The Working Man's Weightlifting Show
Brothers Nick and Stephen Wiley invite you to The Working Man's Weightlifting Show, a relatable podcast for ordinary people who are committed to realistically incorporating health and fitness into their already busy lives. In an industry crowded by flashy aesthetics, photo-shopped abs, full-time camera crews, and misleading marketing, Nick and Stephen leverage their combined 30+ years of weightlifting experience to help clear the air on everyday fitness issues. Common discussion topics include no-nonsense nutrition, exercise tips for the manual labor workforce, best practices for office workers, building home gyms, recovering from injuries, workout programming, and much more.
The Working Man's Weightlifting Show
Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger for the Working Man
In episode 73, hosts Nick and Stephen offer their humble review of Mike Matthews’ Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger weightlifting program. Topics include:
- Program structure
- Stephen’s experience and outcomes on BBLS
- Discussion of Mike Matthews in general
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Hello and welcome to the Working Man's weightlifting show, the show where working men talk about weightlifting. I am your host, Nick Wiley, and I'm joined today by my younger brother and permanent co-host, Mr Steven Wiley.
Speaker 2:I didn't like that.
Speaker 1:I'm not feeling that I'm never going to say that again. Well, thanks for being here, man.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me again. We're done. See you guys next time.
Speaker 1:New thing for us. It's like six. What is it? It's really seven in the morning. We try to do this at six in the morning and for the first time ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got together. Yeah, took a little few technical difficulties. Yeah, getting this set up.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to burden the listeners with the details of why. You know, six out of ten times we try to do something, the technology is not working. I will rant briefly though, because, as you might know if you listen to the show, in the past I am an IT guy for small businesses, and so when computers don't work, for me it's like like when my own computers don't work.
Speaker 2:So that is a problem.
Speaker 1:I mean it is like the rage boils instantly. I mean it's like you know having one of those like I don't know water boilers. You know where it's like. It only takes about five seconds and then you see it bubbling. That's, that's my insights when computer gives me problems and I don't know what it is. But I think it's because, like any of these studio endeavors that we have, whether it's this podcast or like we make music together a lot, we the technical part of it. We do it just infrequently enough that I haven't taken the time to like work out every single kink.
Speaker 1:So I'm always on the fly, like having to solve some problem or whatever, but man it.
Speaker 2:You do pretty good though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know it works, it's, it's alive. So, anyway, what is there to talk about? The topic of the day this is going to be an interesting one, and hopefully a pretty short one, because we don't really have too much time for one before the work day needs to begin and because I have nothing to say. So, yeah, you want to introduce the topic. This is old school man. We haven't done this in a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You introduce for real, let's go. I'm doing a program review today and this is kind of taking a little step in the past, a little bit. This was. This is something I did in the time where Nick had kind of taken a break from where he had a kid in his life, had a kid and he wasn't training.
Speaker 2:So I was looking for something new to do and just kind of experimenting with my own training while I was trained by myself. So we are. I'm reviewing my experience with beyond bigger, leaner, stronger by Mike Matthews.
Speaker 1:It's a mouthful. Yes, it is. A lot of these are a mouthful, as we've discussed. So you can be rest assured, if we ever come out with a program to sell, it will have a clean name. It reminds me of ordering at Taco Bell, which I've always has always given me anxiety. For years I've always been like weird named things, like I don't want the Chappupalupa 5000.
Speaker 2:I want the.
Speaker 1:I just want the taco.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Like I want the simple, like very straightforward. Nothing embarrassing about it.
Speaker 1:I don't want anything Baja attached to it. You know what I mean, like I don't, or like Santa Fe attached to it.
Speaker 2:It is true. I mean, you're going to lose someone interest really quickly. I feel like if you recommend a program and then you, you're just you're not stopping, yeah, you're just going on and on. You've lost. You've lost them a long time ago. So this is a strange title.
Speaker 1:I would say yeah, in Mike's defense, I'm sure that he named it that because he originally had the program bigger, leaner, stronger, which you and I did together like forever ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. Yeah, I don't know if that is easier to say. Yeah, it is, it is, it sounds better.
Speaker 1:It does it kind of rolls off the tongue, it's adding the beyond on. I don't know how you would. I mean you could have said X2.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, yeah, I don't know what would be better.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's any better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think that's a better choice. Unfortunately the second there you go, I don't know, I don't know that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's a tough one. So sorry, mike, not not really you. You you were in between a rock and a hard place, but that's a point, it works.
Speaker 1:You know, there you go, starting off on a bed, yeah, so before we actually dive into that, we got to do our normal thing, which is to do a recap of how training's gone recently. So before we do that, of course we have to talk about money and who. The sponsor of this episode is really excited for this one. Hmm, hmm, that didn't come across. You couldn't hear that, mike, at all. You know, once again, it's just us.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:I know that's disappointing for some, you know. Some maybe are completely indifferent, you know, or just are excited, you know, perhaps. But some will be disappointed and I'm sorry that we've let you down. But it is just us, and until such time as it's not just us, at least we can pretty much say whatever we want. So I guess that's a good thing. Right, it is, yeah, yeah. Moving on recap of the day how has training gone? Who wants to go first? You want to?
Speaker 2:go first. Um. My training is uh, consisted of another program that we will do another review on Um. I actually just finished up my first run through with it, um from the mine pump guys. I think we talked about this actually maybe one episode ago or so, but I did their anabolic. They have several programs. If you know who these guys are, they've got a website. They've got a massive podcast, um, mine pump media, I think it's the name of the website, um but it's got a ton of different programs to choose from.
Speaker 2:I believe anabolic was their first one. It seems to be the one they kind of promote as where you should start if you're going to buy into their programs. So that's why I decided to start with, just to kind of see what it was all about. So I'm not going to talk too much about it Um, but my training has been going very well. I've made some changes to try to help my body feel a little bit better my back, my hips, all that kind of stuff. So I definitely experimented with some new exercises which I actually really enjoyed, and I'll talk about those when I do the review of that program, um. But all that to say, I do actually feel like I really enjoyed my time with it. I would say Okay, that's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, for me, I have been on a kick, or not really a kick. I'm trying to just get back on the horse, as I've talked about, I think, the last couple of episodes as well, and I just decided that you know now that I'm finally back and in your gym, um, at least with some regularity. I thought, well, it kind of doesn't matter what I do other than trying to get back up to like a working uh weight. That feels relatively normal for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I just wanted to start, like I wanted to start with low weights but then increase rapidly rather than like at a slower pace, so that I could sort of get back to where I felt like okay, like this, this is, it's all hard for me I don't want to say this is hard for me now, Like everything is hard.
Speaker 1:We've trying to start back after a year, year and a half off, but I just mean it comes back quickly. I mean, maybe that's a point for you know anyone who's who's kind of a beginner or or hasn't fallen off the horse and gotten back on before. One of the nice things about weightlifting is that if you have, you probably can talk on the science of this. But if you have reached a certain strength level in the past, um, it's, it's faster to get back to that than it was to get there in the first place. Is that?
Speaker 2:correct. It's kind of like muscle memory, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like so it's like I couldn't go. You know, my last, the highest squat I've ever had, was like three oh five, something like that, I think. Um, and I could not go and squat 300 pounds right now, but it will not take me. I'm very confident that it won't take me as long to get back there as it did to get there in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I decided to do starting strength as a as my current program template. Um, to do that because it's very aggressive. You add weight every single time you go to the gym, um, and you don't really do much backtracking on the way there. So, uh, like like, in other words, if there's no like cycles, really it just you, just it just bull run through until you can't take it anymore. So, um, I'm doing that and uh, you know, the weights are still relatively, um, I think right now, like like, the squad I did yesterday morning was maybe 150, 155, something like that, and deadlift was like 175. So I got a long way to go. But you know, every week or every session I'm going to be adding on yeah um, five or 10 pounds to those.
Speaker 1:So hopefully that works, like I'm hoping that it will. It makes me hungry. I'll say that every time I leave your house. I'm like breakfast now, which I am not a breakfasty guy, but I have to have something because it's just like it's enough volume that I'm like holy cow, I'm hungry and anyway, uh, so yeah that's what I'm doing Starting strength to get back.
Speaker 1:That's probably not a surprise to anyone who's listening. In the past We've talked a lot about that uh program, I think for this specific case. Hopefully it proves to be helpful in that way. So, um, yeah, all right. Moving on review of beyond better, leaner, stronger wait, what Better?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, hey, that could have been an alternative. Hey, yeah, better yeah.
Speaker 1:That would have worked. This program will make you better. Does anybody want to just be better, or do you want to be bigger? I, that's a, that's a toss up. I don't know, yeah, yeah, I mean, because bigger is probably better, you know, but for some I'll stop now. Anyway, um, like I said, I have nothing to say about this, so I'm going to ask you questions, okay, hopefully uh they will will prompt, because this has been several months ago. Right that you did this Um yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 2:I haven't done this program in quite a while.
Speaker 1:Okay. So question number one is, now that you're several months away from it, what's your emotional connection to it? How do you like? Would you like when you think back on when you did it? Do you think on it fondly, or do you think on it like some other way?
Speaker 2:Your memory of it? Um, yeah, my memory of it would be that I did really enjoy it. It it takes some getting used to, um, and what I mean by that is it's very kind of limited. So so when you, when you look at other programs we've talked about ATHLEANX in the past, um, not so much starting strength or something like that, but essentially so I did the five day version because that's kind of he tells you. It's basically like five is best, you can do four if you need to do three, if you need to do he doesn't say best, but it's, that's like his top dog, I guess I would say yeah, the
Speaker 2:program. Um, you only do four different exercises. So you, it kind of takes getting used to, because I came out of like five, three, one by Jim Wendler where I would do a lot of super setting and I was kind of just like going all out when I would train. It was not not really for the sake of sweating out or anything, it's just that's how I kind of enjoyed training. It was very high intensity. Um, you know, I would deadlift and then immediately start dumbbell, bench press or something I would just jump straight into the extra sense. So, uh, this one is not like that, it's very much more slow and controlled. I would say like you really just focus on each set and you really put everything that you need to put into that one set. Um, I cannot remember off the top man, I believe it was four sets for most of the exercises, like four different exercises and you'd have four sets of each of those. Um, the you know off the bat, like I really, once I got used to it, I enjoyed it pretty, like quite a bit. Um, you kind of, when I say you need to get used to it, though it's almost like mentally, there was a block where you're like I don't think I'm doing enough Like I should. I should be doing some extra stuff here. I need to. You know, I need to start doing some face pulls. I need to start doing some curls, whatever it is. I mean, you know, whatever you have you might be lacking or whatever you feel like you need to do it.
Speaker 2:Um, in hindsight, I don't really think that's the case. I mean, I think he's done a lot of research. Mike is super scientific based. Every if you, if you follow him on Facebook or anything, you'll see him like almost daily, He'll post something. It'll be like does coffee help with exercise or does foam rolling help you feel better? Here's my evidence based answer at this link. Everything is like that. Here's my evidence based answer. So he looks at evidence. He looks at the science of it.
Speaker 2:Speaking of the mind pump guys, I've heard them even say that I think they're they're friends with him and they say that, like they are more based off of experience, mike is more science. So if he's doing something in a program and then he discovers that the research has changed, he's most likely going to alter his program. Hence where this beyond bigger, lean or stronger came from. He had an old version. This is actually in another version of beyond bigger, lean or stronger. I have both the old one. I had a book from several years ago and when I decided to do this program I discovered he had a new book. So I went and bought it and I did the new version and it's very different from the original version.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:So technically this is like a third, like I'm sure you didn't want to do another name on it Another name?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is like an updated if. If you're going to buy it, it's got like a lime green kind of color cover to it. This is beyond bigger, lean or stronger. You probably can't even buy the old one, I would imagine, because I've had it for like 10 years or something now. So but for that reason you know he has looked at the science. He believes that he shows you the science, like you know.
Speaker 2:Basically, maximum growth, strength, whatever is going to come from this, many sets per week Like this is what your body is going to handle Naturally and this is what you should do. And I, like I said once, I did it. I would say it honestly did work. I actually felt like I was putting some muscle on. I had some people tell me it looked like I had put some muscle on. I felt stronger in certain ways, because one thing I like about programs like this is that they force you to do things you wouldn't. If you stick to something like 531 or any of those, whereas the rep ranges, while like it, it varies wildly. Like you, you might be doing sets of 12 one week all the way down to sets of one.
Speaker 1:You're talking about. Help me clarify. The rep ranges very wildly on beyond bigger, leaner, stronger.
Speaker 2:Sorry, yeah. So like taking the same exercises but you're doing them at different like yeah, like, for example, when you start, you're going to be in a higher rep range, so you might do squats for sets of 12. So your weight's not going to be as high obviously as it is on the weeks we do one, but you're going to. You're going to change that.
Speaker 1:And you're going to be very sore. Yes, yes, very sore.
Speaker 2:That was the most difficult week for me by a long shot. Um, you, you work your way down and he kind of has this little cycle where you I can't, I want to say it's like three weeks or something. You cycle down and then all of a sudden you back up to the week before, so you kind of it's very similar to five through one, in that you, you repeat some weeks like you might go past it and get a little heavier, and then all of a sudden you're back to the week that you were on before, using similar numbers. Um, but it just forcing, I think I do think it does some good.
Speaker 2:I've noticed I stayed so long in one rep range for years doing five, three, one or whatever. I might do some plus sets, I might. I might do some extra reps, but I stayed in one field for so long that I nearly really died when I went above like five reps. Like I thought something was going to snap. Even doing lightweight, it's like, honestly, body weight squats for high reps were just like kind of uncomfortable. It was like I'm just not used to this, yeah, um, so I do think it does good to kind of force your body, especially now that I've done that and I've done that with the mind pump stuff and I'll talk about that at that point. But, um, forcing myself into these new rep ranges that I used to do when I was younger, I feel like has done a lot of good for me. It's honestly increased my like work capacity and my mental block of like. When you feel like you're done, it's almost like I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 2:I'm not done now because I've, I've felt this before I've pushed through, so it really has helped me with my stamina and just feeling like I can handle a larger workload of something painful because you're staying in that higher rep range, and it really does help, honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you want to hear us talk more about that, uh, just listen to the, the, the, the discussion, to the last episode we did with land and Harris, I guess, um, he, he got into that. Yeah, Um he did pretty substantially, and that was really enlightening for me as well, because I I'm definitely a turtle in the gym.
Speaker 2:I like to be low and slow.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Like smoking meats, smoking my hammies, bra, wow, never going to say that again. Uh, who knows, I've been thinking a lot about that they're like. So my current plan is after I do get, hopefully whatever 70, 80% of my strength back um on starting strength. The next thing I want to do is try a program like this that has a like, a much wider variation of the sets, because I'm the same way that you were. Like I, I haven't done high reps. I also have not done super low reps because, like yeah, the last program I did like before um my son was born, I was on starting strength and that's five, it's all.
Speaker 1:It's all. Five, five, five, five, like um, which it really did help me build strength. Um, but I think I guess you know, as Liana talked about there's, there's a lot of science behind um, there being advantages to like changing the ranges, and I certainly have not experimented with that in like a really long time. Yeah, so I think it'd be good for me. The hardest thing I can imagine will not hurt for you, because you're extremely Disciplined and like you're not gonna miss a workout.
Speaker 1:I can imagine for me that might be a little hard, like the complexity of like these Microcycles and stuff. Yeah, that is one thing I have always liked about a program like starting strength is that it's like dead simple, like I just know exactly, like I go in and there's no calculations to be done, there's no LA guessing, I guess for like a yeah, but I would say that is definitely a point to talk about.
Speaker 2:The this is definitely not a pro. I would not recommend this to anyone that is either a beginner or someone that just kind of wants to do. They want to exercise, they want to lift, even if they want to train in a way that they're like pushing themselves, but they don't want to take it to the next level. This is definitely a program to kind of like. You're the kind of person that reads about training. You know you're the person that crunches numbers on your training. You're thinking about how much you're gonna squat next week, that kind of thing. That's what this program is for. I would not Really recommend this to anybody. That is too. There's too much involved. I feel like it's.
Speaker 1:That was gonna be my next question. It's like, who is this for and who's it yeah?
Speaker 2:definitely for more advanced and just people that are really Enthusiasts, I would say okay, if this is your, this is more than just something you're doing to stay healthy. I would say that this is more for you. Can it work for those other people? Sure, but I just think that, like you said, it's complex enough that I feel like it's just not.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm assuming Mike would not tell you to do this as you, if you're right, yeah, I think you would say yeah, yeah, he would definitely do the one without the word beyond and yes, yes, and that one is very much more straightforward, easier to figure out how much weight you need to lift that day. These, these more advanced programs. That's really the more complex part is how much to like, how much weight to lift and when to change that number. That that's really. And if you aren't Far enough along in your journey that you are Asking that question, like if you're saying like when should I be doing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're probably not far enough long to do the program. I would say like got you it's okay, because you're probably just not gonna make it. You could make more progress elsewhere is what I would say. You could, you, you would still benefit. If you're needing that Much detail in your program, I feel like you're gonna have better time Following something that just kind of tells you how much to lift and you lift it kind of like starting strength.
Speaker 2:Yes okay, so it great, you know. Is it a good program? Yes, it's just not. It needs to be known who it's for and I think, I think, like you said, I honestly think Mike would tell you it's for the.
Speaker 2:People that want to take it to another place. Okay, doesn't even really mean that, like I'm not saying you're gonna look like Ronnie Coleman when you get done with this thing. It's more just Mentally where you, with fitness, you know it's fitness a huge passion, or it's fitness something you do To stay healthy or to stay strong or to, you know, be able to keep up with your kids. Yeah then the simple bigger, leaner, stronger is plenty right for that.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. Okay, well, that's good. Another question I have is because we've talked about this with some of the other reviews that we've done what resources do you so if you purchase the program? Obviously it's a book.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Does it come with any additional resources like an app or calculator or a spreadsheet or Any any other like downloads or like stuff that to help you plan for it or use it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has. So I would actually put that in a negative or icon of this program. Okay, he has an app. I cannot remember the name off the top of my head, but it's it's blue. I know that. Okay, it is very. The app is confused, I'm pretty sure it uses the older beyond bigger, leaner, stronger. I could not get it to put in when you click on beyond bigger, bigger, leaner, stronger. It would not do the new one.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting was annoying. It was very, very annoying.
Speaker 2:So you, I had to manually Make the program in the app and you can do that. But even that was kind of cumbersome and kind of annoying. Yeah, I don't think I paid anything for the app so I can't like super negatively reviewed. It wasn't like I paid a hundred bucks for the same or anything. I see so it's just kind of odd. I'm like why would you make something that doesn't even really work? It's confusing your audience.
Speaker 1:So I it's not paid for. That makes me immediately think that it. I bet the app was released like several years ago.
Speaker 2:I think it was an update. Yes, I think so. It could be different happen at the time of this review because it's been so long. That could have changed by now. You may have the app right now listening and you're like, oh dude, it's totally fine, it's great.
Speaker 1:Well, so just and just a time stamp. This because people could be listening this. The aliens could dig up a thousand years from now, but today is Sometime in November 2023. Yes, you did this program. What?
Speaker 2:probably in like the middle of 22.
Speaker 1:Middle 22.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's been. It's been a year plus, okay, for sure at least a year.
Speaker 2:You know somewhere in that range. Yeah, so there's that. But what they do, what he did have, that is very beneficial. There's a. It's called the Beyond Bigger Leader stronger challenge. It was a second book. Did it come with the book? I cannot remember off the top of my head when I bought it. I think you pay a little bit extra, but this is pretty cheap. We're not talking about Like he does give a lot of information for a cheap price, like you're not. You're not spending a hundred bucks on this thing, you're.
Speaker 2:You're like 15, 20 bucks, I'm pretty sure it was very cheap, the, the challenge that's a bit of a weird name in my opinion, because it's not really. It's more, it lays it out for you, like you said, a spreadsheet. It's got what you need to train that day he gives you. So the book gives you enough information. You can make your own program and you follow his rules. This for exercises, the sets, the reps, all that. You can plug in what exercises you want. But the challenge he has created a year's worth of training with exercises he chose.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, you're free to swap them out. But if you just want it to be as easy as possible, like we just talked about, you can literally just follow this challenge. And that's what I had set out to do when I did the program. I was just like I'm just gonna follow this word-for-word trust in the process and let it roll. Okay, and that is nice. You can kind of like I actually got the book on my phone, both books so I could just click on each one in my files and just pull it up immediately while I'm training and see what I needed To do. Just write it down a notebook and it's over with.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, that that was very nice, um, I, but yeah, as far as like a sweet app that you can get that kind of does everything for you. I did not really care for the one at the time. Like I said, could be different now, but at the time I did not like it at all. Okay, not compared. If you have ever used the starting strength app or Even the strong lifts five by five app, they are that's far superior.
Speaker 1:They're very nice of all that we've used so far.
Speaker 2:It's one of the nice snap.
Speaker 1:They're both really good, but I really like this, the strong one and the starting strength one also.
Speaker 2:I really like yeah it's very clean and easy to follow.
Speaker 1:It's less Flexible than the strong lifts one, but they both are similar and how they presented to you, yeah, for what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very, very nice, but you do pay for them, yeah and there's disadvantages that we did an episode like years ago about how there's there is definitely some advantage to like tracking on paper, which you still do. I'm too lazy to do that, but you know, if you get, if you get stuck in these apps, you lose. If you change programs later or you change apps, that history is. It's like a little time castle and it's kind of stuck in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, I don't Choosing with program use via my paper. I've had something that's happened to my phone or whatever and I've looked at my training and it's all jacked up on the app and I'll just fix it really quickly with my notebook. But if I didn't have that it'd have been a lot more annoying because I probably wouldn't have the memory to Know exactly what I have to train that day.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry about that mic stand You're using, by the way.
Speaker 2:You're constantly having me.
Speaker 1:It droops slowly um, okay, last question I've thought of so far until I think of another one, but this I mean, you know, I don't think we have to go on and on about this but, uh, I do think a very practical question, which is, what equipment would one need to have access to in order to be able to participate in this program?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's a good one. Um, so you know we if you listened to us very much you know we train it in a home gym. Um, I've got a squat rack, barbells, kettlebells and a full dumbbell rack, um, and, like a glute ham developer, pull up, bar all this stuff. So I've got more than your general Home gym. You know, like just a dumbbell set, like some selectable dumbbells or something. Um, that was plenty. He definitely puts machine work in there and he does. If you follow him on facebook or anything, you'll see his daily training and he definitely Likes machines for certain movements, um, whether it's, you know, some kind of weird shoulder machine.
Speaker 2:He kind of finds some of these more unique Free weight machines that are really cool. I mean I would love to use them, but I'm not. It's not, there's no place for it in your house. It's, you know, probably $10,000 to do a lap or something.
Speaker 2:It's not gonna happen, um, but it is. They do look nice. But he definitely that you can totally do it with free weights. You don't have to worry about that at all. Okay, um, the only negative to that would just be like variation, like if you were to do this for years and years and you just fell in love with it. You might like to change some stuff up, um, one way he does that is if he has a Injury or if something's kind of hurting, say like, like recently I've noticed Um, he's been posting that his hip has been bothering, so he quit Regular deadlifts and he started doing single leg Romanian deadlifts.
Speaker 2:Now he's posted he's gonna do dumbbell Romanian deadlifts for a month or so until his hip feels Back to normal and then he'll go back into deadlifting. Um, so he'll make little tweaks like that. But that's totally doable at your house, I mean you. He was doing a kettlebell, one-armed RDL. I've done those before.
Speaker 2:Um, you can totally do that with a dumbbell. You don't have to have a kettlebell, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, um. So if you have some, if you're going to do this at home, I would probably say at least a barbell set up at the bare minimum, um, and then beyond that, dumbbells of some sort would be very Beneficial. Okay, we love the selectable Um, power block dumbbells, yep. So if you're just looking for like a great home set up, that's what I would recommend, totally, um, but that that would be your bare minimum, then you could. You know, if you have some, some, if you're the room or the money or whatever, and you want to buy some extra machines, you know, feel free, but you totally can do it at home, you don't you don't have to do it.
Speaker 2:But I don't think you would get as much out of it if, say, all you had was a set of dumbbells Um it, which I kind of respect. That I hate. When you buy a program, it's supposed to be all advanced and then they have this home version with dumbbells, and I'm like you, it's not the same you can't yeah, you even talked about that recently. Um, you can't do but so much with a dumbbell like especially I gave it a college try. Um, yeah, I mean we do a lot.
Speaker 1:We did that when we were much, much younger, because that's all that's all we had. It's not to say that there's anything wrong with it no but it's just well, it's just not the place for in that program.
Speaker 2:You don't. You don't need to, you don't need to train dumbbells from 12 reps down to a single. That that makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1:Who's doing a single?
Speaker 2:with a dumbbell makes absolutely no sense. It's dangerous. If it's that heavy, yeah, and you found some funky dumbbells in las vegas or something you know, but you're, you're standard dumbbells.
Speaker 2:They're not even gonna go heavy enough for you to do a single of any benefit, really, so that makes literally no sense in my head, um, but I will say, as as Like, the only negative that I experienced with this program, that was you asked about my memory earlier I injured the mess out of my back on this program. Oh, but I cannot say that it was due to the program. Yeah, so what I did is I was running a cycle of it with trap bar deadlifts, okay, and I have this annoying thing in my head where I'm constantly Analyzing my training and I'm like, oh, maybe I should do this other Version of this same exact lift next talked about that in the past.
Speaker 2:Um, I got it in my head that I wanted to try regular deadlifts again. I was taking a break from them because of my back um, and I just set the mood. This is my time period where I had taken a break from just constant manual labor. I was doing some project managing and so I was. I was pushing myself a little bit harder in the gym because I wasn't working as hard at work, um, physically. And so I decided at the last minute I'm going to swap to regular deadlifts. And I was doing High reps.
Speaker 2:I don't remember if it was a 12 week 10. I can't remember that but I had 315 on the bar, which is something I've dead lifted, yeah, a million times. I mean, it wasn't even really that heavy feeling. I Think I got like the second or third rep and I hadn't. I didn't really warm up. It was really idiotic. I kind of say I didn't really warm up. I literally, in the middle of the program, weeks into it, just decided to swap to regular deadlifts, like a crazy person. And I I mean something. It gripped me in the left side and I've never had this happen. But I mean literally, I looked in the mirror, I had to call out of work, I was hunched over to the left.
Speaker 1:I thought I had ruined. I remember this actually. Yeah, I honestly thought that was it, like I was, like I don't know that I'll ever train again.
Speaker 2:I may have paralyzed myself. Kind of nervous, I mean you know hair standing up in the back of your head and it hurt really bad for days and I ended up going to the chiropractor.
Speaker 1:I was trying anything and I took a huge break off of.
Speaker 2:I trained, but I took a massive break off of that kind of stuff, um, and it really Honestly, it kind of taught me a lesson and since then I have been way more conscious of warming up to some extent, kind of priming my body for training and Not. I don't like to do that. I don't want to be like, if I'm going to change an exercise, I want to be when I start a program. I don't want to be swapping something out in the middle of it when my body's not used to it. Um, so, like I said, I I would not say that was the program's fault, that was the user's fault. So don't do what I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and I already had a back issue. I wasn't really Tending to that much. Anyway, I've talked about that for the whole time We've had this show. Um, I've learned a lot since then on how to help my back and I have been helping it a lot. I will say so it wasn't really the program's fault, but I did really mess myself up for a while. I'm fine now. I've done some deadlifting since then. I've done squatting, whatever, and you know it seems to be fine, but it was very scary in the moment and it really, really felt awful. I mean, it was it was terrible In general.
Speaker 1:this is a side anecdote, but I kind of wish we didn't have that trap bar, that that that, that. Because the temptation it's it's like easier to do, it feel like, or I should. I guess I should say it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a totally different movement. It needs to be.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean, that's really what I mean, I, I, you feel like you can interchange them, and we've both done that multiple times. Other people, like your wife, I think, has done that too Like yeah, that's and, and my wife was lifting with us at 1.2. And and I think that it's always there, and you look at it and you're like, maybe I'll use that today.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you're like treating it like it's its own work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it needs to have. Just do it separate, like a totally separate exercise, you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, you know, but it's like that mentally. It's just the temptation is there.
Speaker 2:The, the form. You don't, it doesn't feel the same at all. No, you're not really teaching yourself how to deadlift, and that's what messed me up. I hadn't been dead to lifting with conventionally, and so when I went to do it, my body was used to this other thing, yeah, and I started this new thing and it just I should have been warming up. Had I warmed up that day and really done everything right, I think it would have been the same but. I really did the wrong thing and don't do not follow my footsteps.
Speaker 1:People. That's. That's a good, that's a good warning. I appreciate you sharing that, but I will I'll play the part of the judge and say that we have to cast that out of evidence because you're right.
Speaker 2:I mean that's not part of the program.
Speaker 1:It's, just it's. It is a happenstance that happened alongside, but definitely not a result of the actual programming itself. So just to summarize about the equipment it sounds like it was it's. It's written with the intention that you're probably in a commercial gym, but if you have a fairly robust home gym, no problem whatsoever in terms of adapting it.
Speaker 1:So, that's very helpful, I think, for listeners. Any other final, well, I guess you know this would be the real last question, which is you know, pretend that you are common us in the Coliseum and it's gladiator, and you have to give the thumbs up or the thumbs down, and right now you're holding your arm out. Just paint a visual picture here and you've got it. You've got it to the side. Which direction is it going to go?
Speaker 2:That's pretty good. Definitely, I definitely would would recommend this one. I definitely liked it All right. Kind of hurting myself, but I was really enjoying myself once I got used to all those mental blocks I talked about with the different. You know, really taking it set by set I would say instead of super setting and kind of pushing yourself to different limits. Yeah, I would definitely give the thumbs up.
Speaker 1:Excellent, yeah, all right. Well, I think we will, as I like to say, land. This plane Sounds good. Unless you've got any final closing. My business partner always says do you have any closing arguments? Back to the courtroom analogy.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think so. I think that pretty well, if you've listened to us before, I don't like to give away too much on a program. I think it's kind of rude if it's paid for three. I'll tell you every sure.
Speaker 2:But if it's paid for, especially on the show, I just think it's kind of rude to. They've obviously worked for it. They deserve their money. So if if these points sound good to you, I would definitely recommend it's a cheap buy-in if you, if you're really into fitness, I think it's a great place to learn a lot, even if I mean even totally worth reading If you're not going to do it. Honestly, it's got good points in it.
Speaker 2:It's just a you know, it has its place for the certain type of trainer and I think for those people it's great. It's a great program and he's very knowledgeable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've always said that. Yeah, yeah, really respect Mike Matthews and what he does.
Speaker 2:He has a great source of natural lifting. You know he's in really good shape. He's not in the kind of shape where you're questioning all the time whether or not he's on something. Yeah, I think he's definitely natural. He's a family man. He has his priorities straight, like he definitely. He seems he prioritizes things that he needs to prioritize. He doesn't try to do too much. He posts a lot of quotes of things that to try to help people just in life, or he'll recommend books that have nothing to do with training just to help people. So I think for that reason, you know I respect I always respect somebody that's not on the juice, lying to everybody to sell them a program. You know he seems he's selling you something that he is doing himself. You can watch him train on his reels every day and he's literally doing the program all the time. Yeah, I have not seen him waiver from that in a long time.
Speaker 1:If you want to find Mike Matthews or his programs, I think is he Legion athletics on Instagram.
Speaker 2:And he has, I think, legion, maybe his supplement company.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I know, at least at one time, the website was muscle for life. Okay, so somewhere in the bigger, leaner, stronger muscle for Legion, you will find this man.
Speaker 1:I'll find. I'll find the links and put them in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but after we wrap this up so that anybody who's interested can go check it out. Those links are not affiliated, At least not right now. I like Mike, I just kidding, but you know, just out of good faith, we'll share those and make it easier. If you're interested and speaking of links, you know, if you're interested in anything that we're doing, you want to help out, you just want to know more, or whatever go to our website workingmansweightliftingcom. You can buy merch there that really helps us out. Shopworkingmansweightlifting is where you'll find that If you have a wild hair and you just want to like actually just throw cash at us you can actually do that.
Speaker 1:Not many people have done that, but if you'd like to do that supportworkingmansweightliftingcom you'll find a donation link there if you want to help the show out and the other freeways that go a long way toward helping us.
Speaker 1:A lot is to just leave a review on whatever app that you listen to the show on. More and more apps are adding their review function. For a long time that was just an Apple podcast thing, but now you know a lot of the other players are adding that functionality in, and when you leave reviews, it really helps the algorithm and their ranking system and all that which then puts more eyeballs on our episodes. So that really really helps out and probably the best, the very best thing you could do is, you know, just grab the share link and send your favorite episode of the show to a good friend and send a recommendation. I think you know good old fashioned word of mouth is honestly by far the best way to help out, so we really appreciate it If you do that. In the meantime, I've been Nick, I've been Stephen and we've been the working man who lift weights and talk about it on this show, and we will catch you next time.
