Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Endless Gains
Embark on a transformative journey with me, Simon Devere, as we shatter the myths of 'endless gains' and the seasonal sync of fat loss and muscle growth. This episode isn't just about lifting weights; it's about lifting the veil on fitness fallacies. We're tearing down the false promises of quick fixes and embarking on a meticulous path that aligns your strength, size, and leanness goals with the natural rhythms of your life. Expect insights into how your body composition goals can harmoniously intertwine with the pleasures of dietary indulgence – all while staying true to the ebb and flow of the seasons.
As we welcome the freshness of spring, it's the ideal time to recalibrate fat loss strategies and set the stage for a summer-ready physique. With personal anecdotes from my own fitness journey at 38, I share the secrets to breaking plateaus and achieving personal bests. We're tapping into the essence of timing, beginning our fat loss journey in March to maximize the body's natural tendencies for a leaner summer silhouette. You're invited to a strategic 12-week plan that promises sustainable weight reduction without disrupting your metabolic balance.
Finally, we delve into a cyclical training philosophy steeped in the wisdom of Nietzsche and Emerson, crafting a regimen that thrives on life's perpetual cycles. I'll share how to adapt your training for consistent progress, linking the philosophical with the physical in an ever-evolving quest for growth. Join us on March 1st for a mini-cut to prime your workouts and reignite those fitness resolutions. It's time for a community that values the strength of both body and intellect, and together, we'll discover that with the right mindset, the gains are, indeed, endless.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast. Here's your host, simon Devere, and welcome back to Mind Muscle, the place we study the history, science and philosophy Behind everything in health and fitness. Today I am Simon Devere and there is nothing new except all that has been forgotten. All right, well, I'm assuming you've already seen the title, if you have watched this up in your podcast feed. We're going to talk about endless gains. I titled it as such.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite movies growing up was the Endless Summer. Actually, endless Summer 2 wasn't old enough to catch the first one in real time, but no, anyway, I always love that idea of following summer around the world to have an epic surf trip. But anyway, this is my version, if you will, of how we do that in training. How can we perpetually progress throughout the year? How can we organize training to do that Intellectually? This is something that I have been obsessed with throughout my training career. I have, through trial, experimentation, iteration, worked out the system that I am going to explain to you today. But anyway, many years went into this. It's intuitive, cyclical, well-rounded. It will allow you to progress all year, get bigger, stronger, leaner over time. Again, this is not great for the infomercial pitch, but where I am at now is really the product of a couple decades of doing these things. I get it that that's not going to attract people who want the quick gains. This is something that you can actually well, you will get quick gains, but that's not the point. You want to stick on this and get better forever. We don't have to do the take a picture in six weeks and hold on to that picture. You will hopefully continue improving if you stick with this plan. Similarly, I think it removes the need for cookie cutter programs, even though that is something very popular for people in my lane to monetize and sell. You'll notice I haven't ever offered any up to you guys and there won't be any coming out, because if you can understand the principles we're going to lay down here today, you won't ever need to go buy another program ever again.
Speaker 1:Another reason that I am so admittedly proud of this is that this training structure will allow you to get the most out of your year in more ways than just training. It's going to be great on the training end, but it's also going to allow you to enjoy other aspects of the year that don't revolve around training. From a body composition standpoint, this program is going to allow you to be lean when it's warm. It's going to allow you to enjoy holiday foods when those are available. Actually, I do have an infomercial pitch here. It is you really can have it all. Do you want to be lean? Eat all the foods you love? Great, because I actually have a program where you really can do that. That typically should raise a whole bunch of alarm bells and red flags. No, stick with it, because I'm actually going to show you how that is actually possible. It just takes a little bit of planning and a little bit of thought and then you really can have it all. Anyway, before we do that, I just wanted to tease that up top, hang out and we'll get to that.
Speaker 1:I did see some fun studies that I want to run by you guys. This one News Flash Game Breaker it was just discovered that cannabis activates specific hunger neurons in the hypothalamus. Hold on, I hope you were sitting down, because obviously this is going to be very intuitive to anybody who has ever used cannabis. That was fun. We have a scientific study that proves the munchies are real. This study was done in mice and again, what was noted it? Specific neurons that are associated with hunger in the hypothalamus were activated with use of cannabis. Funny, because I don't know if we needed to do this study, but in fairness, I actually think that this is going to open the door for more use with, say, cohorts like cancer patients or anyone else that is suffering from loss of appetite. This is going to give us a lot better grounds to start establishing that that is a very legitimate therapy. I actually just saw the map the other day. So there are fewer and fewer states in the United States where you can't, but we're not there yet. When I was a kid, this seemed like a pipe dream, but here we are. There's actually fewer states where you can't, and perhaps studies like this will knock the last few down so that this is available for people everywhere Similarly so just caught a study.
Speaker 1:Fasting itself does not lead to significant weight loss. I feel like we've talked about that here before, so I did. I again cherry picked the literature to support the case I have been making. But there again, there are going to be a number of health benefits associated with fasting. Just as you keep seeing promises, particularly around intermittent fasting being this game changer for losing weight, remember, if that's your goal, it's really just about creating a caloric deficit. It doesn't matter what time you eat or how you create the caloric deficit. If you're in a caloric deficit, weight loss will occur.
Speaker 1:Fasting is not the only way and it's not even necessarily the best way. If you are just frankly, eating too many calories in your intermittent fasting window, obviously there's going to be no weight loss associated with that. Maybe you'll have some benefits getting your body in sync with your circadian rhythm, since if you're doing your fasting window, maybe you hopefully weren't eating late, but a lot of people push that fasting window at night so they can go out with people. But if you didn't, if you had that earlier, theoretically maybe you're going to get more in sync with your circadian rhythm, get some better sleep. You might be able to line your metabolism up a little better.
Speaker 1:But I've tried to be really honest about how big I think those changes are for real people. Again, I don't want to just make light of them, but I do think this is a space where it is wildly over exaggerated. This is not really a massive game changer In any regard. It certainly won't hurt, though I don't want to act like this is dangerous or risky. That's a different bin. I just think people are over-promising, under-delivering with fasting, particularly as it pertains to weight loss right now. We have another study that is now backing me in making that claim. I just want to keep pushing against the current trend right now, as this is just out there and available, that this actually is not a great path to fat loss, particularly topic for, I guess, another day. Weight loss definitely possible. Great chance you're going to lose muscle while you're fasting. The chance you improve your body composition not as good, I would say. Actually, it leads me to the last one.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest purveyors right now of health misinformation is TikTok. Health information these days gets a lot of attention when it's trending on social media or there's maybe like a real life. Consequence of some bogus medical advice that people became aware of became a news story. In reality, though, most of these things and I'm going to be specific in a second, but most of these things are really just kind of like stuck in time. We really are circulating in loops and patterns that catch attention over time and then fade and then rinse, repeat. But yeah, many protocols and remedies and ideas that have been debunked multiple times over the decades are constantly finding new audiences online, and particularly now on TikTok. So obviously, the first one fasting we just talked about that, but there is a lot of available evidence out there if you are willing to engage it. I don't know if watching TikTok videos is considered doing research, although many incredulous people have told me they did their own research. All right, some people are going to start listening right now. I've been warned about it. But anti-vaccination that would be another one.
Speaker 1:River foods, weight loss, quick flicks, cancer cures, emf health risks, fluoridation of water, homeopathy, raw milk, cellulite removal products this is a short list of popular health cures that are circulating on TikTok right now. Obviously, I made the tagline of the show. There is nothing new except all that has been forgotten. The reason I say that every single time I get on this microphone is that every single one of those things I just mentioned well, minus the EMF risks and fluoridation, because they weren't there then, but Bernard McFadden, who we had an episode on a long time ago, he already did every single one of those things, like before 1920. So, yeah, there is just abundant evidence on what can and cannot be achieved with all of these ideas.
Speaker 1:But again, they are going to continue to find audiences online because the memory of the last time these things were out there has faded. Let's be honest, quite frankly, I know those people are even alive and so, yeah, I think this is actually a legitimate critique of, frankly, all of us who have spent significant time online now is that the experience online is incredibly contextless and we have a lot of information, a deep shortage of knowledge, and so, again, I just see us consistently just kind of cycling through a lot of ideas that didn't work in the past and are very unlikely to work again now. But anyway, careful. Out there online, there are a lot of bad ideas circulating and actually more and more not just TikTok. We're also going to start seeing more and more of these things on actually web commerce platforms themselves. These things are now starting to get embedded into your Amazon. It's certainly driving sales on Instagram. So, anyway, heads up, be careful.
Speaker 1:But, again, none of these are that new. I think we've done a really good job so far, but just as I was looking at this list, I actually kind of feel like it would be fun to go down each and every one of those and, instead of just quickly saying, oh, these would be debunked for decades, give you guys the deep dive and let you make your mind up for yourself about what grounds these things really stand on, because I could present a much better case for you on why I find all of those very, very hard to believe and yeah, that'll be a fun topic for another day. But, as promised, I finally want to teach you guys my Endless Gains program. Go ahead and Venmo me like $100 when you're done. I'm kidding, I don't care. Everything I'm about to tell you guys you could have learned reading and stuff like that and working out. I just want to speed up your process.
Speaker 1:What is going to follow, to be honest, is going to be like the closest answer I could give when people ask how do you train. It's always changing, it's always moving, but there is a certain set of underlying principles that tie it all together, and I'm actually just going to lay it all out today. I admit we've touched on pieces of this, but I don't think I've ever presented it in this fashion. So that's what I'm honestly hoping to accomplish today is that you'll see how every one of these phases feeds into the next, why they are organized the way they are and how that does set you up for progress within the next phase. I guess quick disclaimer, like who I don't think this program is right for, or this approach pretty much like if you play sports, you're going to need to stick to your sports calendar because we're going to talk about times a year and stuff like that. So ignore that. If you play a sport, we would just adapt things based on when your prime season is, but yours isn't going to map up.
Speaker 1:This, honestly, is more for the GPP, general physical preparedness somebody who just wants to get bigger, stronger and leaner over time. We can accomplish every single one of those goals. We're going to need multiple phases but again, the other reason that we want to work all of those together is that they just compound and work together very, very well. Our body is going to adapt to anything over time, so we're not going to train all year to get bigger. We're not going to train all year to get stronger. We're not going to train all year to get leaner. That's a great way to fail at every single one of those goals. You'll get about six to eight weeks of fun gains and then how many you got left in the year. The rest will suck. So anyway, we want to avoid that pattern of our body adapting to what we are doing, we actually are going to build many aptitudes of health and fitness.
Speaker 1:Another error I had made this myself in the past, but it's when you try to chase too many things at one time. An obvious one would be I would not recommend trying to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Some will say it's technically possible, but if you're going to gain muscle, you would need a caloric surplus, to lose fat, you would need a caloric deficit. So chasing those two things at the same time is really going to compromise getting either one of them done. Quite simply, if you're out in the woods, aim at one bird, don't try to shoot at two at the same time. Another time you try to target two things at once, you're most likely going to miss. Yeah, technically you might get real lucky, but I don't think you're ever going to be able to repeat that or teach anybody else how to do that, because the one time you did it was probably just luck. On the flip side, though, if you just set your sights on one target, it's actually a lot easier to consistently hit. So, anyway, that's why, even though we are chasing multiple athletic goals throughout the year. Even though we're going to have different physique goals throughout the year, it all fits together. Every single time. We are going to be shooting predominantly at one target In any phase.
Speaker 1:You're going to let go and not worry about the other aptitudes and just trust the process, that it's going to be there when you need it and been doing this a long time. So trust me, it'll be there when you need it. You can give up on strength or hypertrophy or fat loss for a cycle and you will be just fine. Not only just fine, you'll be better. This really really is. One of the biggest mistakes people make is sticking with a program that starts and it works, so it makes sense. You would stick with it. But any program is going to decrease in its efficacy over time simply because you've adapted to it. So this whole approach is going to try to stave that off and not to brag, but I will. I'm 38. All of my personal best lifts and running times and everything have happened in the last calendar year, thank you. So this approach can also stave off nostalgia, telling your stories about how awesome you used to be. Instead, you can keep doing those awesome things longer than a lot of people think is possible if you have just an intelligent training progression.
Speaker 1:Last thing I'll say, and then I swear I'll get into it the timing of our discussion today is really good because this also coincides with the time of year. We should actually kind of be switching phases and, believe it or not, I know we were doing the New Year's Resolution thing two months ago. As far as I'm concerned, this time right now is the beginning of the training year. March begins phase one of our training. So I get that doesn't line up with the calendar exactly, but this really is a great time for us to have this discussion. And additionally, let's say you haven't even gotten started on your New Year's Resolution yet. That's actually okay. I'm not giving you an olive branch. Let's get started in March.
Speaker 1:Much better time for a lot of reasons. Well, one, if you've been going to the gym for the last couple months, you've noticed it's a little bit more crowded. There's a lot of stupid things going on, hence the last couple episodes we had. I'm done ranting about the stupid things I've seen in the gym, but if you were smarter than I was and you hadn't been in the gym for the last two months, you wouldn't have seen any of those things, and then you could be stepping into the gym March 1st, starting off your training year, and most of those people are gone now. So, twofold, they can have it, you can stay out of their way, you can jump in there when the gym is just a little bit cleaner and less crowded. But, yeah, not giving you guys an excuse. If you haven't jumped on the New Year's Resolutions yet, don't worry, this is actually a better time to get started on it. So, anyway, with all that, let's go ahead and jump into it. Phase one this is a fat loss phase. So, again, I think this is going to sync up with a lot of people's New Year's Resolutions. The again tire goal of our program is not fat loss, just as the phase we are in right now. So, all right.
Speaker 1:First note I'll say on it it doesn't really make sense to strive for fat loss in the winter. A lot of reasons, but one you're just going to eat more when it's cold. You. Calories, remember, are the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one milliliter of water by one degree Celsius. So it's heat. Quite frankly, energy is heat. And so, yeah, we eat more calories when it's cold period. You just your body, wants to stay warm, it wants to maintain homeostasis.
Speaker 1:The chance that if you are exposed to cold weather all day and you're going to stay in a caloric deficit, not good. And then, even if you do, it's just going to be miserable. You could do it at another time and it just wouldn't feel as bad. I also think it's unrealistic to have those caloric deficits over the winter because there's a lot of holidays, let's be honest, and the holidays are full of calorie-rich foods. So you can either skip all that and make yourself miserable at every single meal. Sit there and think about all the things you're not eating. Watch other people eating those foods. They'll probably even make funny you a little bit. When you're not eating those foods, it's a great time. I've done it Really really overrated. I wouldn't do it again. Similarly to, most people are just a little bit busier over the holidays. There's probably some parties you want to go to, there's probably some people you want to see, et cetera. Just unrealistic that you're going to stick with fat loss principles over the winter.
Speaker 1:In addition to not being a great time and just kind of a bad plan, again, you can cut for fat loss in that time of year if you really want to. I just haven't found that to be that fun. To me it makes a lot more sense to start working on body composition in the spring, because now we're approaching the time of year when people actually want to look their best with minimal clothing. So let's say summer, that's obviously beach season for most people. Maybe you'll get into some spring break stuff. We can have you looking decent for that. But if you want to look good this summer, the time to start getting on it is actually right now.
Speaker 1:So first phase is a fat loss phase. It will run from March to May. Honestly, this is going to depend a little bit on how much weight that you want to lose. Quite frankly, any fat loss program we're really going to be targeting about 8% to 10% of your current body weight. We don't want to go bigger than that because that's going to compromise your metabolism on the back end. So again, with this period of March to May that is 12 weeks that would give us enough time to go at a healthy rate one pound per week to get that max of 12 pounds.
Speaker 1:Or if you don't have that much to lose, we don't have to be as aggressive on the caloric deficits. But keep in mind we're not trying to chop off 20, 30 pounds. Numbers like that are stupid, unrealistic and going to compromise the long run goal of getting leaner, if that's the goal you have. So don't get lured into getting the big gains early. All right, quick finance analogy, but when I started trading options, the main thing I do is trade volatility. You'll learn real quick. If you start chasing volatility, you're going to trade on some dog shit stocks and hurt your portfolio. So don't get greedy. Don't go for the big home run. 20, 30 pounds. We're going to target about 8 to 12, and we're going to knock that out over about 12 weeks of training.
Speaker 1:Probably wondering what that training looks like. So in a fat loss phase, progressive overload that I like to beat on about all the time as one of the most important pillars of strength training is actually not that important. You're going to be in a caloric deficit. So let me let you in a little secret. We're not going to break any lifting records in this phase. We're not going to set any PRs, and that's OK. It's not the point. Your performance in the weight room, off of your personal best, is probably going to decline through this period. The reason we're strength training is that we're in a caloric deficit. We want to continue using our muscles, so our body knows we need them. If we're not using them, they can atrophy and then get consumed and broken down for energy through catabolism. So the workouts here are just very basic strength work and again, the point in this phase is not actually to be able to put more weight on the bar. At the end You're most likely going to be coming down, or at least in my mind.
Speaker 1:These workouts to me are like just kind of punch the clock workouts. Get in touch every muscle. Stimulate, don't annihilate. Get out of the gym. You're not actually burning most of your calories there. What we're doing in the gym is sparing your muscle. We want it to be a fat loss program, not a weight loss program. So the majority of our calorie burning is going to come from inefficient exercise. Low and steady is going to be best. We've had the energy system discussion. We do want to be in oxidation. That's where fat is going to actually get burned.
Speaker 1:I would say avoid workouts that are going to stimulate your appetite or make nutrition difficult. I love playing sports, but this is again not the time of year that you're going to catch me at my boxing gym doing pickup games, leagues, anything like that. If I'm doing cardio activities like that, they're great, they burn a lot of calories, but when I get done I'm going to be really, really hungry. And also, if I'm playing a sport and I'm in a caloric deficit, I'm not going to perform well. Good chance I hurt myself something. It's just not the time to push for athletic or sport gains. This is where we're just going to focus on easy, solid strength training and inefficient exercise.
Speaker 1:My favorite is the walk, but anything you can do while managing your heart rate and not getting into that zone two that we do like for heart health, but we don't like it for fat loss. So slow and low, that's going to be your bread and butter. Walking is typically sufficient for just about everybody. Walking up a hill if you're super fit is probably going to be enough. But yeah, so nutrition simple but not easy. You of course need a caloric deficit and to be able to maintain it.
Speaker 1:So, as we said at the top, fasting is not a must. It could work, but if it keeps you in a caloric deficit, truth is that there's a lot of ways to maintain a caloric deficit. So whichever one is best for you. I guess what I mean by that is which one do you psychologically feel the best on? Are you thinking about food? Is it hard? Experiment and try out a few different approaches, and then again, whether that means that you're intermittent fasting or you're doing small, regular meals, five and six a day, or you want to stick to three a day or one a day. I've literally seen them all work. I've made them all work. It doesn't matter besides which one you find psychologically easiest to consistently create a caloric deficit.
Speaker 1:So again, nutrition, simple, not easy. You're probably going to want to use either a meal service or log some food. Through this phase there's not really going to be any way around that, because when we are in fat loss we need to know what's going in. But, as we discussed, we're going to ebb and flow and I'm not going to make you do that all year. Because, yeah, after this fat loss phase so now it's May We've lost maybe eight to 12, looking lean, feeling good.
Speaker 1:But one thing some people don't realize is after a fat loss cycle, metabolically you are primed for weight gain. We've lost a little bit of our basal metabolic rate we have a slower metabolism than we began the cut. If we resume normal. I did air quotes that you can't see. But if we resume normal eating, we're going to wind up putting some pounds on just because our metabolism is not equivalent to what it was when we started the cut. So anyway, phase two it's time to clean bulk. Let's take advantage of that metabolic propensity to put on weight. And instead of putting on weight, we're going to add it back as muscle. So obviously, if you just go back to the eat normal again, you're going to be on the yoyo trajectory. The same caloric total that you were using prior to the cut is actually going to make you gain weight faster than before the cut. But if we add muscle that's why we have to do our training and get our nutrition down just a little bit we can actually improve the basal metabolic rate and rebound our metabolism as we start to increase the calories coming back.
Speaker 1:So in phase one I told you it wasn't important to have progressive overload. Phase two, progressive overload is very important. We're going to be coming out of that fat loss phase. So again, we've probably allowed performance to come down and the first week in this cycle in June. I would recommend not throwing the kitchen sink at it. I would recommend just laying down a really really basic hypertrophy progression, maybe go in like three by eight, and really not pushing it over the length of this program. We are going to either add volume, which could be represented in sets or repetitions, so that three by eight become three by 10, three by 12, three by 15, and so on, or you could make it four by eight, et cetera. The way you overload is not that important. It's important but the way you do it. You are free to choose. It's not like adding reps is objectively better than adding sets. It just matters that we are consistently overloading and doing more work week over week. That is going to be the basis of our training in this phase.
Speaker 1:Nutrition is a little bit more fun than the fat loss phase, quite frankly, and I think we can actually be a little bit more relaxed in this time of year than when we were doing the fat loss cycle. So we're probably going to ditch the log. In general, you do need to fuel sufficient protein to support your muscles. So again, I'm going to want you at roughly one gram per pound of body weight. I don't really think that's something that most people need to log and measure. Quite frankly, I think once you do it, once you know what that looks like and you can just repeat that again and again, and because we're gaining, I will say for most people it just isn't going to be necessary to log food, because you're going to eat until you're satisfied and, as long as you're getting enough protein and eating sufficient calories, you're going to gain muscle. Slight caveat, though if you identify as a hard gainer or an ectomorph, if you know the body types most of you guys that I've known over the years you probably don't eat enough in general. So if you've ever felt like, oh, I just can't put on muscle, then I know it's annoying, but I probably will want you to log in this time just to make sure you're eating enough, because there's a great chance that you actually just don't fuel enough calories. If you've ever tried lifting weights to gain muscle and it didn't put it on, that really is the most likely thing. You're probably not a physical anomaly that doesn't respond to training at all. Some respond better than others, but with tension and nutrition, it really should happen for everybody to some extent. So yeah, I do want you to dump the logs if you're not a hard gainer but if you are, make sure you're fueling enough calories and enough protein At this phase.
Speaker 1:I know people have their macro cults and I should probably take sides in that culture war, but it doesn't really matter how much fat or carbs you eat. That's going to be a personal preference thing. When I'm training hard, I tend to like a little bit more carbs than the current paradigm supports. It's hard to do difficult workouts without carbohydrates but, again, that's really not the biggest deal. I think if people just relax, feel sufficient protein, eat till they're satisfied, most people are going to be taken care of in this phase. So, again, that's going to be your clean bulk.
Speaker 1:Again, this is going to run through the summer months. We did the fat loss phase, so you're going to come into summer looking lean, feeling good, and we're mostly going to stay lean through the summer. You're not going to be as lean at the end as you were at the beginning, but you're still going to look great and you're going to feel strong. It's obviously going to give you some time to do some fun things, because it's summer as well. Again, that being there, this isn't a real phase, but about late August, maybe early September, depending on how things are going.
Speaker 1:I recommend that you take a period of active rest. If you're a parent, maybe this happens when you want to go on a break with your kids. If you're still in school, maybe do this before, like the last week before you go back Whatever works best for your summer, quite frankly. But we're going to want an active rest period here just because now at this point in the year late August, early September we've been going for a few months consistently. We had a little bit of variation where we changed our training focus. So I'm not worried about you being beat up yet, but this is a good time to take a break. We've done enough work throughout the year, and it's also just a time of year when there's probably other things you would rather be doing right now. At this point, I would just say embrace your last gasp of summer school work, whatever is right around the corner, and we will get back to working hard in short order. This will basically also function, too, as a D-load.
Speaker 1:I don't remember if we've talked about this. I might need to, but typically, after I will run a program of any sort, it's generally a good idea to do a D-load. I don't want to lie to you guys, I don't do it that much. I tell my clients to D-load a lot, so I know it's the right idea. I don't like to stop so I could be better about that, but I'm still really good at telling other people the right information. Whether or not I will D-load between programs is another story, but that's because I have a fucked up psyche. That's not good for my physicality, quite frankly. But yeah, the mental health gains that I lose in a down week of training. That tends to be why I opt to just keep training, even though I know it's not the physiologically the best idea. Psychologically it sets up well for me. But for you, you should D-load in summertime. Have some fun, embrace your vacation.
Speaker 1:To be honest, we actually want to get a little bit D-conditioned Again. We've had nine months of consistent training. Put the weights down for a second, let your body get unadapted. That's going to allow us to use a smaller dose, if you will, when you come back to training. Similarly, having D-loads even though I'm not good at it, it does set you up to make more gains in the future, because we don't have to keep applying that same dose to make or, sorry, increasing doses to make gains. The last few weeks of any strength pro or any hypertrophy program you'll get insanely difficult because we've been doing that overload. If I had to start up week one of the next phase at week 12 of the previous phase, the volume is insane. You do need some breaks and some ebbs and flows so that you can get unadapted and that I don't need as big of a dose for my body to actually adapt to the training that I'm doing. So not giving you guys an olive branch or a reason to slack off.
Speaker 1:Active rest at the end of the summer is going to be a great idea. After that active rest, we're going to jump into phase three. This is actually going to be a mini-cut. Last time when we cut, we did that for about 12 weeks roughly. I don't want to go that long this time. You know one we were clean bulking, so I don't really think you put on that much in the summer. We were lifting If we followed the rules. It's not like we're coming out of Christmas food or anything. We don't need 12 weeks.
Speaker 1:And again, the main reason we're putting this here is kind of two-fold. One I'm throwing you a bone for Halloween, because sometimes people want to wear minimal clothing then, so you can look good on Halloween. But the other thing is we do need our variation in training yet again. So doing a mini-cut here is going to set us up again for another period of gains, which again we're going to focus it right after We'll get roughly September, october, and then again with this mini-cut I really am thinking more like six to eight and probably more on the six. So that's where you see there actually really is some play with your active rest. We've honestly got about two weeks where you can go, have some fun and just really not worry about this stuff. Get your mini-cut in. We're going to run that basically September up to Halloween, and if you feel like wearing a toga or a bikini for a costume, you're good to go. But after that it's getting cold again and you're probably not going to want to want to rock around like that. So that brings us to our very last phase.
Speaker 1:Phase four, the winter bulk. That's going to go from November to February, big gap. We're also going to throw some more rest in there. But yeah, we'll talk about that. You can have a rest period if you're doing vacations, holidays, stuff like that, or you can just have a program that's not that demanding, going two, three days a week, something like that. But this time of year we can kind of guilt-free de-prioritize training, at least to some regard. I obviously train all the way through, but the workouts at this time of year really, really look different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so first note that's obvious to me. But it's cold now, it's sweater weather. Nobody even knows if you're shredded. I've been shredded in a winter in Montana and literally nobody knows, except for the dudes in the locker room. And that wasn't what I was going for. That's a valid strategy, but it just didn't accomplish much for me being lean in the winter time. Quite frankly, a lot of stress, and I could tell you it was cold. So I don't know why the hell I wasn't eating calories. I just made my winter a little bit more miserable doing that, quite frankly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually we said this top lot of parties. Wouldn't you rather be with your friends and family right now? Don't you have any parties to go to? There's good food to eat, do that stuff. It's your life too, man. So I wouldn't waste too much time or I wouldn't miss out on these events if you're getting invited and you have time to do it, you should do it.
Speaker 1:This time of year really is a time for a more relaxed approach to both training and nutrition. Relaxed doesn't mean cop out, fall off the face of the earth, but we are absolutely going to allow for excess calories. I do not recommend five and six day progressions when it really is an ideal time to focus on strength. We're eating big, lift heavy, just because we're lifting heavy. These individual workouts take a lot less time than your hypertrophy sessions. There's going to be a lot less volume, a lot fewer sets. You are lifting with heavier weights, on average, fewer reps. You're going to be using big compound movements. You're probably even using fewer movements. A great strength program really could be bench dead, squat like three movements and that would totally work. By the way, we can get a little bit more complex if you want to, but you don't need to Workouts this time of year.
Speaker 1:Eat big, eat big, get strong on the main lifts and, like I said, this also is a time to take a break or take a vacation. So that's why we don't want the training calendar to be difficult or abusive. I don't want you running like a five or six day progression right now Again, when I'm getting to the latter weeks of a hypertrophy progression, very, very common that I have to get into the gym five or six days a week just to get the volume that I need to force the adaptation. I don't want to do that all year, and particularly around the holidays. It's not a great time. If you want to take a vacation and, as they say when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or if you're in Hawaii, do whatever they do and literally wherever you are, don't be a douche and waste your vacation.
Speaker 1:If you followed the plan all year, you're on course. This phase is going to lead us right back to where we started and we're going to jump right back into fat loss next March, but from November to February that is going to give you more than enough time to go to some parties, see some friends, see some family, all that stuff. Find a period of where you can get three, two, three workouts in a week. Focus on strength. We can just have a much more relaxed period in this year, and again, it's cold. Your schedule is all messed up. Not a great time to be pushing it on the diet or on the nutrition and training. I hate the word diet. Yeah, diet implies temporary. Never do any diets. Focus on nutrition. That's what Simon says right there. We take ná buávedá.
Speaker 1:No, I told you guys up top that this, for me, was something, intellectually, that I obsessed about for a long time. I was always trying to figure out the ideal program and my early efforts at it were. A lot of times there would be a day of hypertrophy, a day of strength and then a day of doing some sprints. I would just try to get every single athletic element that I valued or wanted to get better at and I would try to throw it all into the week and balance and organize it. And I've done.
Speaker 1:Linear periodization, undulating periodization, concurrent periodization you don't need to know what those mean by any stretch. I'm just trying to establish that I have tried out many variations of how you can organize your training and all of that. What we have just laid down today for me is the most intuitive, sustainable, realistic and cyclical style of training that I have ever stumbled into. And again, there's no elements in here that I invented at all. The only thing I did was I'm actually using just basic concepts of periodization and lining them up with the normal calendar that most of us have between summer holidays and obviously that's it. If you were an athlete and your sport competed in the fall, we would just adapt it to that calendar. But again, there's a million different ways that you can organize your training.
Speaker 1:I don't think that this is by any stretch the only one. I just think this is one that many, many people are going to find really, really great for their year, for all of their goals, not just those in the gym, but your life goals. It's going to make your health and fitness goals a lot easier, because at the times when you have more time, you can be in the gym more. At the times when you'd rather be doing other things, we're going to consciously pull back. But anyway, the whole concept to me really does build around a circle. We're just going to, as we mentioned before, change with the seasons roughly, ebbs and flows moving in circles, and one of my favorite essays, actually by the same title, circles by Emerson. We always promise history, science and philosophy. So here we go on the philosophy bit.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people to know this about Emerson or Nietzsche. Rather, nietzsche was a reader of Emerson. Emerson never read Nietzsche, but Nietzsche did read Emerson. Emerson talked about this thing in his writing, called the Oversoul, and I noticed that native English speakers never had a hard time interpreting that concept. Oversoul You'll see a concept that appears in Nietzsche's work Overman, and Western readers have had a very difficult time with that, but I do think most people did get it wrong because Nietzsche carried Emerson, he read him, spoke highly of him and the concept's actually set up quite well. And as if you don't speak German, you never read Nietzsche in his natural language. There's a chance you had some bad professors or translations, quite frankly. But anyway, that's not the only similarity.
Speaker 1:Nietzsche has this idea of eternal return and Emerson has this idea of circles, which, again, I just quite frankly see a lot of overlap in. So eternal return, one of my favorite Nietzsche passages. But the heaviest burden what if someday or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you this life, as you live it and have lived it, you will have to live it once more and innumerable times more, and there will be nothing new in it. But every pain and every joy and every thought must return to you all in the same succession and sequence, even this spider in the moonlight between the trees and even this moment in myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust. Would you now throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke to you, or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him? You are a god and I have never heard anything more divine. If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you.
Speaker 1:The question in each and every thing Do you want this? Once more, and innumerable times, would you lie upon your actions as the greatest weight? Plain English, I don't know Groundhog's Day, I think, covered this exact same thing. But if you knew that you had to repeat your actions over and over again, would you do them again To me? If the answer is yes, it's just, quite frankly, you're living right, good work. If the answer is no, perhaps you should maybe question that thing, and I don't even know what that thing is. But if you don't want to do it innumerable times over again, I'm not sure it actually lies with your constitution.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter what I think, but again, I actually see the same concept of eternal return, represented in circles, which I am sure needs to read. But Emerson just put it slightly differently Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that every circle, that around every circle another can be drawn, that there's no end in nature but every end is a beginning, that there's always another dawn risen on mid-noon and under every deep and lower deep opens. There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. The life of a man is a self-evolving circle from which a ring imperceptibly small rushes on all sides towards new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. So it's highfalutin.
Speaker 1:I'm just over here drawing up strength programs. But this as again, I have obsessed over these ideas for years now. This was what I wanted my program to achieve. I wanted this to be a circle that would just rush out on all sides to larger circles with no end. And last one. Then I'll leave the philosophy alone.
Speaker 1:Nietzsche always said never trust an idea that came to you indoors. I can promise you guys, everything that we said today. I did not come to these ideas in comfort. All of these were earned with blood, sweat, tears, as they say. I don't know if I've ever cried in the gym, but it's an established cliche, so let's roll with it. Definitely blood, definitely sweat, but anyway, this to me represents a far better way of organizing your training than reaching for any system or program, because, as I've already laid down, they're only going to last for a short while. It's not that they're bad, it's that you're only going to get diminishing returns if you continue on the same path, like Nietzsche in the eternal return, like Emerson and circles.
Speaker 1:What I want you to think of is twofold. One, anything you're doing that you wouldn't do for the rest of your life and for eternity maybe don't do it. And similarly, then, our journey and what we are trying to accomplish I believe is put out there too is that we are trying to evolve and get better year after year. Yeah, highfalutin, I'm just in the weight room, but again, I'm confident. If you really organize your training around the principles that we talked about today, you don't have to start your year January 1. If you miss it, stay out of the gym, enjoy your vacation. You'll be finishing up your winter bulk. I'm not worried about you March 1,.
Speaker 1:Let's get back to work. We're going to do stuff on a fat loss program. We're going to do that till May. When we get there, it's time to switch gears. We want to enjoy our summer, but we still want to look good. Keep lifting, keep a little bit of focus on your nutrition, but we can lighten up a little bit. Add some muscle over those summer months and then, when it's time to head back to school, work whatever's going on. Take a short break. Let things recover. Take stock, take inventory, take the fundamentals, see where we're at.
Speaker 1:Mini-cut. September to October Halloween. That'll be the last day we care about any physique body composition. After that, let it go. It's time for the holidays. Eat big, lift big, set yourself up for another year of endless gains.
Speaker 1:Anyway, guys, this was actually one of my favorites to put down. This really is what I actually do. I am currently making that shift. Well, I actually have my last week right now, one more week of hypertrophy. I'm overloading everything. My workouts this week are going to brutally suck. I don't know how that fits in with my eternal recurrence thing, but I'm a weirdo and I actually like that in a weird way. But can't do it forever. Won't regret this.
Speaker 1:Next week a training is going to be painful and I'm going to totally switch gears March 1,. Come along with me, guys. We're going to run it out this way this year. We'll start up a little mini-cut, we'll run that out. But if you guys ever need to ask that question hey, simon, what's your training? Look like this is why I've been saying so long it depends, and all that and not allowing myself to get pinned down.
Speaker 1:Anyway, try to finally answer it and obviously it's me, so I had to weave in some shit that has absolutely nothing to do with it. You know, if you made it this far, I really, really appreciate your time, your attention. I'm confident that they've done some helpful stuff today. So if there's anybody else you know that's trying to optimize their workouts or get their fitness going this year, make sure to send this their way. Get them started. It's not too late. If they're working on a new year's resolution, let's get jumping right now. This is going to be the best plan for the vast majority of people out there. It's what I'm doing. So, yeah, there's that Finally answered the question. Remember, guys, mind and muscle are inseparably intertwined. There are no gains without brains. Keep lifting and learning. I'll do the same.
