Train. Eat. Think. Episode 4 - Bulking aka Muscle Building/Improvement Phase

Hosts Francis and Ben share insights on avoiding common "bulking" pitfalls, optimizing results through real life and science backed methods, having coached many clients through successful growth periods. 

This episode also explores the nuances of muscle building and the importance of having a strategy/guidelines and support for your improvement phase. 

We also go on to cover the importance of training, nutrition, cardio and mindset in optimising recovery and growth

For online 121 coaching enquiries/information

Please contact Francis on X/Instagram @coachfhm or email fmeliacoaching@gmail.com 

Contact Ben on X/Instagram @benjaminyeezus or email benyeezus@gmail.com  

Thanks for listening. See you next week :D 

Transcript

Transitioning from Diet to Improvement Phase

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Train, eat, think. Episode four. Bulkin Brah.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

We're back after a uh good episode three. Again, good uh good feedback from last week. We talk about the or we spoke about the diaphase, and now we're into the uh the bulk, mate. Well I know you don't like to call it bulk, you like to call it improvement season, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yeah, I I think um and we'll get into this. Um I think terminology is so very important here because it sets obviously. We talk about think as part of our podcast, it's really important how we think about things and the psychology. So when we talk about bulking, I think there's a lot of negative connotations again when people are coming out of the their cutting phase, and you think I've done all this hard work and I'm gonna go and you know get really sloppy, and I think muscle improvement or a muscle focused building phase, something like that, because I I see, and again we'll get into this the improvement phase is still being on again. It's not off season, which a lot of people like to call it. This is where you grow, this is the real important stuff, this is where you're spending a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort, you know, that delayed gratification that we're going to cover. This is where this is where the magic happens, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, absolutely. Uh I always say, and this is what what when I'm transitioning a client from a a diaphase into a build phase, I always tell them that this this building phase, this is this is the most important piece because this is now the golden opportunity to lay down new muscle tissue. You've set the stage from you know having a successful diaphase, going through all the months and the hard graph that you've got to got you get yourself where you're at now. You don't want to you know piss that away by being sloppy on a on a building phase. And you know, speaking from like even personal experience, mate, and I'm sure you have yourself, I've I've messed up on gaining phases, I've gotten too fat, I've made every mistake under the sun that you could make with a gaining phase. So I and I've also had successful gaining phases, so I know, and I know you do as well, I know what not to do and the best way to approach it. I've seen clients go finish a diet phase and and enter a build phase, and I've I've I've seen people do it tremendously well, and I've also seen people go down similar um rabbit holes and things that always skip people up. So yeah, it'll just be it'd be very good to delve into the weeds here of you know what we can do to help people.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah, I mean, having been coached by Jordan Peters for nearly seven years, I only get into trouble once, and I got into trouble for when I was exiting one of my I'd done a contest prep and gone into it. I was having steak and eggs for breakfast, and I somehow managed to transition that to um Oreos for breakfast, having a competition

The Importance of a Structured Improvement Phase

SPEAKER_01 3:08

classic how many I could fit in my mouth, and the the record was seven, and that was me being influenced by social media at the time. People were buying hampers full of pop-tarts and stuff, and I'm an advocate of of um you know balance and having a little bit of something, but I took it too far and I ended up putting on 18 pounds and something like I think it was 12 days, so much so I got put back on cardio because I thought I was basically invincible and I was never gonna accrue any body fat again. It even got to the point I couldn't walk 500 yards without stopping because of the pain and my calves and my lower back. So, yeah, exactly as you said, I I I've made those mistakes and something I'm really keen for for people that are exiting the the dieting phase. You know, you've put a lot of work, you've put a lot of effort into that, building um habits that's gonna serve you well as as you move into the the improvement phase. It's just the same set of principles, really, and what you need to do is stay locked in in them and keep your focus because it's one of the things that is really going to drive um drive progress through a number of weeks. We've got a lot of time ahead, and we want a lot of time ahead to have a successful improvement phase. And what happens as well is the more that you can sort of delay the gratification now at the at the start of your improvement phase, the longer runway you're giving yourself that you don't need to do and fall into this eight-week bulk, six-week cut, which is a a common mistake as we see people talking about online.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

So I I think it's it's very, very important then, isn't it, to get people to manage the exit and strategy out of the diet phase. So we finished the cut. We've got someone's got stage lean, beach lean, photo shoot, ready, or you know, just 10% body fat. Wherever your end point is, obviously there's a little bit different coming off stage. But let's say someone gets to 10% body fat. We touched slightly on it last week about you know potentially raising calories right to maintenance when you finish a diet phase, just makes sense. The diet's done. Get yourself back where you're recovering, you're well fed, you're in a you're in a decent spot. But you know, we're all human, you know. There is when you finish a diet phase, there's probably been something that you've been eyeing up or a meal that you've wanted to eat, you know, whether you've wanted to go out to a certain restaurant with your missus or you know, with your family or whatever, you've been eyeing something up. I think it's important to give people the option, you know, when when they finish a diet phase, look, if you want to go out and have a good meal,

Managing Post-Diet Eating Habits

SPEAKER_00 5:51

you know, it doesn't it doesn't mean mean going out and eating everything on the menu and to the point that you can't move. It doesn't mean that. But you know, go out, you know, enjoy a good dinner with someone, go to go to a restaurant, whatever it is, maybe a good breakfast the next day, you know, and and just get right back to regular meals, then regular plan. Don't turn it into right, diet is done. I'm just gonna try and cram as many Oreos in my gob as I can over the next couple of days, you know what I mean? So I think there's the there's the balance. You know, O do you have a cakes? It's easy. But yeah, it's that balance, isn't it? You know, go out, enjoy a good meal, whatever it might be, maybe a little bit of dessert, get yourself up the next day, a nice breakfast that you've wanted, and then bang, back on plan. There we go. Don't turn it into a week of chaos because then you will only again, you don't want to be 18 pounds up, you know, 10-12 days after you're sort of uh you're reversing out. So I'm sure you'd agree with that, giving someone the option to have some sort of meal like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Absolutely, bang on, mate. And that's exactly what I try and say um for for the best, like like that. Go out at night and have something with your family, enjoy it, and maybe have uh again, you know, obviously here in the UK, the old breakfast is really um sought after, but go and have a nice breakfast, and then you know, we start the the road to um you know the the starting the improvement phase by that time calories already coming straight back up to maintenance, as you mentioned, the diet's done. There's no point in sitting and bringing it up 50 calories per week. All you're doing there is extending potentially the fatigue that you've built up. We did touch on last week, you know, we're we're trying to avoid that, but it does come, you know, it comes in different guises to different levels for different people, and it might be that until you get out and start sort of trying to grow again, um, you might not realise just maybe how fatigued you were. And one thing I think as well that's really important to mention, and why we're talking about delayed gratification, you're in a great spot that you've earned and built by cutting down to let's say, you know, that 10-10% um body fat level, 10-12% maybe. You're also then in a fantastic spot to accrue a lot of body fat at that point in time because our bodies aren't designed, we're pushing them against what they're designed for, which is we want more muscle, less body fat, whereas all of the years of of evolution and stuff like that is looked towards um keeping body fat on because you don't really need muscle tissue, because that's what keeps you alive. Um, you know, if if there was ever a time of famine, we don't get that so much now. But I think it's really important to state that because, again, feeding into what we're talking about, pathing the pun, um, you know, you you've got a great opportunity there to create a great runway, but you don't want to go right off the handle too quickly.

The Golden Window for Muscle Gain

SPEAKER_00 8:58

And you'll also know yourself, like when when you do reverse out and you get those calories up instantly, like training just takes a massive boost, and you're in such a it's like a window, isn't it? Of a couple of months post post-diet, like you're in such a great spot to lay down your muscle tissue, you're very, very sensitive to it. You're very again, your insulin sensitivity is is is high. Your ability to utilise and shuttle the food that you're bringing in now, like you're in such a good spot. Your training performance, like you come out of the arse end of a deficit there, you know, you're being running on empty, and now bang, we bring this this extra food in, and your training performance just goes through the roof. Your ability to to make substantial like steps forward in your physique, that those first eight to twelve weeks post-diet, it's it's a great window. And again, you don't want to mess that up by you know, if you if we've tried to raise food maintenance slight surface, you know, and all of a sudden you're just blowing over excessively, and you you just you're just ruining that runway, and the potential for you to accrue as much butter tissue as you can in this phase is just drops off because you're shorter than that window, so it's a very, very uh it's it's a golden phase, mate, isn't it? When you come out of that diet phase, it really is. It's the opportunity that you've got, and that's what you don't want to waste it.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

I mean, we we we spoke, I think it was on last week's um podcast where we said a cut is is just uh about improvement phase with less chicken and rice, and your improvement season is in essence that is just more food that's more chicken and rice. We're being a little bit funny, facetious there, but you know what we are saying is the food that you've had and your and your deficit, you are going to get more of that. Uh I I know using myself, I I used an example there where I was eating Pop Tarts and Oreos, that was many, many years ago, and and and I fell down that social media influencer um rabbit hole. When I competed in 2024, I came off the stage from one of my competitions, and and uh hands down, one of my clients actually came to the show with me and brought me home. I had a salad, Francis, because I wanted one, I could have anything I wanted, made a choice. I literally had a sat and ate a salad because like that's all I want for now. All I was really craving my entire cup was an extra 25 grams of oats. So that just learning about that, you know, uh controlling how you're bringing up the foods, but also as well how you're keeping the quality foods in because having that density in your nutrients, again, yes, we're not suggesting that you need to eat solely whole food and never have anything, you know, you're gonna transition into um your improvement phase, and there's gonna be a B cup of um a B biscuit with your cup of tea or your coffee or whatever. Nobody's saying that that can't happen, but what we are saying is you want to build it around all of that great work that you've done in the deficit, um, around again the habits you've created, the food sources, and uh one thing as well I want to just chuck in is um cardio.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Cardio,

Nutritional Choices During Improvement Phase

SPEAKER_00 12:07

oh we we definitely will get into that one, very important. But what you're saying there, mate, about when you're reversing out on your food choices, I think people get this wrong, and I think a lot of it comes back to it's it's the old uh if it fits your macros approach again. It's that you know, you give let's say someone's raised calories up to maintenance and someone's got an extra five, six hundred calories to play with, you know, all of a sudden they're like a pardon the point again, they're like a kid in the candy stuff, they're like, whoof, what can I how can I stretch these extra five, six hundred calories now with uh you know bullshit food coming in because I've been starved for so long, and that's the wrong way to approach it. It's as you say, you know, if we've been eating chicken and rice, potatoes, fruits and veggies, all that good stuff, it's more of the same stuff. It is just more of the same stuff. Your carbs will more than likely come up, so it'll be more white rice, more things like potatoes, more fruit. Don't be bringing in excess of bullshit food that then just wreaks havoc on your whole digestive system because, as we spoke about before, then the nutrients that you take on, it's only as good as what you can digest. So if you're coming out of a diet phase, getting into a building phase, you're in such a sensitive spot. Bringing in bullshit food at this point that your body can't digest makes absolutely no sense. It's just only gonna hold you back. You know, you're not gonna be able to digest the foods, you're probably gonna have a lot of sort of uh digestive issues like acid reflux, you know, diarrhea, whatever it might be. I've seen it happen. So again, just be smart with your food choices, just keep the same stuff that you've been eating, just in more quantities, and it's just gonna make that transition a lot smoother. And that's what you want. You want a nice, smooth transition from your diet into your building phase, and then you're after races now.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

I mean, absolutely. Keep keeping those foods the same because there's probably going to be a period where you've locked into like certainly if you're if you're on your cut and you're reducing things like decision fatigue, adding in another layer to it, like if you're a bodybuilder going to stage, you know, the last 10 weeks, all that's going on basically is the same type of food. You might swap your veggies out, you might rotate from chicken to turkey breast or something like that, you know. But all all your sort of staples will be there. The less decisions that you're making, the easier it's making it for you. But one of the things we want to do when we're talking about getting muscle tissue on is the aesthetic in essence and getting stronger in our training. We're asking our body to do a lot of things when we're going into the gym and you know we're we're working hard, we're tearing down, we're looking to rebuild. That's where we need to focus on nutrients to give our bodies the best possible chance of recovery to doing what we're asking for from it and to keep us getting stronger, to keep us recovering, so that in essence, you know, as we talk about frequency and our training, so that we can get recovered and go back in again within you know three to four days.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I

Recovery and Training Performance

SPEAKER_00 15:10

think that's one of the big things, isn't it? When when you've gone from being in a deficit, you know, obviously towards the end, you're not going to be recovering in between your sessions as well as you can. So when we reverse out, food comes up to maintenance, that slight surplus, all of a sudden your recovery goes up. Your capacity to recover from the bouts of stimulus, your sessions, it just goes up. So you start seeing maybe some of these uh progressions in plus ones and performance coming up rapidly, you're feeling strong as a bull in there, and again, it all feeds in with okay, just enough food to allow this to happen. Eat to your needs. This is what I always get across the clients eat to your needs, not to your appetite. That's a very that's a good one. Because if you eat, you know, if we eat to our appetite meet, I I had these five, six thousand calories daily, no problem, but I'd turn into the uh the mitular man in about a month, so you know you've got to be careful. You you eat to your sort of digestive needs, what your body needs to progress you forwards in your training, body weight and scale weight taking up, which uh which you we will get into.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yeah, I mean the other thing that's that's just sort of popped into my head when you're talking about that, Francis, is when you've reduced body fat, you reduce with it, you know, some things like synovial fluid around your joints and stuff like that. So, one of the things to be you know very wary about when you're coming out of the gate and you're feeling strong, and and I I've had this conversation with a couple of clients as well, you might feel stronger on some days, like you feel like you could put another plate on, for example, and you've just come out of the dieting phase. Don't just take some time. You might feel that you're kind of holding back a little bit, and that's fine. There's going to be room there to then grow into improvement season again, pardon the pun, but it's just that protection around the joints and the tendons and stuff, because we do need a little bit of coverage around them, especially if you're taking body fat levels down, you know, towards that 10, even sub-10%.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, well, it makes total sense, and I think you you'd probably be better at that stage taking an extra repo or two with the same weight versus trying to put more load, especially when you are a little bit susceptible and you are a little bit lower body fat, as you mentioned, the protection around the joints. And it just makes sense because we've got to think long term with an improvement phase or a building phase. Ideally, if it's gonna last a good 10, 11, 12 months, you know what's being patient with having weight for maybe three, four weeks, and we're just chasing some extra reps. You you're only going to extend the runway versus getting overzealous, coming out, blasting extra plates on, all of a sudden you get a little bit of a tweak, and there's there's improvement phase, you know, it's halted before you've even got started, and that would be you know not disaster, but that's the last thing that you want. So, yeah, it's a it's a great point that you make.

Long-Term Focus in Improvement Phase

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that ruins progress more than than being injured. I know that a lot of people have like slight niggles here and there, but again, we need to put on that sort of hat where we're like we need to always think of what the long term is. It might feel good in the short term, and and we spoke before on on Spacey's Francis at length about one rep maxis. You know, this isn't the time to focus on strength as a sole metric. Yes, it's going to get better, but you want it to get better probably in the you know, eight very, very early doors. I would say in the 10 to 12 rep range, as you're coming out into the weeks and the months. Again, you've made a great point, Francis, that an improvement phase can last up to 12 months if you do it right. You know, you don't want this six weeks uh I bulked or shit, I've gone too far over, I need to I need to get into a cut again. Because that's not giving you the time to develop your lifts to sit with the same levels of of stability and stuff like that to make sure that you're getting those those runs. And again, if you've got a niggle, or worse still, you know, you you injure something, then you've taken yourself just out of the process. And everything that you've worked for in the cut, again, for me, it's a it's a it's a constant cycle really of improvement, isn't it? You you're doing the cut with the intention that you're going to come back into doing your improvement phase to get more muscle in so that when you come back in the cut, you look better and bigger. And if you've got that stop-start sort of nature because you're fighting against niggling injuries and stuff like that, and and I do get that they happen sometimes without that, but what we're trying to get at here is we can be in as much control as we can because we're controlling the ego, we're keeping the technique, we're focused less again on a number, which is maybe like in your logbook, or again what you're feeling on a particular day. It's just about realizing and seeing what's down the line and thinking six, nine months ahead. Yes, be in the moment and and enjoy it and enjoy the day-to-day, but you're always thinking about that what's coming down the line, so I can I can be there for the long term.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

I I think you make a great point about like the process orientation of a building phase, and I do think that's where a lot of people struggle. Now, we spoke in the past about let's say die phases, you see a physique change weekly. You see, you know, right now where you're at right now, mate. You know, you're you're 20 days left of the cut, you're seeing changes every day. You know, it's it's you're getting rewarded for the suffering, so to speak. You know, you get to see it every day, don't

Setting Goals and Timelines for Gains

SPEAKER_00 20:51

you? When you're in a building phase, as we know, you don't see visual changes weekly. You really don't. It's it's it's very, very few and far between. So you'd have to detach from detach from the look, so to speak. It come becomes process oriented about what's happening on the gym floor. That's that that's very, very, very important. And then that ties in with your process. Am I doing everything outside of the gym? Which is then allow me to step forward inside the gym. So, you know, your your same sleep and wake times, your meal timing throughout the day, your nutrient partitioning, everything that you're doing with your food, your training time. Because a lot of people go from being so dialed in on a diet phase, you've seen it yourself, people have it so structured, you don't miss a beat, and all of a sudden it's a building phase, and they and they just think, Oh, I'm only bulking now. It it doesn't uh it doesn't matter. I'm gonna take my eye off the ball. And I think this is where you really see someone's commitment to the process, the long term process. You really see what they think about it in a build phase. I think diet phases are easy in comparison to a build phase because of the reasons we spoke there. You don't See a visual change week to week in a build phase, and that's tough for a lot of people. I think that's what a lot of people struggle with. Is they're not rewarded instantly right away for the hard graph at the bottom in. You know, you can go a month and you can hardly see your physique change at all, but you're looking at your what's going on with me with my training performance. Am I nailing my day to day? Are my stacking good days? That's end of a good week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, and then you're process-oriented. Then we're thinking, okay, if I stack these weeks for 40, 50 weeks in a row, not getting injured, not doing anything stupid, nailing me process. That's what a build phase is all about. Yes, you take your check-in shots week to week, of course, they're important. We keep an eye on the visual, but it's not the whole focus of a building phase. Your sole focus is what's happening inside the gym, and I think that's a big important distinction to make for a lot of people is that don't get wrapped up in the visual on a build phase, get wrapped up in your performance.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

I mean, you've had you've hit the nail on the head, mate. That delayed gratification that we're talking about, you know, the metrics change, we need to move away. Yes, we're still taking our check-in pictures, those are absolutely essential, you know. I I've been myself in improvement phases that have lasted up to two years. Because for me, and I'm gonna use the sort of um I forget the name of the term now, you know, like ectomorph, endomorph type. Yeah, I know that they've been, you know, sort of disproven, but when when we speak about when you say it, people can relate to to what type of bodies you're talking about. And being a classic kind of ectomorph myself, I started at like 143 pounds or something, and I've gone up in my last improvement phase. I ended at 230 in a very good spot. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't really, I hadn't blown out my waist a lot. I was in I was in good shape. So that's like a you know, like an 80 pound swing, something like that. What's how's my maths three weeks out? Um 140 to 230. That's nearly 90 pounds

Understanding Body Composition Changes

SPEAKER_01 24:04

of a swing.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, yeah, 90 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

That that comes from me being in certain I I've always done a two-year type where it's like in two years' time I want to look, I want to to do this so that I look like that the next time, and it's always got better. So from that is where I've sort of accrued the 70 pounds of muscle because I'm into my 13th year now of doing this, and that's why I understand the delayed gratification because it's slow, it is slow, and it's like, well, what's the other thing is what's the alternative? You know, you you can't speed it up, so to speak. You know, you're you're limited by your own genetics, where you are in your journey, which I think is another important point that we can probably come back to, Francis, when we're talking about journeys. If it's someone that's embarking on their first improvement season, you can't compare that to maybe somebody who's who's already carried out four or five of them. You can look to them for inspiration. I think that's important to say, but what you've got to be really careful of is that you don't draw a comparison because we're all on our own journey, and when we're setting out, you know, almost like the longer that you can get in your improvement phase, when it comes the time to strip it back again, if you've done everything that we're sort of speaking about here, and again I use myself as an example. I I know that I've always given what I can in terms of as you alluded to, I stay in the same sort of routine. I I'm just a routine person, I just love it. I do the same thing seven days a week, I get up at the same time, and all of that sort of good stuff. I eat at the same time. Another thing we can touch on is like our pre-workout meal, how important it is when when we're coming into you know having energy to train. But it's about staying in the process and as you say, become process-oriented for a long time. Get get used to it basically.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, and I I think I I think the building phase, mate, I think the that initial reversal out, you've got to set your your numbers and your timeline. I think that's very important because if you don't, I think that's where people get lost in the woods. They come off a diaphase and it's just, oh yeah, it's a gaining phase now. What what does that really mean? We need to sort of try and get some metrics on that. And this is something, this is a mistake, and again, I I'm always I'm I'm always open to making mistakes and learning, and this is one that I've made in the past is that I never when I when I had finished the diet phase in years gone by, I'd never ever map out a timeline. I'd never map out a rate of gain. I used to just just bring me food up and just whatever, whatever happens. And you know, over the I'd say last five, six years, every diet phase that I've finished now, there's always a timeline mapped out. I finish my di phase on X month, whatever that is, and I'm mapping out the next nine, ten, eleven, twelve months of gain, rate of gain per month, and what we're looking for, setting a maximum cap of body weight. I'm not gonna let it get above this, and we're gonna we're gonna rein it in sort of around that 0.5 to 1% of body weight per month. So setting a timeline out up front, you set your stall out. This is what you where you've got to be honest with yourself when you go, right, this is what I'm gonna stick to. Obviously, there might be some months where you might be a little bit over, might be a little bit under the next month, but you you're in, you're in that range, and that's where you've got to be honest with yourself, and you'll know that if you're fucking up and you you know you're coming over and you're you're meant to be one kilo for the month and you're up two and a half kilo, you know that you need to rein it in. Something is off with your process, and then that's gonna shorten your runway. So I think it's very important to get a timeline up front, which is gonna stretch nine, ten, eleven months, so it keeps you accountable.

The Myth of Main Gaining

SPEAKER_00 27:47

That's what I've done with a lot of the clients that have had the most successful bulk with of late. We set a timeline out up front, and we're always checking our numbers against that, where are we at, how are we feeling with our training, how we feeling digestion-wise, just how we're feeling day to day. But having that timeline there, that's your that's the guardrails. That is massive, instead of just going, yeah, we're just gonna push 40 pounds and see what happens. Like if you if you you know, if you have that timeline, it's just gonna be a little bit more accurate and it just stops you from becoming the Mitchellum. So I think it's very important to get those timelines up front.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

One thing um I just think maybe be worth talking about, Francis, when we're talking about you know, cutting back in and then and going back into improvement season on that sort of cycle, each time you do it, it'll look slightly different because you'll need to get a little bit heavier so that when you come back in, a percentage, as we're talking about, a percentage of what you gain will be body fat. There's no there's no getting away from that. And I want to be crystal clear. You know, we're not talking here about men gaining, right? That that's it's nonsense. You'll get a newbie bump. So if someone's new to the gym or someone's coming back from a period um where they haven't lifted for a long time, but they've been trained in the past. The the rules basically don't apply to them as much as it will to people that have maybe been lifting, would you say two two years plus maybe three?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah, probably you know, it's like genetics aside, like someone might be able to stretch it out a little bit longer, someone might go through after 12 months, and then you know they're quite advanced. It depends on the person, but roughly, yeah, like once or two years of well-structured training, someone can recomp main gain around that, but that's not gonna last forever. You know, imagine me and you're trying to main gain, it's just it's not happening.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

I mean the the the the the the comparison that I always draw down on is to look at professional bodybuilders. They they do it, they push out, they they um they put on body weight. If it was possible, do you not think that these guys who are professional that their livelihoods depend on it, why would they waste an ounce of effort or in a period of time? That that for me is like the ultimate, you know, kind of telltale sign, as in why would why do we do this? And it kind of it's one of those ones that gets me a little bit um angry because I think it's disingenuous to say to people, no no no, you can grow 50 calories of a surplus per week. Muscle tissue is expensive. We spoke earlier about how we're pushing against what our bodies are designed to do. They don't really want muscle tissue, it's why we've got to fight to keep protein at a certain level, it's why we've got to do the activities that we do to force um you know, in our resistance training to force the adaptation. This adaptation doesn't come naturally to the body. We're doing something that it absolutely detests, in all honesty. Your body's main thing is to keep you alive and to keep you re recovering in terms like cell regeneration, all that sort of good stuff. It's not really interested about do you look good on the beach with a nice six pack? So that's why you're pushing back against everything that the body likes, and that's why we need to do do what we do.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

You could have just maintained your weight mate from 140 to 200 plus pounds, you know, over the last 10 years. What have you been doing all the time? It's just uh it's yeah, it's some of the some of the stuff that you see about um main gaining, I think it's it's just meant to to cause a stare in the space because we've got eyes, right? We we we we know what works. You know, this is not us just being big dinosaurs and you never being open to new information, but as you've said, there if you've got professional bodybuilders or professional top athletes who do this for a living, this is their career, they're slowly gonna push out body weight and then they're gonna diet back down and be left with more muscle tissue. That is the most effective way to accumulate as much muscle tissue as possible. Now, can you still maingain and build some muscle? You probably could, but are you gonna maximize your progress? Absolutely not, and that's what we're getting out of here. If you're trying to maximize your muscular potential, you're not gonna get there by main gaining. So spending your time in your slight surface, and look, we're not telling anyone to get fat as fuck, we're just not, right? I think there's there's there's there's there's three ways to look at it. You don't want to be this person who tries to main gain and you're trying to stay too lean year round because you're just sabotaging your progress. So you don't want to be starting to stay too lean. Then you also don't need to be having these 60-70 pound pushes where you're just you know you're going to a Chinese buffer every weekend and then you know you're just going absolutely nuts and your scale weight is coming off two kilo a week, you know. We don't need to do that. There's a middle ground to be at. It's setting your again, it comes back to your rate of gain. You set your timeline 0.51% per month, and you just steadily push your body weight up from a lean start point. And if we accumulate 20, 25, 30 pounds over a year,

The Main Gain: Building Muscle and Losing Fat

SPEAKER_00 33:23

yes, when it comes time to diet down, you know, we know how easy it is to lose body fat. You can you can drop any of that accumulated body fat from a year's gaining phase, you could drop that body fat, what, 10, 12 weeks pretty easy and be left with your new muscle tissue. So when you zoom out and you look, okay, a 12 month improvement phase, a three-month diet, there's 15 months that you spent building muscle tissue to then diet back down and be left with more net muscle tissue, that will leave you with more muscle tissue versus someone who would have spent those exact same 15 months trying to fucking main gain, just spinning his wheels. That's the way you've got to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

I mean, and interestingly, I I did a little bit of research on talking about um building muscle in a caloric deficit, as we've touched on, you know, applies to people that are brand new to the gym. We we've spoken about that in in in episode one, about how uh a newbie or a beginner have got you know so much runway in front of them that they could get it so wrong and still make great progress. It's when you start to get into you

Navigating Caloric Deficits and Muscle Maintenance

SPEAKER_01 34:30

know one, two, three years of lifting that then the the the goalposts shift a little bit. And when you're in a caloric deficit, yes, you will build muscle tissue, but the caveat being, and this is the thing that doesn't get explained, your rate of breakdown doesn't match the rate of creation. Again, as we've touched on, muscle tissue is expensive, the body doesn't want it. So, again, we've spoken about our training and and uh good quality food to try and maintain as much muscle as we can in a deficit, maintain being the accurate word. So, one of the things I just wanted to get across on on that, because it's something I've always seen, read, and struggled with, and thought again it's disingenuous, in my opinion. You're not building muscle in a calorie deficit, otherwise, we'd all just sit there. Why would we bother? We've used the professional bodybuilder as as a as the the the yardstick there. Why are they going to bother? It's a waste of their time, it's a waste of their effort. And I think as well, part of what we're here to do, Francis, when we when we're coaching people, we're trying to help people avoid pitfalls, making the mistakes. And I think uh again, uh this is why we got on so well. You've you've said there that there's there's a common sense middle ground, there is there's black and white thinking everywhere, you know. That's that's what online has become. But when you go right down the middle and you just talk about common sense and logic and you apply it and you go step back for a second and think, just think about how you can't build muscle in a deficit overall. Why do you need a surplus of food to do that? And and it becomes clear, and again, that's something that I've always enjoyed in your content, Francis.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Uh you

The Myth of Building Muscle in a Deficit

SPEAKER_00 36:23

know, it likewise means I think we that's that's why we get on so well. Is as we say, there's no uh there's no bollocks for it. It's there's no sort of you know, we're not we're not trying to stay the pot, we are just trying to give it straight down the middle. And I think the reason people get confused with this is because you know, you you see an influencer, and what everybody wants to build muscle and not get fat. Everybody, we all want to do that. That's what we're all trying to do. Like we're you know, when we go through our improvement phases, we've spent all this time to diet down. We want to stay as lean as we can and build muscle tissue. If we could have it our way, mate, we build 30 pounds of muscle tissue in a year and no body fat, but it doesn't work like that, you know. Otherwise, we we all would have found a way to do that. So the the play on this main game and go, you don't need to do that, you can build all the muscle tissue and strength that you need and not get any body fat. So they just they've they they just put this bullshit out there to people. It's like it's like this, it's very similar to you know, you're gonna take some fat loss pills and you're gonna drop 30 pounds in six weeks. The the dangling the carrot of bollocks in front of people, and everyone's just choosing the you know the the least path of resistance, so to speak. So yeah, it's just you've got to you you've got to use your eyes, haven't you? What what what what what what have we seen successful people do? Slowly push the body weight up and diet back down, and and no one is saying uh get fat.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

I'm just laughing because I've even watched videos on when the when people are talking about mangaining, they're talking about being at maintenance calories. Um maintenance equals maintenance, maintenance equals maintain. But what I find really funny in some of the videos is they go, yeah, you eat at maintenance, but you eat at maintenance in a 200 calorie surplus. That's not maintenance, mate. And and and this is and this is this is kind of why I'm laughing, because I think sometimes, you know, as we're always doing, Francis, we're not closed-minded, but we we said in in in the opening of the podcast that's in there, you know, we're here and I I've made mistakes, I've changed my mind on things, if I've been presented with evidence, or I've learned it through through coaching someone, or I've learned it through my own experience, I'm big enough to put my hand up and go, I've got enough now that I can say this is is is actually false or has been proven to be false. And obviously, as science develops, and not just science, but what you're doing in the field and and learning through working with a plethora of people across different types of goals, whether that's I want to look good on the beach, I've got my wedding coming up, all that sort of stuff. You know, we're willing to learn, and I think it's really important to get that out. That there's there's just some so much horseshit out there that basically people are chucking it out for like clicks and views.

The Importance of Common Sense in Fitness

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yeah, it's it is mate, it's it's it's social media, isn't it? It's it black and white thinking, big headlines, that's what gets the clicks, that's what gets the views, and that's what we go on with this podcast. We want to delve into the weeds with it, and I think it's the middle ground, if the middle ground doesn't sell on on um on social media. If you if you want to talk nuance, it doesn't sell to people, but it's what people need to understand to develop your sort of education moving down the road with all this stuff. So I think with bulking or gaining phases, people think bulking and getting fat. People picture that you know, a picture of Lee Priest back in the day with a big KFC bucket or whatever, the Jay Cutler, and he he looks uh excessively fat on the table. If you've seen that photo, people think that people think gaining phases means getting fat and

Understanding Bulking: The Middle Ground

SPEAKER_00 40:15

it's Chinese buffies and cakes, and it's not that. That's what people need to get out their head. It's not that, it's never been that, and then it's not trying to stay shredded year round, it's that middle ground. And you know what you're saying there about I maintenance, which is uh 200 calories above maintenance, that that's not maintenance, that's the slight surface that we're talking about. That's what that's what we're saying. You all you need a couple of hundred over your maintenance, slow and steady, you're well fed, you're well fuelled, and you're slowly pushing your body weight up, which will tend to be an arm that's 0.5 to 1% of uh body weight per month. So that's that's what we're saying to people.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I think one of the biggest challenges as well, if you've got maybe like a lifestyle client that's maybe dropped I don't know, 50, 70 plus pounds, you know, they've come from a place where maybe over time they've accrued a lot of body fat, maybe went into a place where they were very, very unhappy, whatever the reason was that they they got to there, and how obviously you know, we're trying to help them make the difference with the sustainable habits and the changes and stuff like that. And we're trying to show people how you can actually eat more food, but if we use uh whole foods, nutrient-dense sources, it doesn't in essence feel like you're you're in a in a diet in that sense, and then as as we mentioned, when you're coming back out, you're just getting more quality food in. But what that does is when you've been through that journey, your mindset's changed, and a lot of people, and and I I understand that I've worked with enough people now to fully understand that they don't want to go back to the person that they were. I I don't either. I don't want to go back to being tent stone in my life, that's just my choice. I don't want to. So I understand it might be coming from the opposite um direction, the opposite end of the scale, but I understand where people are coming from in terms of that, and again, what we're trying to get across is it's not gonna just like getting shredded doesn't happen overnight. When we're when we're talking about what we're talking about now, with applying the logic and the common sense and the pathway and and a plan and and you know, a timeline, all of these things are gonna help guide you nice and steadily to exit where you've been and to go comfortably and enjoy the the metrics that change, you know, getting PBs in your training, feeling energized, you know, you know yourself, Francis, you've been there. You just get to a spot where it's like I'm in a sweet spot here, I've got confidence in my training because I'm gonna. And last week, you know, I I curled 10 kgs and it was 12 reps and it was really good. So this week I'm going to try 12.5. And these are the things that are setting people up for success because if you've got everything like that going well, you've got the mindset and the focus, just there's there's so many good things you can say about it, it's just so positive, which is another thing, obviously, that we we want to bring to the table.

Finding Your Fight Weight: The Ideal Zone

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I like to call this zone where you are now, where you're saying where everything's in a good spot, like your training is flying, you know, your digestion is good, your food's high, it's in a good spot. I like to call this people's fight and weight. You know it, you know what I mean? You know, when you get to that spot where you're not too lean, you're not sucked down, but you're not you're not fat, you're just you're at your nice sort of set point that I like to call it. It's like a fight, a boxer's weight. You're like a nice, you're at you're at your sort of fight and weight when you step in the ring on fight night, you're you're full, you're energized, your digestion's good, your training, your performance are spot on. And spending uh a night A solid time in this fight and weight zone, like that's that that's that's what it's all about. Progressing inside the gym, having your digesting, your recovery on point, and allowing the adaptations to stack you know over these months and months and months, being at your fight and weight. That's what a successful gaining phase is is all about. So everything that we can do in our in our favour to keep that as on point as possible, that's what we want. Which that takes me on to a pitfall that people fall down. A big mistake that people make on a gaining phase, and I'm sure you've seen this as well. It's it's too many off-plan meals. So, like the weekly surplus, you know, every Saturday or Sunday, you know, the two big meals coming. So we've we've set

Avoiding Pitfalls in Gaining Phases

SPEAKER_00 44:44

that that that surplus that we want Monday to Friday and the spot on. All of a sudden, you know, hell breaks loose to get a little bit more sloppy on the tracking of the nutrition. And all of a sudden, you've done like a big, big excessive surplus on a Saturday or Sunday together, and your rate of gain it starts coming up now excessively, where you've been spot on Monday to Friday, and then bang, you're having these big excessive boluses of surpluses, and that can then shorten your windows. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen that plenty of times as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Yeah, I mean, one one of the things, you know, when when we're in a deficit, as much as we talk about supporting the social occasions, there might be more of you're going out and you're ordering, you know, the uh chicken and rice, you know, like a baked potato and and something like that, you know, something that you know. I think was it you, Francis, that you you went out, was it was it last week or two weeks ago? You went out and and had Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Yeah, went went to a steakhouse, yeah. And I ordered the filler steak and the uh the boiled potatoes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

So these are the choices, obviously, you know, as we mentioned, you're uh is it six weeks now or seven weeks into your your own deficit? Um these are the choices, and that still allows you to be social when you're out and and you're in that period of of being in a caloric deficit. And one of the things I would say as well is there's nothing wrong with doing that as well when you're in your surplus about keeping that lid on and saying just because and and I think as well that comes back to the terminology it's not off season, it's not a bulk. Everything that you're doing, and again, I'm not saying that you can never enjoy food with your family, we're not saying that at any point in time, but what we're saying is is more often than not, can you go out and just make a decent order? Don't get me wrong, could be a special birthday, it could be whatever, it could be a graduation, it could be anything. If you want to go out at some point and just enjoy a meal and don't care really how many calories, don't track it. It was a meal, I had it, I'm right back to it the next day. You know, one of the one of the things that I really like when I see it posted um online, and I and a lot of different coaches use this one, and I think it's fantastic. Don't miss twice. And I think that's really, really good for keeping people on trend and on track because you go out, you have your meal, you can maybe even share a dessert, for example. Just because you've got the food there or the calories doesn't mean that you need to then overshoot buy them. Again, if you've got a special occasion, have at it, enjoy it, but make sure that you're getting back to it the next day and and you're giving your body, as we've said, mostly you know, on that sort of 80-90% tip of what you're asking your body to do for recovery, for training and stuff like that. So don't get too embroiled in that pitfall. And I think I'm a big fan from what I've sort of experienced, it really helps people because in their mind they're saying, Well, everything I'm trying to do just benefits me in terms of my journey because, again, as I've said, this is a lot of time and effort. And one of the things for me, even before I became a coach, and and obviously when I got into coaching, I don't want people to make the same mistakes that I made. I spent five years spinning my wheels because I believed all these these myths like don't eat after six o'clock and all of that. So, what I'm what I'm trying to say there is I'm trying to stop people from making the mistakes that they can feed into lifestyle and habits and sustainable change, which extends into you know the your improvement season.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Yeah, absolutely. We want to make this a part of your long term. Like you, you know, if you're gonna do this for a long time, you need to be able to have this flexibility, flexibility built in. You absolutely have more flexibility in in a building phase or an improvement season because you've got more food to play with. You've of course you've got more flexibility. No one's saying that you don't, but it's just it's how you it's how you use that. You know, I think the problem that people can run into is you know, let's just let's just say every Friday night in your improvement phase, someone turns that into okay, it's going to be a full takeaway and it's a you know it's a full dessert. If that if that happens every week, and you know, that for that that meal puts you 2,000 calories over where you're meant to be for the day, if that's done consistently every week, you can see how that can get get out of hand quite quick. Not only for your rate of gain, but something we haven't touched on here is the is the is the digestion piece. If you're gonna go out and have a big bolus of you know food like that, you don't know how it's gonna sit on your stomach. That can reach your digestion for a couple of days after. So then you've had one off-plan meal, which has then wreaked havoc on your digestion. You know, you've had that on a Friday night, it's wreaked havoc on your digestion for Saturday, Sunday, Monday leading into your next training week. So then you've got to be looking at it and thinking, okay, is is this worth, is the juice worth this worth the squeeze with this for my overall process? So then that's where you'd have to look at things and go, right, maybe we need to start making more sensible choices when we are gonna have an off plan. You know, if you've got 4,000 calories, just as an example, you've got that to play with. Okay, maybe eat a little bit less food throughout the day. If you're going out for dinner, save some calories, save some extra calories for when you're gonna go out, and go out and make a smart order. It doesn't have to be four starters, two main plates, two desserts, more desserts as you're stopping off on the way home in the car, stopping off at the shop or the Asta to get some chocky bars. You know, it doesn't need to be that. You know, just keep it smart, go out and find places or have have some restaurants or whatever that you know the food that you eat there digest well for you. I recommend that to clients as well. Try and pick maybe if you've got two or three restaurants where you've got certain orders that you know that you get, it fits your macros, it fits in for you, and digest well for you. So that's the way I tend to recommend uh go about it. And on my own improvement phase, I'm a big fan of sushi. I uh I love the uh the old sushi. So every couple of weeks, me and the missus would go out every Saturday night and we'd have a big plate of sushi. I'd save a good dose of my calories for going out. I knew the order that we were getting, it was always the same. Uh, and it digest well, so it never caused any sort of uh issues from a digestive standpoint or bumped the surplus up too much, and it was a nice way to blend that balance again. Going out and doing some good food that I wanted to enjoy with the missus, good social time, and you know it didn't avail the progress, and and that's the important piece that we're trying to get to

Making Smart Choices in Social Settings

SPEAKER_00 51:41

a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

You know, there's no point in costing yourself days of progress because as we're saying, even though we've got six, nine, twelve month runways, three days at a time, two, three days at a time, you you you're you're kicking yourself in the arse, basically. Um, you know, you could even have like a wee a wee yogurt. I'm sure now yogurt the passion fruit ones are lovely, then really nice. Um, you know, have a wee yogurt before you go out so that you've kind of got something in the stomach. There's there's loads of different options, you know. My my own personal choice when when I'm doing uh every Friday in life, I have a uh Chinese takeaway. Um I go with the boiled rice. I I actually truth be told, I actually prefer it. There was a a few months ago before I started my cut now, so actually it would have been you know uh back in October. Um I ordered a fried rice one night, and I ordered it. I'm in my improvement season, can you know I've got some flux, and I I didn't really like not I didn't enjoy it, it was fine, but I was like, I don't really think that was that much better than me getting the boiled rice with my my chicken curry, for example, have a few chips. My order doesn't really change, and I've probably been doing that now for like the last 10 years, pretty much every Friday in life, so that digests pretty well for me. I get to the point most Friday nights where I'm like, that's me, I've kind of I've enjoyed it, that's my meal of choice for the week. Might have a beat uh small bar of chocolate and then and then we crack on to to to the next day and and get moving again.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

But I think uh on on top of that, as you're saying there about enjoying you know what you like that digest well for you. I think if if people are if people are gonna go out to a restaurant, you know, with the missus or the family, I think it's very important that we touch on don't make it about the food, make it about the social events and the time with the family. I think that's a good that's a good mindset to approach these social occasions as well. Don't look at it as a this is a free-for-all for food. You can go out and make smart choices. You control that, you're in total control of that. Nobody tells you how to think, nobody tells you what to eat. That is your own conscious decision. Go out, enjoy your time with the family or your missus, whatever. Enjoy the uh some good food, pick the smart options, but don't make it about right, I've got to cram in as much food as I can get into me grid as possible here, and then you're leaving yourself in an absolute food coma. It doesn't need to be that.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

There's basically the the line I like is there's never any need to ever eat like an asshat. Yeah, that's true. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

You know, even though you might feel like it, you know, eat to your needs, not your appetite. It always comes back to that.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

I

The Role of Cardio in Improvement Phases

SPEAKER_01 54:27

don't want this to run out of time before we talk, and this is something I'm really surprised about, actually, and that's cardio in your improvement season. Yeah. Obviously, cardio is I'm a big fan of people that say I don't do any cardio in in your dieting phase. Cardio for me is something that should be in everyone's um armory, you know, whether it's even a small 10 minutes per day or even 70 minutes for the week, however you break it down, for all of the good things like your heart health, longevity, fitness. One of the things when we're going into improvement season, we're talking about you know lifting heavier eventually and that being our focus about how strong we can get with good forum. But there's no point in you getting to load up a bar and you get two, three reps in and you're absolutely blown because your your cardiovascular fitness is just not there. So it's something that should not only exist for me and your um and your deficit, but something that should be there and not just an afterthought of oh yeah, I need to do cardio kind of thing, like you need to be like, yeah, I've got my cardio to do.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Yeah, and I this is important, isn't it? Because there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff where people think, and I've made this mistake in the past, people think that steps are enough, just like low impact, you know, let's say you just did 10k steps a day with with no no output on uh intensity, just just plodding 10,000 steps, that's enough for cardio. Now that I I used to think that again, made mistakes years ago. That's I would have thought that, but now you know that I I don't look at it that way, especially when you're in a building phase and you've got more food. I think on a diet phase, anyway, we we know we keep cardio in year-round anyway, it's very, very useful, but you're gonna get fitter uh on the way down when you're dropping body fat. But I really do think cardio shines in an improvement phase when body weight is coming up and you've got more food coming in, not just from keeping yourself fitter as you're getting a little bit heavier, but again, the the insulin sensitivity, the the ability to stay uh on top of your game digestion-wise, utilising the carbohydrates and the food that's coming in, it makes such a big difference just having strategic cardio in there year-round, so especially the building phase, and it doesn't have to be you know, it doesn't have to be a lot, it can be you know, it could be as we spoke about the the good old power walk a couple of times a week, getting your heart rate up quite higher than you normally would. It doesn't bleed over into your training, even small little bits of 10-15 minute hits if if that was done once or twice a week, it doesn't impact your training. You know, it doesn't have to be lots, but the fact that it's in there, it's only gonna keep your uh your heart health and your body to uh your your body's ability to digest and utilize the food is gonna keep it in a good spot. And what do we always say, you know, the most important muscle is your heart, without that you're knacked. So very important.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Absolutely, and and and you've touched there on digestion, you know. Even if you can't get concerted times, a lot of people out there will be busy. If you can't do uh a long time, maybe you could do blocks, which is you know, again, we're looking to remove barriers for people, even if it's a five-minute walk around the block after every meal, so to speak, that could be 25 minutes per day, as much, or maybe you do three and it's 15 minutes per day, it's still something, and you can you can chop it up, but it doesn't need to be consecutive like that. And I think a lot of people will be able to find that kind of five minutes, and once they get into the the routine and the habit of it, um they'll enjoy it a little bit more. So we've got the digestion, you know, you've got things like nutrient partitioning, which gives us you know better ability to do what we're doing, which is to try and grow. We we want our food to digest, we want our food to absorb, um, we want it to be partitioned to the correct ways. And again, we don't want to be gone into a training session where you're just that sluggish and heavy and and uh with no cardiovascular fitness that in essence it costs you reps, so that's costing you progress. I think it's a really important um topic to cover. You covered off the neat Francis, you know, um getting the steps in, and where you can try and make those steps intense. It might not be that you're able to do that every time. Some people have dogs, maybe the dog doesn't walk so fast, it likes a little sniff or whatever. But if there's any periods where you can um get the intensity, we've spoken as well about gamifying it. One of the things I like to do is is get some trance music on, which normally sits around 138 BPM, and I'm walking to the beat, but I've also got an app on my phone that's reminding me, for example, every 500 metres, how fast my kind of split time is. And let's say it's a nine minutes per kilometre, for example. If I get to 500 metres and it says, you know, you're taking five minutes to do that 500 metres, I know I've got to then put my foot down for the next so that I meet my nine minutes per kilometre. And we've also got progress there where if we're doing nine minutes, can we do 859? We probably can, and then once you get 859, can you do 858, 857? And it's progressive overload for your cardio, not just as we've spoken about in a deficit, but also in your improvement phase because it's something and ultimately as well, you might even get more food as a result. And I'm not saying that you have to do it as a punishment, I think it's important to mention that. But what we're saying is the fitter that you can be and stay, and the more muscle that you're going to get on, the bigger the sponge that you've got to put food in your body, and to me that's a win, a win-win-win.

Improving Conditioning for Better Performance

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

I think one of the most important ones there, and I've seen this myself, the improvements of this is your high rep leg sets, so like your leg presses, your hack squats, your pendulum squats, knowing you're very getting into that 10 to 15 zone, and a set might be coming up to that minute mark, it's going a minute and 15. When you're cardiovascular a lot more fitter, you you you you tackle those reps at the end of a set, and you're not blowing out your ass. It's not it's not your heart and lungs, which is giving way before your quads, as an example. So if if your conditioning is that poor that you're struggling to get to those last couple of reps, the effective reps of a set, again, you're going to limit the progress that you that you can make and the tension that you can drive to the muscle tissue. And that's that's one thing that that I found a big benefit of when I started bringing in the old power walks. My conditioning towards the back end of a set of these high-rep leg sets, it was so much better. And the recovery in between sets, I I was recovering faster. Now I wasn't trying to rush in between the sets, of course, and get it done, but I just noticed when I got off a leg press and I sat down. You know, I might have been three or four minutes, and I was I was coming to my senses where it might have been six or seven minutes, you know, in time going by. And it's only a couple of minutes, but you just you notice that your body is recuperating and it's it's it's it's more efficient at getting the oxygen back where you need it, so you're good to go. So yeah, it's it makes it makes a big difference and it's very, very underrated, especially when you're going through those higher-depth leg sets.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

We've we've we've done it, mate. Just gonna summarise really kind of what we've spoken about. So, you know, if if the focus is right, the the intention you know of coming out of your bulk, muscle improvement, you know, whatever you want to call it, phase, you're gonna come out with more muscle, better performances we've we've talked about, because you're gonna come out fitter, you've got a higher baseline. Maybe when we dig deeper the next time we can dig into you know where we're gonna take metabolism to and things like

Summarizing the Journey: Patience and Progress

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

that, and that's gonna then give you more food in your diet phase, which is I mean, you again you'll know yourself, Francis, you've probably dieted in the past and had less calories, and the higher calorie you can diet on. Doesn't even really feel like a challenge to be dieting because well, I know right now you you don't feel challenged, but you're seeing fantastic results, and this is all from the hard work again as we're talking two-year phases plus. So we're talking about eating enough and and um in your improvement phase, eating to um eating to your needs, not to your wants, which is going to fuel hard training with intent that we can recover properly for from staying patient for the delayed gratification, which is one thing to to really get into, and make adjustments based on data rather than emotion, you know, that look in the mirror. Um and you know, we're just moving the the the yardstick, so to speak, away from shreds to well, the shreds are going to look better the next time that we do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

That's it, mate. Nilde. So yeah, I think um we'll close it out, mate, if if anybody is interested in in one-to-one coaching or working with us directly. Obviously, message myself at Coach FHM or at Benjamin Yees on uh on on Twitter. You know, we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Um, but yeah, just we we all we appreciate we appreciate the support that we've had. We're close to nearly a thousand views, isn't it? Over the last couple of weeks, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

We we we're actually over. Um but we're just over, and as you say, you know, absolutely blown away. One of the things about us, Francis, that I've mentioned, you know, we we're not really in it for like the numbers or notoriety or anything like that. But I think what's been really, really nice is the outpouring of support that we've had from a lot of clients and even just DMs from people that are tuning in from all over the world as well. One of the things we get to see in the app is where people are listening from, and just blown honestly blown away by the support, never expected anything of the like. And and as we said, we're gonna be here for years. You know, we we talk about it in our training, we talk about it in our nutrition. Francis and I are gonna be here for a long time, and we're gonna turn out as much quality, logic-driven content as we can.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

Yeah, absolutely. Mate, I'm all for it. All for the long term, the long game. So, exactly what you do with your training your business, everything it's it's a long-term mindset. Yeah, it's uh champion of the process, mate. We we will uh we will keep building onwards. Yeah, I appreciate the support, everybody. And we will speak to you in the next one. Thanks, everyone. See you next week.