The Show Up Fitness Podcast
Join Chris Hitchko, author of 'How to Become A Successful Personal Trainer' VOL 2 and CEO of Show Up Fitness as he guides personal trainers towards success.
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This podcast focuses on refining trade, business, and people skills to help trainers excel in the fitness industry. Discover effective client programming, revenue generation, medical professional networking, and elite assessment strategies.
Learn how to become a successful Show Up Fitness CPT at www.showupfitness.com. Send your questions to Chris on Instagram @showupfitness or via email at info@showupfitness.com."
The Show Up Fitness Podcast
How to Bench Press 315 | Stack.com & the road to bench pressing 315
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Stack.com article: https://www.stack.com/a/bench-press-315-pounds-with-this-training-plan/
Tim Henriques T-Nation: https://t-nation.com/t/strength-standards-are-you-strong/284633
Experience the journey of mastering the bench press and discover how achieving a 315-pound lift can be a life-changing milestone. As we share personal stories and discuss the impact of strong role models, you'll gain insight into the cultural importance of this impressive feat. Learn how variations like incline and decline bench presses engage different muscle fibers and present their own unique challenges, making the pursuit of strength a truly dynamic adventure.
Explore the strategies that maximize bench press performance, from rest periods to muscle coordination. Discover how personalized approaches, such as varying rest times, can significantly influence force production and overall efficacy. We offer insights into the synergy of muscles like the pectoralis major, triceps, and anterior deltoid, and discuss techniques like the bench press arc and stability practices. Join us as we recount a client's inspiring journey to increase bench press weight, highlighting effective warm-up routines and proprioception exercises along the way. While doing so, we remind you that embracing the process and maintaining a sense of humor are key components of a successful fitness journey.
Unravel the intricacies of periodization principles and training techniques to avoid the pitfalls of overtraining while striving for strength goals. Discover the benefits of structured periodization, such as undulating routines, and how balancing heavy lifts with speed work can enhance performance. We emphasize the importance of professional development for personal trainers, advocating for a comprehensive certification program that equips trainers with the necessary skills to thrive. With expert support and perseverance, we believe you can surpass your fitness expectations, and we’re here to m
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NASM study guide: ...
And they'd have masks on. I'm like, why the hell are they doing this? Because they were so advanced with the science, but also with the steroids. But they knew that there's this hour window when they're more vulnerable to getting sick. So if that is you, or if you're indoors a lot because it's cold right now, after your workout, make sure to get some vitamin C, to get some glutamine. These things help with your immune system. Wash your hands I. These things help with your immune system. Wash your hands. I. Wouldn't go from a giant chess session into Chuck E Cheese, hanging out with a bunch of fucking kids and all their germs. No, no, no, you got to be selfish.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up, howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to talk about bench pressing. 315 and or the equivalent of 135 for you ladies listening. It is an impressive feat to be presses in maybe a couple of years, so I told myself it's time to get on the road back to 315.
Speaker 1:I wrote an article for stackcom 2015,. I was one of the authors of the month with my article how to Bench Press 315. If you go to their website, you'll see they're creatively updating it, like I posted it just a couple of years ago, but it's over 10 years old and the program sucks. It just shows you when you're younger you can implement whatever strategy and it's probably going to work within reason and your strength at which you're currently at. But that article is something that was unique and significant to me because it was the most views that I've ever had on any article and it got recognition from stackcom, with great writers like Tony Genocourt, eric Cressy, lee Boyce and I was the highlight of the month. The article sucked, but still, and so now I want to talk about a better approach, looking at these strength standards and if you're a male entering the gym, there's something about.
Speaker 1:315 is just a rite of passage. If you were to head on over to Gold's Gym here in Venice, you see on the wall Arnold with his arms out and it's just such an iconic image when you look at it and you go, wow. The same thing happens when you see someone benching 315. The bar, three plates on each side. It's like whee, that is awesome. Fortunate for me, I had a brother who was strong as an ox.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get Steve on the podcast and we're going to talk about that and changing careers, because that's something that he's interested in. When Steve was 19, he could press 315, easy peasy. What I mean by that is he would start out on bench press, move into decline and then end off on 315 on incline. That's 10 sets later he was repping 315, and it was just spectacular to see and I was getting significantly stronger. And that's one of the things that I suggest for you to level up your bench game is to find someone who's a lot stronger than you, because he would hit his set of 315, then he would take off a plate and say go, chris, and I was probably 15 at the time and there's no way in hell I could bench 225 on incline.
Speaker 1:Incline is significantly harder because of the range of motion, but also because you're focusing primarily on the clavicular fibers, which are smaller. You have the sternal fibers, which are the mid part of the chest, and then the costal, which is the lower, and that's why on decline you're significantly stronger, because you have more fibers involved. When you do incline you're not as strong and it's a greater range of motion. That's why a lot of lifters have a negative experience with incline, because it fixes that glenohumeral joint and the wrist position is just not shoulder friendly. And then you go down past 60, 70 degrees, which extension is about 60 degrees for a healthy humerus. If you can't get there, then incline just destroys you. So he would make me do 225 and I couldn't do it for one. He was essentially doing upright rows for sets of six to eight, but I got so much stronger Now this is bro science.
Speaker 1:At the time You're just going off of whoever's the strongest in the gym. And when the first time I ever saw someone bench in 315, bobby Chico Sports Club, I just remember ogling at him and like, wow, that is so freaking cool. Googling at him and like, wow, that is so freaking cool. The stepping stones go. If you're a youngster, the bar 45 pounds. Then you work your way up to a quarter. And I remember I was in eighth grade when I benched 95 pounds. This is how crazy bench press is for guys. This is literally what you talk about in junior high, high school. Now it's all this weird shit with TikTok, but at the time it was what could you bench? There's websites out there, how much can you bench. There's Mark Bell and his slingshot how much you bench. This is what most bros are exposed to when they're in high school.
Speaker 1:Junior high I hit 135, which is a plate on each side. It's like, yeah, you're feeling great. Then you move up to 185, which is a quarter. You get to 205, which is a 45 and a 35. Then you get that first big milestone, 225, which is two plates, go to 245 with a 10 on each side. After that you throw on a quarter, so two plates and a quarter, 275. 295 is two plates and a 35. You're almost at 300. You got to put on those sneaky little two and a halves to reach that 300 mark and then, three plates is 315. So with any lift you have to take an approach of where you're at and really the most important factors are typically going to be volume, frequency and intensity.
Speaker 1:Now, this program that I wrote on stack I had you mentioned three times a week. I don't suggest that you can train smarter, not necessarily just pushing as hard as you can. And when we take a look at the force velocity curve, we need to train heavy and being able to move heavier quickly, which sounds like an oxymoron, but what that means is if you were to hit, let's say, 185 for five reps, and that is your complete max, the speed during those five reps are significantly slower than if you were just to do 185 for one or two. The neurological recruitment on singles and doubles actually doubles or superior is going to help translate into overall power. Remember, power is force times, velocity or force times distance over time.
Speaker 1:And so when you look at training style, we want to go heavy, but we also want to train in that 30 to 50% range. So if your one rep max is 200 pounds, you want to be lifting roughly 90 to a hundred pounds, which would be half, but you want to be moving it as fast as you can. You could easily move a hundred pounds for probably 25 or 30 reps. That's local muscular endurance. Anytime we get 10 plus reps, you're training more of your type one muscle fibers. Sure, you can go to volitional fatigue and you can get hypertrophy. Remember, if we want to optimize hypertrophy, we want to make sure the tension's there and getting a good amount of volume. But we're not talking about that. We're not talking about getting those chesticles hashtag Monday. We're talking about force production, strength, which is going to be that one to five rep range.
Speaker 1:Higher motor unit recruitment those fast twitch muscle fibers need to be trained in the respect of what they perform. So that means longer rest periods. There was a great post by Dr Russ in the other day and he's referencing two to five longer rest periods. There was a great post by Dr Russin the other day and he's referencing two to five minute rest periods for strength and in there he says you should never be resting longer than five minutes because most workouts are 60 minutes and I agree, for the general population, if you're training a client full body, resting 7-10 minutes would not be optimal. But Dr Waterbury, who's on our board and someone who we consult with, I'm going to go get some drinks with him today. He talks about motor unit recruitment and that's his specialty and if you really want to get the most bang for your buck, you probably have to rest closer to 15-20 minutes for full creatine phosphate rejuvenation.
Speaker 1:Now, is that your goal? No, you're going to go in there and just get the most out of your workout. But I have implemented 10, 15, 20 minute rest periods before, because I live in a gym and it's crazy to see and this is the great thing about what's called an N1. You do the study yourself, rest three minutes and look at that force production versus four versus five versus 10. Because when the volume starts creeping up let's say you're doing five sets of three, about roughly 90% On that third set it's going to be a lot more challenging to move three reps if we're only resting three minutes. But if you were to be resting seven to 10 minutes, you're going to be a lot closer to fulfilling nine total reps three, three and three. For the Tories out there that suck at math.
Speaker 1:I got to give you a shout out and so you need to look at what is your goal and for me right now, in 2025, I want to get back up to 315. I will be able to do it. I have a video in my gym and I got my badass long hair and I go back there and I get that sucker up there. It's actually 320. We weighed the bar. Later on it was a 50 pound bar, so I got a little asterisk next to it. My PR in life is 320, but I'm going to get back to it. Before I start breaking down some strategies to help you get up there and, as I mentioned earlier, you can just compare it to where you're currently at I want to break down some of the musculature that's involved with bench pressing. So this is a transverse exercise due to horizontal adduction. If you're like, what the hell is that? Get into the program, level up to become a qualified personal trainer. Show up in his CPT top 10 certifications in 2024.
Speaker 1:Our partnerships are growing. We just linked up with Genesis in the Midwest. Over 40 gyms. They now accept our certification and these are things that we really pound into your head so that you understand this vocabulary. At the elbow we have extension, which will be your triceps concentrically, which means that's the most difficult part. The muscle is shortening. We're stronger eccentrically and we'll talk about that here in a second. So the humerus, due to horizontal adduction, is going to be primarily your pectoralis major, that's the sternal fibers, that's the sternum bone. You have a little bit of the clavicular fibers, but primarily the sternal fibers a little bit of the costal as well, but your anterior deltoid is a big player for horizontal adduction as well. We don't get a lot of scapular movement. We shouldn't. Yeah, if you were to throw some electrodes on there, you would see some activation.
Speaker 1:But think of this analogy If you were to try to push me over, I come over and I make fun of your skinny jeans or whatever you're wearing, and you're like Chris, you're an asshole and you want to push me. You get yourself a great base of support, you put your hands by your side and you're going to push forward. And that's really how you bench press. And if you look at the arc of a bench press, it's not just straight, it's coming back towards a spotter. If you have one, it's more of an arc. You can type in bench press, arc, elite lifters, and it's really cool to see what it looks like. For some of the best it's not just straight up and straight down, and so the muscular recruitment of the serratus anterior, which would deal with protraction, is extremely limited.
Speaker 1:And with that analogy of pushing me, imagine going to one leg You're going to drop off a lot of force production. That's why we're not doing this on a stability ball. You want your scapula to be stable, which would be like pressing with both feet. So those are the main muscles that are involved. So, as I test people, if that is your goal and one time in my career I trained a fella by the name of Jay and he came to me only to improve his bench press I said, chris, I know you're the best trainer in West Hollywood because that's where I was at the time and he said I want to hit 315. And he was right around 275. So he would come in and the entire hour we would bench press. I would do some accessory stuff the last 10 minutes, but it was primarily bench. We would do like 10 to 15 sets. He would train with me once a week. Now if we were to train three times, I would change that volume, because 45 sets, if your goal is optimal strength would not be optimal. But when Jake would come in we'd do a little warmup, optimize the stabilization of the glenohumeral joint. One of my favorite warmups are pushups on a foam roller. Yes, you heard the belt buckle trainer talk about doing foam roll variations.
Speaker 1:I love them for stability, for the upper body, to get your mind right, for bench pressing, you're going to get protraction, retraction, upward rotation, downward rotation. Remember, the scapula has eight actions as well as elevation, depression, anterior and posterior tilt. So I want the scapula to go through that, I want the humerus to go through that. I want the humerus to go through that. I hit all those 10 checkpoints of movement. Even for an upper body specific day, I had them. Do some stand on one leg, do some band pull-aparts. That proprioception has value.
Speaker 1:I like just to piss people off on social media because we're so delicate today and we love a specific exercise or modality and if anyone ever challenged it, you lose your shit. There's to you. Go to our functional movement people. It's just fun. Relax, life is short, have a smile, have a beer. That's the funny thing about sport. I can make fun of your team.
Speaker 1:I'm a big Gonzaga fan and right now we're in second place. Got a big game against St Mary's on Saturday, but there are three games, two games ahead of us. The likelihood of us winning the conference is very low. Sierra, our rock star, who runs all the operations for, show up, so we give each other shit all the time. Oh, sierra, st Mary's sucks, you suck, it's fun. She doesn't quit because I say St Mary's suck, and I don't fire her because she says, ha ha, gonzaga lost again. You have fun with it. That's how we should look at exercise and fitness. Stop getting your panties and jock straps in a bundle. You only live once. Keep showing up One of Chad's favorite warmups hand open, band around your wrist onto an anchor or a trainer can hold it and then you pull back.
Speaker 1:So it's like a face pull but you're not gripping it, cause when you grip it, a lot of the tension and force goes to your lateral and medial elbow muscles and we don't want that. We want to get the shoulder ready for some performance. After we do some proprioceptive stuff, then we get into some PAP, some post activation potentiation. Let's fire up that nervous system. You do some ball slams 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 10 to 20% of your body weight. Throw it in the ground as hard as you can five, eight reps. Pass it to someone as hard as you can five, eight reps. Pass it to someone as hard as you can. I like to get my clients on the ground and have them do like a bridge and then throw the ball up as high as they can. It works with my dexterity as well, because I got to track that awesome way to release some bdnf brain derived neurotropic factor awesomepeptide protein in the brain that works with neuroplasticity when you have to track stuff. We'll do a couple sets of that, maybe one exercise, maybe two, some speed presses, maybe even some jumps to get the nervous system fired up. Then you get into your warmup.
Speaker 1:You could talk to a hundred different elite lifters and I'm going to use Tim Enriquez strength standards that he talks about in T Nation. He wrote an awesome book called Power Lifting. He was a employee at NPTI when I was, when I was teaching there. Great dude out of the East Coast I want to say Virginia, super, super knowledgeable, One of the best texts that power lifting book and he actually wrote a textbook for NPTI Great resource and the strength standards that he has for bench press.
Speaker 1:If you're a dude and you can bench 315, that's considered good. 1.5 times your body weight will be the equivalent Great lifters 365 or two times your body weight. That's a whole different ball game. So at the time I was 200 pounds and I could do 315. That would be roughly 1.55 times my body weight. But there's dudes out there that are 155, 175, that are pressing 400 plus. That's pretty impressive. And so for you hunks that are listening, good is considered 105. So that would be a 25 on each side and a five on top of that. So if you look at comparing that to dudes 315, 1.5 times body weight, for hunkettes, 105 or 0.75 times your body weight, great is considered 135, or essentially one times your body weight considered 135, or essentially one times your body weight. Now I've seen more bros bench 315 than I have hunkettes benching 135. And I know Katie's a rock star. She has a state record in Tennessee. She can definitely rep out 135. Megan can rep out 135.
Speaker 1:We're starting to see more people within the show fitness community. Shout out to Trisha Lynn. I saw her bench 135 the other day. Tori benched 135. That is a badass milestone for you ladies, and if you can do that you should be posting in your story to motivate other females because they're not going to get big and bulky.
Speaker 1:There's something that is pretty freaking cool to press 135 off your chest For a dude bench, press 225,. That's like leveling up to level two, three. You're feeling great. Now when you get to 275, 295. Oh my God, almost there. 315, boom, you're the king of the world. That is an impressive thing.
Speaker 1:Now the warmup process, as I just got into five 10 minutes warmup. Some dudes may do 95. Some dudes may be doing 135. I talk about good versus great because I've trained with some dudes that can rep 405, which is four plays. That's just a whole nother ball game. But they started with 95, 25. I'm like dude, what the hell.
Speaker 1:And of course I tried it, but I just didn't like it. It was too many reps. So you have to kind of take a little bit over here. Take a little bit over here, try different programs, but don't cherry pick programs. So what I give you right now, if you're going to implement it, don't take a little bit from me. And then a little bit of the five by five protocol, a little bit of the five three one, some Wendler, some conjugate Westside, if you get into the Smobble and his bench press variations and protocols. No, you got to choose one and stick to it for a good period of time. Hire a coach. If you want to hit 135, reach out to Katie. If you want to get to 315, reach out to me. Have someone design programs just for you. That's going to be superior. So you hit your 135, 8 to 10 reps, throw on a quarter, 185, 3 to 5 reps, go up to 225, 2 to three reps and for me, when I was right around 295, my PR I could tell at 245 how that workout would go.
Speaker 1:And this is an important thing to understand that we have all this technology today which can be beneficial. It can affect your optimization in the gym because the mindset is so important. Do you think LeBron's not going to play a game today because his HRV is low? No, he has to go out there and perform. Sure, we understand you may be more prone to injury, but inside he may not just push his heart, so maybe he doesn't want to put up 40. He's going to focus more on passing.
Speaker 1:So if my program today says five sets of three at 85%, 85% means I should be able to do it five times, so I'm saving a little bit in the tank. What that means is I want more velocity off my chest. If I were to do that the first set, that third rep, I can barely get it off my chest. I may need to modify the program. Maybe you back off and you do 225 for sets of five. Obviously, you could probably do 12 to 15. Normally we're not training to volitional fatigue because it crushes the nervous system. We don't want to be doing five by five all the time at 85%, because you're really affecting the central nervous system. So you need a good 72 hours for recovery. Now the program that I'm going to suggest is what I'm currently implementing for my path to 315.
Speaker 1:I'm doing two days a Monday and Tuesday, chest day and a Friday and or Saturday. I say that because sometimes I may do bench on Monday, sometimes I may do it on Tuesday. It depends on how I slept and how I feel that day. The other day I woke up on Monday and I didn't get that great of sleep, so I went and did a different workout bi's and calves and abs I'm kidding, but I saved my chest and triceps for Tuesday. So then I pushed my Friday workout to Saturday.
Speaker 1:Typically I like to see heavier pressing on that Monday or Tuesday. Which Saturday? Typically I like to see heavier pressing on that Monday or Tuesday, which will be 80 plus percent. And then on the end of the week, friday or Saturday, I'll do more speed work. So that could be doing your normal warmup, 135, but instead of going up I stick to 135 and I work backwards and or I start at 25 and I do five to eight reps as fast as I can. And we're not just doing it slow, we're doing it as fast as you can. Literally my back flies off the bench.
Speaker 1:I'm aggressively, it's like throwing a fastball. A fastball means maximal velocity. If you're throwing 100 miles per hour, the pitcher knows when it's 80. So when you're bench pressing this is one of the first things that I noticed with bros who don't train velocity is their speed sucks. They get it, they pause in their chest and they press it up and it's like throwing a 70 mile per hour fastball when you should be throwing 100. So we want to work on that synchronization of those high threshold motor units. They want to move fast, they want to be explosive, but we don't train that way. There is a carryover into that maximal force production. So on Saturday, friday or Saturday, I'll do light and I'll go explosive. Sometimes I'll add some bands, sometimes I'll do some variations of block training to focus more just on one aspect of the lift.
Speaker 1:Now I mentioned earlier some of the musculature, what I will do when I look at someone, like when Jake came in for that first session, I had him do 225 as many times as he could at the end of the workout. But I had him do a one rep max. And the reason I did a one rep max to see where he's at. So we tested that day. Day one he got to 275, but I had him do a couple more to see where he couldn't overcome, and then the same with 225, that test gives me data on where he's weak and so if you can't get it off your chest, like literally the bar just fails on your chest, that's weakness, typically in your back, because your latissimus dorsi does have a little role in getting it off your chest. And if you just put your arm behind, you pretend like you have a broom, or, even better, go grab a broom or a pipe and put it on your chest and pull it tight Like you're squeezing an orange in your armpits. Bend it.
Speaker 1:Now I want you to flex your lats, engage them and you will see that the bar will come off your chest a couple inches. The latissimus dorsi extends the humerus but because of how far it's behind the body, the pectoralis major is at a mechanical disadvantage and so the lats can actually flex forward when the arm is that far behind the body and then it's going to be a lot of your anterior deltoid moving into the middle. Third, which is primarily more of your chest, and then the top is your triceps. So when I test that 225, I'm able to determine where you're the weakest. If you're pausing in the middle, we got to maybe add in some accessory stuff for the chest. If you're pausing at the end, maybe we'll throw in another back day Also some front raises for anterior deltoids If you can't lock it out. We got to add in more tricep work variations above the head, kicking the hands out, doing crisp dips, close grip pushups, close grip bench press. We're going to target more of the triceps.
Speaker 1:And the last technique that I can do to determine where you're weak so we can strengthen that is a super overload. So on day one when Jake did 275, that was his one rep max I threw on 315. He could not do that. I lifted it off and he slowly or slow as possible, brought the bar down to his chest and about halfway the bar sped up, the velocity kicked in and it came to his chest and then I lifted it up for him. I didn't do a complete 315 upright row, upright rows all day long, but he pushed maybe 250 and I lifted the rest.
Speaker 1:You have to be careful when you're spotting these two. If you got some big weight because a great way to strain your QL you had that staggered stance you're not ready for it. If you have a supinated grip with both your hands, sloppy, spot, you lean forward, boom, you screw up your back. So you need to be prepared for that weight as you lift it up. Which brings me into forced, eccentric super overloads. Game changer, 100% game changer.
Speaker 1:Think of doing a pull-up. You have a client who can't even come close. They're not morbidly obese, they don't have shoulder issues, so we're not concerned about hurting them and we're not doing machine assisted ones or banded ones. We do the actual pull-up. Get your ass up there and then come down as slow as you can. We do like three to five reps, two to three sets. Keep the volume low because we create a lot of tissue damage which can affect the next lift. You don't want to be so sore. You can't work out for three or four days. We got to find that Goldilocks of volume, just enough so you can recover within 48 hours and be ready for that next lift within the muscular system, but also the software which would be the central nervous system. So if you want to get better at pull-ups, you do the eccentric on the pull-up.
Speaker 1:If you want to get better at push-ups, you focus on the eccentric. If you want to get to 315, we got to go to 315. And as Jake would improve his PR from 275 to 285, we would test about once a month his PR from 275 to 285. We would test about once a month. And there's different philosophies along that. Some people will only do a 1RM once, twice a year because they're professional lifters.
Speaker 1:I got that ego in me. I like hitting that 1RM, so I'll test it once a month. Is that optimal? No, but I'm a meathead. But when I'm training my clients, maybe I'll push it out to every you know six weeks. It depends on the individual. Because I'm training my clients, maybe I'll push it out to every six weeks. It depends on the individual, because a lot of my clients have that same mentality. They're not training for an Olympic event. If they were a competitive power lifter, I'm going to pass it off to a coach who's been working with them. So I'm looking at that good lifter according to Tim's standards.
Speaker 1:You want to hit 315? I can help you get there. So when we got to 285 and then we got to 295, every time we set a new PR. I would add more on the super overloads. We moved up to 335. We moved up to 365 because we're as much as 20, maybe 50% stronger eccentrically. You could put 405 on the bench and he could control it down. It's not just going to drop like a 100-pound or a 400-pound bag of rocks. There's going to be some resistance to gravity. It's not going to be nearly as controlled as 315 if he's at 295. So you want to find that range. That's appropriate. But don't do too much. Where they hurt themselves and that's important because if you don't expose the tissue to overload, that vulnerability in that dead space is where we get hurt.
Speaker 1:How many times have you heard a doc or a trainer say don't bench press, it's bad for your shoulders? Well, maybe your shoulders are bad because you suck with mobility, you don't have great stability all things that we teach you with our soft tissue certification. So you get into the upper traps, infraspinatus, pec, minor adductor pollicis, whatever it may be. But we cannot blame the bench press. What happens is you didn't sleep well, you're hung over, or maybe you're just not feeling it that day, but you do the program which says you're supposed to feel it that day and now you're controlling it. And then you get speed on the descent and then you hurt yourself. Bench press you hear professional athletes say it all the time.
Speaker 1:I don't do bench press, I don't do barbell stuff. It's bad for me because when I was in high school that's all I did and I hurt myself. Well, no shit, your PE coach is not a strength coach. That is probably the last person who I'd want to be taking advice from. Who I'd want to be taking advice from. They're living 50 years ago. If you were trained properly, you wouldn't have experienced that.
Speaker 1:There's always some inherent risk. People are going to hurt themselves. How many times have you hurt yourself? Picking something up, twisting an ankle? You're like, oh, that was just why me. That's not fair. Literally, it's the dumbest thing. There's a small little divot in the ground or something, or you catch your foot on the treadmill. It's not that the treadmill is bad, it was bad luck. But if you train properly and you focus on that eccentric control, it's going to prevent injuries. And the typical pro. The funny thing is like when I was in high school.
Speaker 1:Monday, what do we do? We max out one RM, go in there 135. Next person goes, next person goes. You got like three, four little high testosterone kids with all the acne on their face. They're going around making fun of each other. Oh, you suck, oh you couldn't do it. You come back to me 135, 185. You try to get 205, whatever it is, and you max out every single Monday. That's not optimal. And then it creates bad habits as well, because the weaker kids are going to try to keep up with the stronger ones, and these kids don't know what the hell they're doing, and so they'll start doing partials, so the full range of motion isn't trained.
Speaker 1:And then, a couple of years later, we come in hungover, tired, not sleeping enough because you're studying up all night Caffeine, weird drugs you guys are doing today K. Someone told me K. What the fuck is K? Ketamine? I'm like geez, why can't we just go back to the good old days, smoke, weed and get drunk? Ah, gosh. Anywho, you come in and you're not feeling it. And you come down and all of a sudden you hurt your shoulder. Then you're going to blame it on the bench press. Nope, it was those other variables.
Speaker 1:So I typically like to hit anywhere from five to 10 working sets and because my goal is strength, I don't do a lot of isolation for chest flies. I'll do maybe a couple sets just because I like to pump, but I don't want to annihilate my chest. The same principle goes with like an athlete who's trying to jump how idiotic would it be to jump for five minutes? You're training different systems. That's aerobic. You're training your type one muscle fibers to be fast and explosive. You can't do that Like taking a marathoner and be like we got to focus on your 100 meter sprint. Why? That's stupid. We don't want to annihilate our chest. Focus one day more on going heavy. So maybe three by three at 85%, you'll do two sets of heavy eccentrics and then on Friday or Saturday you do some speed work.
Speaker 1:Five the variables that are going to change throughout the weeks within your cycle. Remember we have the small, which would be your week. That's the micro cycle. Meso would be your month. The macro would be the big goal. So my goal is to hit 315 in 2025. That's my macro cycle. What does each month of programming look like? What does each week look like?
Speaker 1:I implement more of a undulating daily, undulating periodization. I don't just do straight sets, I'll change it up. So maybe I'll do 85%, then I'll do 90% and then I'll do maybe back down to 85% for a couple of reps. I don't just do five by five, I change up the rest periods. I don't do any type of accessories when I'm doing just strength work. I'm not doing bench press into chin-ups, into a plank, like I would train my clients with the CCA. I do straight sets. I talked about earlier. Saying straight sets I mean doing like a three by three and that is my whole workout. That would be more linear periodization. I like to use the variables and that's taken from the strength Bible Dr Kramer and Zatorsky. I think there's the fifth edition out now. They get into Eastern periodization and Western periodization. I learned from Dr Kramer when I was at the University of Connecticut and that book is great for better understanding periodization.
Speaker 1:We got to remember that this podcast today is probably not for your clients. Like I said, I had one person, jay, who I helped hit 315, but I had the tools in my belt buckle to help him get there. So, as a trainer, this stuff may be interesting to you and playing around with those variables. But very, very unlikely would I be doing that with my clients. I would be doing as John said earlier. If I had a client just wanting to get stronger in bench press, I would do the bench into the chin up into a plank variation or a crunch variation rounds and I would do an incline dumbbell into cable rows, into some bicep curls and then I would do some step-ups into military press, into some chest flies and that's how I would train someone who is more intermediate to advanced full body with an emphasis for pushing. This stuff is awesome and you can really go down the rabbit holes of strength and different sides of strength in those mindsets.
Speaker 1:What if it's getting into the rip-a-toe camp or different blocks? Throughout the world? They call it Eastern Bloc, which is more Russia. Talk about Eastern Bloc periodization because in the 60s, when they were just crushing everyone, they were the best of the best one. They were the best of the best. And I remember, when I was at UConn, dr Kramer talking about general adaptation syndrome and stress and everything.
Speaker 1:You have this window of opportunity for illness right after work, meaning not like you go to your nine to five, I'm talking about you do an hour session, or these guys are doing two hour sessions, so they would leave the camp and they'd have masks on. Why the hell are they doing this? Because they were so advanced with the science, but also with the steroids, but they knew that there's this hour window when they're more vulnerable to getting sick. So if that is you, or if you're indoors a lot because it's cold right now, after your workout, make sure to get some vitamin C, to get some glutamine. These things help with your immune system. Wash your hands. I wouldn't go from a giant chess session into Chuck E Cheese hanging out with a bunch of fucking kids and all their germs. No, no, no. You got to be selfish, isolate yourself. Go in your car, read for an hour.
Speaker 1:Read my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer, volume two, out now. Throw it into your story. We're doing Instagram Lives. We can talk about life, love and happiness. As the book gets out there, we're going to have more contests with cool photos sharing it. You're going to get show up swag or show up athletic wear. Also, seminars, certifications. We're going to be giving away a lot of stuff. The book is going to be the cornerstone for the fitness industry and I'm going to come back to this podcast today, in 2025, february 20th, because the industry is a clusterfuck.
Speaker 1:So many trainers are not able to turn their passion for fitness into career, and that's what wakes me up and fires me up every single day. That's why I started our own certification. Now we have three variants. We're not going to have 30, like all these cert mills. We're going to have our CPT certification for life. If you can't get a refund for your cert, you can take ours and get certified for life. We'll get you to pass whatever textbook cert you have guaranteed. Then you're going to have two months access to our certification, which is going to teach you the technical skills everything I was talking about today with movement, competency, programming, how to regress and progress for different populations.
Speaker 1:The business skills in developing three streams of revenue. So many trainers are lacking that. Why are we not getting paid for nutritional coaching? And then the people skills. You need to know the individual in front of you while you're assessing. Maybe you need to go into the assessment a little faster. Being able to read people is huge. You don't get that in a textbook. You get that from going to a hands-on learning seminar, coming to Santa Monica, southern California for our in-person internship. We're gonna be in Vegas at the end of next week. We're gonna then be in Austin April 4th and 5th and then we're gonna be in Sacramento. That's part of our lifetime partnership.
Speaker 1:Get into the soft tissue. You can help your clients get out of pain. Nutrition coaching those are our level two certs. So that's what we offer at Show Up. Whereas you go to these certification mills, you get all these certifications, all these textbooks and you don't know how to train.
Speaker 1:You have imposter syndrome. What the hell do I do? You have someone who comes in and says I want to bench 225. Oh my God, let's do a stability ball press. Yeah, that's going to get him to sign up. You're scaring people. Let's put your hands over your head. Oh, you got upper cross syndrome. Excuse me, little guy, I have what I can curl more than you, and so your confidence just shoots straight down because you don't know what the hell you're doing, because you're trying to scare people with cross syndromes and you're going to get hurt because of you can't touch your hands behind your back. We don't scare people. Let's show up. We're pro movement.
Speaker 1:What are your goals? That's so awesome. I can help you get there. Oh, you're in some pain, don't worry. I have a great physical therapist. I have a registered dietitian who I work with. You are in great hands. I guarantee you I'm going to get you out of pain, because if I can't, my team will. You are in the best hands because I'm going to program for you, not how I train myself. Great trainers understand the human body. The average trainer understands their body. You don't want to be average, do you? You want to be the best. You want to be significant and that's what the book's going to help you with. Get the book throw it in your story. I appreciate y'all. If you haven't been told this in a while, I believe in you. I'm proud of you. Just got to keep on showing up. Have a great day.