More to Life
More to Life is made for the listener that enjoys learning new things, and seeing how they can improve their life. With a diverse list of guests, there is much to be learned about personal development and looking at ideas through a new lens.
More to Life
#011- David Joplin- How Much Does Fatigue Really Matter?
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Hello and welcome back. Today I'm joined by David Joplin, a fitness and powerlifting coach that has amassed an impressive following on Instagram of about 20,000 people. Join us as we talk about the nuance behind cardio training for lifters, how to thrive under any training program, and the importance of gut health for performance. Huge thanks to David for joining me today, and his Instagram will be at the end of the description if anyone would like to check out his content or coaching services. Hope you enjoy, and see you in the next one.
David's IG: @davidjjoplin
So where are you where are you based out of?
SPEAKER_02So I am based out of Jacksonville, Florida. I lived in uh Vancouver, Washington for two years, um, training out a generation of strength uh with Chris Bridgeford and the crew. Um, and then before that, um I grew up in Arizona in Mesa. Um so basically the Phoenix, Phoenix era. Um, and that was from when I was like five years old and then I think 28 when I was like this has been the hottest, it was literally the hottest summer on record. And we're like, I was I'm done and done. It was COVID. And uh that's where I met my wife. Um we went on a date and uh haven't dated anybody since. Um and uh yeah, we like basically moved in together in a sense because I moved to the her same apartment after I'd left my ex-girlfriend. Um so I was like, well, COVID's about to happen, so let's go ahead and move over here. Moved a floor below her, and uh it was perfect from there. Like, all right, let's go do life. Then we went along this little trail and uh yeah, now we're out in Jacksonville, it's great. Um, there's a beach, it is not as Florida man as people think. So it's pretty tame, actually.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um get to walk around the neighborhood and you know, have like it's great. It's it's the it's the most fun and the happiest I've ever been in my life, like living somewhere. It's it's great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. That's that's kind of one of my one of my main qualms that I have with Michigan because like I grew up the exact opposite, like it is summer in the upper peninsula of Michigan for like six, eight weeks. Yep. And then other than that, it's like you have snow end of October to like middle of April.
SPEAKER_02Like I've seen snow five times in my life.
SPEAKER_01Really? Dang, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I've seen haboobs, I've seen tons of haboobs.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like a giant sandstorm.
SPEAKER_01Dang, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's it's very cool. If you've ever been like, you know, like a high-rise building or something. So I I went to ASU, so we had like high-rise apartments, and so we'd be on somebody's 20th floor, and a haboob would be rolling in, and it was just the most dune cool shit ever, because you just see this thing rolling in from tens, hundreds of miles away. It's like it just yeah, goes. Yeah. Is that is that something to where it's like I can watch this, or is it like, oh shit, get inside, watch it from a window where it's like in your face, or is it it would it would hurt really bad to be outside because it's sand bl you're in a sandblaster, yeah, at like low speed. Yeah. Um, and you're gonna get stuff in your eyes. So like you have to really, you genuinely do have to be inside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02Or like, dude, if you're driving, you've got trees because the trees, the they're um Palo Verde trees, and so they're built very stringy, and they're we'd never have heavy heavy storms and stuff and whatever. So there'd be enough wind that they'd splinter and they would just cover the streets. Oh just when you think about like oh tumbleweeds in the desert, just full light, very lightweight trees that are just splintering and dude, it's insane. Yeah, it's insane. It's so it's very cool, and I'm glad I never have to see it again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the the I like hurricanes. Yeah, see, I we we don't have to worry about much of that at all. Actually, we just had a tornado warning last night, actually.
SPEAKER_02Never never experienced tornado. Yeah, never seen one.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we have warnings, but I've never I mean it's it's it's not like it would be like down down there where it's like you see like a cyclone like coming your way, webbing out houses and shit. But um, it's it's just weird because it it's like it goes from really cold to like not Jacksonville warm, but like you know, 35 to 65 degrees in a span of like a day or two, and then it's like a shit ton of rain and a shit ton of wind, and it's just like everything's like terrible. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02My wife's from North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01Oh dang.
SPEAKER_02Imagine worse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, even worse. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's a reason nobody lives there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh my my friends and I in high school, we always used to joke about going on spring break in like Wyoming. Yeah. We're gonna go uh we're gonna go cross country uh snowshoeing or skiing in Wyoming. Fuck in Wyoming. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Down uh what the fuck's the mountain? Yosemite.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh man. Okay. Cool. Well, uh, first off, I I I I already uh told you this uh before, but just you know, do not hold back. Like I want this to be as I I don't want you to feel like you have to put on a different there's no like there's no character.
SPEAKER_02I'm like I unfortunately like this, like unconsciously.
SPEAKER_01All right, perfect.
SPEAKER_02I try, dude. I try like at work, it's like I'm trying, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I w one of the first posts I saw about you was um it was like I'm gonna be honest, if you're under 25, you're just dumb. That was I was like, I was like, well, yeah, yeah. And um, I you like brought it back to the like the Dunning Kruger effect and everything, and I was like, that is like very like I took a second, like I was like, yeah, my views on training, even in like the last year, year and a half, like I used to just watch YouTube videos and just like I was like, oh, that's just what's right. All right, I'll just preach that to all my friends, and it's it's just like it's just so much deeper than that.
SPEAKER_02But it it was that's why you see like current like uh science based lift or social media is like wow, they're all the same age, they're looking exactly the same when they say the same things because they saw one study that said this one thing, yeah, and it was like oh dude.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I mean, like, there there is a time and place for I mean, I I'm studying exercise science, so like I I'm always like trying to figure out like what's better this or that kind of thing. But it's like I think a lot of things that the people don't realize is that you could literally have an argument of two people with completely different views, and then one of them could just be like, Well, I believe this because I saw this study, and then they're like, No, but this one. Like you could just like you can find studies to support any belief you want, but it it's about like bringing it all together and like finding out the new ones.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the same exact thing with programming, like two different so like let's say Shico versus Bulgarian, like two two completely different things, yeah. They still go down the same path. Granted, Chico won way more, but like people do the same thing with like uh uh god damn it, conjugate now, right? Where it's like no, this is superior, and it's like uh well elite natural tools are a little bit higher than uh untested. Wonder that's because of the training, but for the most part, like you get two people, two average dudes, you make them go 100% at a certain training style, they get to the same place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I'm this is a kind of a question for me because it's something that I'm curious in. And um going into uh I'm like seven weeks out from a powerlifting meet right now, and I just recently started implementing um like some forms of cardio into my programming to like supplement my training. I wanted to hear your thoughts on cardio training and like how it complements powerlifting training, you know, dodge and benefits, and is it beneficial for non-endurance-based sports? Does it is it not worth the fatigue that it brings? Like, what do you think?
SPEAKER_02So I'll work kind of back to front because that's pretty much what I remember. Um, so as far as not being beneficial, but um what was your last part of it? I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01I can repeat anything you need. Um is is it worth the fatigue or not?
SPEAKER_02So there's so when we talk about like let's say zone two cardio, zone two cardio is I can still do this walk and not have my mouth open. I can just breathe through my nose, and that directly will translate to train recovery. Reason being is powerlifting, as far as the recovery systems with that, um, it's generally it's generally aerobic. It's not really anaerobic. Um, the given effort within a set, yes, anaerobic for the most part, um, just due to time or tension and all that. But as far as in between our sets and uh looking at long-term as soon as you get home and your sleep and how it affects insulin sensitivity, body fat levels, estrogen sensitivity, testosterone sensitivity. Um like there's literally zero downsides, and the barrier of entry is very low. It's you you can honestly get a lot out of two times per week for 25 minutes, which is a three percent incline on a treadmill at 3.5 to 4 miles per hour. Like it's a it's just kind of a fast walk. Um four times a week would be better, but there's there's really no fatigue that comes from that. Um when I think people think fatigue generated from cardio, what their mind kind of jumps to is like, oh, running. Like, yeah, I could definitely see fatigue being generated from that. Um, it's that's actually kind of high impact for the most part. It's can be pretty tough on the knees and the joints and stuff, especially being powerlifters being heavier, right? Like you don't see a lot of 225 joggers on the side of the road. No, you know, they're not going very fast.
SPEAKER_01No, I did a 10k last year at like 215, and it was like brutal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You're like, oh, I wonder why this every World Record Center is about exactly the same type of body. There's less to carry around. Um, but it's so it's it's so so so underrated um for everything I list as far as helping out with your testosterone sensitivity. Um you know, if if we have all this fat that's binding us up and uh making you more estrogen sensitive, so you get a lower reaction to training um as a result of all of those factors. The effects it has on the gut are great because we have motility happening, right? Um just it's it's literally there's there's zero downsides to it just for simply doing a kind of quick walk for what is pretty much a YouTube episode of anything you want to watch. Yeah, right. Um yeah, I think people think their their mind jumps like, oh marathon runner, can't do that. Oh, sprinting, that's cardio. I can't do that, that's too tough. Um, Echo Bike 2 is pretty like low, pretty easy to do. It's entirely concentric, there's no eccentric component. Um lots of internal rotation, which if you've ever had elbow tendinitis, you probably have poor shoulder internal rotation, and that's your bench is fucking you up. Um so yeah, there's there's zero downsides to it. I think I would have had a significantly better career, um, especially career ending had I done cardio. Uh my health was very poor, uh, my blood pressure was very high, and I was like, there's nothing, there's nothing bad going on. Um go and do cardio literally within one week after and donating blood. What do you know? My resting heart rate dropped and my blood pressure dropped, and everything was fine. Yeah, very, very quickly. Um, you know, I have pictures too of like like comparing physiques, and it's like a whole different, an entirely different thing. My training went better too, like accessories. Like I was started adding a rep or and or weight every single week while also going to failure with our with where like moderately high volumes. Like, god damn it, why why didn't I just do this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I think the the the F word has been like pretty uh I don't want to say over pushed, but it's like I feel like everyone just thinks, oh, if I do this, then I'm gonna be fatigued and it's gonna like hurt everything else.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And I just I just think that the the barrier of entry, like you said, is like so low that it's like right after your workout. Exactly. And it's like dude.
SPEAKER_02If you want to warm up, do it before.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_02After like a month, you'll be like, Oh, this I can my training is fine now. I can do this now, versus you know, that first month, and you're like, Holy fuck, I'm gonna fucking die. And like their their sessions are terrible. So it's like, yeah, maybe I would put that after your session. You know, it's gonna feel a little bit tough, but fucking suck it up. Um, and eventually, if you want to do like 10 minutes before, 10 minutes after, fucking what do you know, dude? Like you're getting it's no, this is so easy, and you get your steps in. We talk about fucking steps with power lifters. Holy shit. And they're like, Oh, this is fatigue too. It's like, no, like you can you can walk actually pretty slow and you just add them up through the day, like you fucking getting 4,000 a day, and you're like, this is great. I might I feel I feel wonderful. And it's like your hips probably feel terrible because of what's happening to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I actually just started, I think, I think like five days ago, I just started to like commit to myself to try to get 10,000 steps a day. Because like for me, it's one of the most like overestimated and underestimated things ever. Like, I'll walk to one class and back, and then I'll be like, oh shit, that was 1500 steps. I bet you I get I I bet you I can do that 10 times a day. No, no, you don't. No. And I would end the I would end the day, I'd look at my watch and I'd be like 5700, and I'm like, cool. All right, so this needs to like stop now. Um, but yeah, I have I have noticed a super big change in the amount of steps and just being like more conscious of how much I'm walking, and like in terms of like even if you park a little further at the way away at the grocery store or every grocery store, every gem I park as far as humanly possible.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because it also that's where the shade is too. So it's like it's kind of hot out. So yeah, I can squeeze an extra like 200 steps out of this, it's like that's two less minutes I have to walk at home, you know, around the block or doing my like walking pad here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's a very it's a very interesting concept when you when you think about it, but like as long as you just become a little bit more conscious of like where you're going and like try to fit more things in during the day, it's it's entirely possible.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I mean, 10,000 steps for me, that's about five miles, maybe a little bit less. But like you say, like, oh, you need to walk five miles a day to somebody, they're like that's a that's a tough sell. That's yeah. Yeah, that's not a good way to put that at all.
SPEAKER_02The easy way to actually the probably the better way to kind of word that is like just existing, you get like 3,000. Like if you're work from like I'm work from home, and uh so I was sick like two weeks ago, was done. And for all of those days, I was hovering about 3,000 to 3,500 steps a day. So what that tells me is without going on the purposeful walks, um my daily just around the house is 3,500, right? Which if you do let's say a walk outside and like you do the you track the day, you know, how long it took you to get to a thousand steps, it's about it's actually a little less than 10 minutes, right? So all I need to do is spend 70 minutes a day just walking. And so if you break that up, let's say you do a morning walk for 15 to 20 minutes, about we'll call it 2,000 steps, another 15-20 minutes at lunch, so about 4,000, and then like a 25 or in the evening after dinner 10,000, like think about 15 minutes. Like that's that's it's not it's nothing. Like I that's where I make my videos. Like I just I'm walking around the neighborhood, the people in the neighborhood just see some shirtless guy yelling at his phone in a bucket hat. Good for you, dude. Um they don't know that they don't know that I have 20,000 followers, so yeah. But that's all easy it is, that's how easy it is, man. Is just get outside for a second, get a tan, fuck around on your phone, listen to podcasts, listen to music, like whatever you you literally, whatever you you were doing the same thing on the couch, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You can also like do it outside while it's nice out and like boost your natural vitamin D and probably likely feel happier and better because gee, what do you know? You're getting sunlight, like there's pretty good benefits with that as far as your recovery.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So um, yeah, even just like being more conscious when I'm at the gym, like I'll do a set and I'm like, I can't do another set for at least two, three minutes anyway. So I just like take a lap around the gym. Like I'm hitting biceps, I'm not like I I didn't just get off the leg press and like can't go walk anywhere. Like I'm doing a set of bicep curls. So like I can I can fathom a walk and get an extra 200 steps in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when I was when I was pushing 14,000 steps this last month, that's what I ended up having to kind of resort to to kind of get some time back in my day to just finally sit down. Um, was I would do my set, two laps, came out to uh I think 200 steps, like 250. And then I was able to get like an extra something like 3,000 just at my just at the gym during the session, which gave like pretty much gave me back 30 minutes of what is when you're doing 14,000 steps precious fucking time sitting on your like five days sitting down. Um leggers get tired when you get that high. That's where fatigue kind of starts to happen. It's like over like 12,000. 10,000, we're good. You're good, man. You're you're gonna be good on the fatigue. It's honestly gonna help your prep uh for the most part because you're gonna get to meet day and like the number of people, the the literal correlation that I see between people that always miss their thirds and uh can't do a 20-minute incline walk at 3.5 is astonishing. Because I was one of those people too, and that was only at 200 pounds, like that's how fucking bad my cardio was. But I missed every third fucking ever pretty much because of that. I would get I would get tired through the meat because my cardio was bad. I'd do it like two set I would do two sessions after that meet, and I was right back to where I was doing fucking just fucking off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And uh that that's kind of one of my friends that is more like a endurance running, biking kind of person. He he basically told me he was like two, three times a week, like get in, say zone two for 20, 25 minutes, and like you will notice that you will like recover faster and have just more endurance for your workouts, like it it benefits.
SPEAKER_02Dude, it's it's such a banger. Yeah, it's such a banger. Can't recommend it enough. That was one of the videos, that was where like that was actually one of my first videos that like did super well was like I was like, hey guys, get 10,000 steps, and people were like, No.
SPEAKER_00I was like, What?
SPEAKER_02What are you talking about? No, you don't need to do that. That's blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, I didn't know there was a market for this type of oh dude, this type of shit.
SPEAKER_01Dude, you if if a post gets enough views, anyone will disagree on anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's eventually what I kind of learned was like you're eventually getting like there's always gonna be a distribution of whatever amount, right? And if you say something um not divisive, but like and not even like charged or baiting it or whatever. Like I think we all like there's a good portion of us that all think the same thing about a certain thing, and so you say it because you know that there's other people that you know it's usually like a loud, either majority or minority about a certain topic. And so you're just presenting the other side, and it's like usually like charged stuff, it's always stuff that's just like it's it's part of people's identity, it's usually what gets people going. It's like if you disagree with something that they consider their identity, they get really riled up because they take that as a personal attack. It's not a personal attack if you separate, you know, who you are from the things that you do. Like if you think of those as actually two separate things, nothing can touch you, right? Versus the people that and I see it a lot in young power lifters, is they make powerlifting their identity. They can't do anything else outside of powerlifting. If they do anything else outside of powerlifting, they're a fucking traitor, right? Like people look at you like, oh, you you could have had so much more potential had you just you know focused on powerlifting. It's like, no, dude, you're allowed to have like other you can be interesting, you can do other things like in your life. Yeah, and it's pretty cool because you get to enjoy your 20s instead of committing to a sport that nobody gives a fuck about, uh, for the most part. Like the only people that give a shit about powerlifting are the people inside of powerlifting. That's it. Once you stop powerlifting, you realize how like shitty powerlifting is. You're like, oh, I actually don't give a fuck about anything anymore. So anybody can say anything about um what I didn't lift or what my total wasn't, or X, Y, Z, and it's all like cool. I have no emotional attachment to this anymore. So, like you, of course, think it's very important person because like you still think this is something people care about, but you're the guy, you're projecting, you're projecting, you know, everything that you feel. Um, but everybody's everybody's there at some point, you know, everybody's there at like whether it's bodybuilding too, or whether it's you know, different things that kind of people kind of attach themselves to. Um, you know, you say anything bad about their hobby, and it's like, I'm gonna fucking end your life. That's always the reaction. It's so visceral, it's so funny.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. Um I want to ask kind of like a kind of like a tangent question. Um active recovery. Is it an oxymoron or is it beneficial? It's an oxymoron. No, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because like realistically, like if we're committing to the 10,000 steps thinging, like are we considering steps active recovery? It's like, no, like this is a benefit, this is just a beneficial thing I should be doing. Um yeah, it's basically an oxymoron. Like recovery is basically doing nothing, like it's not yoga, it's not massage, like massages cause muscle damage. I don't think people kind of realize that. It's why you're sore after what do you know? Um, like that's not recovery. Um, anything anybody does to you or things you are doing. Um, maybe like stretching at is like the lowest form of activity that I wouldn't consider uh active, I guess to say. Um yoga can be a little tough. Yoga's yoga is also a good thing that I recommend for powerlifters uh if you want to avoid injuries in the long term and the short term, honestly. Um, because if you're injured, you can't progress. So if we just spend time actually making sure our joints are solid and mobile and can hold load, yeah, we should probably be able to access external rotation that's not this bad, right? Like again, something I ignored a ton, therefore got lots of elbow tendinitis. Like same thing with my knees. Um poor left hip IR, therefore I constantly tore my adductor. Like we should probably get more mold. And now, since I um I was like, you know what, let me go to yoga. Like my gym now has yoga. I go every Tuesday or Sunday or both. Holy fuck, that didn't know my pain was actually not chronic. I was just dumb. I just wasn't doing anything that would help my body not get injured.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. I I was always kind of interesting about that because I see people that they'll train five days a week or whatever, and then they'll be like, but then Sunday's my active recovery day where I go in and I do cardio and abs and stretch and rollout and like all this other stuff, and I'm like, could you kind of cut that out? Or like could you just like cardio in?
SPEAKER_02We could have just microdosed it through the week.
SPEAKER_01Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02There's no reason to because, like, let's say you do one cardio session a week. Cardio leaves us pretty quickly. So um given that's the case, we're now back at a much lower baseline than we could be on that next session. That like let's say he's doing an hour, 45 minutes, or something like that. Like, that's his cardio session. Um, that's pretty disruptive, especially for a power lifter. Um you're heavier because we're heavier. Cardio is by default harder. Um so if you know, if that's kind of the case, like that's not very recovery-ish anymore. You're just checking the oil, you're just changing the oil way too late. Is more of it. Um, but yeah. Um it's much better to if if that's gonna be the case, just microdose those things through the week. Like two sets of abs three times a week at the end of your session is not even then, start your session with abs, right? Like, cool. Now we're gonna set our let's say we do hollow holds as our ab exercise or decline like GHR situps. Um, like cool. Now we're getting control of our pelvis. We are waking up the abs. If you're somebody with chronic back pain, you probably have underactive abdominal everything. Um, so might as well just do like a hall hold, which is exactly the same positioning as a squat or deadlift, you know, ribs down, braced. Like, cool, just start with that. Now you can have a better session. It's not like that ab, those two sets of abs are now fucking up your squad. If that's the case, it's like you're out of shape, guy. Yeah, you know, there's nothing I love more seeing than a uh a very purist powerlifting coaches program. Um, and it's like a thing of squat, I think a bench, rows, done. And it's like, oh god, this guy's you're fucking this guy's long-term potential hard. Yeah, this is gonna be a bag of mashed potatoes, boy. Doing nothing to get this guy jacked. He has no avenue out of this.
SPEAKER_01Um, how do you adjust to and I mean I I'm assuming you've had athletes like this, the chronic, either chronic overshooters or chronic undershooters. Like, how do you do you program for them differently? How does that look?
SPEAKER_02Percents.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Just tell them what to do.
SPEAKER_01Just in general, just tell them what to do.
SPEAKER_02They can't decide. Okay. No, they're either too um mentally let's say you do an ascending RPE week after week, so seven, eight, nine. Yeah. Um, and their eight week looked like a nine, right? Because they're our chronic overshooter, they always fucking do this. And then we get to week three, and we have a we now have a week four, two after this, where we're gonna do like let's say a double at ten. Yeah. Um and uh we get to our single at nine week, and it looks like a ten. And it's like, well, we were supposed to hit this for a double next week. Um versus you know, whether it's an own undershooter two, pull them up to hey, this is what fucking effort, like this is what this feels like, dude. Um or there's just low self-confidence, and that is a thing too. Kind of and and but the nice thing with giving them a percent, um and whether you do the exact number or percent, doesn't matter. Who fucking cares? I've seen people get so up in arms about like, no, you have to do the you have to write down the amount, you should know as a coach. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna. It's the same, it's the same progression, yeah. Either way, it's yeah, yeah. Um, you know, you you for undershooters, you kind of breathe a breath of life into them. They're like, oh, like he's he's done this longer than I have. He knows coaching, he's he's very knowledgeable, and I trust what he's have to say. He says I can hit this number, I believe I can hit this number now because he thinks I can too. And then they go out and do it, and then they go out and do it again, and it's just like, oh my god, I'm I don't actually suck. Yeah. Um, versus like, let's say an under an overshooter is like, hey, you probably also squat highs, so we need to kind of reel you in because you don't know standards or don't how to follow directions at all. I'm glad you go crazy on the accessories, at least I fucking hope so if you're an overshooter. Yeah, but um that barbell work will fuck your, you know, because we kind of set when we're planning ahead of time as a coach, like I have a a runway, right? And like I know for sure we're gonna have some bumps along that runway. When I know this is not gonna be a perfect thing. So if we can make that runway longer, in case those speed bumps kind of slow us down to whatever date this is or whatever it may be, you know, we kind of built build in some of those those guardrails. Um, we can have a better long-term progression, especially with those overshooters, because they will step on their own toes and constantly get in their own way if they keep doing this shit. And like usually you'd end up getting injured too. And then, like, okay, cool. Now we get to do four months of rehab on your, you know, this herniated disc that you're complaining about that, like maybe we overloaded you, dude. And I I tried to fucking tell you to hold back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay, yeah. So just kind of making it more objective than anything.
SPEAKER_02Pretty much, you know, you it's like, and what's nice too is you know, they send you the video, and I've got the app I got like the coach version on the app on my phone. And if I notice something's like way off, I'm like, let me look real quick. Because I it's like on WhatsApp. Um like, oh let me look real quick. And uh I had a guy, it was his first week, and I put, I don't know, I think we did like triples at seven. I was like, let me just let's just start, let's just see what this looks like. And he does like seven at 10. And I was like, I was like, something doesn't, I don't remember assigning a 10 on a first week for anything, and go in the app, check. I was like, hey, that's not at all what I said. He's like, oh, I I read it wrong. Like, okay, people like you get percents, man. This is why I fucking do per god damn it. Why didn't why didn't I trust you? Why did I trust on the intake when I asked if you're under or overshooter? You fucking put, you know, oh no, I rate it correctly, I'm after it. Why did I listen to you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's interesting. I'll I'll definitely put that in my uh on the on the back burner for next time. Um let's see. Um is there any scenario where say you're coaching someone, uh like one of your physique clients, like the I just want to look better people. Is there any program where SBD one, two, three, any of them would make it into a hypertrophy program?
SPEAKER_02Yes, and it very inefficiently. Um they would have to like explicitly say, like, I need to keep squat bench and deadlift in. But otherwise, there's there's literally there's zero, zero reason outside of like you enjoy the lifts for some reason at this point. Like, if you've if you've already like, let's say you've been powerlifting for a long time, you're usually very excited to never touch a barbell ever again. You are so fucking over it, dude. Like you're you don't you're like, I don't fucking care. This hurts. I'm tired of way the what the way my back feels. I'm tired of needing help to stand up, want all this to be done, and usually it's because of like you're just fucking old, you're just in your 30s, and you got beat up by these fucking barbells, man. You got too many back injuries. Um, yeah, for pretty much all my physique people I explicitly ask, like, do you still want barbelling? And they're like, I just want to look better, and it's like perfect, you don't have to do any barbells then. Okay. Um, you know, maybe we could we would look at like a snatch grip RDL, a stiff leg deadlift. Um if they just kind of like bench, sure. Um, but otherwise, like we should probably do a machine bench, we should probably do a Smith incline. Um dumbbell is is significantly more range of motion. Um, honestly, kind of safer too, in the realm of uh the total load being lower. Um yeah, like there's really no there's no the hypertrophy benefit of barbells is significantly lower than every other option that exists in a gym.
SPEAKER_01Sure. I guess the only like implied nuance I I could see you, and I kind of felt like you were gonna say that, but the only implied nuance I could see of you going the other way would just be like, oh well, this person sometimes someone needs an exercise that's gonna beat the fuck out of them because it'll make them grow. But I wasn't really sure what you if that was like I could just as easily program high intensity, program high intensity, like I can see early in the career being a very good option for people.
SPEAKER_02Um so I have a guy, um, he's like, I wanna I want to look bigger and better, but I also want to just generally get stronger. I'm like, cool. We're just gonna run 531 and we're gonna swap out overhead press for incline press, um, and then give you the for the most part, like 75% of the usual bodybuilding program that I would do for really anybody after that. Um and every week he's PRing, and every like his general mood when he came to me was just kind of like and uh now that he's PRing, his like his DMs to the messages to me are so like I genuinely get emotional seeing how happy he is because like this is likely like a core moment this could possibly be for him. Um, like that's a like that's a really cool thing to be a part of. Um and uh you know you could have been a fucking shitty coach that was just like no, suck it up, this this is how it has to be done, but and just like kind of whatever. Like those guys don't really get bought in, they don't really get progress because they're not trying harder. Um he was like a very chronic undershooter, too. I was like, cool, we're gonna do percents because week two, you did 245 for five, and then this final week when we're supposed to do a 10, you did 225 for way less. Like, what happened? Um, so we switched to that, and his mood has been fucking through the roof. He just wants to get stronger and better and just look better and get more jacked and whatever. And it's like, cool, yeah, we end up getting you to powerlifting too, like that'd be cool. Um, but like he's enjoying the process, like he's getting stronger, he's seeing the results, like you know, those those newbie gains that like I think we all got to have at some point where you're like another 20 pounds, another 20 pounds, another 20 pounds, just week after week. You're like, this is the fucking coolest thing ever. Yeah, so yeah, that's it's very limited, very limited use. Absolutely not my first option.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um, did you have any like advice for women that want to start powerlifting or weight training? And can you kind of explain some of the misconceptions that are like behind it? Like, obviously, the the biggest one is like I don't want to get too bulky, uh, is like kind of what I see. But I didn't know if there's like there's any more that you've kind of experienced in your like coaching or anything that you can kind of debunk.
SPEAKER_02Um kind of tough because my viewpoint is that like uh very equality based. So, like, hey, you're not any different than anybody else. There's no reason to be like, what are we scared of? You know, like the I think I don't remember the exact ratio, but I wanna say there was at least one year um in the USAPL where more women actually competed than men out of the entire year. Um so I don't know if that's you know, but but at the same time, we see a lot of meets where I think this may be counteracted by something else where we where we have women-only meets, and that's usually kind of the like the kind of the selling point that you would have for that is like hey, like let me take you to this women's only meet, see how cool it is. They're like, Oh, this is actually way, way, way better than I thought it was. I thought it was like guys headbutting walls and like you know, and just throwing needles in their neck going. Um, like, oh, this is actually a normal, this is a normal place, you know. They're this is the one thankfully, if you take them to the right meet, it's not it's the one where they don't play down with the sickness, you know. They're playing like cool, they're playing like you know, Pink Pony Club, like thankfully. If I got that, yeah. Actually, no, my one of my meets in Washington, my opening song, not by choice, was uh Call Me Maybe by um Carly Ray Jeffson.
SPEAKER_01Carly Ray Jepson.
SPEAKER_02Um so if you've ever tried to squat five fifty while while that's playing, hats off to you.
SPEAKER_01That's kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_02Didn't get the other two.
SPEAKER_01Sometimes sometimes I don't like realize the song that's like going. Like I'll realize it before, but then obviously, like once I step on, I kind of enter that tunnel vision. But I'll be like watching a video back, and I'm like, what the hell? Who allowed that?
SPEAKER_02This guy, yeah. No. Um misconceptions as far as like into bulky or whatever. Um again, I think we're we're we're finally having a really strong shift. Um, and this is actually ironically, thanks to uh clothing brands like um uh Alpha Leet and um Civil Regime and uh uh LA, whatever the fuck. Um can't even fucking like on the spot, whatever. Um but thankfully to those brands, it's actually become significantly more what I find significantly more popular among women to get jacked. Cause they see these objectively very beautiful women, you know, and they're wearing this clothing stuff, and they're like, Oh, like she looks pretty like I can look like that. Um Um because they're wearing the clothing that they like. And so there's like this, you know, yeah thing that happens. Um and I think women start to just have gravitated more towards like, no, it's okay to like. And then you have women to preaching to women saying, like, hey, no, like you should bulk. Like this is good. Like we're we're we're finally exiting the poison of like the 90s and the 2000s, where it was like, no, you must be as skinny as possible. And it was really destructive. That was really destructive to a lot of women, unfortunately. Um and there's still a lot of very unfortunate stigma with that, like that's still present among you know, maybe different families where like that is like that's the environment, or different social classes, or you know, whatever. Um or just like you know, the issues we have with like just people having like self-worth, you know, issues, how that affects women in regards to weight and all those things. Like it's tough, man. It's it's I I it's a tough, it's a tough thing. So I'm really glad that this new what I would say is a mildly new trend relative to you know the other decades, um, is to get bigger and stronger and more muscle and allow for some weight gain. Like the you know, the number on the scale legitimately does not matter. You know, it's what you look like, right? Like I'm 185, but like this is the biggest and best I've ever looked. Why the fuck would I care about weight? Right? It's it's what I physically see, it's what I visually the visuals are the literally the only thing that matters in regards to that entire topic of like you know, weight or you know, this being scared of weight. Um, you know, do you enjoy what you look like? That's exactly what you should do then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, that's good. That's good. I like that. Um, all right. I I got one more because I don't want to I don't want to hold you too much. I know I said a half hour on Instagram. We've been going for an hour. All right. Um, yeah, I just got one more. I kind of want to end it on like uh go in depth with it as much as you want. Um but I like a uh kind of bring it all home uh thing. So can effort outweigh a bad program?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I've seen some really strong people with the most retarded program I've ever seen.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Like people ran Brandon Lilly's program, like cube and got strong. I know that's this is this is a I know a lot of programming. I have I love programming so fucking much. Um oh the enjoyment I get from programming and like stuff, like I studied, like when I was first starting out, I just studied I downloaded every fucking program and I ran all of them. I just program hopped and failed and succeeded. You know, did I was like, oh night, this next one's gonna make me more progress because it's new or I just learned about it. Um very Dunning Kruger. I was at the peak of Dunning Kruger, dude. Um and uh you see like God, you you guys probably haven't seen um what west side programming looks like, like what it legitimately looks like, because they'd write it in uh they write it in either word word or excel, but not in the way you would typically use Excel, which was normal. You just you know you put the the exercises and then you put you know week one and all that. No, what they did was basically a puzzle. You had to figure out where every it was the most bizarre shit possible, and like it was Aaron had to run this, it was it was from um Laura Phelps. Um and they would week after week, week after oh my fucking god, they would do like uh triple with uh all these all these chains and bands to like a high box for 10, and there were raw lifters, by the way. Um you know, every every single week was like four days of going to failure on everything, um, with like just the dumb, just the dumbest, just the fucking dumbest shit, dude. And people would get strong doing that. It's like you shouldn't, like you shouldn't get strong doing that's so dumb. There's no way this translates, but people do, because they would have this training environment where they have all these gym partners and they're fucking screaming in your face like fucking lift this pussy. Um and like you owed it to them to accomplish that. Like that was why I moved to Washington to be a part of Generation Strength. Was like, this is the next best thing, and like it was a sick training environment, it was it was the best training environment I've ever been a part of. Um but like it's super toxic and like eventually becomes not enjoyable because it's like this is the worst place on earth. Um, but like no matter, dude, like as long as you have as long as you legitimately like on your accessories just go to failure all the time and reasonably have some measurable progress week over week, month over month on barbells, uh no matter what you're doing, unfortunately, no matter what you're doing, it'll work, and that's why programming is so overrated. It's I think not even not overrated, but uh overcomplicated. Um you can get strong legitimately doing just I'm not even shitting you week one at six, week two at seven, week three at eight, week four at nine. And you just do that with just some rotating exercises, pick the right accessories that make sense for this lifter, you know, pick them in the sense that like A, they get bigger from it, B it challenges positioning, right? So like let's say somebody gets beat off the floor on deadlift, right? Because their back is weak. Well, let's do a chest supported incline dumbbell row. Wow, it's the same exact position and it gets their back stronger and their back gets bigger. Repeat this across all of your exercises. Um what do you know? The guy succeeds, and I think not to pick on like young coaches again, but like I think they really think it matters more than it does, and they try to do all this complicated, you know, switch like alternating RPE and volume week over week, and you know, try and be be concerned with their fatigue, and it's like, nah man, just give them, just give them some frequency, make sure they don't die. Like if they're if you find they're you know, you're you're having them bench five times a week right now, four times a week, and they're like, hey, my shoulders really hurt. Like, don't I think we know what we need to do, yeah. Um, but we're so resistant to like no, like this is how we have to program because this is what makes sense, and it's like you haven't ex you haven't seen anything else yet, and you don't know what actually like also works, and so like I have I have programs with guys ranging from like double SBD, like SBD one day, DBS the other day, and we do max separate dynamic effort on that, and then he has like either an upper lower or two full bodies, one full body, you know, of just bodybuilding stuff, and they're able to put like way more effort into their accessory stuff finally because they don't get done with their you know five by five deadlift, and they're like, I'm fucking I can't do this, and you have them go do rows, and they're like, I fucking I'm so fucked, versus just put it on a different day, and they're like, Oh, I got that. Never mind, I don't have to skip these now. Yeah, um, so you know, you got stuff like that, you got five three one principles, you've got Chico-based principles, you've got emergent strategies, um, of just running the same thing over and over again. You know, granted that hopefully the person is an actual art accurate RP user. Um, there's so many fun different methods. And uh, what's cool is like you could just pick somebody, you're like, I'm gonna try this. See what happens. I don't know. I don't fucking know. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Yeah, like it doesn't like, but it doesn't matter, it really doesn't. It's just like I don't know. I read about this again recently, it's sticking out in my brain. Seems like it worked, yeah. See what happens, and then if it doesn't work after three months, you're like, okay, well, we'll we'll try percents and then we'll try a different progression, we'll try pulling back on volume, we'll try upping volume, we'll do, you know, is this person actually sending their accessory videos? Um, because maybe they're fucking slacking off on that. It's like I wonder why you're not progressing. So you know, you got stuff like that. Um that's whatever pretty much it. That's why it pretty much comes back to you can give somebody the most dog shit, dog shit program. And uh if you do a little bit of research, uh go to the go to the website powerlifting to win, you'll see a whole record of all these ancient programs we used to run in the 2000s when we were trying to learn more about powerlifting programming, and um, you'll see tons of ones, like whether you heard of them or not, and you look at them and you're like, Oh, these are really, really simple. These are really, I didn't know I could do this. Um, but that's as long as you do it at 100%, you know, as long as you're recovering, um, as long as you're sleeping well, you're taking care of your gut health. Power lifters, you shouldn't have diarrhea every day. Um, you know, you shouldn't be blowing up toilets consistently. Like you should probably look at your gut health. And if you improve your gut health, again, that feeds right back into putting being able to put in more high effort because you know, you're pretty much instead of trying to haunt a civic of this with you know a doc four, um, we've got a supercar engine because our gut, our gut is is fucking like turbocharged, and then we can go actually run stuff high, you know, high volumes and high high frequencies, high intensities, and we can actually recover for it. Versus, you know, the one of the bigger complaints I see from mashed potato body powerlifters is like, well, this is too much volume, I can't do this. And it's like, I've seen what you eat, I've seen how you train, I see how much cardio you do, I see how fucking fat you are. Gee, I wonder why you can't recover.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, do you have any? I I know you I think you've like prepared something about gut health, and I don't want that to like go unseen. So um is it just like just whatever it is. If you need me to ask questions, have me ask questions. But if not, I want to hear about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So gut health is maybe when we think about like what causes adaptations to change. So like SRA curve model, right? Everything that plays into that for us to be able to have that upswing is are we recovering, right? So what goes into recovery? Sleep, diet, hydration, gut health, um, already mentioned sleep and uh training. Um all of those are what play into you know what our recovery needs are and how much better we can get week over week, month over month. So if you have somebody with very poor recovery, we can't give them a lot of training, right? And if you don't have a lot of training volume, we're not gonna get better faster. Versus if our, you know, let's say we got a sink and a very good somebody with very good recovery would have a much bigger hole. I can throw a ton of volume, I can throw a ton of intensity, or as little as I want, and they're gonna clear it, right? The big limiting thing that I see with a lot of power lifters is like, you know, they they talk about their shits. We're dudes, like you you see the guy that goes in the fucking you you know the guy that you don't go to the bathroom after because you know what he just fucking did. Um that guy has poor gut health. This guy's eating pizza and buttered bullshit and just all this shit, and just you know he's not, you know he's fucked inside. You know he's not eating fruits and vegetables, you know this guy has isn't having kefir, right? He's not having kimchi and sauerkraut, like he's not worried about these things. He'd be like, I've just I have fucking diarrhea, who gives a fuck, right? Yeah um, and so that's it's it's it's such a low barrier of entry to fix. And if you already eat relatively clean, which I found out after I got a bodybuilding coach, isn't that hard. Um, which also again makes me so fucking bad that I could have just been eating like this and my train could have been so much fucking better. I'm so fucking mad, dude. Um, so things that help our our our our gut health, right? Um pretty much eliminate everything, right? Anything that is in a package and it has like a label and it tells you the calories and all that, and like it has an agreement list. Like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be that fucking whole foods only guy. Like, I'm not gonna be that fucking dork. Um, but if you were to live by like a general principle of like what would help your gut health, um, it's that the reason like gut health ended up becoming so important to me um was last year or the year before I found out I had fibromyalgia. Um, and I was that's why I was constantly in pain. Um, and at the time I was having really bad gut issues, and so my wife is like, dude, you need to get a gut, you need you got to do a stool test. Did the stool test, came back forever, it was like five weeks, and found out I was in the bottom one percentile of gut health, it does a whole spectrum, and I was fucked. So I was like, and it gave me all these recommendations. It's tinyhealth.com. If any of you want to do it, I have no promo code, I have don't give a fuck. If you want to fix your gut and you think you're fucked, like, do that, do it. Um, it gave me all these recommendations and it gave me every supplement I had to take. And uh for a couple weeks I resisted it. I was like, I'm not gonna fucking listen, I'm gonna have a little bit of this, and nothing happened. And then followed it to the T for like a couple weeks, like a couple months, which was literally just dude, it this is how fucking easy it was. It was blueberries, raspberries, uh a kombucha, like every other day. Um I think a little bit of a little bit of uh greens, um, like uh leafy greens and uh fruits, and then vegetables were like just out, just fucking have something. So I chose uh zucchini. I can't have broccoli, like broccoli's totally out, zucchini, um, onions, peppers, and uh it was like something else, I think like snap peas. And follow it, follow it, follow it. Just you know, either potatoes or rice, steak and steak, chicken shrimp, eggs and potatoes, and like yogurt and blueberries, just again and again and again and again, and kimchi and and uh kimchi sauerkraut and all those. Like I was literally just putting on like 50 grams. Like, if you I know power lifters don't have fucking food scales because why would we do that?
SPEAKER_01I do actually. I do. I'm a I'm the minority.
SPEAKER_02If you get a food scale and you measure out how much 50 grams weighs, you're like, that's literally nothing. Yeah, that's literally nothing, it's untastable. Um, and you have that, and you're like, oh, damn it. That you so three times three times a day of just so little. Um and I would veer off the path a little bit, and immediately within three days, diarrhea. I was like, God fucking channel. Couldn't and it was like the thing I really wanted to have was uh the uh Chick-fil-A uh chicken nuggets, right? They're pretty like they're pretty good macros, so they're like a good fill-in if you don't have apparently a gut disease. Um, because I had like all this overgrowth and all this undergrowth of of bacteria and mostly overgrowth of bad bacteria. Um and then I started taking oral BPC, and that was a big help. And eventually, after months of having you know revolving allydenia and uh fibromyalgia symptoms where I'm just either my skin hurts or my joints hurt, or my everything hurts, it went away. And I was like, God fucking damn it. So now I have to follow a diet, and as a result, I get to look better. Like, damn. But um as absolutely it's my training and performance has improved significantly. Um, I think I mentioned that earlier. Um, every like quality of life is better. I have so much more energy, you know, that combined with like literally four times a week of 20 minutes of cardio. Yeah, and I just do it like after my session or before whatever I want to do. Um when I get back from our wedding and honeymoon, like I'm gonna do full-time jujitsu. So like cool. Now I get to make cardio fucking three hours of my life a day, um, instead of just zero.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so yeah, like I it did like and the gut healths tie in with like depression and anxiety and like a billion mental disorders. It it's clear as day. Um everything regarding insulin sensitivity again is I can't preach about how important that is as well. Um, just being more sensitive with estrogen and testosterone. Um, gut health, everything ties back to gut health. If your gut is fucked, you are fucked. Um but if you want to, you know, give it a turbo engine, you know, and you want to be the you if you are genuinely not just saying, I'm gonna be the best I can be, and then having no actions behind it, like why aren't you taking care of your gut health then? Why aren't you eating better? Um, you know, those are the people I like to kind of like dump on. No, you're just kind of saying about it, you're not actually being bad.
SPEAKER_01The DNBs. Yeah, DN, yeah, bitches. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I actually stole that from uh Rhonda Rousey. People don't remember her either, but she was a big part of my 20s.
SPEAKER_01Oh man. Or no. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02What was it? It was actually high school. It was like senior year.
SPEAKER_01And then there's like is that what she was like arm barring people every match?
SPEAKER_02Murder. Murdering pose. Yeah. And then uh she gets beat once, and then we're like, oh actually, we found out she's like terrible on her feet. That's why she only wins by arm bars.
SPEAKER_01Dang. Okay, man. Well, uh I can uh we can wrap this up. I'll I'll get you down here. Thank you so much for your time. I know what I know what he said about a half hour went for like an hour twenty. Awesome, man. Well um, yeah. You have a have a good rest of your night. Um we'll keep in touch. I mean,