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
StrongLifts for the Working Man
In episode 74, hosts Nick and Stephen offer their humble review of the StrongLifts weightlifting program. Topics include:
- StrongLifts 5x5 vs Madcow
- Review of the StrongLifts mobile app
- StrongLifts vs. Starting Strength
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Hello and welcome to the working bands weightlifting show show where working men talk about weightlifting. I'm your host, nick Wiley, and I'm joined today, this morning, once again, by my permanent cohost and younger brother, mr Steven Wiley. Steven, how you doing Doing?
Speaker 2:pretty well.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being here, man Thanks for having me again. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:You look sleepy.
Speaker 1:V sleepy.
Speaker 2:You really forgot the intro. Why do I?
Speaker 1:say that Is that how? Who says it? I said the zillennials.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't even know what those are. No, I haven't.
Speaker 1:They are a. They're among us. Wow, it's the people in between Gen Z and uh okay, and millennials. That's what they are.
Speaker 2:I don't keep up with any of that stuff. I don't know what any. I knew that we are millennials, I think as far as I know, I guess you got to know your own generation, man.
Speaker 1:Well, it'll be all right to each day. What are we here to do today? Um, for one, we got to wake up. Also, um, there's a topic to talk about. There is We've been on a kick If you listened to the last episode of uh, reviewing programs because we were gone for a while and while we were gone, some programs were done and we always wanted to talk about those, and at the time I think we intended to do it, you know, in more real time, Uh, and we just didn't, um, for a number of reasons. So now we're back and we are going to do that. So which program are we going to review today?
Speaker 2:We are reviewing strong lifts, five by five, I think, is what most people call it. Um, there would be. There's also the mad cow version. Yeah yeah, we've hinted at that. It's the biggest episodes, yeah, so that's like a more, I guess the second level of it. You might say yeah, but strong lifts is the main name behind the program. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Every time I hear you say mad cow, I think of the swine flu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, yeah, it does say mad cow.
Speaker 1:I hear and I saw in the news.
Speaker 2:Well, there, was a mad cow thing going around at one point right. What do you mean? That was like a disease world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why that's exactly it. Yeah, you heard about the news when we were growing up cows going crazy. I actually have no idea.
Speaker 2:I don't know anything, but I'm assuming that's where this. So so the story goes that the mad cow program, um, it's a user on Reddit that was his name, I believe was mad cow and they he created this version of the program. Now it's kind of become an official part of the program. That's right. That's right. That's where the name came from, but I don't know where he I'm assuming he was the same way. He probably was thinking about swine flu and came up with his username. I guess.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I don't know, but for some reason my mind immediately goes to disease and, um, like that's what I would do if I were going to make a Reddit username, just just to be a contrarian, or whatever I would.
Speaker 1:I would pick a bird flu or some, yeah, like, uh, animal disease. That's in the news. There aren't that many of them, but you know that's one of them, I guess. Anyway, um, before we actually do that, we always we have to do our thing, which is, uh, you know, consists of a number of items. One of those is to do a recap. I don't know We'll do too much of a recap, because it was two days ago when we recorded the last episode of this, so I don't know what all there is to say, but we could, we could, touch on that. And then, before we do that, we always have to talk about the sponsor of today's episode, which you'll never guess it, but we snagged a great one. I'm just saying we did.
Speaker 2:Who could it be?
Speaker 1:Couple of douchebags. It's just us, it's always just us, and uh, you know, there's no money involved yet. Until such time as there is, although there is money involved, it's just our own money, it's just output, it's out, it's outgoing. Only there's no money coming in.
Speaker 2:Rest assured, there are dollars flying around.
Speaker 1:Oh man. Well, thank you for the support of the show. Uh, for those who have, uh, I will mention briefly that if you would like your money to be entangled in our endeavor, you can always head over to shopworkingmansweightliftingcom and pick up a T shirt. I think it's about time we have some new merch. So if you've got ideas for design or an item that you'd like to see, right now we've got T shirts and stickers, but if you want a hoodie or you want a coffee mug or whatever, just hit us up in discord, which you can do at discordworkingmansweightliftingcom. Drop your ideas in there. We would love to hear them. Um, and then you know we'll do our best.
Speaker 1:Thankfully, we have a setup where it's once we have a design, it's actually quite easy to apply that design to a number of different items, which basically get made in real time before they get shipped to you, which is pretty cool. So, anyway, that's all to say. We appreciate the support and, um, we don't take it for granted. So, moving on, I'll recap. What do you think? What was there to say? You had an interesting development yesterday when you try to do some deadlifts. Yes, I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, um, I went to deadlift for the first time in a few weeks. Um took some time off to help my hip and back issues, so I've been doing a lot of single leg work and feeling great I was. I was feeling great. Yesterday morning Um went to just literally do a warmup set of 135 with a deadlift for a set of five and I just remember thinking in my head that I could feel it in my hamstrings a little more than normal and I was like God, that's cool, didn't, didn't bother me. I just thought, wow, that's that's.
Speaker 2:Apparently I need to do some hamstring work and stood up and then immediately had the soreness of like what you would have if you had never worked out in your life and you did 50 reps of deadlifts two days ago. It was unbelievable. Like I could barely sit down. It was everything was tender, like just in the hamstrings. It was like I could not. I couldn't sit on the bench. I was thinking, ah, just keep going with the rest of the workout, grab some light dumbbells to try to do an overhead press, sat down on the bench and almost threw my back out because it hurt my hamstrings so bad. I was like moving all around in weird ways and I was like, nah, this is not in the cards today. So I just called it just one set of 135 most sore I'd ever been in my entire life. I honestly don't know what it is. I looked up, I was looking stuff up. While it was happening I found a cute diagnosis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, self-diagnosed acute onset muscle soreness. So you've heard of Dom's delayed onset that's a fancy way of just talking about the soreness that everybody feels when they work out and it was definitely acute, it was immediate, I don't know. It went away, you know it. I came upstairs, made some breakfast, chose to stand to eat the most of it because I didn't want to sit down. If you know, if you've listed this before, I do manual labor. So I was a little worried. I was like, oh man, I'm shot and I'm going to work today. But honestly, I went. They laid a bunch of ceramic tile. It didn't stop me, I was, I was totally fine. Once I got done working I noticed I was still a little sore, nothing like I was right after, but very weird. Then this morning you know it's completely fine, it's back to just like a normal mild soreness that you would have like if I had worked out three or four days ago.
Speaker 1:It's very weird.
Speaker 2:I don't know, never had anything like that happen before.
Speaker 1:You know if you have let us know.
Speaker 2:But it was very strange not worried about it. I didn't hurt anything, I'm not like injured, but it just was really weird and so sore that I definitely was not about to even attempt to do another set of them.
Speaker 1:I wonder if I had something to do with the pretty extreme drop in temperature that we had, I had that thought too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like 20 some degrees yesterday morning. Yeah, and that's very cold for around here and it's also not been that cold yet.
Speaker 1:It kind of came out of nowhere, yeah, so it could have been?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I tried to warm up a little bit, but I don't know. I have no answers here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's what we're in the business of. For me so far this week, we're recording on a Thursday. My current plan is to try to come over to your gym and work on Monday and Wednesday, and then we're, you know, getting together to work on this podcast or on music in our studio on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And Monday went great. Wednesday, I had a previous evening I had a client issue blow up, so you know, I guess that is the working man's shows, and we talked about our work a little bit.
Speaker 1:I'm an IT guy for small businesses and it's or I basically am an outsourced IT guy.
Speaker 1:You know you hire me for, you know, just to work by the hour, and I had a server problem that basically went down at like I don't know, 1045 PM and so I was up late working on that and I woke up Wednesday morning I was just like that's, this is not, I'm not going to be able to go, I'm completely dead, but I did try to salvage it.
Speaker 1:So I have a bench and some power black dumbbells that I took from your gym and I've been keeping it at my house and I whipped them out at about four PM, so I just sort of like stopped the work day a little bit early because I was I sort of finished what I needed to do yesterday and and I did a bunch of like. I basically tried to cram it into like 20 minutes and I did some heavier kettlebell swings and then I supersetted that with incline dumbbell, bench press and seated shoulder press, which is mostly because I'm just trying to rehab my shoulder. After you know, anybody who's listened before will know that I had surgery several years ago and it just never been the same. So and it tends to get, it gets worse when it's cold, so I'm just trying to keep it moving to help that out.
Speaker 1:So so at least two workouts in the week so far. The second one, not what you know, I wanted it to be with barbells at your place and it was not. But you know better. Better to move than to not. So yeah for sure Did that and yeah. So here we are moving right along. I think it's time that we talk about strong lifts. Do you know anything about the history where this? You know where it came from? Like who sort of like? Like what's the background of strong lists, or do you know?
Speaker 2:I don't know a lot. I know there's a guy that that when you sign up, like if you get the app and stuff, I've been getting emails for a year from this guy that I believe created it. I cannot remember his name off the top of my head. It's pretty bad.
Speaker 2:But, he, he, I think he created it and, like I said, this mad cow user kind of tweaked it and it. That's kind of where both of them came from. But I think in the beginning it was very like, kind of like all these programs. It started out probably very just, simple and now you know there's an app and all this kind of fancy stuff that goes along with it, but that's just how things tend to go nowadays. So but yeah, I mean, I think it was just a normal, not really any different story than five, three, one or anything else just a guy that was looking, not really getting the progress he wanted in the gym and just looking for a way to to do it. As far as the history goes of people using it, I do think there's a lot of.
Speaker 2:You hear people talk about starting strength, which is Mark Rippitose program. We've talked about that on here a lot. Then you've got the strong lifts. They are very similar programs in that you do very similar movements and a very similar rep scheme. There are some differences that I actually think are mentally kind of bigger differences, such as how many sets you do, but they the big difference being that starting strength asks you to do, or has you do, power cleans and strong lifts? Does not they have you do barbell rows. So like back, I remember years ago reading about both of them on the internet and like guys were saying they would rather do the rows because they thought it made them bigger looking grew their lats more, and then other people are like nah, man, you got to do power cleans.
Speaker 2:It's all about the strength or whatever. So it's kind of a little bit what there is a little bit of like you know what are your goals as a person and which one you would maybe choose. I think both of them are great programs to achieve strength with. But I think that's kind of where it came from, it's like. It's kind of like starting strength, but then you have some other movements in there that you might enjoy doing better or you might not be able to do some of them from starting strength.
Speaker 1:Got you. Okay, well, I was just curious sort of how I guess how it came to be, or you know how you found out about it, I guess just in your hours and hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the stuff I've read. Yeah, I've just. I've discovered a lot of different programs I wanted to try over the years.
Speaker 1:It's funny. We were going to, we were talking about before we turned the mics on. We were talking about this and I thought it was going to be. If you listen to our last episode, I was essentially just interviewing Steven about you know, a program that you did, but I forgot completely that I actually did this program for like four months Really. I was just looking back at the the lifting history which is, you know, we'll talk at some point about the fact that there is an app that you can get to go along with this program and you know it tracks your history.
Speaker 1:So I was able to look in there and I, I. That period in my life is just like a blur in my mind. So I, I. If you had asked me literally, if you'd asked me before I open this app and look at it, I would have said maybe I did two or three work out sessions and, looking at it, I did like four months worth of sessions.
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't know how that is, you know, or why that is. I think it's just life with. At that time I had life with like a eight, nine, 10, 12 month old child in the house.
Speaker 1:And that was such a just an intense period of time, uh, learning how to be a new parent, that I think it just was like man, I'm here and it's going in one eyeball and out the other kind of thing, Um, but yeah. So I'm questioning can I actually talk substantively about this or, because I had forgotten about it, do I have anything to add to the conversation?
Speaker 2:We'll find out. We're going to come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it'll come back. Yeah, I, as you were talking about Rose, I did remember that we were trying out that, that uh, sort of a different style of row, which maybe we can talk about yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I liked that this might spark some memory too, we we bought a second squat rack to do this program with. Just to let you know there are two squat racks in our gym now so that my wife Gracie could work out and then we could be squatting and benching and everything at the same time and not competing for one squat rack with three feet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's well, I do remember that. Yeah, it's there, I've seen it. I saw it Monday. It's not that I don't remember it at all, it's just that for some reason in my head it was, it was very condescent, it felt like a flash in the pan, like, oh yeah, I tried to work out again for like a week.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's just tied in, you know, not to get to like whatever you, whatever you call this mushy, I don't know if that's the thing, but where this podcast is concerned, part of the reason we didn't record for like months was just because I personally felt that I wasn't like I wasn't. I didn't feel like I was like active enough in a workout space to be able to speak about it.
Speaker 1:Right right and I guess in my head, like I just I sort of threw a dart at the dart board, you know a couple of times and then I fell off the horse again. But now that I'm looking at it I'm like well, wow, okay, maybe it's because I started with really low weights, like if looking at it the first workout I did like I was squatting a hundred pounds.
Speaker 1:So, maybe maybe it was just felt to me like I'm not, you know, I'm sort of just getting the juices flowing again. I don't know, man, it's a weird phenomenon. We've talked to off mics about it quite a bit recently, about the fact that you know me personally, I'm just, I have too much going on and I my memory of like recent events is like quite poor, which is, you know, I feel a little bit like Dory from a funny Nemo, like I.
Speaker 2:Maybe you just choose to forget the painful parts and you hate squatting. So I mean, that's the thing I'm sure that's the thing I don't know. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:I don't hate squatting anymore. I used to.
Speaker 2:And I grew to like yeah, it's like kind of my favorite thing now.
Speaker 1:So anyway, that was a long tangent Just to basically say that that we can actually both comment on this. It is bringing about memories, even looking at the app. So why don't we just pivot really quick to talk about the app? Because or we can talk about that later, but that was one of my favorite things about it. I actually thought that the Strongly Lift app is excellent. Yeah, it is yeah Really really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a buy-in. I think you can pay monthly, you can pay yearly or you can pay for a lifetime. I think lifetime is like $99, $100 something A year. I believe we paid like $40. That sounds right Somewhere in there. And I think monthly was like $10 a month or something. So it yeah, you save a lot. Yeah, you save quite a bit. You know, does the app do anything you can't do yourself? No, not really. You can find this program online and run all the numbers yourself and write it all down. But it is super handy. It's very user-friendly. You can tweak everything numbers, sets or like what you're doing for that set, the exercises. You can swap things in and out. So that part very nice. Very much a bonus to that program was the app.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a super nerdy detail, but I just remember it because I had got a new phone around that time and it is one of the few as far as it's the only workout app I've ever used that utilize. If you're an iPhone person, maybe the Android probably also does this. It does live notifications. So if you have your phone, like you could be in the middle of the workout, and if your phone, like you, know the screen, what do you call it when you turn the screen off Because of sleep?
Speaker 2:or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically your phone goes to sleep, it will keep a window.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god man, it's too early to warning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it will keep basically a notification window open on your lock screen, just like any of the native Apple apps, or like if Spotify does, or whatever that shows like the workout you're on and how much weight it's supposed to be on it, and a little timer I think of like how long you should wait between sets and stuff. Which I just thought that was. That's like a tiny. It's a super tiny detail, but I just feel like that's the kind of thing that, like you know, it's delightful, it sort of makes it fun.
Speaker 2:It's also really nice if you have an Apple watch, it does the same thing.
Speaker 1:So it'll keep-. Yeah, that's probably the same engine that it's using. It is yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it'll keep up. I actually noticed the last time I opened the app it said it had updated something with Apple Watch. But like when I was doing the program, that was the best part was it had a time. It would keep the timer. You'd hit like you'd press that you were done with that set and then it would immediately start your rest timer. So you're just kind of walking around and it just goes off and you realize, okay, it's time to lift again. And then, like you said, it tells you how much weight you're supposed to lift and the reps you're supposed to hit and everything right there on your wrist. So if you have an Apple Watch, it's really nice, it really adds to it and like you said, there's probably an Android watch.
Speaker 2:It probably does the same thing, I'm not really sure, but with an Apple Watch it was really really nice because you don't even have to use your phone. You could just turn the app on on your phone, start the workout I guess you could do that from the watch too and then you just basically use your watch to go through the program. And, like I said in the past, I've write everything down too, so I was writing it down in a notebook, but it still was very, very nice to be able to just watch the rest time, especially on your watch. It was kind of handy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so very enjoyable. Honestly, just to be super clear, from my perspective, 10 out of 10 on the app best workout app experience that I've used to date.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a couple of issues where it would kind of jack up my numbers sometimes. But, like I said, I write everything down, so I was able to quickly fix it and I don't remember what that was Like. I don't remember why I kept doing that, but I think it may have even been something I was doing where I had swapped like the next version of the program and I had kind of messed up the numbers.
Speaker 1:I remember that.
Speaker 2:now that you're saying that, cause I don't think it did it to you it was. That was frustrating in the moment, but I was quickly able to fix it. It just that was the only gripe I had, but honestly, it's probably been updated since then. I'm sure it doesn't do that anymore. But other than that, yeah, everything about it was great, just like the actual experience. Yes, very, very good.
Speaker 1:Okay, that great, but does it work? Does the program work? And you can probably comment better on that than I can in terms of you know the actual weight lifting progress? Yeah, I, you know. I did look back at my history and my squat went up by 70 pounds in, I guess, a three, four month period. Now I wasn't following the program, I wasn't doing it as often as you're supposed to. Like it should have gone up much higher than that, but there was progress. So that's a good thing. And you know other lifts, let's see. Yeah, clearly I was sort of stopping and starting a lot because my progress was definitely stunted, like it should have been much higher than that. Yeah, I think you had some time off and then you come back and you'd back up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Like one thing about this app if you take a little bit of time off, it'll say like, welcome back, we suggest a D load, and it'll drop your numbers back a couple of weeks or something, or a couple of sessions, and I know that happened to you a couple of times in there. So you definitely would have gone backwards and then go forwards, which isn't bad. That's actually a healthy way to train. If you take some time off, you know, and you don't want to just blast it out right when you come back, it's a good idea to back off a little bit. If it's only been, you know, two, three weeks, whatever, then that's pretty normal to do. I do like that. The app would kind of suggest that and you can bypass it. You can say no thanks or whatever.
Speaker 2:It doesn't you don't have to do that, obviously, I should have.
Speaker 1:I think that I'm remembering this now. Like I said, it keeps coming back to what we were talking about. I do remember that you at one point where, like dude, stop deloading, like you're not it would you know, just for the record. Like, deloading is a great thing when it's appropriate, but in my case the weights were so low I wasn't taxing my body enough for a D load to really be effective.
Speaker 1:So I should have just sort of kept going, which is what I plan to do this time, that you know, as I'm getting back on the horse as well. So I think that that was. That was me just being brainless and just like following the app. I was just like I'll just do what it tells me to do, which generally you should do that, yeah, yeah, but in the special case of where I was sort of like I had set my numbers really low to try to just get active again, that's that one specific case where deloading is just not really necessary because you're essentially already deloading, Like you've already deloaded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you're in the middle of a long deload, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically. So anyway, yeah. So what about you? How was your progress on you you start? Did you start with the regular stronalist, five by five, and then move into the mad cow?
Speaker 2:Or did you start? I cannot remember. I may have done a couple of weeks with the regular For some reason. That's the only part I can't really remember about it. They're very similar and I get, honestly, probably first I should probably just break down really quickly kind of what the program even is.
Speaker 1:I'm going to let you talk about, I guess, some more coffee.
Speaker 2:Okay. So the program is. Essentially it's very similar to starting strength. You've got squat, bench, overhead press and deadlift are kind of your main movements and then you've got barbell rows and all that together. That's your bread and butter of the program. That's the bare bones. If you're not, if you're not going to do any assistance work or any additional exercises, that is the program. Like I said earlier, it's got a. There's a little change where starting strength you do three sets of five strong lifts has you do five sets of five. That's the part I was talking about being kind of a major mental change. When that's just a little bit harder to wrap your mind around, there's two extra sets on top of no one knew you were gone. The two extra sets can throw you off mentally if you're not used to that kind of volume. So I do think there's a change there that's a little more significant than what you see with starting strength. But anyway, yeah, that's your main program.
Speaker 2:Then with the mad cow, what so? The original? It's straight across sets. So like say, you're going to squat 135, you're going to do five sets of 135. The mad cow once you get to a certain point I think. I read something on the website that said when you can squat like I'll say when it's up, when you can squat, 225 for five sets of five and you can bench I don't remember 150 or whatever it is it said. Then he kind of recommended, sure it's fine to move on to the mad cow so I could do all everything is said I could do before we started the program obviously.
Speaker 2:So I went into the mad cow and what it does is more of like a ramp up, which I would say is very similar to the feeling of five through one. So you do five sets but each one is getting progressively heavier. And then you'd have a back off week on Wednesday, which again is very similar to starting strength. You back off the numbers a little bit so, but lighter load. You're still doing pretty heavy work and you're still doing the same movements, but it's like the sets are a little less, the weights a little less. So it's just it's kind of a active no, I shouldn't say active recovery, but it's a. It's not as intense, the intensity is much lower. And then Friday you actually work up to you go heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, and then you get to a heavy triple. So you drop the reps a little bit and then you back off again and do a set of eight. So I know that sounds kind of confusing, but it's like multiple sets of five, then instead of three at the heaviest weight of the week and then instead of eight, and then the next week your numbers go back up. So that's where the change is. The progress is happening weekly. So you're adding weight to the total number you're lifting every week, whereas on the program you were doing you're adding it every session, like you do on starting strength to get gains as fast as possible. It's just that stops for people very quickly and varying speeds depending on the person, that people have different responses to training like that. But you'll stop pretty quickly and you move into a more intermediate version of the program and your progress is weekly.
Speaker 2:At that point you asked how my progress was. It honestly was great. I actually honestly I probably would say this is one of my favorite programs I've ever done. I responded really well to it. I benched for just training numbers the most I'd ever benched in my life.
Speaker 2:I was well into the 200s, like every week benching multiple sets, and I hadn't been able to really do that before. I've just I've had a really weak bench. I've got long arms, my pecs are disconnected by a huge collarbone, they're just not I don't. I don't have a strong bench press and this really helped me get to numbers. I was like, wow, I didn't honestly, I kind of just thrown in the towel and thought I would never do it. My squats started getting heavy again. Deadlifts I don't. I took some time off of those, just like I've always talked about my back problems. I did them some, but I can't really speak to massive progress there. But I'm fully confident it works. It just I have been protecting my back for a long time and kind of figuring out how to train deadlifts again, as you just heard earlier.
Speaker 1:I got super sore out of nowhere, but anyway, yeah all in all, the program is great.
Speaker 2:I made excellent progress. I made a few tweaks of my own, such as some dumbbell work in there. I believe both of us actually did some dumbbell overhead press instead of regular overhead press. I did a bit of both on the program, but I think we made that change at one point. And also with a mad cow you can add in some assistance lifts. So there's like a, there's like a couple of versions of it you can choose in the app and they'll have different assistance movements.
Speaker 2:So it's like two extra exercises and I think the normal ones are like planks and curls and then it's like sit ups and dips or something. So I just basically took that to like plug in to exercise you want to do. Maybe there are areas that are lagging, or maybe there's like something you want to do. Like me, I really like to do face pulls for a healthy shoulder, I stuff like that. I just kind of threw in whatever I wanted to.
Speaker 2:And then on top of that as well, as you mentioned, we did the barbell rows. We swapped to Meadows rows and we've talked about this some before, but they're essentially the same thing. It's just you put the barbell down, like there are some attachments I think they're called landmine attachments you can use, but I don't have one of those. So I just jammed one end of the barbell into the corner of the squat rack and then loaded the opposite end and you bend over and it's kind of like a bend over row, but your stance is a little different, and you're bracing off of one leg with your elbow that you're not lifting with, and then you're rowing with the other arm, so it's like almost like a dumbbell row and a barbell row mixed together.
Speaker 2:The massive benefit that's what it feels like, yes, yeah. The massive benefit to it, though, is that you can micro load it, you can continuously load it. So a dumbbell you know, say, your dumbbell rows stuck at 75 pound dumbbell or something, and you just you can't quite get the reps you need with an 80. Well, this one, you know, you can add one pound or whatever. Whatever barbells you have, you can add a little bit over time and achieve progressive overload that way. So, like on the program, for example, when it's programming barbell rows, I was able just to continuously follow the program because I'm just using these rows as that version.
Speaker 2:So obviously the weights are slightly different. You know, if you're, if you're been over rowing 135 pounds it's. You don't need to put 135 pounds on one side of the barbell. I just basically would put 135 pounds is a 45 on each side. I would put 145 on the one side. Start with that.
Speaker 2:Then I would move up, you know. So it's very easy to follow, but I think it's a great movement. It helped my back a lot. I don't do barbell rows at all anymore. I used to love them, but I just don't like the risk involved with my low back. So this is a great way to get a lot of rowing in without damaging anything, and I really enjoy doing those.
Speaker 1:I still do them.
Speaker 2:I think they're great, I think it's a great movement. But, yeah, as far as progress goes, I made excellent progress and I would actually say that probably one of the number one reasons for that is that these programs give you a lot of practice. So you're squatting three times a week, you get really used to it and little things that might hurt or little problems in your form. You kind of work out really quickly and I've noticed that for the last few years, when I squat, like once a week, for example, there are times where it feels awesome and there's other times where it feels absolutely terrible, even lightweight, and it's almost like my body just can't get used to it. When you're practicing three times a week like that, you get really good at it and, at least in my experience, it allows for more progress because I'm I'm not worrying about the form at all, I'm just following the program and lifting more numbers or more weight, yeah, and the numbers are going up and that is a huge benefit of the program to me.
Speaker 1:Very nice. Do you remember how long you did it or do you have the history?
Speaker 2:And I don't remember exactly how long, but I know I did it Probably. I would say at least six months or longer. I would say Okay. Yeah, it's saying right here I did like July. So yeah, I mean I would have gone from the end of December to July. Yeah, six or seven months, yeah, yeah. So it as a program as a whole, I actually think it's really enjoyable and I really saw a lot of great progress during that time.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Let's talk about who is this for and who's it not for.
Speaker 2:You want me to talk?
Speaker 1:Well, we can both probably talk some about the at least. Well, so just to be super clear, I'm sure you figured this out. Hopefully, if you're this far in, it's been clear. But this is really reviewing two programs it's the beginner and the intermediate version of the same thing.
Speaker 1:So that kind of answers the question. The beginner one is more for beginners. I think this for me personally commenting on it, if you are someone, I mean it really boils down to this simple If you like the idea of starting strength but you don't like power cleans, pretty much yeah.
Speaker 1:This is a great, great program to consider and that was one of the reasons that we were attracted to it, because we really, I do like starting strength. I'm on it right now and starting strength in the very beginning you don't do cleans, but once you advance to a certain point, yeah, really quickly yeah. And so we just don't. Neither of us feel like we've ever really been able to do them, and wouldn't feel safe doing it without a coach, which is just where we live, like the chances of finding that are not high.
Speaker 1:So and I don't know that either of us have you actually might consider it, but I just I don't have enough like I don't sit around at my desk during the middle of the work day going like man. I wish I could find a coach to show me a clean, like.
Speaker 1:I just it's just not high enough on my list of priorities. So, and we like Rose. In fact, if a few episodes back, we did a whole episode on Rose, so that all together adds up to like highly recommended for beginners or people who are very early in their training journey. I think this type of program I wish I had known about it when I was younger.
Speaker 1:I'd say it that way, we spent a lot of time not making enough progress that we should have made in our late teens, early twenties, because we didn't know about these types of heavy weight, lower rep programs that would have been really helpful. I'll let you comment on the you know on the intermediate piece. What type of intermediate you know, what kind of person you think would be interested in this and who you know? Maybe comment on who it would not be a good fit for.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think the natural progression would just be to move from the one you did to the one that I did. So, like you said, moving straight up from a beginner to an intermediate. If you really like strength training and you're kind of concerned with how strong you are, lifting a lot of weight, I think that that's a great type of person to do this program. If you're, like, really into bodybuilding or even like something like CrossFit obviously I don't think it's. That's not what this program is, it's not. You know, it's not like tons of different exercises, it's not tons of reps, it's lower reps, higher weight, and the set of eight is as high as you go, except for your assistance movements. But most of these strength programs, all of your energy is supposed to be devoted to the main movements and then you just kind of fill in with assistance lifts.
Speaker 2:So, all in all, I mean I think anybody could benefit from it, even if you are a bodybuilder. You know it might be great to take a little break and do some strength training. But if it's just for your enjoyment, then yeah, if you like strength training and you wanna get stronger, I think it's a great place to be. The practice element that I talked about is kind of huge. That's one thing that I wish I would have done when I was younger. It's just more time under the bar and practicing instead of doing all these different exercises, but anyway, yeah, I think all in all, like I said, anybody could benefit, but it's mainly a strength program and that you need to know that going into it, because you're gonna be lifting heavyweight lower reps and it needs to you're gonna have to have a barbell with a decent amount of muscle.
Speaker 1:I was about to ask, but my next question was gonna be what equipment? You said, barbell, yeah, we did that on the last review. I think that's helpful. Yes, it is, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's a completely barbell-focused program. There's really, like I mentioned, us doing the dumbbell work. That's just because we have access to them and we like that movement, but the actual program is written for strictly barbell use. So that's all you really need is a space and some barbells and a squat rack.
Speaker 1:Well, that's actually in alignment with our favorite way of doing it, which is in a home gym. That's fairly friendly to a home gym because- 100% friendly to a home gym.
Speaker 1:You know you don't have to have any specialized machines. It's just a squat, rack and barbell and weights is basically and a bench and you're kind of there. So you could get by with like a really like a solid but basic setup and be able to do this pretty easily. So it sounds like it's not for people who like a lot of variety which you've been victim to that before, you know, because your gym has more equipment available. I know many times you'll be on a really like a simple program like this and you'll tell me like I got to change this. I hate staring at all this stuff and not using it.
Speaker 1:I have all these other things and it feels weird to me to own it and not use it in something way which I totally get. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, yeah, that's that would be like the only complaint about these type of programs is yeah, if you like variety and you like to use some other implements, then it you don't get. You don't really get that with these programs, although, like I mentioned, with the assistance work you could do you know, an extra Whatever, yeah. Yeah, you could do a couple of sets of something extra, and that's what I would do. That's kind of how I would alleviate that problem for me. Just add it in at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just add it in the very end and, you know, have kind of fun with the very back end of the workout. And it was enjoyable, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll ask the same question that maybe of both of us, that I asked last time, which is that imagine that you're a comatose on the floor of the Coliseum, it's gladiator and you have to decide whether or not you're going to kill Maximus Arale. Decimus Arale, what's his name?
Speaker 2:Something like that Maximus Decimus Araleus.
Speaker 1:Man, all of that movie. By the way, anybody who's never seen gladiator you probably don't listen to the show. If you haven't, that's a great movie Highly recommend. It's that scene in the movie. I've got the thumb to the side and the crowd is going wild. Does it go up or does it go down? Up for me, up for you, all. Right, it's an up for me as well.
Speaker 2:Two of them, yeah, two thumbs up.
Speaker 1:Two thumbs wildly up. You know I don't think we've had a like a bad review of a program yet, but no, not really I mean. But like a 10 out of 10 would not recommend that hasn't happened yet, but it's more of just like what are you interested in? What do you like to do? But this definitely effective and, like I said, best app in the game as far as I'm concerned. Like while we were doing it I was sitting here kind of wishing that I had just gone back to doing this a couple of weeks ago instead of starting. Strength Not, but again, not because it's not an advocacy thing, it's just literally the app is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I probably won't change, just because I shouldn't change, you know, two weeks in, but anyway, all right. Well, any closing arguments, as I like to say.
Speaker 2:I don't think so. Like we said it all, Nice.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll wrap up by saying again really appreciate everybody out there listening, all the support and, if you want to, you know, help us out in a way that won't cost you any money. The very best things you can do are leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. That goes a long way toward putting us in front of other people, especially now algorithms are getting more involved in podcasting. For a long time, that wasn't really a big deal, but there's a lot of big money chasing podcasts now, so it's becoming a little more YouTubey in that sense, and so that would really be helpful. Also, the very best thing you can do is just to recommend us to a friend, so hit that share button and your favorite app and grab a link and text it over to somebody else. You know who likes to lift weights and hear other people talk about it. So in the meantime, I've been Nick, I've been Stephen and we've been the working men who lift weights and talk about it on this show, and we will catch you next time. I like that you.
