Join me for an encore episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, where Ryan L'Ecuyer and I discuss various aspects of hypertrophy training, client programming, and integrating flexible dieting into fitness routines. This rebroadcast is filled with valuable insights into building muscle without compromising health. We share our experiences and strategies for adapting training programs, the importance of aerobic conditioning, and practical tips for maintaining effective workouts while managing client expectations. The episode highlights their shared knowledge and anecdotal experiences, providing useful takeaways for coaches, trainers, and fitness enthusiasts. Sponsors: Tecton Life Ketone drink! https://tectonlife.com/ DRMIKE to save 20% Dr. Mike's Fitness Insider Newsletter: Sign up for free at https://miketnelson.com/.
Join me for an encore episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, where Ryan L'Ecuyer and I discuss various aspects of hypertrophy training, client programming, and integrating flexible dieting into fitness routines. This rebroadcast is filled with valuable insights into building muscle without compromising health.
We share our experiences and strategies for adapting training programs, the importance of aerobic conditioning, and practical tips for maintaining effective workouts while managing client expectations. The episode highlights their shared knowledge and anecdotal experiences, providing useful takeaways for coaches, trainers, and fitness enthusiasts.
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[00:00:00] Dr Mike T Nelson: Hey, welcome back to the Flex a Diet podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle mass, improve body composition, increase performance, do it all without destroying your health in a flexible framework. Today, this is a rebroadcast of a podcast I did with my good buddy, Ryan Lecure, a while back, primarily focused on hypertrophy.
[00:00:29] So how to have bigger muscles and some other meathead meanderings. You may be able to hear Ryan's music in the background here. We are staying at his place briefly on our pass through Austin, coming back from South Padre Island. And then I'm flying out tomorrow to Reston, Virginia for a couple of days, then back to Oklahoma city.
[00:00:56] So Jody is driving from Austin to Oklahoma city. And then we'll be making the trek back home. So I thought that was the perfect time to re send out this podcast. I thought Ryan had a lot of really great stuff and he's been around in the fitness industry for quite a while, but keeps a very low profile which is great but I love all the information here.
[00:01:18] So I wanted to send it out to you again. And as we were stopping by here. I dropped off some ketones for Ryan and also for Dave. Last time we were through Dave had picked up some and said he really enjoyed them. I found them, like I said, very helpful kiteboarding in between sessions, especially after about riding for three hours, my brain felt cooked and fatigued, even though physically I still felt pretty good.
[00:01:46] I'd have one or two cans of Tecton ketones. Then. We feel pretty good. Usually I could go out and ride for definitely an evening session then. So, check them out at the link down below, use the code Dr. Mike to save some money. Yes, I am an ambassador for them and also a scientific advisor. So I am biased towards them.
[00:02:09] So without further ado, enjoy this rebroadcast of the podcast with my buddy, Ryan Lecure.
[00:02:17] How long do you program clients out? This is something I've always debated with myself. Usually four weeks is enough. Yeah. Yeah. Unless I have like weird phases that are shorter.
[00:02:29] I'll do I do have these kind of like pivot weeks on on the back burner at all times. So I did that with a few people, whereas like I didn't really. I wasn't really ready to write a whole new block of training for them. Cause we hadn't really communicated, especially for the month of December.
[00:02:44] So I was like, okay, I'll just give you two weeks of we'll do like eight by eight for like on four different days and then do like a, I put in like a sensory motor type of week, which is more like triplanar type of stuff, just stuff that they normally don't do in the gym. And so I'm like, Hey, this is.
[00:03:00] You're probably not going to get to the gym much this week anyway. So here's this workout. It's like, they're pretty quick, but you'll feel good. They're more aerobic in nature. You get some different movements in. So that's actually been really helpful. So I can have those on the back burner for when I cause I don't like to just program endlessly for people if I haven't communicated with them.
[00:03:17] But then if I have, then I find that I can usually get away with four week blocks of training. What are you usually doing more, more frequent changes and everything to your. Programming. I've been trying to get it where I can program in theory four to six weeks ahead of time. But in reality, does that ever really happen?
[00:03:40] Very few. Okay. What would change that? Well, for the good or bad, like I, I still probably allow people to do stuff a little bit too much custom, but it highly depends upon the person. Right. So they'll, something will happen and just life stuff happens to clients. So it's Oh, I missed three days this past week.
[00:04:01] And so I'm like, Oh shit. Well, you probably shouldn't go up to four sets next, next week. So let's program that down a little bit, or let's move this around. But I think the downside of that is nobody does it consciously, but unconsciously, they know that I'll adapt a program to them, which is what I would want to do versus figuring out a way to get it done, but that's also a double edged sword too, because I've had people just smoke themselves in the past about getting their, mandatory four sets in.
[00:04:34] And then week, two weeks after that, they're just a complete shit show because they forced themselves through it. So I think they're making the right. Decision, but I don't know. It's I always feel like I'm trying to adapt the programming to their lifestyle, which I think is ideal. But then you wonder, well, am I just making it too easy for them to do that?
[00:04:58] Should they be more autonomous? Should they be able to figure it out on their own? And the reality is it's relatively usually small changes too, so I figure that's just they're their periodization. Is, life periodizes it for them. Most people I change exercises every four to maybe seven weeks, somewhere around there.
[00:05:17] And I've been getting better at asking people like, Hey, I know you had two weeks off for the holidays. I get it as a Tommy, I know you had two weeks off for the holidays. You got some sessions in, you were gone, you're in, frigging Iceland and shit. Do you mind if we rerun like three weeks of the last program or are you so bored silly of that?
[00:05:32] You never want to look at it again. And if so, we'll retool it and just motor on to the next one. But I know you've got some travel coming up. I know you've got other things, going on. So what is the happy medium? So I've been getting better about just fucking asking clients.
[00:05:47] And he's no, man, that's cool. I felt like I was doing good on the last program. I want to repeat, some of those exercises to do a little better. I'm like, oh, okay, great. In my head I'm thinking Oh man, he probably doesn't want to do the same thing again, but I realized that's my bias because I wouldn't want to do the same thing or you just feel I feel like I do that a lot.
[00:06:04] Cause I'm like trying to justify me being a coach and I have to be doing something. But yeah, a lot of times you do, when you do ask, I did the same thing. They'll be like no, like I'm good. I actually it's actually. Harder for me to have to do all this. I just started to figure this out.
[00:06:18] Yeah. Just, which is cool. Yeah. You can't go wrong with that. Yeah. No, I guess probably just gets into our podcast and Caesar just chats. Anyway, we record. So what the hell that's fine. Yeah. I think in the past I probably changed stuff too often based. On my own insecurities and nothing else.
[00:06:37] Right. Cause to me, I was like, Oh my God, this person's paying me so much money. And like, why would I have them do a progression of the same thing again? They're going to think I'm an idiot and I don't know what I'm doing. And I need to tweak this and I need to prove to them that I know my shit. And the reality was I think it costs people results.
[00:06:53] Right. Cause I think I was too quick to change stuff, not based on their physiology, not based on them, not, plateauing on a result or their HRV tanking, or it wasn't based on anything. It was based on my own insecurity of they're going to think I'm an idiot if I don't change stuff. A hundred percent.
[00:07:11] Yeah that's, I was so that way, especially when I first started training as a Personal trainer at 18. And that was, there was very much, there was a lot of that in the culture at my gym of Oh, he's doing the same workout that he did with his other client, he already did bench press.
[00:07:28] He's been on that bench press all day, or whatever. And I remember going through progressions with people planning out their workouts and just running out of progressions just what's the next hip engine. I don't know. And then I'm just making up exercises at some point.
[00:07:43] And it took me a while to figure out. It took me like having a few clients that I had for a few years where it's I literally have no more ideas left. I can't come up with any more stupid ass exercises. So I'm going to have to just rerun things at some point. And then eventually you just start dropping off these exercises and realize There's so much variation within the loading schemes, the rep ranges, the time rest periods that you can keep people interested.
[00:08:09] And I think you're actually giving them a better physiological results that you can't, the coolest thing for me was finding, anytime you can find research that backs your bias and that's always fantastic, right? Of course. So we love that. Right. Yeah. So, so that was the cool thing for me.
[00:08:23] And a lot of that, the research from Damas, I think is like the first paper that I read from him was in 2016 on some of the. muscle protein synthesis responses to training and seeing that there's these huge elevations in muscle protein synthesis, following a novel training program, but not necessarily a whole lot of changes in hypertrophy.
[00:08:43] And we already knew that a lot of the changes that take place in the beginning of a training program or. Neurological nature. Like you're learning how to do the exercise. You're getting stronger because of that. You're getting more synchronous muscle contractions and everything's just getting better on the neurological level.
[00:08:58] And it isn't really until weeks later that you actually start putting on muscle, but it even confirmed that. further. And, I don't know if that research has been refuted in any way at this point, if there's any additions to that, I've kept up with it a little bit, but I think the concept is pretty sound in that you do see it.
[00:09:15] And if you're just changing things too often, there's never really a chance to get good enough to actually see some real physiological changes. So that, that for me was when I started looking into that stuff and understanding that a little bit more. It really justified this concept of keeping things similar enough to get better.
[00:09:35] And that is better coaching. It just doesn't feel like it because we're changing other things. We're, but primarily what we're supposed to be changing is physiology. We're not supposed to be changing a spreadsheet. So that's not what they're paying you for. So. So yeah, I think that the concept is huge for coaches.
[00:09:51] I know that was really important for me. And and it does make my life easier for sure. There, so there is a bias there. I did want that to be the case, but I was also willing I'm a hardworking person probably to, to a fault. Like I think I will always kind of err in that direction, but knowing that just, I think has made me a lot better.
[00:10:11] A better coach, a more effective coach. Yeah. The other thing that helped me out too, as I realized I'm like, Oh, especially early on with some of the clients I had, probably eight, 10 years ago left to their own devices. What did they do? I don't know. Whatever flex magazine said this week or this online site or that online site.
[00:10:29] And one of the questions I would ask him is okay, a dedicated program. How long did you do it? I would say the average was like, if they were honest, and they probably lied to me two to four weeks, so I'm like, okay, so maybe by having some level of consistency, I'm actually helping them because the extreme novelty they were doing before didn't seem to get them to where they wanted to go.
[00:10:54] And then the other part I realized is I. When I switched to doing like online software, I was like, man, maybe I should create some template. And I had a bunch of coaches and business people like, nah, man, you just need to template everything. And don't custom stuff. What are you doing? You idiot.
[00:11:09] You're spending hours writing these programs for these people. And I had one person just. He's just come up with three templates, put people on it. They'll never have to know what's going on. And this is someone who legitimately did this with 75 people, but then advertised it as, completely customized coaching.
[00:11:28] And so I hated that whole thing altogether. But what I realized when I went to do some online software was, okay, I have to learn the new software. Maybe I should put it in an assessment. Maybe I should formalize stuff a little bit. So I drove myself bananas for two weeks and took all the spreadsheets I had done and retroactively looked at them to see, okay what's in common.
[00:11:48] And my bias going in was. It's going to be like 20 percent in common. I'm a coach. I'm customizing all this stuff for everyone and to my horror and maybe to make it easier, I realized like, Oh man, like 70 to 80 percent of it is the same. And these are like pretty, everything from, person trying to qualify for the CrossFit games to, a mom who just wants to lose 20 pounds and has three kids, is a pretty wide at the time demographic of people.
[00:12:15] I was like, Oh shit. like most things, like the truth is somewhere in between, right? So you can go back and see what is common and start there. That doesn't mean you're a bad, horrible coach either. No, not in any way. And I think that's, yeah it's really important stuff. Cause it does it allows you to actually be a good coach at the same time, cause you're not wasting your time.
[00:12:41] Rewriting the same damn template, right? I did this for, and that's what I was doing. , dude, I did this for nine to 10 years. It's really only been in the last couple of years just out of necessity that I've started to like that. I actually have templates like this is the more metabolic.
[00:12:57] local metabolic template. And then I just have that as a a master template. And then I work different individuals into that thing. Maybe their gym equipment's different. Maybe they have certain exercises that they don't like, or they do or they can't do, or whatever the case is, but it's a general outline.
[00:13:12] And I never thought that would make my life that much easier because I am still going to take the time to. Look at this person's questionnaire and get the information that they're giving me. I'm still going to take time to do that, but just the fact that I'm not opening up a new spreadsheet every damn time and typing it in.
[00:13:30] It's actually, it's been an amazing time saver and it's maybe way less resentful of, because I hate being on the damn computer. So it's actually been really great. And it's allowed me to focus on other things and be a better coach because of it. And yeah, I think that we do find, it's like, how many movements are we actually capable of doing like in the human body?
[00:13:51] Like everyone's got the same ones. It's we got flexion, extension, external rotation, internal rotation, abducted, like we have there's no, you're not going to encounter somebody who has. This ability that like nobody else has it's like they have this whole new exercise where they, I don't know they could like fling a thing around one side of their back and then over to the other side, you're not going to encounter that person like it doesn't like we all have the same movements, we just have different levels of capacity within those movements.
[00:14:15] So it inherently. It's going to look pretty damn similar. Like we're all trying to go after the same. We, a lot of us have the same problems. So, so it's I definitely don't think that it makes you a bad coach. I think it just allows you to be a better one when you use some of these templates.
[00:14:30] Yeah. And part of it was completely in my own neuroses of I'm hardcore. I'm starting with a blank spreadsheet for every person. Like I'm custom coding, all this, and it would take me like two to four hours. And then like you, I was almost resentful at myself, but I'm spending this much time doing it.
[00:14:48] They don't appreciate how much effort goes into this. And, finally I realized no, they don't. And they don't care. They want the result. That's why they're paying me. They don't give two shits. If it took me six hours or 10 minutes, if they're getting the result that they paid for, and it fits with what they're doing, if they tell you, my favorite exercises, kettlebell swings and you never program it in then, okay, you're an idiot and you're not reading anything and you're like yeah, overhead pressing works.
[00:15:15] And they're like pressing three days a week, then you're just. The dickhead, should, take yourself out, but do something else. But. You don't need to be a complete martyr and feel like you're better because you're starting over from scratch every time, which in hindsight was a complete waste of time.
[00:15:32] Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. I have I got one, one mentee that I work with that I told them, I, I don't know, he'll, he may listen to this. I told him I don't do mentorships. I have no capacity to do that right now. I don't have any kind of program. There's, Better people to do this. And he's well, let's just talk every week.
[00:15:47] And that's one thing that we've been talking about a lot. It's just don't do this thing that I've been doing for so long. But it's it's, I'm really happy that we're talking about it. Cause I really don't hear people talking about it that much. It really for me, I have to learn everything that Dan, the hard way.
[00:16:01] But I don't think that every, I don't think everybody else needs to. So, so it's cool. I think that it's, I hope that this message goes through and I hope that it eliminates some of the the guilt around that. If you find yourself as a coach programming, a lot of very similar things, it doesn't make you a bad coach.
[00:16:18] You probably just landed on some of the patterns that, that we just very often see that's okay. Yeah. Cause I think it's reactionary too. There's other people in the industry who will leave nameless, who, again, advertise completely custom coach. You only work with me. And then you see how many people they work with.
[00:16:36] And this unfortunately is more common in the bodybuilding prep world. Although it's getting a lot better than it used to be. I think you may have more insight on that than I do, but I don't know how you could handle 75 competitors, even if you did nothing, but you're glued to your computer. AM like 6 AM to 6 PM.
[00:17:00] I don't even know how that is feasible. Like, how do you even keep them straight or have the mental capacity to even want to do that? I don't know that to me, just. Just seems insane. Yeah. I think what and I don't have a I have less experience with this than you would think. Even though I've been in bodybuilding since I was 17 competing, but I never actually worked with a coach.
[00:17:25] This will be the first year that I'm going to, I'm going to work with Chris Barakat and I have tentatively made the the commitment. Yeah, he's great guy. I'm super excited about it. Yeah. It's this, so it's challenging for me. It's going to be a, it's definitely going to be as I give you not my control is very tough.
[00:17:40] But I think it's going to be a really good learning experience. And so I haven't really worked with a lot of coaches, but from what I've seen, it's either two things. You have the meal template guy. Yeah. Right. So it's just and I know the meal template, like it's going to be broccoli and tilapia, bro.
[00:17:54] Broccoli and tilapia. Maybe there's some rice in there every now and then. Oh, if you're a guy it's broccoli and chicken. If you're a female fitness competitor, it's broccoli and tilapia. The tilapia comes in later because the tilapia actually thins the skin. Of course, we all know this. Yeah, that, that's, that's just obviously common knowledge.
[00:18:12] Yeah you gotta wait until the end because that, that's when it really gives you the finishing touches on stage. So you got tilapia, broccoli guy, and then you've got macro guy and if you're doing. Those two things, I can see how you could run 75 to a hundred clients where it's just, they send you a photo, you send a couple numbers back for the adjustments, you keep them out, you need to keep a spreadsheet of the adjustments that you made, or maybe you don't, I don't know.
[00:18:35] And then you say, or the other guy okay, we'll eat a little neat, a half a cup of rice this week instead of one cup of rice. And so I guess I could see how you would do that, but I don't know how you would. Jeez. How much time you have in the data? It's a really. Sit down and write an actual meal plan for each person and I have no idea, I don't know how that would be done, but yeah and plus, like all the other to me, that is like the entry to coaching, that is like the base level that you should be competent with calories in calories out expenditure, exercise, nutrition.
[00:19:08] And we both know, and everyone else listening to this will nod their heads. I'm sure too, that it's so much more than that. It's okay, what's going on in your life? Why are you stressed out? It's not that. You're a bad person. Cause you ate birthday cake last night. It's okay what happened?
[00:19:21] What are the stressors that drove you to do that? Yes. You're hungry. Yes. You're trying to step on stage. I get it. But why did you do it Friday night? Not, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, like those are all the things that I think a lot of those other coaches were named nameless and just don't think, talk about, and then people have something They have a binge or they have a high caloric intake day.
[00:19:45] And then it's Oh, six hours of cardio tomorrow to make up for it. And it's just, it sounds like just a horrible cycle. Yeah. Yeah. I, and I wonder how much of that is even known by the coach too. Right. Like that just be, they could just be correcting for themselves. Cause I think it does a lot of times it does get to be like that.
[00:20:05] I, that's always something that's really important to me as a coach is I want my clients to feel very comfortable talking to me about their birthday cake vendors, I want to know if that happens, it's okay. Yeah, you're a human, you're a human. Yeah. Yeah. That's totally fine.
[00:20:19] So, so that's always something that I try to make very clear. It's if you don't finish this. Program, or if you don't follow adhere to this, whatever nutrition plan that we came up with together that's okay. Like this, just keep me in the loop here. So, so we can not be completely crazy and doing these things.
[00:20:35] Cause I, again, I've learned that the hard way I've done that stuff myself as well. So coaching myself I've, I know all of. My own tendencies. And I imagine they're not that much different from a lot of other people. So I think that just having making people feel comfortable enough to talk to you about that stuff and you're not going to completely berate them when they make a quote unquote mistake.
[00:20:56] Right. Yeah. Especially I think with Instagram, it's easy to see all the sort of the successes, but you don't see like the laundry list of like broken people and like people that just. You couldn't make it. And, I know one top competitor, she basically just at the end for her prep, she just lied to her coach, cause I looked at all the stuff that he wanted her to do and I asked her, I said, Hey, I know you have a life and you run a business on top of this.
[00:21:25] There's literally not enough hours in the day. Like there, two hours of cardio get 15, 000 steps, and yeah, from a calories in calories out perspective, is it, does it work? Maybe, I said, what did you do? Cause obviously what you did worked and she's well, at the end, I just got tired of telling them about it.
[00:21:43] So I just lied and told them I did it. I was like, Oh,
[00:21:49] but I get it. Right. Because you don't want to keep having the argument and then you feel bad because you didn't complete the thing you're supposed to do. And you said this was a high priority. And, so I, I understand it, but. To me, that's just a completely unrealistic thing. Like the coach is thinking that all these things are getting done.
[00:22:06] Like simple math would tell you that it just doesn't add up, yeah. That's that's interesting. I wonder if it's written in knowing that people aren't going to do it, but they're going to do 50 percent of it, really what they want or something. I don't know. Yeah, because you look at it, you're like, how the hell are you not going to do that?
[00:22:18] That's not going to happen. But maybe the key to getting in shape is putting in fake numbers into a spreadsheet and then your body somehow knows the numbers and then it changes or something. I don't know. I'll have to try that. I have to run some tests. Yeah.
[00:22:31] Which brings me to my next question of What do you do in the we'll throw out all the psychological stuff on the side for now. I'm not saying it's not important, but what do you do when the numbers just don't add up, right? Like you've done this long enough where you're looking at someone's, caloric intake.
[00:22:49] Let's say they're training. This is just completely a hypothetical person, right? They're training five days a week. They're doing cardio two other days. They're getting their. 10, 000 steps in there, log in their meals and they're at like 2, 200 calories and they're a female. Yeah. I'd say the way 150, right.
[00:23:06] I want to use 120 because everyone is a female competes weighs 120 online, which is insane. At some point you're like, it just, it doesn't, in your head, you're going to doesn't add up. What do you, where do you go at that point? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have I don't think anybody has the answer for this.
[00:23:23] Exactly. Right. Like we know that something's, there's some type of adaptive thermogenesis stuff changes in need something going on, right? There's some way that, that it's not happening, but yeah the, that doesn't really change anything. Anyway, we have to find what's the practical way of attacking this thing.
[00:23:38] So for me, the first thing is always well, how much time has it been? Like, has it been an adequate amount of time to really make the assessment that this thing isn't working? because I think that people do get impatient a lot of times and for whatever reason, and we'll talk about in the context of weight loss, but I think it could still happen in the context of gaining weight as well, just as challenging and just as frustrating and much more disgusting in terms of how you feel.
[00:24:02] That's a different matter. So The first thing is just, it seems that sometimes it happens like in spurts. I don't know if you've noticed this with clients, like especially either way on the way up or the way down, it's like nothing, three pounds. It's like, where the hell did that come from?
[00:24:17] We didn't change anything. So I don't know what that's about, but it seems to be a thing. I've seen it enough times that it seems to be something. So, so that again is where it's like really useful to have a coach to just say, Hey, let's just chill here for a little bit. Let's see what happens. So that would be the first thing is that has been an adequate amount of time to how much time.
[00:24:35] I don't know like it may be a. through two, four weeks or something, if nothing's really changing, especially if we're talking about in the context of weight loss, if they're also starting to see a decrement in performance and they're really feeling bad and they're very food focused and they're not sleeping and all the things that you expect to happen that have to happen at the end of something like a contest prep.
[00:24:55] But if we're seeing that taking place for a long period of time, then it's I think it's probably time to just pump the brakes if we can. And I think the best strategy seems to be like doing these diet breaks at those times. So these refeeds as much as possible. So that's where I was like, I was seeing that for something like three weeks straight.
[00:25:13] And we really are starting to see everything's just declining that I would say it's time to just bring calories back if we have the ability to do that. Sometimes that's Not the most convenient time to do it, but sometimes you don't really even have a choice. So even if it's at the end of the prep and you're really not where you want to be body comp wise, you're probably not going to get much more anyway.
[00:25:33] So you might as well try like from a bodybuilding perspective, try to fill out a little bit. And sometimes that seems to get things running again. I don't know exactly. What's going on there? I don't know why that is this. You have some hypotheses why that may be the case, but that's the first thing I try to get ahead of that as much as possible by using the same strategy.
[00:25:52] Just, I know that after eight to 12 weeks of pretty severe dieting, even if we are using refeed days a few times a week, They're probably still going to need like an extended diet break at some point. So five to seven days of calories backup at maintenance, somewhere around where we started. And at the very least, it's a nice psychological break for people.
[00:26:15] Most of the time it helps to segment the whole process of the training and the, in the prep. And I think there's probably some physiological things taking place there that, that allow things to get moving again, but that's yeah, that's really my. Okay. My first strategy, of course, like I don't go to the place of well, make sure they're not lying to you because I'm assuming that they're not lying to me like that, but I guess like you have to consider that to are they actually doing what there's what they're saying they're doing.
[00:26:44] And but I again I would have already gotten ahead of that I think at this point like that would have. Oh, I'm not supposed to eat a cheesecake every night. I didn't realize that I should have said that. I forgot to say explicitly, don't eat a entire cheesecake every night. So my fault, let's see coach. But yeah, I assume that's not the case.
[00:27:01] Yeah. I've even had those conversations more often than not, because again, it's it's not that the person is trying to actively lie to you, but there's this weird subconscious thing of yes, I weigh all my food. And then you have a piece of cheesecake that you don't weigh. Cause in your head, you're thinking, oh, it's not that much.
[00:27:22] It's only one item. I didn't weigh it. And if you see a picture of it, you're like, dude, that's like a quarter of the cheesecake, but in your head, you're like, I'm good. I'm good, bro. Yeah. Well, there's the deficit for the week. That's it. Okay. Well, that's good. At least we know why. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that definitely happened years ago when this happened and I'm just hitting my head against the wall.
[00:27:41] She was not a competitor. But she was at like 1800 calories a day and activity and performance and everything was still pretty good. I'm like, what HRV was still pretty good. And so we go through everything you weigh everything. Yeah. Yeah. I found that. So, okay. Let's talk on the phone, go through everything.
[00:27:59] And she's well, I drink three cups of coffee a day. I was like, Oh, okay. Do you have any trouble sleeping at night or anything? No. Eventually I'm like, well, you don't put anything in your coffee. Do you? And she goes, well, I do. And I'm thinking, she's like, Oh, I put one of those little creamers in there and I'm really worried about it.
[00:28:14] She's I put like a tablespoon of butter and at least one or two tablespoons of coconut oil. I'm like, do you have two to three tablespoons of oil per cup of coffee that you have three times a day? Is this correct? And she's well, yeah, but there's no insulin response. So that's fine. Right. I'm like, but it's still a lot of calories, like an extra 600 calories a day, at least.
[00:28:39] Yeah. I'm like, how about you cut back down to one every other day? And just, she just started losing weight. Like crazy. It's wild. Yeah. I found that many times with fat in particular sneaks in there a lot with oils and butter and things like that. People just don't even, they Don't even think about it, especially if they're eating out and stuff.
[00:28:57] It's eating. Yeah. You just, you have to know that it's going to be that way unless you're eating stuff that nobody wants to eat, but those restaurants usually are in a business. They're actually, it is nice that there are a lot of meal prep services now that are pretty solid.
[00:29:10] So that's good. But Yeah. I think I've had that conversation with multiple people now. It's just something I went on a rampage for a little while there with oil with people. I was just asking everybody, are you cooking with oil? And they're like, yeah, I'm like, yeah.
[00:29:21] Why did I just ask you this now? That's okay. That makes a ton of sense. Let's start to, to monitor that a little bit. Or you have the other conversation of, well, yeah, I put a little in the pan. And they're like, well, how about you measure this? And I'm like, wow, it was like a tablespoon and a half.
[00:29:35] They're like, but that doesn't count because it doesn't end up in the food. And I'm like, look in the bottom of the pan when you're done cooking. Is there a table and a half spoon of oil left? They're like, well, no. So then it went into the food. It did just magically evaporate into the air. You don't need to lick the pan after you're done to actually get that oil into your system.
[00:29:54] Yeah. It's in there. Yeah. Yeah. And then if you've ever worked in restaurants I can guarantee you that the chef back there is not going, Oh, the macros up front really say that, ah, it's just more oil, more whatever, it just happens. Yeah. I've worked in those kitchens. I know exactly how that goes.
[00:30:13] And then the least of your worries should be how much butter is in this food. Yeah, that's there's no way that person, that 16 year old sous chef in the back there gives a shit about your macros.
[00:30:27] Yeah. The other part you mentioned too about it being nonlinear to me has just been fascinating because for years I've kept, just daily body weight because I want to see the variation and you want to see the trend, right? Because if someone just does their way in every Sunday, it's like I started running to people that would do the craziest shit on Saturday because I knew they're going to weigh themselves on Sunday.
[00:30:47] And then it's just even one data point and if they're up like a pound and a half, they would lose their shit. And so you got to try to talk them off the ledge for three days and it may have just been. They were retaining water because especially women, it was that time of the month that they drank more fluid or whatever.
[00:31:02] So I found just by getting them to do daily weights, you can see the variation. And what I've noticed is exact same thing you said. It's like nothing up, down, up, down, boof, lost three pounds, up, down, up, down, up, down, lost two pounds, or it's almost. Never like straight linear. And again, this is body weight, not body fat.
[00:31:20] And I don't know if you've noticed this, but I've noticed when they start losing that fine scale variability, like that makes me nervous, right? So if they're weighing in and they're like one 50. 1, one 49. 9, one 50. 1, one 50. 2, one 50. 0, I get more nervous about that than if their average is one 50 and they're like, 1 48.
[00:31:42] 1, 1 51. 5, 1 50. 1, right. They're oscillating a little bit around that number, the rate of loss or weight stable is about the same, but I've just noticed time and time again, when that fine scale variability goes away, it just seems like they're more likely to be stuck at a plateau either going up or down.
[00:32:04] Yeah that's interesting. I've never thought about that before, but I've definitely noticed that with myself and with with clients for sure. It's like that it seems to correlate when just things are not going well altogether. It's yeah, I think of that, like when I think of that, I'm like thinking of My way ends at the end of prep and and it, I even like looking at things like heart rate variability where heart variability is like going through the roof.
[00:32:27] Like it's all of a sudden like resting heart rate super, super low and heart rate variability is really high. And that's also around when that's starting to happen. And then it's I haven't had an erection in three months. I can't stop thinking about food.
[00:32:40] I see people and I'm thinking about, that they would probably taste pretty good if I put them on a there's just, there's every waking moment, just looking at stairs and wishing there was somehow a way that I could just end up on top of those little seats that goes up on them.
[00:32:53] Yeah. Okay. Like, how do I say it? The craziest thing, the funniest thing to me is when I used to work at a gym that had two levels. And it was, so it was a pretty big gym. And what I started to notice was that I never went upstairs anymore. And it was like, I do my, I write my programs for my clients.
[00:33:08] And it was like, subconsciously I was writing everything. To be on the floor level. Like I was like, why do I don't, how come I don't do leg curls with anyone upstairs anymore? It's it was almost like I was getting ahead of it just knowing that I was not going to want to walk up the stairs.
[00:33:23] So yeah, there's a lot of that stuff going on, but that to me would be at the same time where those plateaus are really taking place. So it's, yeah, I guess that's like your body really defending that setting point. that, that spot, what's your thought process on why that may be the case?
[00:33:39] That's my thought, right? So we look at most physiologic systems, you're going to have some fine scale variability and that's a marker of health. All systems are cooperating. They're properly coupled together. And when we lose that fine scale variability, such as in heart rate variability sway, there's some stuff with gate.
[00:33:56] I did some stuff with RER looking at metabolic heart data off of people to try to. Equate metabolic flexibility. It just seems every time we lose that fine scale variability they're not in a happy place, right? Some shit's going on. And I just noticed that with body weight also for probably the last seven years.
[00:34:14] And I've tried to get some app developers to, to look into it because it's super easy to do. I can show them how to do the math and how to run it. It just seems to happen. And everybody I've talked to, it just seems like it's something that they also notice. And I think it's useful because if I see a loss of variability and the plateau is shorter, odds are I'm going to be more aggressive sooner.
[00:34:38] then if I still see that variability, even though the average isn't changing, right? So let's say I've got one person where it's only been a week, but they've their body weight shows no variability at all. They're just boom. They're just one 50 dead nuts on versus someone else. Let's say identical. For over three weeks, they're oscillating up and down a little bit with fine scale variability, but the average is still the same.
[00:35:02] I feel like I'm going to let them ride longer because I don't think they're at a point where I need to be so aggressive. I think they'll auto correct on their own. Right. And then boom, all of a sudden you see two and a half weeks in they lose like three pounds. So I use it as a marker to, to try to cross check to see, okay, how aggressive should I be getting and how soon should I do it?
[00:35:23] So what kind of changes would you make at that time? What does it look like to get more aggressive at that point? Yeah. So that's, what's interesting. So at first my answer was always, okay, if they're going down, I'm just going to cut their calories even more. But as you, at some point you just run out of runway, right?
[00:35:39] What are you going to be doing? Like you need 400 calories, two weeks before your show. Come on. Right. You just, you eventually at some point you just run out of room and your body hates you even more than what it did before. So now I. I tell clients, it's if you get a car stuck in like the winter here in Minnesota, like you don't just push on it.
[00:35:56] Like your whole goal is to start, rocking the car back and forth and try to get some momentum. What are you doing to the system? You're trying to inject that fine scale variability. And then you push it out of the snowbank. Right. So the question I asked myself then is I'm probably going to be more dramatic and aggressive.
[00:36:14] But then the question is, do I need to go up or down? Yeah. And a lot of times I'll go up, which freaks the crap out of clients. Right. Because my goal is to inject some fine scale variability and then see it move. I'm not as concerned about the direction yet. And I know that if I cut. Even more, I'm nervous about just running out of runway.
[00:36:36] Right. But if it's a short, maybe bump in calories, it's not going to affect their long term progress. If they start working again for God knows whatever mechanisms are governing us, if we're even correct, I've just noticed that they'll go up two or three pounds and then all of a sudden they'll start dropping.
[00:36:52] And then a week later, they're like below where they were before. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes you get lucky. Like sometimes I had a client who was a competitor a couple of years ago. It was super stock. Yeah, it's just probably four weeks out. And I'm like, well, we got a little bit of time.
[00:37:05] She wasn't that far out. She was, pretty good, but she just starts getting super nervous. She's on my head, I was thinking I was going to be like, down two more pounds. And I'm like, okay, how about Wednesday night in terms of your normal calories, just have another 120 grams of carbohydrates and she's what, you're an idiot.
[00:37:20] This is insane. I'm only at, 80 grams of carbs, 200 grams of carbs in one day. I'm like, you'll be fine. Even if those extra a hundred percent converted to fat, which it's not going to, you're talking about almost an undetectable amount, right? And it's just okay. Gets on the scale. The next day lost like a pound and a half, and I don't know if that's a stress response. I don't know if it's water. I don't know what it is, but sometimes you see that happen too. And again, you're talking about scale, weight, not body fat. So you just see weird stuff, but it usually looks like a decrease in body fat as well, too, because, but they look like, yeah, if you're eating 80 grams of carbohydrates it's pretty safe to say that you probably don't have completely capped out glycogen.
[00:38:04] Oh yeah. It's not even close. Not if you're training that hard either. There's no way. Yeah. There's no way. It's we know they're not completely depleted, but they're sure as hell not capped out. So it's you talking an extra a hundred grams of carbohydrate. You got plenty to store before you even start converting that to body fat.
[00:38:18] So you're just gonna probably end up storing more glycogen in the tissues that you're training especially. Right. And you're just gonna you're gonna look more filled out. It's gonna push out against the skin, that's bodybuilding talk. It's, yeah. Yeah. This yeah. But it actually, it's a real thing.
[00:38:32] It's like you're seeing this. cell swelling take place in a sense there's just more substrate in the tissue is pushing out. Like you're going to end up looking tighter anyway. So yeah it's it's cool. That's where it's it's some there's always talk about, well, how much do we educate our clients and how much, they clients don't give a shit about glycogen and all that stuff.
[00:38:48] Or, it's some of the. The, you could go far deeper into it than I, but there, there is a certain level of education that I think that we need to provide as coaches, because knowing that it's actually really helpful. It's Hey you realize the amount of muscle you have, like you could store 500 grams of carbohydrate.
[00:39:05] So if we gave you 200 grams of carbohydrate, you're probably not completely capped out there. And by the way, even if you did, you still got to put some into your liver as well. So there's probably some amount of this that it can't even get converted to body fat. So, so just knowing a little bit of that is actually really useful.
[00:39:21] I think it can make people feel like, oh, okay, I guess that doesn't make sense unless this guy's completely full of shit and just making stuff up. Yeah, wasn't that some of the old data by, was it Atkinson? I could have got that wrong, but where they did like massive carbohydrate overfeeding in people for I want to say one, two, three, like five days in a row and did biopsies and stuff.
[00:39:42] And the short answer, which again, I could have completely botched the study was that. They didn't really gain any fat, right? They, if they were glycogen depleted, almost all of it went to glycogen, both liver and muscle. It took multiple days to cap out muscle glycogen and body weight went up a little bit, but not.
[00:40:03] Substantial, right? And they didn't, I don't know if they measured body fat in the experiment or not. And then if you look at healthy people for metabolism, most of the time, if you start overfeeding them carbohydrates, they'll actually oxidize more carbohydrates, where if you overfeed people fat, they just tend to store more fat.
[00:40:21] Again, that's a theoretical thing, but. It does explain why if you look at like old school bodybuilding diets in general, other than the weird crazes that come and go, I would say, I don't know what your opinion would be. Is that high protein? as high a carbohydrates as you can get away with, but probably lower fat.
[00:40:41] I don't know if you would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I can't really think of any cases why that wouldn't be the case unless it just, it was just like an adherence thing or something. Someone just really, it's usually just a belief thing. Someone has been right. told that high carbohydrate diets make you fat, that's the only time that I've really seen that be useful.
[00:41:01] And it's just I don't feel like arguing with this person. Like they said on this thing and whatever. But it it makes way, way more sense to me. I, every bodybuilding contest diet eventually just ends up being a low everything diet. Especially at the end, but, but it does make sense that to really try to cap out carbohydrates the whole way through from a performance standpoint.
[00:41:24] And from a aesthetic standpoint, like a, like you, you're just going to, we do have a certain amount of of injured muscle or triglycerides on board. So you don't want to completely deplete that, but it seems like the the glycogen in the subsequent water along with that, like has a much bigger impact on the look and the performance.
[00:41:41] So, And yeah, like you just mentioned, it's probably, it's, it seems like it's a little bit easier to store fat as adipose tissue than it is carbohydrate for those reasons. So I, yeah, I'm a big fan and like the, you're eating more usually there's like this, there's more to actually eat with carbohydrates.
[00:41:57] So you're going to feel a little bit more full, where, yeah, if you add it, you add a tablespoon of oil. It's I don't know. I'm not going to, maybe you'll feel it later, but during that meal, it's this is the same size meal, right? And I think it's really nice to be able to add some actual substance to your meals.
[00:42:12] So yeah, we agree with that. What did John Meadows call it? When you get to the end of prep, I think he called it lettuce mode. It's just like eating roughage and protein and that's it. Oh yeah. There's a point where it like, it actually does become easier cause you're just like, well, I just giving up on the idea of food.
[00:42:29] Like food doesn't really happen anymore. So, so that's cool. I used to wrestle, so wrestling was actually, it was actually pretty easy cause it was like, you're okay, you leave practice in your half a pound under and your weigh ins are the next morning. It's okay, I can eat half a pound of food which isn't really.
[00:42:45] It's not that much, it's not very much, but it's just, it's easier in a sense. Cause you're basically, we just get out of happiness. You're just not going to eat. And when you're not eating, you're just like, all right, I just got to distract myself from this thing. But when you're eating these little baby meals that have nothing in them that's like the worst thing ever is you're just constantly reminded of how hungry you are.
[00:43:05] So, and that's another point I've shifted more towards a. A lower frequency of eating because I was definitely in the I've cried being 30 minutes late for meals in the past. I can remember multiple times, one time in particular that I literally was.
[00:43:22] Was crying. I'm not ashamed to say it. I should be ashamed, but yes, I was a few weeks out from my first bodybuilding contest and I was 17 and I got stuck in this stupid meeting for I used to do this. It was one of these like network marketing companies. And the meeting was going like half an hour later than it was supposed to.
[00:43:39] And I'm just tweaking out in this I'm like, for my meal, like I'm at this, my meal, I'm losing all my muscle. I can feel my muscle. Literally feel yourself getting catabolic. I'm like, I'm, yeah. I'm so catabolic right now. I, can anybody else see me getting smaller? I'm gonna be saying anything.
[00:43:52] And I like, I, yeah, I remember just thinking that was so important. And then what it ends up being is like you're eating eight to nine meals a day. On 2, 200 calories, it's terrible. It's you're eating like a little nugget of food every couple of hours. It's oh yeah, I'm still hungry.
[00:44:09] Oh, good. Yeah. I'm glad I got a nice reminder there. So yeah, I don't know if that had anything to do with what we were originally talking about, but it just reminded me of that. Yeah, just yeah. Rethinking some of this stuff. But I think even that's a, at some point, not that I say you, you throw all physiology out the window.
[00:44:25] But when. There's not that much of a difference between smaller meals, meal frequency, bigger meals. You're really at that point kind of splitting hairs. But if you have someone who you're like, man, old school, six meals a day, and you're at like a thousand calories, you're like, F you, like you're going to be hungry all the time.
[00:44:43] And you just get enough food just to be more hungry. Like I don't think you ever even get remotely close to feeling like you ever even ate anything, but you could take those same calories, which is still extremely low and have three meals of 300 calories. I get around it super low, but you can do a little bit of something with that.
[00:45:02] Right. You can talk to her on a plate instead of a sloppy and broccoli. Right. And you can, it looks, you can look at it and it looked like food, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That, I think that's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. I think I was thinking about the just the difference between wrestling and and bodybuilding at that time where it's I'd rather just not eat.
[00:45:18] If I'm going to eat a 200 calorie meal right now, I don't even want it. Yeah. I've noticed that when I started doing intermittent fasting, God, probably 11 years ago, my first thought was this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Right. I remember being at subway, a buddy of mine, shout out Jason Reimer.
[00:45:35] He's yeah, man, I started doing this, one hour of fast for one day a week. And it's been amazing. And I'm like what the hell are you talking about? This is probably 12 years ago now, maybe longer than that. And I'm like, what? And so I started looking at the research and then Brad Pilon came out with his book, eat, stop, eat, which I bought.
[00:45:53] And it probably took me about six or eight months to convince myself that If you go through a period of not eating, like all the muscles not going to fall off your body. Right. Cause I was convinced by that point that, Oh, you're missing out on muscle protein, synthetic response, muscle protein breakdowns going to get higher, you went from, high intake, you're going to oxidize protein and all this stuff.
[00:46:12] But if you looked at the actual studies on it, which are extremely limited. You're like, Oh, you're definitely probably not gaining a ton of muscle for sure, but you're not losing all of it, right? At least on a shorter fast, as far as what we know now. So I remember trying it out and playing around with it.
[00:46:29] Didn't go so well, eventually got to a point where it did a little bit more progressively, started doing with clients. And we thought with clients was like, this is going to be a disaster. Like maybe this is okay in research, even though it's preliminary. Well, clients are going to hate this, right? A period of time where you're not eating.
[00:46:44] And these are not like, extremely competitive people are going to step on stage. But what I found was, and for myself too, is that it was easier to do a period of time, not eating than it was to have a very low caloric day, right? It would be easier for me if I worked my way up to it. I could do 12, even now, like I can do 12 to 20 hours.
[00:47:04] And I'm hungry, it's not super fun, but it's not too bad. But if I were to do that same period and you said, bro, you only get 300 calories today. And I've tried this so much harder just from a pure compliance standpoint. Yeah, I don't know why that is, but it just seems to be that way. Yeah, I don't know.
[00:47:26] It's I noticed, I don't know if you notice this as well. It tends to come in waves, like the waves. So I wonder, and that, there's a million things that could lead to hunger and thinking about food. Right. But I wonder if it has something to do with like maybe you are beginning to oxidize different substrates at some points.
[00:47:45] Like you need to. To not have readily available substrate coming in order to do that. It's it's almost like you disrupt that when you eat a little bit of food or something, I'm not really sure, but that's something I definitely noticed where as long as you, if you can make it through this 30 minute wave, you're going to have another few hours where you really don't think about food.
[00:48:03] As long as you allow yourself to, if you're going to spend that. the next few hours standing outside of a Krispy Kreme, then you're probably going to be pretty hungry. But yeah, if you can distract yourself for a little while, just go do something. And a lot of times, like I, the thing that I love about, cause I'll use intermittent fasting as well.
[00:48:20] I'll use it intermittently. But yeah It's it actually, I love it for the days where I have to just crush something cognitively. Because it's just because eating for one is just a disruption a lot of times. And it does typically make me feel a little bit groggy afterwards, especially if I'm like, in a gaining phase, like I'm going to be diabetic after every meal for the entire off season.
[00:48:41] So that's really not conducive for getting a lot of hard mental effort in. So that I find to be really helpful. So just using Those days they are. Well, I'm not going to eat until 2 p. m. today, so I'm going to be able to really crush stuff and your level of focus is really high.
[00:48:57] Typically, it's just really nice. Yeah, I love the same thing too, that it's anecdotal and I don't have any direct lab measures, but it just seems that if your body is better able at using fat as a fuel, right? So you can up regulate fatty acid oxidation. You're fasting, right? So everyone who pooh poohs this idea, they're like, Oh, but if you hook people up to a metabolic heart, you're not really seeing what's going on because the food will change it.
[00:49:23] And yeah, I think that's True, right? Baseline RQ or RER is more related to baseline diet than anything else. But I do think that if your body has the ability to switch and to use fats more easily as a fuel, it just seems like fasting becomes an actual possibility then, right? So what I would love to see, and I don't know if this study has been done.
[00:49:49] Just measurement of fatty acid oxidation and have people get used to a longer period of fasting. So take, six, eight weeks and then have them do like a 20 to 24 hour fast, relatively easy. Maybe do some low level aerobic, fast training, some other stuff. When you increase their VO two max, right.
[00:50:08] Higher VO two max use a higher percentage of fat as fuel. You can look at fat max and a bunch of other stuff. But my thought would be that. I think we get too hung up on the actual macro nutrient we're using. And we forget what that means for compliance. All right. So my thought would be that if you're better at using fat as a fuel, it's easier for you to physically do a 19 to 24 hour fast, therefore.
[00:50:33] Your compliance and doing it is going to be better compared to Bob, who is used to eating every three hours and he's got a white knuckle it for 24 hours and it's going to end and just, birthday cake feast one on one, right? Physiology wise, you can say, Oh, but they both made it through the same period of time.
[00:50:52] It's just calories, bro. They cut all the calories out. But do you think Bob who had a white knuckle it through is really ever going to try to attempt that again? Like probably not right. So the other person who is better able to use fat as a fuel, even if we say calories in calories out, it's the only thing that matters.
[00:51:10] I just think from a compliance standpoint, it now becomes a real option for them to do where in the case of white knuckling it through, you're like, ah, screw that. I'm never doing that again. Yeah. So, so how would you get someone up to that point? Because you mentioned the fasting cardio that, like that to me is like setting off some bells for me.
[00:51:29] 'cause I, because I remember being f like my first introduction to a lot of training and even cardiovascular training was like, I came up in the hi error. Oh yeah. It's so, so there was, if you did low intensity exercise, like it was not only a waste of time, but it was also gonna be too.
[00:51:44] Burn up all of your muscles somehow. Right. So very catabolic bro. Super catabolic. Whereas like high intensity exercise is actually anabolic. So, so I did all of that for the longest time. And how'd it go? I like to torture myself. So I think it was, I think it was beneficial in the long run because it's created a lot of context for me and just remembering how.
[00:52:03] Awful that all that crap was. And when I do now, it's way easier. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's just way easier. So, and I still enjoy going to those places really just for suffering purposes and the satisfaction I derive from that. Cause I'm a weirdo, but I think that there's there there's like a correlation there between like, when I started doing.
[00:52:21] Lower intensity work and learning how to like, I don't know, use my nose to breathe instead of just hyperventilating, like from the get go on every single effort that I do and getting super hyper aroused for everything. And the ability to actually not eat for long periods of time and not freak out.
[00:52:38] So I'm curious if there's if that's a strategy that you use intentionally for their ability to be able to start to implement some of those fasting strategies that you just see a correlation with that. Possibly, like the literature on it's, I've gone back and forth on this so many times, right?
[00:52:53] Because like now within the last couple of years, if you even mention the words, Fasted cardio, like number one, people assume that you only give a shit about body comp, and that's all right. So everyone almost online is going to assume that it's a body comp thing. And I've had people send me a hate mail of bro, you were talking about fasted cardio.
[00:53:12] And don't you know that if someone did that, they could still be using some other type of fat. And when you measure on a metabolic card, you're not always looking at body fat, that it could be dietary fat that they took an end, like on a ketogenic diet. And I'm like, Yeah, but we weren't talking exclusively about body count.
[00:53:30] Well, that's what we all inferred when we're listening to it. And that's on you. It was like, everyone puts it in their own kind of reference, which, is good feedback. So to qualify the context you're talking about is helpful, and then they always have the, well, didn't you see Brad Schoenfeld study where he looked at this and he said it didn't matter.
[00:53:46] And yeah, six weeks study on females. They didn't use a metabolic heart. And if you even talked to Brad, he's well, maybe at a higher level, if they're more competitive, it might've made a difference, right? So even the guy who did the author of the study is like saying, well, it's not that big of a difference, in this other population, maybe it matters, we don't have any data.
[00:54:04] So, I don't know. I think it probably helps, some of the newer data like Jeff Rothschild has some stuff showing that. What you eat immediately before doesn't appear to affect oxidization as much as what we thought. But again, I think there's going to be limits to that, right? If I have four pop tarts and whack my insulin sky high, it's probably going to move my RER, right?
[00:54:26] If I have a moderate amount of food, that's a mixed meal with protein and, carbohydrates and fat. Yeah, probably not that big of a deal. Right. And again, in, in the real world, it's like by far and away, do the exercise number one, right? Everybody agrees that's going to buy you the most benefit.
[00:54:43] And after that, worry about the state that you're going to do it in. So my argument is just generally been, it's just easier to do fast and cardio because what is the reason and the list of excuses you have beforehand? Right. Think of all the questions you normally get. Oh, well, what do I eat beforehand?
[00:55:01] Don't worry about it. What would I have to do this? This warmup I'm doing high intensity stuff. I need a big warmup. No, you're doing low intensity, bro. If you need to warm up for that, you have other issues, right? So like the amount of excuses you can just cross off the list so that they just get it done, I think is just easier with that, body comp.
[00:55:22] I don't know. I do think there, there may be a benefit to increasing fatty acid oxidation, but again, the research is very split. The biggest thing from an exercise standpoint is probably their VO two max, right? If you've just got a bigger aerobic engine, even if your percentage of fuel you're using is different.
[00:55:41] You're still burning like on a calories basis, way more calories from fat. Right. So that's the thing that I pay the most attention to, if their VO two max is like a fricking field mouse at 19 or something, it's man, you need to work on that first. You're just completely out of shape.
[00:55:57] If it's pretty high and again, you don't need to be, cross country in a region skier of, eighties or some crazy thing like that. But if you're in the forties or fifties, depending on what you're trying to do, Yeah, I think that's probably, pretty decent, from there.
[00:56:10] Yeah. Maybe worry about fasted, but again, that comes back to lifestyle. What do you have time to do? What's the easiest thing to do? What's not going to interfere with your other training. Because we've seen that with the high intensity stuff. It's yeah, you look at a lot of Martin Gabalia stuff, amazing research, huge benefits, even an untrained population.
[00:56:29] I think there's definitely a time and a place for it, but anyone who's done a lot of true high intensity training, it's not fun, And it's fatiguing and it will take away from some of your weight training at some point, just because there's only so much high intensity shit you can do, especially when you start lowering your calories, you start lowering your carbohydrates, you don't sleep or shit, all the other stuff that, that factors into it.
[00:56:54] So I don't think, again, there's a right or a wrong, but my bias is weight training should be your number one priority, make sure your performance is good there. Do some higher intensity stuff, and then you can probably maximize and expand lower intensity work. And even step count has a lot more capacity to change even in a low caloric state than a lot of the high intensity stuff, because the people I've seen try to do high intensity work at the end, some people can do it.
[00:57:21] They tend to have a much higher aerobic base and other people, but a lot of times, if you monitor their output is just like just super low. And it's hard. It's. Feels like horrible, but if you look at what they're actually burning from a true caloric sense, it's actually a lot less.
[00:57:39] So that's my little yeah, no, I think that I, I've over the last few years, I've really come to appreciate the aerobic system and how important some of that lower end stuff is because I really was adamantly against it. Previously, anytime that I would look at any endurance athlete, I'm like, wow, cool.
[00:57:56] Something really easy for a really long time. Excellent. And now I've definitely gained a different appreciation for it. And a lot of that is actually is from reading the book endure, which I love that book. Alex Hutchinson. Yeah. Yeah. Great book. And and also listening to, to, to guys like you talk about nasal breathing work and all that's, I think it's made a pretty big impact.
[00:58:20] I just look at it now as like the bigger your aerobic engine is the bigger your. Just adaptive potential is for everything, just from a nervous system perspective, you're just less likely if every time you stand up and walk into the kitchen you're going to 110 beats per minute, like you're not spending your day in a predominantly parasympathetic state, and that's not going to be great for adaptation.
[00:58:40] any of any sort. And unless the adaptation you're going for is I don't know, hardened arteries or something. But that's fine if you are but yeah, I look at it as just in the fast and cardio, like you said, just being a very easy way to get it. Because, cause I, I don't think the fasting part really matters all that much.
[00:58:58] It's just are you getting that low intensity stuff? So when I hear first thing in the morning cardio, it's I know that's probably not going to be super high intensity cardio. It's going to be pretty chill. It's actually a really nice way to start the day a lot of times. So, so yeah, I think there's a, there's just so many benefits to that, even for someone who's not primarily focused on that for someone like myself, like I don't really care all that much about my aerobic performance, but it definitely, I believe that it has some carry over into my ability to Do efficient and productive work for the things that I do care about.
[00:59:30] Yeah. And I used to use an example too of people who don't necessarily do classic aerobic training, when Ben had you do the 2k in Costa Rica, like your numbers were really good. I think I came in when you were, Just finishing the test and you're just, hammering it and you finished it.
[00:59:47] And I was like, looked at your time. It was like fucking six 57. It was like sub seven, I think for a two K, which to me is like super impressive, for someone who's not a dedicated to rower, right? That's not your main stick. And I asked him like, what did you do? He's Oh, Ben came in here.
[01:00:03] He just told me don't let that other pace boat beat you. So that's what I did. That's very simple. Meathead task. It'll at least distract me for less than seven minutes, yeah. Yeah. That's better. Well, what pace did you set it at? He's Oh, I put it like six 55. I was like, shit. I guess it works.
[01:00:23] Yeah. I didn't know that the rower gets so annoying to me cause I start to I almost start to get ahead of myself cause I'm just really bad at it. Like I haven't really learned how to do it yet. So I'll start my, it starts to become really choppy for me, the technique. So I started to get really annoyed with that, which is probably helpful because it makes me angry and then it makes me harder.
[01:00:42] So thinking, and then that, that the little fishies are swimming away on the screen. So. Yeah, that's one thing that helped me the most was, oh yeah, like when I do a max test. It's going to be several minutes long, so I shouldn't be a complete spaz monkey the whole time, right? Cause like it's so easy because you're trying so hard and it's just so miserable the whole time anyway, it's so easy to get discoordinated and to think that you're Really trying hard and you are, it's just like your arms and legs are just not coordinated at all.
[01:01:16] So for me, especially under max tests or RPS of nine to 10 was like, just to think about, okay, drive with your legs. And then as it gets more tiring, just focus on the average Watts that I need to hit. And then I have to keep telling myself, okay, smooth this fast, smooth as fast, because it's so easy just to get ahead of yourself.
[01:01:37] Right. And your arms and your legs are just like not coordinated at all. And you're like yeah, screw it. I don't need my legs anymore. Yeah. That's why I like the the Echo bike. Cause that's just Oh yeah. It's just the ultimate, it's miserable. Oh, yeah. It's so bad. Yeah, so I I bought it.
[01:01:56] I just bought an echo bike for my gym because I was like, no, I've just spent too much time on this thing that I need other people to feel the pain that I've felt. It was really important to me. And I actually, it actually is really important to me from a training perspective, because I think it really does teach people.
[01:02:11] So you got to have something like that. The thing that's cool that I've really come to appreciate about traditional aerobic training, however, we're defining aerobic training, I guess we should call it cardiovascular training or something something that you can do cyclically and for a long period of time, like rhythmic motion.
[01:02:26] Yeah, we'll call it, we'll call it that. So no one gets upset about aerobic versus anaerobic stuff or whatever that means. So. The thing that I come to appreciate about it is that you always have one more repetition in you, that there's always one more rotation. There's always one more pull. And the only reason that you don't get it is because you didn't want to really.
[01:02:45] So that that's pretty cool. And you think about it in those terms, it's yeah, these guys are pretty bad ass like that really do these long distances or anything in that. That mid distance or it's just, it, because it is just so, it's so gnarly where you can't really do that on a bench press or something, or any weight training.
[01:03:00] It's like there, there's a pretty hard stop and you might be able to muster up a couple more reps, but it's, once it's done, it's done. But on the. On the echo bike, for example you can always keep going, like it might slow down, but if you just keep pushing as hard as you can, eventually, I don't know what happens.
[01:03:15] I haven't ever seen anyone die. So I feel like I've come pretty close. I feel like I've seen the light Matt Frazier standing at the top of it laughing at me. But yeah it's it's taught me a lot for sure. Yeah. And I think. I'm having flashbacks to all the heinous stuff Pat made us do in Costa Rica.
[01:03:35] And some of the what was what was the, I'm blanking on it. I should know it. The five rounds of the three rounds, five exercises, he'd lost his toe. Yeah. The that we're, I guess that was technically a, that was like a modified Cajun is what he 20 to 20, 40. Yeah. Yeah. So for people listening, it was what, 20, 20 seconds on 10 seconds off.
[01:04:02] Is that right? Is that what we're doing? 20, 10, no, 20, 20, 40. The 10 is the repetitions that you're expected to get. 20 seconds to get 10 reps, then 40 second rest. Yeah. And then you do that between what was a trap bar, deadlifts bench, pull up over the other two incline press. And back squat, right? Yes. Back squat and incline.
[01:04:25] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So do that as a round and then you've got a couple of minutes rest and then do it again and then rest and then do it again is just, you start off and you're like, this isn't too bad. I'm doing okay. By the third exercise, you're starting to hate life. But like the fourth and fifth exercise, you're like, what, how did I get so weak?
[01:04:46] I feel so weak, especially out there, especially in the heat, pour all this water on me yeah. Yeah. And people just like Dobbs just wander out of there and just collapse, like literally laying on the floor in the next room. Are you okay? He's yeah. And I remember. Someone was testing and we were down by the little shower down by the kitchen there.
[01:05:10] And Anthony comes by not fuzzy hair, Anthony, but Anthony and Dean, Anthony, I think harder. Yeah. Harder. Yeah. Yeah. He walks by in the background and passes out, like almost having the convulsion like under the shower. And I'm looking over and I remember who I was talking to and they look over at the same time and they just start losing it like, Oh my God, he's having a seizure.
[01:05:31] What's going on? And like Pat walks by and he goes, ah, just fucking cage and he's fine. And I went over there. I'm like, you're all right. He's yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay. Oh man. Yeah, it's I do a I'll do a cycle of a modified, because I actually think the 30, 30 is even worse. Like the traditional like patch 30, 30 is actually worse.
[01:05:53] So it's 15 reps 30 seconds, 30 reps, then 30 seconds off. And there's 10 different exercises. So I do a modified version of that just because it's easier to set it up. So it'll be a trap bar deadlift, a bench press, a pull up. split squat, overhead press and a chest supported row and that 30 30 set up with two minutes rest and four rounds.
[01:06:15] And so that workout takes 32 minutes. Exactly. I have to plan out three hours in my day. Do actually do that workout because it takes me a solid 45 minutes just to get started for me to just get myself in that place. So okay, this is coming. I'm here. I've been thinking about this all weekend.
[01:06:34] Here it is. Maybe I should just puke now. And then it's it's like now it's become like a, just a response. It's I finished the last set of rows and then I just walk out and puke and then just lay down, hopefully not in the puke, but sometimes I'm not so lucky. And then it's and it's a good like four, like 40 minutes.
[01:06:51] Like I'll usually actually fall asleep and just wake up. What will happen? Do I have to do more? Is it over? But yeah it's obviously that stuff, when you're taking it to that place. That's not somewhere you should be going every day like that. That can very easily become a very big problem, but I think you got to go there at some point.
[01:07:08] You got to know what it's like. You got to know what that's man, because it really does build a context for everything else. And training in life, honestly I think if you can endure something like that, it becomes everything else becomes a little bit easier. And so, for me personally, going back into bodybuilding training after that, it's Ah, I have to do some bicep curls and, a couple of sets of squats or something like, come on it's going to be hard.
[01:07:31] I'm going to put in as much effort as I can into that, but there's no way that exercise can take as much out of me as that, that 30, 30. So, so yeah, I think having that context is really important. Just like that. The tolerance to, to stress is it's a big deal. Yeah. And that's why I like the roar for that too, because you can take people who, because the biggest thing that I worry about is that in inexperienced people, it turns into kind of very bad CrossFit, right?
[01:07:58] Your risk versus reward is just, on a back squat that looks like a bad, good morning, your straight bar deadlift looks like a pooping dog. And on people who are experienced, then yeah, they're used to managing stuff under load. It's a little bit different, but a new people, it's oof, but on a rower, you can teach, they may not have the best form or technique, but out of all things to do, that's really exhaustive.
[01:08:21] Assault bike would be the same. It's a pretty safe biomechanical movement for the most part, and even if you're just doing three minutes where you're not actively pacing yourself, like you want to. Wind gate or, cause there's some power output tests that use this, like just three minutes, like all out.
[01:08:37] It doesn't sound that bad on paper, but when you do it, it's absolutely freaking miserable and disgusting. Yeah. It's you look up to the clock. You're like, I gotta be, I gotta have 30 seconds left. It's 50 seconds in. Right. Oh God. I haven't crossed the one minute mark. Yeah. That's okay, we're gonna, we're gonna have to have a serious talk here.
[01:08:59] This is, yeah, I'm the last time I think I even did the three minute tests on the rower was. Probably three years ago now, we were teaching for the Kerrigan Institute. So my buddy Kenneth J was teaching and we're doing lactate testing. And so we had tested everyone who was on staff already. And I was the only one who hadn't been tested yet.
[01:09:18] And I'm like, well, we don't really know if we have bloods approval to test anyone other than people who are on staff. Since if you're on staff, you're probably not going to sue us anyway. So I'm like, oh shit. So I got to do the three minute test in front of the whole class. And I had just fractured and strained my ribcage like four weeks before in a snowboard incident.
[01:09:39] So that was just Beyond miserable. And then when they're testing you for lactate at the end, you have to sit there with your finger out and you can't move like the thought of just sitting in that position at the end for another, two to five minutes, just, it's just a horrible because you don't want to be in that position.
[01:09:56] Like your first thing is to get as far away from that thing. I was like yeah. Oh, that would kill me. That, yeah, that was hard. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's the weirdest carrot to ever dangle for yourself. But that's what I think about in like round three of that workout.
[01:10:11] It's if you just make it through one more round, you can go puke. Yeah. Yeah. That's like how I'm negotiating with myself. Like you just got to come on, just get 15 reps here and then you can puke and go lay down in it and you can roll around and you're going to feel great. That's what is wrong with me is what's the what's the worst thing that you've done?
[01:10:29] Would it be one of those wind gates? Would you say? It's a toss up. Like I think the three minute Wingate all out, it's pretty up there, right? Because it, especially if you're doing it in a situation that you don't want to get humiliated, right. It's one thing to do it on your own in your garage, but it's another thing to do it.
[01:10:49] In front of a group or, somewhere where, you're going to be accountable for it. And you're really not trying to pace yourself. And you are going to pace yourself to some degree anyway. I would say the Cajun stuff was pretty up there just because I don't train that way a lot, I was so not looking forward to that at all in Costa Rica. I was like, dumbest idea ever. I don't do this kind of stuff. Everybody lives like four times the amount of weight I do, I was glad I did it, but. People are like, Oh, but you didn't train for this. I'm like, no, this isn't like my highest priority. Like I did a few rounds to make sure I'm not so frigging sore that I can't walk out of bed the next day, from just like the doms from the eccentric and the load outside of that.
[01:11:28] I'm like. I could have trained for a whole year for this hated my life for a year. I'm still going to finish in the bottom third anyway. So I was like, I'm just being realistic. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different kind of thing. It's stuff. It's I think a lot of people that know me and that they've watched what I've done over the last few years, like competitively and all of that, or the last few years, 20 years training and everything like, wow, you you must have so much discipline.
[01:11:52] You have so much discipline. And Not really. It's just really focused discipline. Like I, I just really care about this thing for whatever reason. I'm highly motivated, but if you're not highly motivated to do something like that, why the hell would you do that? It'd be like, like for me I'm going to learn how to code.
[01:12:07] Like I can tell you right now, I'm going to be the least disciplined person in that class because I have zero motivation. I barely even know what that means. There's no way that I'm going to actually do that. That would be the, so, so I can see like something like that where you're like, yeah.
[01:12:21] I'll do it just to see like how challenging it is. I respect that you still showed up and did it. But yeah, I can definitely see why you like no, I got other things. I care more about doing. Yeah. But I think that's good even with clients and stuff too, is I asked him like, what is, what are your main goals?
[01:12:37] What are your priorities? And. If there's someone like yourself where you're going to strip down to your banana hammock and walk around on stage naked, that to me takes a whole nother level of discipline that I a hundred percent, you know, salute and you got to be pretty frigging motivated to do that, and if that's your number one thing, then cool.
[01:12:56] That's awesome. Other people. If they had, I do better with clients. If they just admit to me that like lifting is not their main thing, it's Hey, I want to be in good shape. I want to play with my grandkids or whatever. Great. Or yeah, I want to compete in the CrossFit games or obstacle course racing or whatever.
[01:13:13] But you always have to have a realistic discussion. If you're not a professional athlete about where is that line? Like how far are you going to go when it starts to impact the rest of your life? Like for me, if I had the choice to go kiteboarding or lift, I'd go kiteboarding all the time, right?
[01:13:28] If you told me you can squat 500 or you could, kiteboard and do a 40 foot jump, a 40 foot jump all day, like number one. But knowing that makes everything else easier, right? So if my legs are too sore for six weeks of, beating the shit out of myself on the water in South Padre and all my squat numbers go even lower than what they were before, I'm okay.
[01:13:49] That's all right. That was the thing that I signed up for. I did the main thing. I think a lot of times it's easy to be like. No, I want to do both. Or I want to do all three as Ooh, now you're trying to ride two horses with one ass. And that's going to be a lot harder. You might be able to make progress, but you have to have a realistic discussion about when you have to decide one or the other what is the higher priority to, and I think that's something that's always changing too.
[01:14:17] And like for myself, like I, I just, I'm very intolerant of any pain associated with lifting. It's I get doms, all that stuff. I don't care about that. That doesn't matter. But if I start having a lot of joint pain, I, that for me is just like a no go where with other people, they're like, I have joint pain all the time.
[01:14:33] I don't care if I could squat 50 more pounds and my joint pain doubles. Oh, I take that all day, yeah, that's funny. I've never been like that. Like I've always been like, Oh this sucks. I don't mind pain discomfort, but it's cause to me, it's always been like, when those things start to happen, that just means the runway is about to end, right?
[01:14:51] So, so it's Yeah. Yeah. Like that to me is it's short sighted in a lot of ways, but that's I guess in a way I respect that mentality, but I don't know, it's it's probably a cost to that. Yeah. But you just, I think for me, maybe it's just because I'm getting older.
[01:15:06] Like I, as much as it pains me to say this, I'm actually prioritizing being able to do the thing the rest of my life. Right. We're, 20 years ago, eh, probably wasn't that concerned about it. And I got as close to like completely destroying myself from stupid ass lifting a very low weights than I ever want to get to again, and that was probably good that happened earlier instead of later, because I think I probably would have done some severe damage to myself longterm.
[01:15:34] But the older I get, the more I'm just like, Oh, and then you get injured. Right. I've blown my ankle, blown my shoulders out, all this bunch of stuff. And you realize like what it's like to not be able to just lift without pain. And you realize like how much you like really missed it. I remember, just limping around.
[01:15:52] I had pulled both my hip flexors and my groin. I'm like walking around like a geriatric penguin, just thinking about not even squatting or deadlifting, just being able to walk without pain. And I'm like, wow, like how many days did I like totally take for granted in the past? Just because my squat or my deadlift didn't go up.
[01:16:12] Yeah. Yeah. I'm lucky that I also got that out of the way a lot, a long time ago. I was like, like twenties, like things were starting to like early twenties, like things were definitely starting to go in a bad direction. So I think, cause I had never been very strong. I think when I graduated high school, I think I, I benchpress, I know I benchpress.
[01:16:33] 205 for nine reps. And I know that because I did 205 for nine reps for the entire, my entire senior year. It never moved up. I never thought to maybe try a different loading scheme or a different range or something but so I was never like really super strong. That's not, I don't think that's like weak.
[01:16:48] for necessarily, I've been lifting for seven years at that point. Right. And I had pretty good amount of muscle, but but at some point I started to get like in my, like when I was 19, 20, I started to get a little bit into powerlifting and that's when I started to get stronger, but then that's like when the wheels started to come off a little bit too.
[01:17:04] And I was very fortunate to, to learn some really good stuff at that point in time. So I was able to turn things around, but there was some times like where, there was an extended period of time where I would go into the gym on Monday. And I would go to deadlift and I would get over 400 pounds and I would just blow my back out.
[01:17:20] And I'm like, well, that, that sucks. Okay. Well, I can't really walk for the rest of this week. And I can't really pick things up, but I'll I'll try again next week. So I did it again. Yeah. And so I just did that over and over again. And it really did. I was very bummed out. It was not like borderline depression.
[01:17:34] I was not in a good spot. And it was like, which is sad because it's man, come on, there's bigger problems in the world than that. But it really did bum me out. I realized no, I like this stuff way too much to do it. Incorrectly. And so you have to get myself hurt.
[01:17:47] Because now it's I totally get that where it's I just want to be able to pick like stuff up off the floor. Forget about the dreams of debt, Lafitte's 600 pounds, that's over, which it turned out not to be. It's which is cool. But I think yeah it's really, it's good.
[01:18:00] You have to go through that again. Learning lessons the hard way. I think sometimes you have to go through those periods where. Yeah. You realize like this thing really is a privilege and do not take it for granted because it's pretty cool to be able to do this stuff that we do with our bodies.
[01:18:16] And when you, yeah, for me, when I don't have that like joint pain things, it's just a signal. It's Hey, you've been here before. Don't do this. Like you got to reassess here because this is going to take you down a bad road. Not worth it. Do you think when you're younger, if someone more experienced, even someone you respected came up to you and said, Hey man, I think you're going down the wrong path, you may get injured.
[01:18:39] You should go this direction. Do you think you would have listened to him? I know. I would love to say I would have listened to him, but I know I wouldn't have. Yeah. It depends on the context. If, if they caught me crawling before you're after, but yeah. No, before you're injured. No, people had, plenty of people had, I remember when I was like 12 years old, I first learned how to deadlift.
[01:19:00] Learned how to deadlift in quotes. Yeah, like this. This guy walked up to me in the gym. He was like, Hey, man I think I was like 12. I had 225 in the bar and it was just like every, like the worst thing you could imagine with that list, like all of the worst things.
[01:19:12] Right. And he walked up to me and he was like, Hey man I don't think that's good. Like you, you should maybe try something else. And I'm like, But I'm trying to make my lower back bigger. Like I, and it fucking hurts. So it must be working. Like she was like, he changed, he tried to have me do it with like dumbbells that he was like, Hey, I want you to try with dumbbells, keep them at your sides.
[01:19:29] And he was trying to teach me how to do like a dumbbell RDL. He was trying to teach me how to do a hip hinge and actually control my pelvis and be able to, push my pelvis back and actually get the the full hip extension at the top and everything, and not just grind through with my back.
[01:19:44] And yeah, I was like. As soon as you walked away, I put the dumbbells down and did another set of the list. I'm like, this guy doesn't know anything. So, so no, that plenty of moments like that. You gotta learn the hard way. A lot of times that's just, yeah. I always like asking trainers and other people that question because the consensus appears to be.
[01:20:04] If you were not injured at that point and you're young enough, almost no one will listen. And I've noticed this with, and I don't train a lot of younger clients now. I used to a little bit. And so my thought then changed from, okay, They're not going to listen to me talking the modest, stupid shit. So. Can the car still going to go off the road?
[01:20:23] Can I just have them put it in a snow bank and not go off the 50 foot cliff? Right. Can I have them make a mistake that they'll learn enough from, but not permanently injured them? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's a interesting, that's interesting. I thought I have a young kid that I'm going to start working with soon.
[01:20:41] I was thinking that as I was putting this program together, I'm gonna be like, I don't want this program to be too good. It's gotta be a little bit stupid. There's, because there's no reason for him to have a perfect program right off the bat. So, so yeah, that's an interesting concept.
[01:20:55] I like that. I also remember being at the tactical strength challenge, God probably 11 or 12 years old and I'm standing next to my buddy, Adam glass, and we're watching a guy, do a pooping dog version of a deadlift at four 55 and we both looked at each other and we're like, Wow. Did you see the angle of that lower back and that thoracic?
[01:21:17] Like he looked like a human cashew, like trying to pick up weight. And we're both like, on one hand, that's extremely scary. I'd never want to see that again. And equally impressive. He just walked away without any pain from this is wow. He's what was that? That didn't look bad. We're both impressed and horrified.
[01:21:37] Like at the same time totally. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you're young, like you can definitely get away with the stuff, but it's like you said, just setting them up to have a place to fall, when it does happen, it's let me just soften this blow a little bit when it does happen.
[01:21:49] Yeah. It's you're still going to jump out of the plane. Just for God's sake, put a parachute on. For sure. You change your mind halfway down. It's there, you may want to use it if you want it. Just letting you know, let's just let you know. It's there, bro. Yeah. Cool, man.
[01:22:05] Well, thank you so much for the chat. I really appreciate it. Always good to talk with you and appreciate all your training knowledge and sharing it with everybody here. Where can people find out more about you if you want to be found? Maybe you're still hiding and you don't want anyone to find you, which I.
[01:22:20] Yeah. Well, first of all, man, thank you so much for having me on. Like you're an absolute legend in the field and I have the utmost respect for you. And you're one of the, one of the people that I've been just, I feel really grateful to have my life and you and Jody as well. So, so thank you for having me on.
[01:22:39] It's been a lot of fun. Yeah, if anybody wants to find me honestly, rebel Performance is probably a good place to go. I think Rebel Performance has more content of me than I do myself. I would say that's a hundred percent true. Yeah. Yeah. , yeah. At least more current. Yeah. So, yeah, rebel Performance is a good place to go.
[01:22:56] If you do find me on Instagram. At look your fit, I will probably, I won't respond until either a Thursday or Sunday. That's the only time I checked my Instagram, but if you did want to contact me directly just cause I will tell you if you find me on Instagram, just email me at look your fit at gmail.
[01:23:12] com. So L A C U R E F I T at gmail. com, but always happy to talk shop. Awesome. And I'm trying to Mr. Serby now, so this would be pretty fun. I put him through all the heinous rowing stuff we were just talking about. Oh, I can't wait to hear about it. He's awesome. I'm James is the man but he'll give you everything that he's got for that program for sure.
[01:23:32] So that I'm excited. Yeah, it was pretty fun. I was just like, well, I said, we. We can have you do this kind of heinous assessment. Your goal is lifting and running. So I said, it's not super specific, but it's something you can retest. And if you find, like Ryan starts to cause a little niggly issues or whatever, it's a plus to be interesting data to see, what kind of where you're at in the spectrum and stuff.
[01:23:51] And, he's super cool. He's yeah, man, whatever you program, I'll do it. I'll do it, man. Yeah, totally. Yeah. He's almost through most of it now. And yeah he's done good. It's been good. So it's been pretty fun. Very last question top two tips to do a lat pose. For if you're doing a lot spread, what are the two things people must keep in mind?
[01:24:11] Yeah. Well, one thing like people might not know is that you actually don't need to have actual lats to look like you have lats. So that's the key. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's there is hope like you just got to spread your arms out and people will think that you have lats. So that's number one.
[01:24:26] But yeah, the number two thing, the thing that I found is like learning how to so most people walk around try at least like the bros typically the ones that are actually interested in lats. They tend to just pull their shoulder blades together like all the time they walk around like that.
[01:24:39] So learning how to first just protract your scapulae and just let that kind of relax and you do that by just you know, falling forward. Just let your shoulder blades come apart. I'm treating this as an actual question, by the way. And then standing up and just trying to lengthen your torso as much as possible and just keep protracting, like you just got to keep opening up your shoulder blades, that's That's the key.
[01:25:00] But yeah, and then I guess the number two tip is just spend as much time as possible in front of the mirror. But make sure that you're not in a public place, please, because it's just embarrassing. Let's not do the selfies at the gym anymore. Do that on your own time. It's just, it's not a good look in public.
[01:25:15] So awesome. A fitness friend will remain nameless. One time Jody was out when we were first I don't even know if we were engaged at that point. She comes up to me and she's Oh, he seems really nice. Did he sunburn his armpits? Cause he was, you don't have the, the last spread going on.
[01:25:40] So later we're like, Oh, sunburned armpits. It's like burn pits. What? I love it. Cool, man. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you, Mike.
[01:25:54]
[01:25:54] Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you so much for listening to the FlexDiet podcast. Huge thanks to Ryan for letting us crash at his place. Great to see him again, trained in the gym, hang out for a little while. Fun to see some other people in Austin, even though our trip here was super brief and hope you enjoyed this podcast.
[01:26:14] Got a lot of new stuff coming for you. In December, January, and February lots of great guests. So stay tuned for that and check out Tecton through looking for the benefit of ketones without having to do a ketogenic diet. So they'll put you in a state of ketosis within about 10 to 20 minutes, which is a great.
[01:26:38] Check them out the link below. Yes, I'm an ambassador for them, so I do make some money off of that. And I'm also a scientific advisor to them in terms of full disclosure. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate it. Stay tuned for some great new stuff coming. And if you can drop us a review subscribe, all that wonderful stuff that helps us out with the old algorithms.
[01:27:04] It is very much appreciated. so much. Talk to all of you next week.
[01:27:10] Well, that was different. Yep, lousy, but different.
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