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
Weightlifting Tips for Manual Laborers
In episode 80, hosts Nick & Stephen tackle the challenges of balancing weightlifting with the demands of manual labor. Topics include:
• Strategies for scheduling workouts around labor intensity
• Tips for achieving recovery and avoiding burnout
• Encouragement to listen to your body and adjust as needed
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Hey, nick, here hopping in real quick just to let you know about the context of this show. If it feels a little bit like this episode is out of sync with some of the more recent episodes we've done, there's a great reason for that and it's because it was in fact recorded many months ago and just never got released. The story behind that really is just the fact that our second kid was born in my family right around like right after we recorded this episode, and you know I was just obviously completely tied up didn't get put out. So we felt like it was still a great topic to talk about. But if you're listening to us talk about our lives and current events or whatever in the show, if it feels a little bit like what is happening here, that's the explanation for it. It feels a little bit like what is happening here. That's the explanation for it. We did a couple of these and we'll pepper them in when it feels like a good slot in our schedule that we need to fill. So I'll always hop on at the beginning like this and let you know if there's any reason for it to kind of feel wonky in terms of the overall arc of the story of our show. So there you have it. Really hope you enjoy it and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to the Working Man's Weightlifting Show, a show where working men talk about weightlifting. I'm your host, nick Wiley, and I'm joined today by my permanent co-host and younger brother, mr Stephen Wiley. Stephen, how you doing Doing?
Speaker 2:pretty well Always got to ask.
Speaker 1:We do, Just making sure you know.
Speaker 2:You don't even give me time to ask how you're doing.
Speaker 1:You know, I never thought about that.
Speaker 2:I tried, but it's all about you, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, ask me how I'm doing.
Speaker 2:How about you man?
Speaker 1:Good, I'm good. Nice, nice, I'm pretty good. I've been getting over a little sickness.
Speaker 2:Plague.
Speaker 1:I'm plague, the plague of having a toddler, that's all it is. It's just never ending. In fact, I've probably talked about that the last several episodes. If you've been listening recently, I'm never well, so you know it just is. I don't really know what to do about it. I've talked to other people who are in a similar position and I think this is just a phase of life kind of thing you have to get through. Yeah, although you and I have talked, we talked about there's something in the air oh yeah, you're not alone, it's not.
Speaker 2:I don't know that it is just kids there's, there's people everywhere, something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know there's a some conspiracy just trying to take us all out. I don't know what it is, but every it feels like. I guess I'll say it this way Growing up here in this area that we're in, it did not feel like everybody was sick all the time. It now feels like everyone is sick all the time and if you ask anyone, just a random person that you might be acquainted with, they will also say it feels like everyone's sick all the time. So that bit of extremely well-researched scientific data.
Speaker 1:I'm bringing to you here today is true, yes, yes. Anyway, moving on, we got a good topic picked out, and shall we reveal what that is?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, you want to do the honors?
Speaker 2:I can't. Um I wish this was a video, so we're talking about optimizing your program.
Speaker 2:Um, we've kind of debated about how to even say what we're trying to say. Yeah, without. It's easier just to explain um, but yeah, I found an article the other day by a man named joe chalero, if I'm saying that right, yeah, written in 2018 on eliteftscom. Um, and the the title of it was how to train while workinga physical job. There's not a lot of this stuff out there. That's literally why we started this pod. One of the reasons we started this podcast was because there wasn't a lot of information about that.
Speaker 2:So I like this article. You know, if you have time check it out, it's not very long. I think it says it's like a nine-minute read, but we'll dive into it a little bit Some of the topics that kind of stuck out to me that I liked. But yeah, that's where we're going with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So to summarize, uh, we're, we're, we're basically talking about optimizing for if you work a manual labor job.
Speaker 2:Or really any job. I mean honestly, there's some points in here that could give you some pointers, even if you don't, if you have a different type of job you know, it kind of gives you a thought process behind it. Yeah, but yes, a thought process behind it. Yeah, but yes, mainly for manual laborers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so before we do that, we always like to do a recap, and you know, it's a good tradition we've had since the early days and it's probably helpful because, well, I hope it's helpful. In fact, if you have feedback, if you don't find it helpful, you can contact us at workingmansweightliftingcom. But anyway, yeah, we like to talk about training recently, but before we do that, we always this thing doesn't just fund itself, we have to have a word from today's sponsor.
Speaker 2:Could it be the sunglasses we turned down?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be nice. In fact, it does in fact run itself. There is not any money involved yet, but one day there might be. If there is, this is the time when we'll tell you about it. Until that time, thank you for being a listener. If you'd like to support the show, you can do that at supportworkingmansweightliftingcom or you can buy merch at shopworkingmansweightliftingcom.
Speaker 1:That all goes a great way towards helping us keeping the lights on and the mics hot. Baby Moving ahead. Quick recap I'll try to be brief. Then I'll start this time, because I always make you do it all right.
Speaker 1:So training for me. If you've been listening for the last I don't know a few episodes, uh, my just constant theme is like how do I get back in the gym after becoming a dad, which was nigh on two years ago? So that has just been a constant in my life, but now I actually finally feel like I'm doing it. Yeah, I'm not gonna say that I'm like winning any awards, but I am getting stronger and I'm like at least at the gym every week, like at least at the gym every week. Um, my current goal is to be there two days a week, which I know may sound. You know, you're, you came here. You're like this is a weightlifting podcast and the guy is celebrating lifting twice a week.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's optimization.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go, hey. So yeah, I'm trying to optimize and, um, I am currently. I had been doing starting strength. I decided to switch back to strong lifts because I like their app a lot and that maybe a terrible reason to choose a program, but I I mostly I had paid for it that that actually has a lot to do with it.
Speaker 1:I, the app is a little pricey and I had paid for it and I I was like I want to get some more use out of this before I just move on from it. Um, which I'm doing, and the uh, I would say it's going well, I'm getting stronger. I'm not truly following the program cause it's a three day a week program, but say it's going well, I'm getting stronger. I'm not truly following the program because it's a three-day-a-week program, but because it's an ABABAB style, it actually lays well to a two-day-a-week situation. And my numbers are coming up.
Speaker 1:I think I just squatted Yesterday. I was doing 180 on the safety bar, which is harder to do, as much weight on for three sets of five, and I think my deadlift's up to like in the 240 range, something like that. So my current goal I want to get the squat up to 200 at the very least before I would consider changing the program, because I'm just trying to like, rapidly, get stronger, like back, get it back to numbers that I've right had in the past and for me, the highest I ever got on scott was more like 300 and on deadlift probably like 380, something like that.
Speaker 1:So, um, I would say and and I'm taking bench more seriously now, which is new for me I've, I'm benching every session now which was your suggestion because of my um trying to kind of rehab my shoulder and that's actually going really well. I mean, I've hit it every time I think I mean it's not like it's.
Speaker 1:I got a lot of work to do. I think I'm the last one was maybe $130 or $135 for three sets of five, but anyway on the way and I would say it's going really well. So thanks for the encouragement.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And accountability. So how about yourself?
Speaker 2:Things are going pretty well. I kind of spent some time. We did some program reviews on here actually, and I think we may have another one or two to do, but uh, I spent a bunch of time kind of testing things out. You might say, yep, um, because mainly for this show. Really honestly, that's what gave me the inspiration behind it. I I kind of had gotten a little burnout on just plowing into strength training or whatever one kind of method of training, um, so I've tried several things we talked about. I did a program for mind pump, I did Mike Matthews, I did strong lifts, um, and I actually put time into each one of these.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I them yeah at least what was required for one like a cycle, yeah, at minimum, some of them more than that, um and so kind of.
Speaker 2:That's a little bit of the inspiration for the topic today, anyway, but, um, it's right now where I'm at actually is doing more strength training. Um, kind of a blend of some things I've learned through this whole process. You might say, kind of using what has worked for me, what I found that felt good, kind of getting rid of what doesn't feel good, and I think now it's going pretty well. But I would actually encourage other people to do that. If you're in a situation, like I was, where you're kind of a little bit burnout, you've done a lot, a lot of things. Your numbers are decent. You're not like. You know, I wasn't going to be like the Hulk, I wasn't training for a powerlifting meet or something.
Speaker 2:Um, if you're doing this to be healthy, to be strong, to be a little more muscular, whatever it is, you can really get a lot out of testing things out for yourself. Yeah, um, and, that being said, I've done a lot of time in the hypertrophy range, you might say so higher reps, eight, 12, 15. And I just did some like some, I would mild one rep max testing last week and I did pretty well, I used the safety bar and I think I did a rep of 290. That's what I told you. I think Very hard on that bar. Probably make a whole episode out of that bar. Honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we probably could.
Speaker 2:But that bar is difficult for many reasons. Um, I at the moment how where I stand on it is. I think it's very useful for people with shoulder problems like nick's dealing with, but I don't like the bar it gets on nerves. I would say um, but I was happy about that. I've 290 is is pretty heavy for me on that bar.
Speaker 1:That that's yeah, maybe we should uh clarify well, if you're new to weightlifting, what a safety bar is. Just really quickly, it's a squat bar that has these like shoulder pads that are attached to it, that basically it rests on those pads on your shoulder.
Speaker 2:With like handlebars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically it's handles and you just you hold onto it as they come across your shoulders, rather than wrapping your arms all the way around to the bar itself. So that's why it's very helpful, for if you've got shoulder mobility issues, like me, I can't get my arm all the way around to a normal squat bar without basically warping the shape of my spine and that's why we decided it's messing your form up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it messed up my form so I can do a proper squat with safety bar. However, the byproduct of the safety bar because it's sitting on these big pads on your shoulder, is that it rests way higher on your shoulder and so it changes the angle as you're going down. And most people find it much more difficult to like if you pick up 200 pounds on this and 200 pounds on a regular bar. They do not feel the same at all.
Speaker 2:It feels much harder. It's much more quad-focused for your legs You're getting rid of a lot of the hamstring help from a regular squat, Especially in my case. I do a low bar squat anyway with the barbell, so it's way different. But anyway I did 290 there. I think I did 360 or 365 on deadlift. I put 405 on there. I know I could have pulled it. 360 was very easy, but I got a little nervous because I was doing everything.
Speaker 1:And I was just like I don't want to just do it.
Speaker 2:I don't know where it hurt myself, so I backed off on that. I did 225 on bench just to see make sure I still could, and I did a couple other little small movements that I do, like meadows rose that we've talked about, similar to barbell rose, um, so I felt very good. I I took a long break off of really pushing the big lifts like that and I was still able to hit some pretty decent numbers, and so it kind of goes to show that you have a lot of muscle memory there, um. So anyway, that that's kind of that was literally last Friday.
Speaker 2:Here we are on Thursday of the next week, so it was almost a week ago, um. But yeah, all in all, I would say it's going very well and I've made some changes I'll talk about for the sake of this topic, that I'm kind of excited about going forward.
Speaker 1:Cool deal. Well, plowing along, we want to keep this as brief as possible. So how to optimize for? Mostly for manual labor, but for any labor, we all have to labor, unfortunately. Well, maybe not every single one of us, yeah, but most of us do yeah and um, yeah, we. It's like you. When you read about a program, it's always done in a vacuum. It feels like you know, maybe not always. I like to generalize, if you haven't figured that out, I love to just make broad, sweeping statements about people and things and places. So, yeah, one of my favorite things to do. But, generally speaking, when you read about a program, it's not behoove the author to like necessarily factor in a super specific lifestyle because they're trying to reach as many people as possible.
Speaker 1:So you know that. But, as you've pointed out, like it feels, it has always felt to us. It was like the main motivation for starting this podcast was like there's so little information out there for people who work manual labor jobs. And yet, number one, you probably need to be in the gym if you work a manual labor job, because you need to take care of your body, because you need your body more than someone who sits behind a desk. In a sense At least you need it for your work, like you need it directly for your work.
Speaker 1:And also you need to really focus on longevity because you're beating your body up throughout the day and also you're like, it probably will help you in your job, like if you in other words if it's manual labor, you probably need to be strong, like it's likely that you are lifting heavy objects throughout the day. So a million reasons and yet very little info. So, anyway, I'm teeing you up. You're now in the tee box. Well, golf, neither of us really play golf.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that was golf term. No, I'm just kidding, but yeah, I don't know anything about golf. I play once a year. I don't even know that was golf term. Oh, no, I'm kidding, but yeah, I don't know anything about golf I play once a year I I don't even play that anymore.
Speaker 1:I used to, uh, I used to play in a charity tournament for, uh, a client that I worked with and and it was a blast and I am terrible, so bad. I mean it's like I admire anybody who, um, but I got the golf runs deep in my in-law family yeah. Yeah, so I, I get, I hear the talk. It's always on TV Like like if I go over there just to hang out on a random Friday. Um, they're watching it, which is if you've never watched golf. That's a thing, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That is a thing Exciting yeah.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I'm teeing you up. The ball is on the tee, you have the club in hand.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, this article I mentioned, Joe Shillero, EliteDFTScom, One of the main topic lines in the article. Pretty early in it says don't let being idealistic prevent you from being realistic. And then he goes on to talk about, basically, Don't be so focused on the perfect program in quotes that you neglect the optimal program, and that really stuck out to me. I think that's really key, and when I said that this kind of plays into both manual labor and otherwise, that's more what I'm talking about, Exactly what he says there the perfect program. You know, I was reading through Mike Matthews' Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger a little bit the other day, just like reading a few lines from it, because I just read about this stuff pretty often and he's talking about how, you know, five days a week is best, Then four days is a little bit worse, and then three days is a little bit worse than that, Like kind of blanket statement in the book, like that. But the whole time I'm thinking, yeah, but that doesn't really apply to me or someone else, and you know there's other jobs that are even more physically demanding than mine by far. Um, so you know, I'm, I'm, I'm. I found this article and when he says that he's big. What he's saying is like you know you're at work, you're working hard.
Speaker 2:These programs are take a five day a week program. Um, you know, it may be five days of pounding away reps. You know you're doing three, four sets of 12, 15 reps, something like that. And through these programs that I've been testing over the last several months, I found a lot of these programs kind of touch in that rep range. Yeah, I think it's good. I don of these programs kind of touch in that rep range. Yeah, I think it's good. I don't think there's anything wrong with that rep range for, say, an office worker five days a week.
Speaker 2:You know you go through all the rep ranges. You start low and you kind of build higher and higher and higher. The weights drop back a little bit but you're doing loads of volume. You're adding reps, adding reps. I think that's good. But when you like in my case, you know I'm using a trowel, for you know, doing a shower wall or something like that Well, I'm basically doing like hundreds of mini little chest fly things all day with this trowel picking up. You know I'm doing like mini deadlifts, picking up tile off the floor, bending over thinset, buckets of thinset, doing farmer's walks. Then I'm doing these little chest fly things with a trowel all day long.
Speaker 1:Um, you know it, really you're getting reps in, I mean like as far as your body, I've seen, you lay hardwood too, which is like hammering. Yeah, yeah, like actually the way that works. Uh, if you've never seen, it is very physical.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, and it's, but you, if you have another person with you, it's still physical for two people. There's a whole lot going on that goes into that. Um, and I've done, you know, some of these whole houses with two people me and one other person my wife, a lot of times now is the other person and we both will be sitting there just all day long you know, burning calories. I mean just going through it, but you're along with burning calories, you are kind of wearing out that movement pattern.
Speaker 2:And so here's a good example of like what I found. You know, I did the Mind Pump anabolic program and in that program it is loaded with shrugs dumbbell shrugs, maybe some barbell shrugs, but all I remember is just endless dumbbell shrugs. I have not done that in years. I did it. I wanted to do the program like it was written, so I did them, but I mean I'm talking multiple sets Weird, a weird, a questionably weird amount of shrugs. I don't honestly it was almost comical.
Speaker 2:I really was laughing when I would look at what I needed to do for the day, because what's the deal here? I've never I've not seen an episode where they talk about why they want to shrug that much. Maybe they have a reason behind it. I honestly would like to hear um, I found it to be really weird. But, like in my case, you know you're reading this article and he's talking about you know, if you're buckets around pretty heavy buckets all day, which is something I do very often yeah, he's like you don't need to be hitting the dumbbell shrugs, you're shrugging, you're kind of holding it with your traps, you know you've got this.
Speaker 2:And it's very true, um, and it's easy not to really think about it like that, but you know I'm working the traps very often doing that kind of thing. Um, the other issue with it is what I found is when you pound away at those reps like that, like, say, say, you're going to pick a five day a week program and in that program you've got, you know, loads of tricep work and then loads of traps like that, a bunch of shrugs, a bunch of dips or a bunch of tricep pushdowns, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Some of these programs are written with like, oh, get over it, it's just tricep pushdowns it's just shrugs, it's not a big main movement, yeah, but the thing is you are wearing out that joint, like when I get to work. There have been times where, like, I pick up a very light bag of something like you know it's a partial bag, a thinset or whatever and like literally my elbow feels like a snap or my my wrist starts to hurt really bad and I know that's what that's from and, yeah, it's from kind of just too much volume in this thing when I'm using that at work so often. Um, and so how have I like what have I done? Through all the testing, that has not really caused that. And, and typically, lower reps, five and below with heavier weights. I don't ever really feel like that. Um, I remember hitting a PR on strong lifts about a year ago with bench press and squats in the same session. I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but I remember being really excited, talking to my wife because I had two super heavy buckets later that morning and like my back felt amazing. I felt the best I had felt in years. Honestly, everything felt good, despite the fact that I had just lifted basically the most weight I had ever lifted in my life. Back to back like that. Yeah, but I wasn't wearing myself out. You know, I was doing five reps. I worked up to one heavy set of five and that was it. It was like or it could have even been three that that program goes between five and three on the mad cow program, um, and it felt really, really good.
Speaker 2:But again, it's all about optimizing for what you specifically do. So you know, just like you mentioned your two days a week. So you know, just like you mentioned, you're two days a week because that's what you know you have time to do right now and that goes into play as well. You know what. Do you have time? Where is the time that you can carve out? Like what you know.
Speaker 2:If you look at a five-day-a-week program and Mike Matthews, for example, is telling you it's the best, maybe it is, but can you actually be there five days a week? If even questionably no is the answer, then it's no longer optimal for you because if you start missing days that you needed very similar to how I told you to start bench pressing all the time, you're only going twice a week. Your shoulder is damaged. You don't have a problem benching with the barbell, but you do have a problem with overhead press of the barbell. So I'm like, hey, just do bench. If you have extra time, maybe hit some dumbbell press or some kettlebell press to work on that range of motion for your shoulder, but don't spend valuable time of a big lift when you can't do that big lift you know Well, and also you, um, it would be one thing if, like, you're talking about optimizing.
Speaker 1:Like for me, it would be one thing if I had at one point had a very strong bench press. But I've actually always struggled with that. I've never had a bench press. I was like happy with Right, yeah, yeah, I usually start to plateau once I get about to my body weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I've never really been able to go much past that which fluctuates, so I won't say it on here, but anyway, yeah, that's something that I think. How do I say it? I'm fumbling a little bit here, but something actually occurred to me while you were saying all that, which is that for someone who works manual labor, like your routine, your daily work, is like skewing the numbers, and what I mean by that is like several episodes ago we had a friend on who was talking about periodization and how, and you've experimented with programs that do that a lot, where you move through these different rep ranges, and I think there's a lot of data to support that. But if you have a job that requires you to do this high rep sort of repetitive motion thing, in a sense like your bot, like your flat line is not the same as like the lab rat person, so like you, your uh reaction to those changes in the program is already sort of going to be off from what you might expect to get out of it.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying I don't have data, I'm not saying we did a study and here's what we found. I'm just saying I'm just extrapolating that basically there's no way that it wouldn't have an effect. Yeah, yeah, period, exactly yeah, because we're we're doing the same things. I mean, weightlifting is picking things up and moving them, and that's what you do for a living, basically.
Speaker 2:There's a weird like. I've heard Mark Ripito, who wrote starting strength, say that um, basically get over it. If you do manual labor Like that is it's. He almost argues. At least when I saw that video he could have changed his opinion. That was several years ago, but he basically was just like yeah, that's just who you are now, your body's used to it, so almost like you can't use it. And I'm like that's not. I don't agree with that at all. Um, because what he's not taking into consideration is my job changes.
Speaker 2:There's days that are pretty easy. They're still manual. I'm still crawling around all day installing stuff. But say it's LVT, luxury vinyl towel, it's click together stuff. You're just clicking together pretty easy, you're not really wearing yourself out. But then all of a sudden the next day you have to demo an entire massive master bathroom and you're carrying out granite slabs from the countertop, you're busting out showers out of the wall, you're beating and banging ceramic tile off the floor, off the walls. Well, now your daily output just skyrocketed. Your workload that day just went through the roof. Then the next day, maybe you're installing a bunch of new stuff, you know, and now that stuff's heavy. The other day, um, a few weeks ago me and my wife did like 400 square feet of ceramic tile. That were two tiles to the box, 75 pounds a box. By the time we were done doing everything we had to do, each tile weighed about 75 pounds.
Speaker 2:And we had to do that for like a week and a half straight and we were exhausted. Every day we would get done working and we had to do that for like a week and a half straight and we were exhausted. Every day we would get done working and we were like, dude, that is kicking our butt, like it was hard. Um, but then the next week I'm not doing back to a little backsplash, doing a little piece of tile that weighs a few ounces or something. You know what I'm saying yeah, so there's massive changes. So there's no, I can't give you an exact baseline because it changes daily and I can't. I'm not going to turn a job down just because it's going to mess up my recovery for the gym, right. So that's what I mean when I say I don't agree with him.
Speaker 2:I think Mark Rutte is very smart, but I think in that you don't know what you're really talking about in that, unless you actually work in that field, is what I would say. Yeah, because it does change. And in the, in the article I was mentioning um, towards the end of it he talks about how you have very little margin for basically messing up your recovery, and that's that's a big one. That's actually exactly what I'm talking about. Because of that reason that everything changes, you need to account for recovery and some ways that you can do. That is what we do. I train early, first thing in the morning. That's a great way to make sure if your day is going to be real rough, you've already gotten your training To me doing that in the evening, after working that hard, it's a lot easier to talk yourself out of it if you just worn yourself out all day long. I've done it. I've done it. I. I was younger.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah I've definitely done it. I think it sucks. I don't. I don't enjoy it. You're dirty, you're sweaty, you come home and then you still have to go get even sweatier. And more worn out Makes it a lot harder. Um, first thing in the morning get it done. I think that works great. More worn out makes it a lot harder. First thing in the morning get it done. I think that works great. I think a lot of people agree with that. It just it gets it out of the way. You don't have to worry about it, as the day is getting harder at work Also, you know, changing the amount of time or how many how many sessions per week you do just like.
Speaker 2:You're talking about doing two sessions, I'm doing three, um, and and you main thing I don't want people to think, though, is like you, it doesn't mean you can't do other forms of training besides power lifting. Um, you know, I'm talking about keeping the reps low. To me, low reps are basically eight or below. I don. I don't really consider eight to be that like super high rep where you're really burning something out Right, and through all this testing I've been doing, I have found that eight seems to feel okay, and below for me. I don't really get that super worn out feeling.
Speaker 2:So there are programs out there. I encourage you to look for them. I just found one I was telling Nick about. Strong Lifts has put out another program where you do the big lifts on Monday and Wednesday and then on Friday it's like a hypertrophy day where you do multiple sets of eight. If you're the kind of person looking for that, if you're looking for a more bodybuilder style or something you're just kind of tired of something you're doing, there's a great option week, and it, you know, gives you the numbers. You know what you need to do every day that you show up um, and it allows you to do things. But what you can't do is you can't body build like ronnie coleman did when you're doing manual labor. Yeah, and this other person is already the minister olympia. You know that's not a good route to follow because he didn't have the same restrictions that you do. Um, so to me, you know it's you can get excited about.
Speaker 2:The worst part is that I would like to, just as the article said, um, do the perfect program. I would love to work out five days a week. I've, I've that's what I used to do Um, I think it's really enjoyable. I I love doing it. Most lifts I enjoy doing, I enjoy hitting the numbers, all of it.
Speaker 2:But I just can't like it just doesn't work. I get burned out very quickly. I start feeling really bad. My recovery goes just just plummets. Um, so for me, what has worked is three days a week. I found it to be the best when I started doing that. We started that a couple of years ago. Um, pretty much everything started feeling better. My numbers started going up, my, I felt like my body actually like put more muscle on. I looked more trained. I might you might say I'm not. I'm not a, I'm not a bodybuilder myself, I'm not some giant human being, but I definitely felt like I appeared a little bit more like I had picked up a barbell at least once in my life. Um all for making those changes, you know more recovery.
Speaker 2:I was able to sleep a little bit more. I was able to just take a break from pounding the weights over and over and over Um and so there for me, right there there, that's optimizing versus just trying to be perfect.
Speaker 1:I'm going to continue to say the word. Yeah, it's been my greatest contribution to this episode.
Speaker 2:It has.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how about a rendition of Usher's?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:And a cool calming voice yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, yeah, no, absolutely not. And a cool, calming voice yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, yeah. When will it end? That's what people are wondering I'm wondering it. I can tell you that oh man, well, I like it man what is? There to say uh for me. I ain't got it. I you know, I I admire you. I have worked, uh, just a couple of days, like alongside you, usually like if, if you're doing a job for um like a family member or for me uh, and man, it is a thing.
Speaker 1:Uh, if you, if you work an office job, um, it's just an entirely different world. Oh yeah, but I would you know, put forward that maybe my brain is way huger than yours, probably way, huger.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious oh, man, well, I hope this has been helpful. I I don't really. I mean, I could you know we talked about optimization and and, yes, I you know, like I've had to do that because of my life, right, my job. It doesn't really pertain to that, though, like I sort of have a perfect job to be, you know, and if you're new, I do it for small businesses. Um, for the most part, uh, it it does not really impede.
Speaker 1:If I wanted to be in the gym five days a week, I could do that. There are days, maybe, specific to me. I travel to customer sites on some days where the travel part of it would it makes it a little bit dicey. But if I was, if I was like just a gym rat, right, I could say, look, I don't, I don't show up ahead of x time, so, like I can, I can still make that happen. Um, but you know, for me the, the restraints are not so much work related, they're more around, um, just trying to be helpful, a helpful dad, and be there, be present as much as possible and, uh, doing it in a way that you know is it just works for our family so well, and you know one more point for that?
Speaker 2:um, you can. Another way to optimize your program is to look at what you do for work, or your life. Um, if you, you know the you using the safety bar is a great example of this. You, because your shoulder is messed up, it's not optimal for you to do a barbell, low bar, barbell squat.
Speaker 1:It's just not Um.
Speaker 2:Is that what some of these programs like uh starting strength are based off of? Yeah, um, is that what some of these programs like uh starting strength are based off of? Yes, is that what they tell you you have to do? Yes, that you have to do the low bar squat. A lot of them would say I'll just get over, you have to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, you can't because you can't, um, so it's not optimal. But, like for the manual labor, what might not be optimal? You know, if you are a brick mason or you are somebody that's carrying around these ridiculously heavy loads of concrete, whatever it is you know massive, heavy buckets all day long, like your job all day is to carry the buckets. You know you might want to think twice about how many deadlifts you actually need to do. You may not need to do any. You may need to do.
Speaker 2:You know you may want to hit that part of your body, the posterior chain. You might want to hit the back, your hamstrings, your glutes. Well, you could do that in other ways. You can do that with other variations of the deadlift Romanian deadlifts, something a little bit less strenuous on the body than just a full blown barbell deadlift. And you, yeah, I'm not saying you need to stop, I'm just saying if you're having trouble or if you know you just feel too worn out so you end up not going to the gym because, well, I was supposed to deadlift and I'm not going to do that. There's other ways to work the body and not feel like you're going to just collapse.
Speaker 2:And again, for me that's something workload, as a kind of generalize, as Nick likes to do your, your workload and decide you know, okay, well, I do loads of lunges all day long, Like, for me, that's what I do. I get up and down off the floor, I'm constantly working my legs, I'm going up and down stairs all the time. So I I have found, you know, endless amounts of Bulgarian split squats, lunges, whatever you name it, single single leg movements, whatever. I started to get my knees starting to hurt, my hips start to hurt. It's too much because I'm already doing that all day long, so I don't need that, I don't need to add a bunch of that stuff in. Um, so I'm, I'm even right now, currently I'm I'm reducing the volume on the legs Because of that. I'm trying to hit the big lifts and then kind of let that be my leg training.
Speaker 1:Whereas for me, as an example, that would be highly valuable, because during the day I'm not doing that at all.
Speaker 2:Exactly, you don't do any lunges, like you know, it can actually be very beneficial to you, right? So, yeah, you know, look at your workload. You may want to add in some shrugs. You know, if you have some weird job where you're like laying on your back, like, say, you're a plumber or electrician, you're like crawling under houses, you're laying on your back, constantly doing things above your head, well, you're doing more push movements. You know you're not really working the lats at all. You're not really working the glutes, the hamstrings, whatever. So maybe you need more deadlifts, maybe you need more rows, more shrugs, whatever.
Speaker 2:So, you know, consider that when you're thinking about your workload, even if you're an office job, you know you're sitting all day long, you're hunched over. Think about your upper back. You know, build the upper back so you're not hunched. You're pulling. Nick plays a lot of guitar. He was told when he was young that he was hunched over from that and the guy was like I could have fixed this years ago. Well, that's one way to fix it. Build that upper back, maybe some shrugs, maybe some rows, whatever it is. Build the back to yank you backwards.
Speaker 2:So now you're strong enough to combat, you know, combat that weird body shape that you have caused from doing this repetitive motion over and over and over, and it will give you a little bit more balanced feel. It'll probably make you feel better if you're back starting from that or whatever. You may actually feel better from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause I was doing that at that time, you know, when I, when I first became a guitarist, it just became by like obsession, so I was doing that probably six hours a day, yeah, uh, every single day, and not more time? Yeah, and not so I started to like. I just became like very forward focused, which is still a thing.
Speaker 1:I mean it still is with me now, but um, yeah, I mean, if you zoom way out, I think what you're saying is like just zoom the helicopter. You're in a helicopter, you're looking down at your life. It's like what are the things that I do a lot of like repeatedly? And then maybe consider either removing or at least just working around those in the gym, rather than just pretending they don't exist?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, try to optimally think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Think about what you can do to not wear yourself out. Yep you got to play the long game. Even if you're trying to be strong or big For sure, you still have to play the long game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to. I mean, you could play the short game too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure you can do whatever you want to do, but I want to play the long game as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, thank you for joining us today. I think we're going to land this plane. We both, speaking of jobs, have to do them now. We've started recording this in the morning and it's weird.
Speaker 2:Like you're having to be somewhere. It's like what?
Speaker 1:is that about, but it's probably a good thing. So, yeah, thanks for joining us. If you're new, what we'd really would really help us a ton just if you take 30 seconds, leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. That goes a long way towards helping us rank in these lists that they do, and that also helps us get better and better guests, which really does seem to be working. We've got a cool guest coming up soon. That um is seems to have way more reach than we do, and I don't think we would have gotten that uh opportunity if people weren't supporting. So thank you so much for that Uh again. If you want to read more about us, hit our website workingmansweightliftingcom. You can find us on Instagram at workingmansweightlifting is the handle, and, uh, we'd appreciate a follow there as well. Um, I've been Nick.
Speaker 2:I've been Steven.
Speaker 1:We've been the working men who lift weights and talk about on the show, and we'll catch you next time.
