Sorry, I Can’t Max Today - My Program Says I’m Tired
Josh Hezza- May 4
- 9 min read
Sorry, I Can’t Max Today - My Program Says I’m Tired
Block Pacing Is for Bitches
In October 2011, Andrey Malanichev flew to Australia. Not to sightsee. Not to test a taper. Not to coast into one carefully prepared meet like a crystal-boned spreadsheet jockey.
He went there to cause damage.
In the span of ten days, across four different cities, this is what he did:
No deload. No phase potentiation. No nervous system recalibration or autoregulated tapering block. Just a 300-pound Russian brute moving world-record weight repeatedly, on command, without excuse, in unfamiliar gyms, likely under jet lag and half-fed.
And the lifts didn’t just go up - they looked good.
That’s what real strength is. Not “readiness based on metrics.” Not a conditional PR. Not a perfectly timed Instagram peak backed by 14 weeks of pastel-coloured progress bars and a built-in excuse generator.
It’s not peaked. It’s prepared. Strength that holds in any room, under any bar, in any state - because it’s not dependent on mood, macros, or which way Mercury is facing.
So tell me again why you skipped max effort this week because your RPE said 6.5 and you “didn’t want to overshoot.”
Tell me why you were only allowed to do pause squats 3x6 at RPE 7 this week - because you’ve got pause squats 4x4 at RPE 8 coming up in six weeks.
🧱 The Myth of Fragile Strength
We are living in the era of fragile strength - a generation of lifters who treat their potential like fine china: carefully managed, sparingly used, and ultimately useless when shit actually matters.
You see it everywhere. Strength is now something that must be "protected" - not built, not tested, not demanded. Protected. Like it might get spooked and run off if the gym floor isn’t mopped, the CNS isn’t fully topped up, or the lifter didn’t get precisely 7.8 hours of REM-tracked sleep.
We’ve built an entire fake ecosystem around this mentality. Block periodisation. RPE fatigue caps. Wave loading with the emotional arc of a Victorian novel. And what’s it all for? So that some poor bastard can hit a single triple at 80% on week 7 of his base phase and call it “momentum.”
It’s pathetic.
Let’s be clear about something: block periodisation was developed for drug-tested Olympic weightlifters with six or more comps per year, tightly controlled national oversight, and professional coaches adjusting things daily. Not hobbyist powerlifters with one meet a year and a knee niggle that won’t go away because they refuse to train their hamstrings.
Now we’ve got lifters who don’t just train in blocks - they think in them. They believe you’re not allowed to touch a heavy bar unless your macrocycle says you’ve “unlocked” it. They believe in strength like it's a turn-based RPG.
Jamie Lewis said it best in Issuance of Insanity 2:
“Efficiency and elite strength are asymmetric goals.”
The more efficient your training becomes, the more excuses it allows you to make. The more variables it removes, the less adaptable you become. And adaptation - not efficiency - is what produces monsters.
But here’s the kicker: this mindset doesn’t even come from programming. It comes from the lifter’s own lifestyle.
You eat like shit. You sleep like shit. You recover like someone who doesn’t actually want to be strong - and then you write it off as "accumulated fatigue" when your deadlift stalls for six months.
It’s not fatigue. It’s mediocrity in disguise.
And instead of fixing the foundations - lifting harder, sleeping longer, eating enough to scare your coworkers - you cling to the most polite programme you can find and hope it hides your inconsistency. You tell yourself that a soft week is “strategic,” that a missed lift is “informative,” and that you'll peak when the stars align.
Let me save you the trouble. You won’t.
Because strength doesn't belong to the most calculated - it belongs to the most committed.
Brandon Lilly had the right idea in 365Strong when he called out the Starbucks syndrome of modern athletes:
“This personalisation effect makes us believe we are special, and that we should be pampered at all times. Fuck that.”
He benched 525 lbs on a bet. Squatted 610 lbs in flip-flops. Deadlifted in the Animal Cage and competed again the next day. That’s not some genetically blessed outlier. That’s what happens when your standards are forged in discomfort instead of designed on a Google Sheet.
Strong lifters aren’t fragile. They don’t need special prep, spiritual conditions, or custom-built ramps of performance readiness.
They just need a bar, some weight, and a reason.
⚙️ Always Ready - The Conjugate Advantage
Conjugate isn't just a system. It’s a stance. A philosophy. A psychological middle finger to the idea that strength is something you “build toward” like a GCSE revision schedule. It says this: be sharp, stay sharp, stay dangerous - all year long.
While other lifters are carefully navigating their percentage ladders, worried about “exceeding prescribed intensity” in week 4 of their base block, Conjugate athletes are out there maxing every single week. Because that’s the point. To be ready. Not just once. Not just at the end. But always.
And here’s the irony: the lifters who think Conjugate is too reckless, too intense, too chaotic? They’re the ones who snap under pressure, fall apart on comp day, or mysteriously can’t hit depth unless they’ve had six weeks of low bar groove rehearsal and a powerlifting priest bless their knee sleeves.
You know what protects your body and your brain better than linear progression?
Rotating the hell out of your max effort lifts. Strain - real, joint-grinding, eyeball-bleeding strain - is a skill. You don’t get good at strain by dodging it. You get good at it by walking right up to the edge every week, under different bars, with different setups, in different conditions, and showing that you can still fight. Still move weight. Still win.
That’s what Conjugate gives you: resilience through variation. Your CNS doesn’t get cooked because you’re not doing the same lift for 8 weeks straight. Your joints don’t beg for mercy because the angles keep changing. But your intent? That stays the same. Maximum effort. Every time.
Louie Simmons put it plainly:
“You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” And if you only ever test your strength under optimal conditions, perfect peaking, and pre-planned attempts, you never find the links. You just pray they don’t break when it matters.
Conjugate doesn’t pray. It prepares.
No belt? Good. No wraps? Better. Shit bar? Box squat? Fat grip? Off pins? Even better. Because if you can hit a personal best in those conditions, you’ll obliterate it when things finally go your way.
This is where people get it twisted. They think Westside is chaos. But it’s controlled chaos - by design. It’s a stress-testing framework built to reveal the lifter, not protect them.
And while we’re on it - let’s talk Brandon Lilly. I won’t say he and Westside had a chequered past. But you know what he did take with him? The idea that strength should always be in your back pocket.
In 365Strong, he wrote:
“I can deadlift 750 no belt, bench 500 multiple days in a row, squat 675 raw. That’s not peaking. That’s standards.”
And that’s the difference. The weak want to show off strength. The prepared want to own it.
He benched 525 on a bet. Squatted 610 in flip-flops. Not because he had to - because someone said he couldn’t.
That’s not programming. That’s pride. And it matters more than any fucking microcycle.
This is why Chaos & Pain made sense to so many lifters before spreadsheets took over. You didn’t need a perfect programme - you needed rage, and a reason.
“Most lifters need a flowchart. Others need a reason.” And the reason’s simple: you lift heavy because you’re supposed to. Because that’s what keeps the edge sharp. That’s what builds calloused joints, confident strain, and real-world readiness.
If you're training like strength has to be rationed, you're not building a total. You're building an excuse.
🛠 Strength That Travels - Building It
Everything you’ve read so far means nothing if you don’t train accordingly. This isn’t just a rant. This is a method - and it works because it’s built to hold up anywhere. Different bar? Different state? Different mindset? Doesn’t matter. If you’ve trained properly, your strength goes where you go. If not, it falls apart the minute the gym lighting isn’t Instagram-friendly.
So here’s how to build strength that travels.
🔁 1. Max Effort Every Week - Rotate the Strain
Pick one movement. Make it hard. Do it heavy.
Then don’t do it again for a while.
That’s it.
One day a week, you take a lift to a true max - 1RM, 2RM, 3RM. But you change the lift every time.
Safety bar, reverse band, low box, deficit, floor press, cambered bar, close grip, pause, tempo, no legs, no lats, no clue - whatever.
Just make it hard. Make it heavy. Make it new.
This teaches you to strain, adjust, and overcome. And it builds strength in every crevice, angle, and joint position - not just the few you’re good at. You're not building a comp lift here. You're building a lifter who’s hard to kill.
⚡️ 2. Dynamic Effort - Learn to Move with Violence
Speed work isn’t just for technique. It’s for intent. You wave the percentages (typically 3-week cycles), stay fast, and develop force production under submaximal loads - so when it’s time to lift heavy, your body’s already primed to move like a weapon.
For lower body:
Squat 8–12 sets of 2 reps with short rest
Deadlift 6–10 sets of 1 rep, same rules
Bands or chains optional but encouraged - build against tension, not just with it
For upper body:
Bench 8–12 sets of 3 reps
Speed + technique + shoulder health
Speed is a skill. Train it weekly or watch it rot.
💪 3. Repetition Method - Hypertrophy and Work Capacity
This is the engine room. You build muscle. You fix weaknesses. You repeat quality movement until it becomes second nature.
Triceps
Hamstrings
Upper back
Abs
Shoulders
Grip Rotate every 2–3 weeks. Train close to failure. Don’t get fancy - get nasty. If it burns and doesn’t break you, it stays.
This is where you earn your next PR - not under the barbell, but under the fatigue.
🏋️♂️ 4. GPP - Strength in Discomfort
No one gets strong sitting down between sets watching TikToks.
You want durable, travel-proof strength? You suffer for it.
Sled drags
Sandbag carries
Hill sprints
Yoke holds
DB clean and press for reps
Bodyweight circuits
Heavy-ass dumbbell rows for 50 reps, because life is unfair
GPP builds lungs. It builds legs. It builds mental bandwidth under pressure. More importantly - it keeps you honest. If you can’t survive a sled drag, how the fuck are you going to survive a meat grinder comp with five events and two hours of sleep?
Whether you’re tested or untested, this stuff builds the kind of conditioning that stops you falling apart after your second heavy lift. Strong isn’t strong if it doesn’t last past the opener.
🐺 Optional: The Lone Wolf Block
Sometimes, you don’t need a plan. You need violence with structure. Here’s what a “Lone Wolf” block looks like:
Pick 3–4 weeks
Run Max Effort Lower + DE Upper, Max Effort Upper + DE Lower
Do zero lifts that resemble your comp lifts
Prioritise strain, fatigue management, movement quality, and grit
Push accessories like you’re trying to bury yourself
GPP at the end of every session, even if it’s 5 minutes
No taper. No peak. Just getting meaner.
This is the kind of block that makes you harder to kill - not just stronger.
If this all sounds a bit out of reach right now - good. It should. But don’t panic. No one starts here. You earn this kind of durability over time, by showing up, straining often, and refusing to coddle your own potential. You don’t need to be ready today - you just need to be willing to get there.
💡 The Outcome: Durability, Not Dependency
Brandon Lilly said it best:
“Train like a strongman, diet like a bodybuilder, mobilise like a weightlifter, think like a powerlifter.”
But what he was really getting at was cross-domain resilience. Don’t just be strong under one bar, in one gym, at one time of year. Be strong when you’re tired, angry, alone, rushed, cold, or doubting yourself. Be strong anyway.
Because if you can PR tired, You’ll f*cking dominate fresh.
Train for the Alley, Not the Algorithm
There’s a story Brandon Lilly tells in 365Strong. You’re walking down a dark alley with someone you love. And someone steps out of the shadows, armed, aggressive, and looking for a fight.
Do you stop and explain that you’re not peaked right now? That your joints are a bit tender? That you’re two weeks out from your comp and your fatigue index is above target?
Or do you square up and fight?
That’s what this whole thing comes down to. That’s what separates the spreadsheet lifters from the ones who actually make it - the ones who don’t flinch when the bar feels heavy, the ones who don’t need the perfect warm-up or the right song or the peak week placebo.
You want to compete? Train like you don’t get to choose the date. Train like the meet was moved forward. Like your kit didn’t show up. Like the mono’s broken. Like the bar’s bent. Train like you’re in a different country, in a shit hotel gym, and someone just challenged you to prove it.
No belt. No prep. Just you and the bar. And someone you love behind you.
And then - be ready anyway.
Because strength doesn’t live in spreadsheets. It lives in readiness. In strain. In how often you choose to show up when it would’ve been easier to “pace yourself.”
No one cares what your Excel sheet says. They care if you can show up and move weight.
Want to stop training for one good day and start building strength that lasts all year?
📘 Grab The Full Conjugate System and build it properly.
🧠 Then hit my peaking mini-ebooks - The Art of Peaking, Fix Your Weaknesses, and From Training to the Podium - and learn how to peak without losing your edge.
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