For the better part of a decade, the summit of my athletic ability was being able to waddle up to the squat rack and heft a middling load for three to five reps.
Any more than five and I’d be out for the count, so I avoided “high reps” (i.e. sets of more than five) on the big compound lifts like squats and presses like the plague.
A grave error, considering how being able to access higher rep ranges in these movements with respectable loads is the key to unlocking spectacular gains in muscularity and, paradoxically, strength in the lower rep ranges. Plus training this way causes the risk of injury to plunge because you’re not pounding away with near-maximal loads on a weekly basis (very important if you’re interested in still being able to train at all, let alone make progress ten years from now).
Not that I could have done differently, even if I wanted to, such was the decrepit state of my heart and lungs.
What changed?
A couple of things, both back in the peculiar year of 2020.
The first was when the government decreed gyms must shut (while takeaways remained open) to protect the health of the nation, which forced me to take up running as I was too unfit to engage in any other meaningful training. (My “high rep problem” combined with carrying too much timber meant I couldn’t manage much in the way of bodyweight work.)
The second was the birth of my now eldest daughter, which got me to thinking about the importance of not dropping dead from a heart attack before she has kids of her own if that is her wish. (Cardiovascular disease runs rampant on both sides of my family tree.)
And so, running has remained a part of my routine ever since.
I am not going to sit here and pretend my relationship with running is rosy. Rather, it is something I do begrudgingly but consistently because the quality and quantity of my life depends upon it.
On that note…
Today I am selling the running themed March 2025 issue of The Phil Tyreman Letter as part of Operation: Cleanout (I store all my stock in the corner of my bedroom, and over-ordering to shave money off the printing cost means I am now in possession of a small mountain of back issues of my newsletter which needs reducing).
You can purchase a copy for £50, which some might say is a lot of money until you measure it against the cost of a large bag of whey protein, which I have been told often costs more than that these days.
I am admittedly biased, but I think you’ll probably get more out of learning and applying what’s in this issue than you will from chugging the waste products of the milk manufacturing process.
Anyway, hark unto what you will learn inside:
* A brutal evisceration of the errors I made trying to make running a fixed, firm part of my routine (essential reading for those who view themselves as lifters first and foremost because I know you are guilty of at least one of these).
* Two free resources to get you started if you have never run before (one of which is a short and dirt-cheap eBook I wrote last year that I will happily give to you without charge if it means you’ll do the needful).
* The horrors that can befall you should you attempt to tackle advanced or even intermediate running programmes before you are ready.
* Caveman simple advice from an anonymous French Foreign Legionnaire on how to “get good” at running.
* A straightforward way to up your weekly running mileage without trashing your performance in the weightroom or experiencing soul-crushing exhaustion.
* A neat little programme I developed to make it so you can run a 10k pretty much on command (and possibly further, if that is your wish).
* When to transition back to a lifting-centric approach (important if looking powerful matters to you).
* How to sync your running and lifting schedules (failing to get this right often results in profound fatigue and, eventually, injury because your body never gets chance to recover).
If you’d like a copy, go here to purchase:
https://cmtyreman.thrivecart.com/the-phil-tyreman-letter-march-2025
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman