 push ups
● 3 overhead squats, 3 chins, 3 push ups
● 5 overhead squats, 5 chins, 5 push ups
● Each overhead squat sets starts with a power snatch
● Each round is 10 total reps each (do 3 - 5 rounds)

When using Clean and jerks, do everything for 3’s instead (which is only 1 total reps a round
less, but eliminates the set of 5 clean and jerks - which is a little too much for this).

● Rounds of the following:

● 3 clean & jerks, 3 chins, 3 push ups

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 Farmcase

I think suitcase carries (and carries in general) are really good for your back health. This is good
for your core stability, but also your grip and if you do it for long enough, your traps too.

I hope this is understandable, basically you alternate between farmers carries and suitcase
carries, you’ll do 3 lengths before a single hand gets a break. This example uses an 80 foot
length of grass:

● Use two plates, farmers handles, or kettlebells & set a 6 min timer
● Farmer carry plates 160 feet (80 feet and back)
● Ditch a plate and suitcase carry for 160 feet
● Farmer carry plates 160 feet
● Ditch the other hands plate and suitcase carry for 160 feet
● Repeat until timer goes off

This isn’t all that hard to be honest, it feels more like upkeep for my core and I aim to do some
kind of suitcase/single side carry each week.

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 Bonus propaganda (“I can’t squat 4 times a week,
my knees hurt”)

I think one of the reasons I can do conditioning everyday is because of the work of Tim
Anderson. When I first started daily conditioning my knees started to hurt, they were not used
to the sheer amount of squatting I was now doing.

Let me introduce you to Tim Anderson. Tim is a genius, his book Original Strength outlines
how people should move more like children. Babies and kids instinctively know how to move,
they are never sore, or hurt. An 8 year old doesn't stop and do ankle rolls before they sprint out
the door to play with their friends.

The problem with this is that - until you understand what he’s talking about, Tim sounds like a
loon. His moves look ridiculous, and you’ll get funny looks. But now that I do his moves
everyday I can say that my knees never hurt, nor do my ankles. I don’t even need to warm up
my ankles or legs before running 45+ mins anymore.

Conditioning is tough, and you’ll be moving a lot - Tim Anderson is one aspect of what allows
me to do it, his books are great, you can also get by with his youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff0gWJz60mE

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