Train. Eat. Think. Episode 13 - "Old School" vs "Science Based" Lifters?

Episode 13 and Francis Melia/Benjamin Yeezus explore the balance between old school lifting principles and modern science based approaches. 

Join us as we discuss old school lifting principles (60s,70s, Arnold era), science based training and modern exercise science, highlighting the importance of intensity and effort in training/recovery and RESULTS!

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 ben@yeezuscrew.com  

Thanks for listening. See you next week :D 

Transcript

Old School vs. New Science-Based Lifting

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Training Think Episode 13. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today we are touching on uh old school lifting versus new science-based or modern style lifting, pros and cons of both. Uh so we're gonna touch on uh exercise selection again, optimal, non-optimal, reps in reserve, uh wood watches, fitness trackers, all that good stuff. Uh yeah, again, looking forward to this one, mate.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Definitely. Um been it's been a long time coming. It feels like a long week. Maybe that's just the anticipation of Monday coming round so that we can get to record. So really, really um looking forward to getting my teeth into this one.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And this this one was was requested by one of our listeners as well. Um, so again, we we are always open to listening to ideas as well. So, you know, if anybody does have any ideas, of course, always let us know. And we're always as I say, we're here, but we're here to help. Uh and we're looking forward to getting into the uh the nuts and bolts, mate, of uh science-based versus uh old school lifting, bro. So I think we uh I think we kick it off, mate. And I think I think we're very much uh right out the gate, we we like to incorporate bits of both. We're not just old school dinosaur, you know, we'll we never want to learn anything new or we won't take anything from the modern science-based stuff, but we're also not uh these type of coaches or lifters who has to do everything science-based. That is, it comes out of a lab, or everything we do is backed by a study, everything we do is like perfectly optimal at the best angle. Like, we're not that either, we are genuinely somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

I think that goes for anything that we really do or say, and I think as well, just being honest, that that's a reflection of us as people, not only as lifters ourselves, but as coaches, that we see things and we look things, and if they're if they're better and we find something that maybe works, or we feel that it's worked for us if we've tested it on ourselves, that we then feel confident enough to sort of offer that out to people, and I think that brings with it you know a lot of respect because you can say at points you're looking to develop knowledge. I think we said at the very beginning of this this podcast, you know, we're always looking for uh to enhance our own knowledge to to find ways that we can help people better, and that's always going to land us somewhere in the middle, so there's never going to be you know crazy statements um to the left or or or to the right. So the the old school of train for seven hours and just suck it up and don't be a pussy um all the way to you know, you need a seven-second cadence on a four-degree angle to fully extend and contract and never go up on your weights because you're too scared to make it not look like the most perfect rep.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Absolutely,

The Strengths of Old School Lifting

SPEAKER_01 3:03

mate. I think that you know, having that uh approach of wanting to get better and wanting to learn and not shunning any of the new information that comes out, um, but then also not forgetting you know the things that uh have worked, don't try and reinvent the wheel, so to speak. So I think it would be nice to if we kick things off and we talk about let's go look at some of the old school stuff. What what did they get right in particular? What did they get right? What's potentially some of the weaknesses of you know maybe the old school approach? And then we'll flip it on our and you know, we'll uh we'll say, well, what's some of the pros of a science-based approach and then some of the maybe the negatives that we're seeing uh nowadays with uh the optimal crew. So yeah, old school then. We're we're going back. What would you class as the old school? Would you class like 60s, 70s, or are we going back even further than that? That's like to the old strong men. Uh we've got like Eugene Sandow and his leopard print undies. But uh yeah, I I I'd probably say the old school probably comes 60s, 70s, like the Arnold era. That's what I'd probably go back to.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I I I would agree. For me, my sort of knowledge, I would say, probably begins around pumping iron. You know, there'd be a lot of people out there, either in the in the bodybuilding space or not, probably seen or are aware of that the pumping iron. Um, that's where I would certainly sort of land in terms of what the old school is, you know. Basic exercises, hard training. There's one thing that we can absolutely say about again if we're looking towards pro-bodybuilders, and we're going to probably talk about uh the good and the bad, you know, the fact that these guys are really intelligent, that they know their bodies. The downside that we can get into later is that sometimes they'll be able to do things that they can get away with. Whereas us as mere mortals that don't have the genetic capabilities, we need to be a bit more focused, a bit more strict and stringent. But we've still got the um the principles that these guys had intensity, we still want that to this day, and I think as well, again, just talking about what we're about, um Francis, is that we like consistency, simplicity, and just years of repetition. That the basics are there for a reason, and I think in all that we do, even now, a lot of that can still be uh harnessed.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I think I'm back to pumping iron there, mate. I've I've I've just got the divisions of like uh Arnold's doing like he's doing like the cable rolls and he's he's proper going into flexion with a spine. But one thing I I noticed he's just yeah, like he's just he's just proper big stretch, big squeeze. But one thing you can you can just you can tell like they're just they're getting after it, they're getting stuck in. It's intense, like the vibes of the place you can just you can put yourself in that scenario and go, yeah, this

Pitfalls of Old School Training

SPEAKER_01 5:52

is like this is proper training, proper old school vibes, intensity, passion for training, and just getting stuck in with some hard work, like spitting sawdust style. And I think that is one thing that the old school really did get right, and it was just hard work, you know, come in, roll your sleeves up, get some elbow grease into it, and let's get stuck in, let's get some productive hard training. Whether they'd done suboptimal exercises or too many, too many sets, or too much volume, or whatever. They were just they had a passion for training and they were getting very, very stuck in, and that's right that that drove a lot of growth at where they did.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

One of my favourite scenes is um Lou Ferrigno when he's doing the bicep curls in in somebody's basement or something like that, yeah, and he's like, Oh, I can't do any more. And the guy shouting at him, he's like, Yeah, you want to be Mr. Umpy, you want to be on the stage or whatever, you know, you you you crank out those weights. I mean, as I say, the the intensity is there, you know, they they they've got that. They're picking probably less exercises, I would say, than an available now. That they've got that handful of exercises that they were brutally good at, and they just made that focus, you know, less analysis, paralysis, less waiting for perfection, more kind of learning on the job, getting it done. Try this, does it work? Try that, does it not work? I think another few things that that got right in in that era.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, I think it it just goes the show, doesn't it? That you've got to have that that basic principle of intensity of efforts that has to be there, regardless of whether you're training in the 1970s or 2026, whatever. You've got to have that. That there needs to be an intensity to your training, and it needs to be legitimate efforts because without that, you know, you're never gonna build anything meaningful from that. So again, I if there's one thing I think we can take from the old school, it really is that it's the intensity of effort and that that that that grit and passion uh with the training and getting stuck in for sure. I think if we had to look at it, what would you say one of one of the big pitfalls would be of the the old school training? Well, what comes to your mind when we think, okay, old school, what's what's something that they just missed the boat on?

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Uh I think something that we can learn is you know, we know that as individuals we only have a maximum um recovery. You know, we've only got so much fuel in our tanks using a car as an analogy. Some of us will have 50-litre tanks, some of us will have 70 litre tanks, and there'll be variances in between. I think one of the you know cons of the pitfalls that perhaps from that era, they just lifted until they couldn't lift anymore. You know, we know and and and we spoke about you know some of the science that backs this up that you know you don't just train until basically you you can't lift anymore in terms of like total volume for your session or your workout. There needs to be a little bit of you know nuance or or understanding around just how much you can actually push as an individual, and that is going to look different for different people. So you've got that you know that higher risk, if you like, potential injuries, less individualization, and

Benefits of Science-Based Approaches

SPEAKER_00 9:04

people maybe doing exercises that weren't a good fit for them.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

I think that's that's a good point for uh Arnold in particular because I I know from what I know about Arnold's training back in the day, he used to he used to do a lot of volume. I think a lot of those uh a lot of those fellas used to. I think it was only Mike Menzer who was like he was like the uh he was like the the the naughty child who went who went against the grain and was doing um a lot of high intensity stuff. But uh if I'm if I if I'm correct, that was after many years of still doing higher volume stuff, so I do know he had a higher volume background as well. But I know they used to do endless sets, too many sets, and they just beat themselves into the ground. And uh Arnold wasn't known for his quads, he had decent quad developments, of course, but Arnold was like six foot two, quite tall, and he used to do lots of back squats, and then he switched it to doing front squats. Now imagine you put someone like Arnold now, and you and you took him, you know, in let's say his the peak of his saying in career was 2020 to now, whatever, and he had access to pendulum squats, good leg presses, good hack squats, and he didn't waste any of the volume just on back squats all the time or even front squats, and he had access to these machines. How much better could Arnold have been? That's a question that you've got to throw out to people who always protect the old school lifters and go, oh the old school were the best. Well, how much better could they have been with maybe some of these tools available to them now? So that is playing devil's advocate.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

I absolutely love that question, and it's it's one I I once posed. I mean, as much as you know, some people really, you know, uh whip down on the science um stuff, and as much as Ronnie Coleman was the absolute goat in terms of pretty much everything bodybuilding, could Ronnie have been better? And it's it's a great question, you know. Could he bring on some of these principles that would have made him even better? He's still the goat, but could he have been even better? I think it's I think it's a great question. Um you know Ronnie's a great example, you know. Sometimes the old school um the occasionally or they'd most of the time confused pain with productive training. The sore they were, then that meant that it was working. You know, again, we know now when we're going into workouts, DOMS isn't necessarily a great marker for uh productive training, or it could be a sign of overreaching or under recovery, more often than not, probably under recovery. So there's there's a lot of things that we can we can take and I think add to to make things better and and you know step away from some of those mistakes that we now know that that were made, and and then how do we make things better to try and fight, let's be honest, the hybrid. Who why wouldn't we want the best of both worlds? So as as we always say, Francis, um I

Finding the Balance Between Old and New

SPEAKER_00 12:02

can't remember the term exactly that you use, you know, but don't don't train, don't, don't train like um with a negative mindset, don't train and put limits on what you're doing. You know, you're gonna training, enjoying it, getting it intense, training hard, training as heavy as you can, developing your strength over time. Nobody, and and certainly not us in this space are going to go in and say just lift 200 reps with pink dumbbells and and see how you got on for the next couple of years. We know that that's not gonna work. So it's how do we find, and we opened up with how do we find that balance?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

I think that's that that's what the new school and a lot of the science-based lifters, that's what they've done really well, is it's being a little bit more precise with maybe exercise selection and volume numbers to tinker things to your biomechanics and your structure and your recovery capacity because everybody is different with that. I work with clients, some people can handle a little bit more volume than others. Uh, some people are buried up maybe off one to two sets of a certain exercise, or maybe somebody else can handle a little bit more total volume in a session as well. There's so many factors that go into that. So, you know, you had the likes of Arnold, Lou Ferigno, and Frank uh Franco Colombo all trained together. They'd all do the same uh training programme, they'd all do the exact same stuff, same volume. And you know, when you look at that, you again you look at Arnold and Franco Colombo side by side, totally different lifters, like size, width, biomechanics, structure, everything. So the same exercise that works for Franco is not going to work for Arnold. So, you know, when we when we flip it on its head and and you and you look now, I think that that is one of the big, big benefits of uh all the machines that have come out now. Like we've just got a plethora of all of these great leg machines, back machines, chest machines, everything. There's just a machine for everything now, different brands, different resistance profiles, just like there's so much uh variability out there. And if you piece it together and you get you get the right ones for you, it does it takes up your stimulus, you just get so much more out of what you you can do. So that is a big, big benefit of or a bit a big positive of maybe more of a science-based approach as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and the the there's a lot of things that the the science-based community have right. You know, I'm I'm gonna mention the the elephant in the room, the big bad wolf, fatigue. Um you know, f fatigue's a definite thing, you know, we need to be aware of it. We've touched in prior podcasts about when you're in a dieting phase in particular, you know, we're not replenishing the food. So we do need to be aware of what we're doing from a volume perspective. We need to be aware of what we're doing, and that's where you know things like evidence-based nutrition comes into it. We've got a better understanding of hypertrophy. We know now that when you're building muscle, I think maybe we could argue historically that when you were coming into the you know, let's say your photo shoot competition type thing, or it's more reps because those are the ones that build and and and tone your your muscle when you're coming into that phase. What we now know

Precision and Individualization in Training

SPEAKER_00 15:13

is obviously you know what builds muscle keeps muscle. You want to fight for your strength so that you're keeping the signal going to the muscle tissue to keep this, because if you are in in the deficit and you're not giving the signal, then it it's gonna go. So I think we we can you know we can give kudos to the science-based community there because we've got things like that, and and maybe even you know, from using machines for anybody that's starting new, you know, there's a bit less of a learning curve, maybe, to do rather than doing free weights for everything that you do. I think it's fair to say that you should probably again have a balance of everything, but maybe if your confidence is low and you come into a gym and you know that you're supported on a machine and you're kept safe, it can help you from the bottom get confidence up. Now that's not going to be the same for absolutely everybody. Some people might come in and they want to squat off the bar uh right off the bat, they want to do a deadlift off the bat, and that's fine if they want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, I think I think the exercise selection, obviously, we I know we've done podcasts in the past touching on our favourite exercises, and you know, it's it's it's a big debate, isn't it? Uh in terms of what's best, and you know, well, I think a lot of it is individual. Um, and I I it's it's a cleaner phrase from our good friend Dean, where he says, you know, uh 2026, we're not still we're not still using the horse and carriage to get around. So, you know, I know he doesn't really like the barbells, but that doesn't mean that we we can't use barbells, but we're we're also not just gonna drive a horse and carriage around. If there is new things that are coming out that are a little bit more efficient, you know, you're not using a horse and carriage no more, we've all got cars. So it's it can be the same with some of our training stuff, you know, maybe utilising some machines, I mean all, you know, having a nice blend of everything and it it it can make sense again from a recovery ability. Uh, again, some of these what you've got to look at with some of these machines, it comes down to precision and accuracy. If you can be very, very precise and accurate with stimulus and not bring about any sort of like unnecessary fatigue that you don't need. You know, let's say like a big barbell squat or a deadlift. We know a lot of fatigue that comes with that, and fatigue is not bad, like it's it's it's not the boogeyman, you don't need to be scared of it, right? So I don't anyone watching it, I don't want I don't want you to be scared of fatigue. But maybe as you get more advanced and the need for you to be more precise with some of your stimulus while not getting any of that, any of the negatives or the extra fatigue that you don't need, that's where some machines, again, your accuracy, the precision of these sets goes up. So you get your stimulus without any of the shit that comes with it, because then you're thinking, okay, well, am I going to be able to come back three, four days later and go again? If you're coming in and smashing yourself on the ground with you know four sets of back squats on Monday, and

The Role of Fatigue in Training

SPEAKER_01 18:08

you want to train legs again on Thursday, but your lower back and everything is just absolutely smoked, and you can't come and get any productive working. Well, that's too much for you to recover from. So maybe if you had some maybe more precise and accurate machines, okay, we're just going to nail the quads in the absence of the lower back. There you go. There's the there's the kicker. So it's just it's trying to piece things together like a jigsaw. That's the that's the big benefit of uh that's the way I look at programming. You're trying you're trying to piece a jigsaw together for the individual that's in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Absolutely, and I always love that jigsaw to have a nice flow to it. So when you're going through the programming and you're picking, you know, exercises that the the individual might have access to, whether they're training at home or whether they're training um, you know, in a in a an actual gym itself. And and we can pick things along that, you know, again it's a spectrum, isn't it? Um it doesn't necessarily mean that, like you're saying, some of the barbell things. You're talking about a percentage for a lot of things. Okay, there are some lifts out there that are just you're being canned, they're they're not worth their salt anymore at all, probably not worth the effort wasting your time on. But I think to be honest, those are few and far between. Is it optimal? Again, uh when you start to get into this territory, it starts to get really quite fuzzy quite quickly, I would say, because who's gonna tell you actually what the percentages are? You know, you can say a study of this, but that study's probably only geek gonna be a matter of weeks, you know. I think some of it really needs to look at some of the people that are like 10-15 years into their training rather than just you know, sort of short, short-term this happened in you know 10 weeks and untrained people. Now, what I would say is a lot of the studies that are coming through are untrained individuals, there's some good work going on in the space by Brad Schoenfeld and stuff like that, so it is getting better all the time. And again, you know, as as we've opened this podcast tonight, when this evidence comes through and these these things become available to us, you know, as coaches, we can pivot to that and start making those recommendations to people. But one thing I think in in terms of negatives from the from the science-based community, you know, is is maybe a tendency to overanalyse. I saw a great video, and it was like uh it was kind of meme video, lifting in 1990, and the guy's doing T-bar row, and he's got three plates on there, he's doing it well, you know, he's really controlling the lift, good power. It comes to the science-based, and the guy's got the he's got the measuring tape out to see how far it is, he's got the angle calculating the distance, and he puts 2.5 kilos on it, and he does like a set, and it's like yeah, so you you see again the comparisons there and and and probably where you want to sit on that spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

That's

Overanalysis in Science-Based Lifting

SPEAKER_01 20:57

that's that's the example of the the old Keenan flaps as well, you know, the greatest last exercise in existence, you know. Stuff like this. You've got people who you know the the the seller taping their arms to a cable stack on a D handle and that they're doing this, like some sort of cable flap, and it's just you know, going to a good old way to chin up, way to pull up, good old lap pull down, you know, keen flaps, like you things like that, that's where it's just that's stepping over into just territory of just just nonsense and overthinking things. And so I I I would say that's that's probably where science base lifting it falls down for me, is that you again it's like everybody then every every sort of realm that you fall into. The people take it too far, and that's what it is, where people just overanalyse absolutely everything, and then they forget about the main ingredient which is coming in uh and training really hard. So I think that is probably the biggest number one uh downfall of uh the modern or science based lifting, it's just people's propensity just to overthink, overthink. Think everything and just not getting in and getting any productive work because they're just spending so much time overthinking things and it just that holds them back.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah, I mean one of the one of the things I really like in the space when I when I see it mentioned is you know the perfect plan doesn't exist, and if you're sitting there trying to create the perfect plan with the perfect variables and perfect this, that and the next thing, you're getting lapped by the guy who's in there training with intensity, finding where his recovery is, where does he get fatigued, and sort of you know, learning on the job and and finding out that worked for me, that didn't work for me, um along that sort of lines, you know, so that they're they're making efficient use of the time that they've got, they're in the gym, they're there, they're doing it, which for me is is a better driver than sitting there and thinking and going, Oh uh well uh push-pull legs is this and upper and lower delivers that, and I'm gonna do bro split this week, and then I'm gonna change it up and I'm gonna confuse my body and keep my muscles guessing, and again, as we know, all of this stuff now, you know, your your body knows tension, you your your your muscles know that you're putting it against and under, and that's what gives it the stimulus to say, I didn't really like that, and what I need to do is I need to be stronger the next time. Again, as we've spoken, mate, stimulus and and and adaptation.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

I think that when it comes to with with the science-based stuff, what you've just said there about how you you're in the gym and you find what works. There's no there's no substitute for wisdom and experience that you get from being on the gym floor. You can't just you can't go over a training program from a petri dish in a science lab. You know, how how is that gonna tell you oh you need X amounts of sets or this movement is good for you? That is that can that is a big a big negative

Experience vs. Science in Training

SPEAKER_01 24:02

of a lot of the science-based studies that are out there, even from the likes of Brad Schoenfeld himself and some of these people, still, and this is where science will always fall down, is that you know, if you if you if you're doing a study and you've you you you're taking lifters to failure, but you need to define failure. Is that taking me me or you into the lab and us taking a leg extension to failure? Because we know how to train, we've we've trained 10-15 years, we know how to take a set to legitimate failure. These subjects that are being studied in a lab by Schoenfeld or whatever, if this is someone with six months' experience, what he thinks is failure, it's probably just four reps in the tank. So then they're concluding their data from someone who what he thinks is failure, or yes, all my participants took their sets of failure, and they were likely three or four reps in the tank. So then how can you take data like that that you're gonna present as gospel? How can you put that out there to maybe lifters like me or you or people with a good bit of experience? So that's where science falls down. It can be a little bit of a scaffold and framework, but ultimately you're always always gonna have to get in the trenches yourself and find what works for you, and you'd have to build your own sign and wisdom and experience.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

It's like we always have a wee conversation before we we come online and start recording, but it's like the wee conversation we had offline where we get to you you you develop your skill set as we mentioned before. We're always looking to develop when we're lifting, and now I won't take a rep that I know I I can't perform or I'm going to fail on, and that's that comes from time, also comes through having failed myself multiple times on different lifts. You know where your driver is. For me, I like to do reps until I can't do another rep with near on perfect form, and if it gets to that point, then I know I'm at failure. What I'll do is I'll take a nice big deep breath and I'll put everything and channel everything into that last set, sorry, that last rep, so that I'm moving as close to the same speed as I can and the same cadence and the same depth, etc., as rep one that I do on the last rep. And that might look if somebody's looking in to say, you might have had another couple of reps there, but I know inside myself I've I've dragged everything internally to make sure I'm getting that last rep, and and the one as we spoke about before, you know, that one that's gonna give you the stimulant, um, the stimulant reps towards the point when it's sort of burning and stuff. I know that I don't have another one in the tank. I would do it, but either go to the bottom or I'm gonna come up that slow that I'm gonna need a spotter to basically help me because I'm I'm just gonna get buried probably halfway up or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Well,

Pushing to Failure and Learning from Experience

SPEAKER_01 26:50

again, it comes back to the precision and accuracy conversation, doesn't it? You know, taking reps that we we know that we're gonna fail. Are they uh are they worth it? Is that a a net negative or a net positive taking reps that you know that you're not gonna get with decent form? And again, this is this is what a lot of people can muddy the waters where they think about reps in reserve. What is reps in reserve? What is failure? What is zero reps and reserve? Because these are all slightly different things. So and so you're you're a fan of taking all of your sets to to the point where you know you haven't you haven't got another good reps. That that'll be classed in the science-based terms like zero reps in reserve. So you take everything, zero reps and reserve. Yeah, that's that that's what I do personally myself. Um I don't take reps that are fail. I don't want to get stuck halfway because again I I think the juices and worth the squeeze. But I do think for some people that finding that point can be a good learning learning experience on some movements. You know, you don't come in and do it every week. But this is my gripe with the reps and reserve approach, is that you know the the whole science-based what they say about you know reps and reserve one or reps and reserve two, that is the most optimal for muscle growth in terms of stimulus to fatigue ratio. That's a that's that's a that's a term that they like to coin stimulus to fatigue ratio, get a maximum stimulus for minimum fatigue, and I think it's a great term, but I think the execution of it just gets lost, hence what I'm gonna say now. So let's say if someone someone is shooting for one rep in reserve, unless you know what that truly feels like, unless you know what failure feels like, how is the accuracy of you judging a one rep in the tank? Like, how how do you know that that's one rep in the tank if you've never took anything to failure? You need to spend time trading to failure to actually get and gauge that one rep in the tank or two reps in the tank. You need to know what it's like to push all the way there. So you've got people who are coming into the gym now and they're seeing all this online. Okay, two reps in reserve, that's optimal, that's where I've got to go. So they're coming in and doing sets, what they think is two reps in reserve, and it's likely five or six reps in the tank. So then they're missing out on the stimulative effect of reps towards the end of a set. So this is again where science-based lifting or the reps in reserve approach falls down. It can only be used if you know what two failure feels like, and you've got to spend time digging out those last couple of reps to make a reps and reserve approach actually viable.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

You've absolutely nailed it, mate. And I remember being buried under the squat bar more times than than I care to mention. But this is this is where your learning comes from. Important to say, you know, if you're going to fail something, fail on it safely. So if that's squats, make sure you've got your pin set. Same, for example, with with chest, if it's a Smith machine, you know, make sure that you're handy to get it turned over in terms of when you're bringing the bar back down, or if you've got access to a spotter, which some people will have, you know, just make sure that they're um they're they're on top of you, so to speak, and they know how to help you safely. Because I'm seeing even some videos online now, um, and some comments that I had on one of the posts that I made that uh one of my gents was lifting 80 kilo dumbbells per side, and he told me to grab him by the wrists, but not to give him a little I mean, talking like a little edge up on his elbows, it wasn't anything dramatic. I was literally just there, and you need to be safe if you're spotting someone, you need to understand and know how they're lifting. So it's it's one of those things as well that you you just need to learn through experience where your failure point is, enjoy, enjoy it, because that's what's gonna again help you build your skill set.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

One of the best ways to do that, mate, is I've spoken about this on the time man before, is that you know if you grab a trusted spotter, especially on legs, this is like because I think you know yourself, mate, and you probably see what a lot of people you work with, like people can take a chest press to failure or a row or a pull-up to failure pretty easily. Because it's it's let's be honest, it's it's it's just not as hard as leg training. Uh it's still tough, of course, but taking a chest press to failure, it's not as hard as taking a leg press or a hack squat. So that's where a lot of people really fall down on it. The movements like leg extensions, pendulum squats, leg presses, hack squats, these big, horrible squatting patterns, which are gonna take everything out of you. So, one of the best things you can do again, you grab a trust and spotter, you get on the leg press, you put a weight on that you know you're what you're always doing your work and set with, whatever it is. I like to get people to set the phone up next to it, press record, go into the set, push the set all the way there until you actually get stuck and you can't get another rep, and then you have the spotter, you know, help you out for the last little bit of the of the set. There's your reference point there because you've pushed all the way. You go back and watch the video and you count how many reps that you've had. There you go, there's your baseline. Now, that's your baseline every week, stimulus recovery, adaptation, and we and we let our reps slowly come through. But you need to know what it's like to push to that point, and without again doing that, having to spotter or setting your phone up and just forgetting about counting reps, because that's what so many people do, they they get lost up on counting reps, they think, Oh, I've got a set of 12 on leg pressure here. So they're like, one, two, three. You know, you know what people do. If you just disassociate from the number and you just lock in in the set and just stay present with each rep and you push it all the way. I've seen so many people I've I've run this strategy with so many clients when they're new. What

Understanding Training to Failure

SPEAKER_01 32:43

they might have got 12 reps on last week, they end up getting 16-17 the week after. So what you thought was failure at 12 reps, it wasn't, it was genuinely four or five reps in the tank. But you you don't find this out unless you go through this sort of technique and strategy of just not counting reps and just attack the set to a legitimate failure point. And most people always end up grinding out an extra four or five reps. So you think of your missing out every week on four or five reps on a set on all the leg sets that you're doing, and you can go months and months and months and months on end doing that, thinking you're training to failure when you're not. Think of all the wasted reps and wasted stimulus and wasted time that people are having with that, and it's it's so so common.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

I think another thing that's really important to mention, I think you make some fantastic points there about how to really show you know where people's failure are, but they'll go through all this, you know, finding where R and where I are is, finding where failure is, looking at the the velocity of how they're lifting the precision, and yet sleeps off, no meal consistency, so like I haven't bothered with my pre-workout, going into the gym, and you know, just things, things of that elk, you know, it needs to be a package together so that you're using everything that that's at your disposal because the training obviously is very, very important, but when we start to really dig deep into it, your nutrition and your rest and your recovery are all things that come into it. Because if you want to start pushing your RIR on and adding your weights on and things like that, then you're gonna need that recovery.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Yeah, I think you've nailed it there, mate. If someone is thinking about rest and reserve and then they don't even know how many calories that they're eating for the day and they're not tracking the food or anything like that, it's like you are just focusing on the wrong things here, like completely. You are you're worrying about the icing on the cake without baking the cake in the first place. Uh so yeah, I get it, but that that that is a lot of modern-day lifters, mate. You've got the the 18, 19 year olds, they're coming in, they're seeing some nonsense on TikTok, you know, some key and flaps, reps and reserve approach. This is what you do, and then they haven't got any fundamentals in check, no nutrition basics, no intensity basics, no consistency basics. So again, they're going down these rabbit holes and just getting lost. And again, it's uh it's sad to see because what ends up happening is that a lot of these lifters nowadays they're gonna end up wasting years and years and years of valuable trading time, and they're gonna look back and go, I've wasted tremendous amounts of time there just doing bollocks.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

It's

The Importance of Nutrition and Recovery

SPEAKER_00 35:22

really funny that you say wasting time. I think this gives us a really um nice sort of seg here into um one of the points that that we we came up with, and that's and and and you're you're in a great spot to talk about this, Francis, because your powerlifting background, obviously, you know, you you're now in in bodybuilding space along with myself, you're in your first um competition prep as well, and I see this on my own timeline a lot. You know, there are coaches out there that are strength coaches, powerlifting coaches, and stuff like that, and that's fantastic, it's great. We're obviously in the kind of hype hypertrophy space, a lot of our clients are focused on fat loss and muscle building, and I still see it now where it's like everybody should squat, bench, and deadlift. There's no there's no it's that's it, black and white, there's no grey territory in between that. Whereas with the kind of modern thinking and the kind of hybrid approach, we know that we need to just train our muscle. We've mentioned earlier about you know different uh biomechanics, different sizes of athletes, different people. You know, we need to get what best fits your leverages, and you might need to avoid some injury that you've had. So you can't squat perfect example, me. I can't barbell squat anymore, sadly. I can do the hack squat, I can do the pendulum squat, etc. But these are things that do help people grow, arguably help people grow better because of all the things again that we've spoken about before, the way that we can control the the arc of the pendulum, for example. You know, there's there's a reason we call it the big humbler. So there's a few things there just to touch on, really, about rather than it being specific, locked in, these are the exercises. What we want to do is effectively challenge the target muscle and how we do that with a modern approach without being obviously on the daft side of it, is is what we're looking for, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Yeah, again, it's like there's so much to switch on with this, the nuance to it. It's and again, I I I I've been on both sides of the fence again with with the powerlifting background and you know, right now using no more. It's just a blend, mate. I'm still not completely modern or machine-based. I use a blend of everything. But what you're saying here about where where people this again, this is what the old school and the big three, or shall we shall we say, like the start and strength, the math ripped all cults, this is what they do well, is that they keep it simple. Squat bench deadlift, it's like a shotgun approach, it gets a it gets a good amount of stimulus across the ball for a lot of people. So many people again down rabbit holes with the key and flaps and all this bollocks. But if someone comes in and just squat bench deadlift, they're gonna get some results. You know, they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna start to be building that cake that we're talking about. They're not focusing on the ice. And so it's that shotgun approach, boom, you're coming in, you know that you're not fucking alarm with nonsense, and you're gonna get some good stimulus. So if someone's coming from no lifting, squat bench, deadlifting, you're you're eating your food, you're recovering well, you're gonna see some growth from that versus you know coming in doing key and flaps and all this stuff. So that's what they get right, and I think they do a really good job of that. But what I don't like is that it's the dogma, okay, you've got to stick with these exercises forever, for eternity. Any straying from that path is it's we you shouldn't be doing that. Oh no, you're wasting your time. No, I don't agree with that. That is that that is the wrong approach. With it at a certain point, again, this is this is the way my saying in career uh fell. I built a lot of muscle tissue from a lot of these basics. They they work tremendously well. You'll never see me bad mouth a squat bench or a deadlift. I think they all work tremendously well when executed and implemented well into a programme. You've got good form, low management, all this stuff. They really are good exercises. There might just become a point where you need a little bit more precision. Again, that's what I needed. I needed more precision with some quads. Hack squats, leg presses, pendulums, they're just better quad exercises for me now than maybe a back squat was, much as I love back squats. So I just needed a little bit more precision. So maybe someone from Start and Strength or the you know the the big the big barbell cut, they might look at me and go, oh no, that's wrong, that's soft, or not really. I'm just being saying into my needs now and saying into my goals. So

Balancing Old School and New School Training

SPEAKER_01 39:40

again, if you look what what we're doing and what we're saying, it's it's a blend of both. I still deadlift, I don't bench press anymore, I don't barbell squat, but I still have my barbell Romania deadlifts in there and my barbell deadlifts, weighted pull-ups, weighted dips. Still got a lot of big heavy, basic, heavy hitters in there that I was doing 10-15 years ago with a blend of machines. So again, we just we we're right, we're we're we're smack banging in the middle of it, mate. There's no sort of dogma with us. It's just uh it's using what fits for you at that specific point in your training career.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Yeah, I mean our targets, you know, is effectively targeting and challenging the the target muscle until it gives up, until it gives out. Now, you know, when we've got that hypertrophy angle, you know, it doesn't really come down to the specific exercise that we're doing, it comes down to the stimulus that we can give a particular muscle. Obviously, the the the shape and the form of that is is going to differ. You know, we're looking at what what we've got access to as well as is is another you know point that we've already touched on that earlier on, and I think it's an important thing because not everybody has got access to leg press, for example. Now home gyms are so popular, we've got uh a lot of clients. Uh I know that I know that you have Francis, I know that I have myself clients that work from home, um sorry, train from home, um and and they're getting really popular that some people find the time that they save from not having to travel and and and all that sort of good stuff, that that's what they want to do. You know, that on the other side of it, you know, those there's people that have got access to many, many different machines, and it can even be on the flip side of that where it's too many machines, it's a set on every one of them, and you know, you don't really want to go to that extreme either. What you want to do is find within some sort of framework where you're gonna be able to tax the the muscular musculature that you're trying to work and then look at how you put um progressions around that. So that's probably gonna be whether it's you know rotation A, B, and C or however you you you want to you know fold that up, it's it's what we're looking at in terms of getting experience of different um you know different machines and finding those machines that work for you. You might jump on something and go, nah, I didn't like it, giving it the relevant chance, of course, you know, giving it a few attempts, but you might just go, I'm not feeling that. I I've had that myself in the past, where it's like I just feel that right in the shoulder, it doesn't really work for me, it doesn't help. And it's about finding those things that really squeeze into you as an individual.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

There's loads of machines I've tried, mate, but just they just don't fit. They just feel like shit. They genuinely like genuinely doing like a a barbell bench would feel better than some chest press machines. I've done that, I've jumped on some chest press machines, and they just feel terrible. The handles are just not in a good spot. Again, the just the shoulder flare that you have to get because some machines you've got no wiggle room with them, they put you into a like it's like again, you you've got to move with the arc of this machine, yes or no. For for some body types and instruction biomechanics, it doesn't work. You would be better suited to a free weight because you you've got a little bit more sort of variability with that. So, again, if you are going to use machines, it it is about finding ones that do fit your structure as well. That is just as important as you know, it's not just about switching from barbells and dumbbells to machines, and every machine is great. No, some machines are absolutely piss poor. Again, so you've got to find again, it's there's a middle ground that does the there's a reason my own saying, and even your own saying, I mean, it's a mixture of free weights and machines because to get the blend of everything and things that fit your structure. Most of the best programs that I write for people, it it is a blend of free weights and machines, depending on what they need for that, you know, their specific structure. But it's never ever uh just just either or unless you know, as you mentioned, the home gym setup, someone trained from home. Even home gyms nowadays, they're they're becoming a lot more advanced. Like someone's got a squat rack, barbell plates. Well, that's your basic, your bread and butter. People are getting, you know, like you can add zip attachments, like you've got your pull up attachments, people are getting cable stays. Where you can do the cable roll and pull downs, and you know you've got multi- the multi-functional trainers as well, where you can do like your your curls, your size of push downs, flies, and they make a small footprint on a home gym as well. So I've even got clients who've ordered leg fists and pendulum squats. You can get them into home gyms now. So home gyms are definitely they are stepping up uh stepping up a notch in terms of like equipment availability, which is cool to see.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Yeah, I'm definitely seeing a lot of that in the space, you know, a lot of people going through their own sort of home gym journey and and getting you know the equipment that they can. There's a good few of my clients actually have ordered the hack squat into the leg press, you know, and if you're getting things like that, you've got a set of cables and you know some type of barbell and an adjustable bench if it's quite high on the budget, but you know, if you get a Smith machine in there, you're starting to be really, really rounded in terms of what you would have access to. And I've even seen myself program for that type of client to get you know as much bang for buck as you can because you're trying to help people get as much then from the investment that they've made into the equipment. It might not be you know absolutely perfect, some people might not have the leg press um machine, it might be you know a bit more cable, some more dumbbell type stuff, but that's where you get a little bit inventive again, and you're just trying to get them to get the as much stimulus that you can get out of you know different exercises. It might be that they do less exercises and more sets of of what they've got again. It just comes down to the amount of equipment that they have. It might just be a little bit more repetitive than than you would in a in a big gym where you'd access to everything. But one of the things you've got to do, you know, as I say is what with what you've got.

The Role of Technology in Training

SPEAKER_01 46:02

What about if me watch tells me that I can't train today, mate? And I'm not ready. Your readiness score is uh 40%. Uh I can't go to the gym today. You should you should stay at home and just sit on the couch and have a cup of tea and some toast. Uh you know, just chill out. This is one thing, and again, I'm gonna be totally honest, it fucking pisses me off when I see these um these scores coming through, and um and people I've even had it with clients and they send me or I'm usually watching my readiness score set it's low. And I you know, I'm not I'm not rude to them, but I say to them, look, ignore that and go in and get stuck in. And you know what? 99% of the time they go in and they have great training sessions. So this is what annoys me about the you know, the sort of modern culture of all these fitness trackers and you know what they whether you want to call it, science-based going everything off some tracker that you put on your wrist, whether it's a a watch or an order ring, if you're gonna let that tell you that you're ready to train, you're just not gonna fucking make it in my eyes. And this this is just it's one of these honest topics that we need to speak about because it needs to be they can be useful, but again, it's going it's going to to that side of the spectrum where like again people are just overthinking. And if you're trying to build the best possible physique that you can, and you're going off an ordering telling you that you're ready to train, we've gotta we've gotta throw that one in the bin.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

No, not gonna make it.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Yeah, it's just it's it's it's it's it's a topic, mate. It's I I get it's quite quite passionate about it because I just think you've got people now, and again, we need to have these honest conversations, this is what we're here for, is that we've got people who they want results, they're spending all this money on uh supplements, you know, whether it be coaching, gym memberships, all the best food. But if the mentality is just wrong, that they've they've got these five, six hundred dollar aura rings or whatever, and you if you want to build a physique, a very, very good physique, you're gonna have to deal with some fatigue, you've got you are gonna have to push through on some days, and you can't you can't be knocked off your knocked off your senses or knocked off your feet by an aura ring telling you that your readiness is low. You can't do that. Do you you you know you yeah, I know we we can touch on this as well, but do you think any of the best lifters, you know, we go Dorian, Ronnie, Jay Cutler, Arnold back in the day. Do you think any of them would have listened to an aura ring if they would have told them you're not ready to train?

SPEAKER_00 48:30

The um uh half for Beyonce and you know uh the the the the Coleman uh the Coleman Brothers to what are the what are the strong men? Staltman Brothers, yeah. You know this then for the wearables it starts to go in for me to analysis paralysis where we're looking to put a number on exactly everything. I think maybe ten minutes ago, Francis, you used the term the basics for 95% of our client base, and I think to be honest, probably 90 plus percent of people lifters in general, you'll make fantastic progress from the basics. Now, why am I talking about the basics? Well, obviously, the things like the whoop and the aura and the whatever wearable that is that you use, do they produce data? Yes. Do they produce good data? Arguably, yes, okay, that's fine. It's gonna give you some sort of you know baseline that you can go to. One of the things to remember, there's class action lawsuits against wearables that are telling people you burnt three and a half thousand calories in that gym session and your total burn for the day is five thousand. I'm gonna put my neck on the chalking block and say you didn't burn five thousand calories today because see if you did, you'd probably be needing to eat closer to six to hit your goals, and there's not very many people out there, Francis, that are eating in excess of six thousand calories. I think what we we really need to do here is a sense of being inside yourself and know what you feel. Okay, sometimes you can be really, really tired, and one of the things we spoke about, you know, off-earth tonight. Some of our best training sessions have come from the borderline of do you know what? There's nights where I've opened the gym door and I've been like, I'd rather be anywhere else than here. I might just go up the road, chuck Netflix on, and I'm just gonna chill on the couch. But you get through the door and you even say things like, gonna do a couple of sets, happened to me in my last prep, uh gonna go in and do a couple of sets, see how I feel. A couple of sets in, felt brilliant, done the whole workout, actually did the workout in reverse the way it worked out, but it doesn't matter. Done the whole workout, enjoyed myself. Um the polar opposite, there's been days where I've been on my food, I'm eating it to the gram, I've drank three litres of water, I'm spot on, I've had my pre-workout, I go into the gym, I'm gonna crush bars, I'm gonna turn into the incredible Hulk, and I pick up a 20 kilogram plate and it's like 80, and you're like, oh, it's not happening tonight. And I think you need to you need to you know push past these things because then as I say, you can go on to have the the best session in the world. There are times when you're gonna be genuinely fatigued, but you need to know again inside yourself what that feels like rather than having some technology dictate to you or you're 30% and and this, that, and the next thing.

Mental Toughness and Resilience in Training

SPEAKER_01 51:43

I think what a lot of it comes down to, mate, is that people are capable of a lot more than they think, right? And we we spoke. Um, again, we need to do a full podcast on like the psychology of lifting and how you can get into that because it's so important. I think people know SIBO themselves up here. Feeling a little bit tired. And if you look at an order ring and it says, Oh, your readiness score is 30% today, mate. You should rest. You know, if you didn't have that order ring and you felt a little bit tired, and you went, you know what, fuck it. I'm I'm going in here and I'm gonna I'm gonna attack this, I'm gonna give everything that I've got. Bollocks of the order ring or whatever. Guarantee you go in and have a good session, you get the work done, you know, you get you get a good night's sleep in that night, you you recover and you get yourself back in the game, you start to you know fill in that recovery hole that we always talk about. But if you just go off that order ring, your readiness go, you're you're you're already you're talking yourself out of the session already. Before you've even walked in the gym door, as you say, like you're looking at your 33% score. This is telling me I'm not ready. I've got I've got deadlifts coming up today. Oh, it's not gonna go well. I'm gonna I'm gonna back, I'm gonna get injured. You know, all this all this doubt starts to creep in, and people don't need that. People don't need to see that shit. People would be better just uh ignoring it and just cracking on with the work and going in and taking what's there for the session. Again, I think this is where the tracking too much data, it's paralysis by analysis. That's that's my problem with it. Data is useful, very, very useful, of course. We we track data, you know, with all my clients, scale weights, calories, steps, all this stuff, how they're feeling. But I'm not interested in a readiness score. I'm I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in a readiness score because it it does it does nothing apart from and just just again give you messages that you don't really need to hear. So, yeah, that's that that's my thoughts on those, mate. Uh, sure you can tell I don't like them.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

It comes down to to framing and reframing. You know, we we've we've opened the podcast tonight and we're talking about the old school. There is an old school mindset to that as well. You know, I I think some of the modern thinking, I'm not gonna go down a road of you know, it was better in my day kind of thing. But I think there there is uh a relevant point there to be made. How we frame things is so important, you know. As you mentioned, or I might hurt myself tonight, I'm not really feeling it, I'm off. You're already telling yourself at that point how you're gonna feel for something that you haven't even tried to attempt. Now, you know, it's very easy to just do the do the easy stuff and be like, no, I'm I'm not gonna go. It's harder at points to push through. Now that obviously does get even harder when you're in a deficit because you're drawn down on the energy. But I had a conversation with one of my clients at the weekend who we we tuned his calories down a little bit, and he was talking tongue in cheek, you know, it wasn't anything serious. He's like, Oh, I hate you, and I've just looked at my new macros or whatever, and I was like, Yep, and that's where we reframe it to um I get to eat five times today. So rather than looking at the numbers, frame it into something that puts it into a more positive mindset. I I I know you're a fan of this, Francis. I get to train today. You know, there's a great meme out there where the the the gent is in the street and he's homeless, and he's looking at the guy riding the bike, and the guy riding the bike's looking at somebody on a scooter or a quad or whatever, and he's looking at somebody that's driving a Lamborghini, and it's always I wish, you know, instead of realizing you know you're you're you're lucky to get to train today to have the decision that you can get to the gym and go and do something that that you really enjoy and something that obviously you want to progress in.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Yeah, absolutely. You mean so we're we're big on this, like the the gratitude piece, it's genuinely looking at the situation, and you know, we always get to choose our response. We know we're big on that, and we spoke on that over the last couple of podcasts. But if I had to look at old school versus new school lifting in terms of of this and to that mentality, I think the old school done a lot of they had a a lot better approach when it uh it comes to maybe resilience and grit and just getting out those tough days, just cracking on, you know, and not not to not to sit here and go, oh yeah, back on my day it was better, like as you said. But I do think the the old school they they had less to worry about, they just fucking cracked on, they just they went in there and they got stuck in, even on the on the bad days. You know, you had fellas coming from work, they've been labouring all day, you know, rocking up in the work clothes, just getting stuck in. You know, I think there's more of an old school mentality that that's lacking nowadays. Everybody is so modernised and again going off all these trackers, and that everyone is thrown off centre or thrown off balance a lot easier nowadays. They don't have that resilience and grit that people might have maybe had 30, 40 years ago. Now, whether that is again, we could talk on the environment, social standards, you know, what's accepted nowadays, but there is a um uh a genuine softness in a lot of people where they don't want to do anything that's difficult or they have to get a little bit uncomfortable with.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Would you agree? I I totally agree. And I I think hard work and intensity would matter than probably most would want to admit to. And I think if you're really being honest with yourself, you know, that and that mental toughness comes from just grinding on on the basics, you know, just just getting it done. Sometimes one good thing I think or analogy that I've used in the past when you're trying to get up early in the morning if you're doing Fasti Caldo or something like that, just don't think. Like seriously, don't just don't think. Say you're gonna count to three and jump out of bed on one. Because the more that you spend thinking about it, you'll convince yourself that you're not gonna do it. Sometimes you just need to act without thinking. You know, you can have the the perfect programme, perfect nutrition, and it's all sitting there, it's all waiting for you, and then you don't put in the effort, you you don't, you know, you don't grind on it, you know, you don't put the emphasis on consistency and patience and and building and just putting the blocks down every single day. I think that's definitely what the old school got got right to a very high degree. Again, is there a reason for that? Is there a little bit of of bias and nostalgia on our part? Maybe there is because there are obviously you know people out there in terms of like a little bit younger, like in the bodybuilding space, for example, that are doing fantastic things. But I think when you're playing the percentage game, I totally agree with what you're saying. I think there's a lot more reasons that people talk themselves out of it than talk themselves into it.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

I'm reading a good book at the moment, it's called um Eat That Frog by a fella called um Brian Tracy. Now, eat that frog, what does that mean? He's talking about doing your um doing your most difficult task or one of your hardest tasks first thing in the day, and he calls it eating the frog because he said if you if you were to get up at the first thing and eat a frog, it would be the most uncomfortable thing that you would do in the day. So once you've done that, everything else is easy. So it's just a a way of framing things and you know don't stop avoiding the sorts of difficult tasks and things that are uncomfortable. If you know something is going to be uncomfortable, it's gonna be difficult, you probably need to do it. You probably that's what you need to be doing to build that grit resilience. Because building that grit and resilience, the more you do it, the easier things become. And again, it this is this is all stuff that the the modern science-based lifting community that that avoiding, that's what the old school got, right? So I just think it it is fitting that we do touch on the mentality aspect of it.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

I mean the the the one thing that we can't do as coaches is is is we can develop it, you know, we can make suggestions to people and and show them how to get better, you know, it's something that I I would readily admit that I've got better at, and actually to be honest, bodybuilding has given to me that element, but I've had to learn that as well along the way. I did as well have a coach and I enjoyed being coached by him because of the way that he did coach because that gave me I'm not gonna let him down. Yes, I'm doing it for me because I want the results, but I'm also doing it for him because I want to show that I'm I'm good enough to be in the space, and it's given me over you know that period of time that I've been training, given me so much in terms of if I use the diet as an example. I never ever imagined that I would get into some of the conditions that I did, you know. I thought I would maybe do a little bit, it's not to hype myself up too much, you know, but I'm quite proud of what I've achieved, and I wouldn't have been able to do that without doing it, if that makes any sense. I'm probably veening off a little bit here, it's it's hard to sort of explain that, but the work that you put in and the limits that you sort of place on yourself are what you've got to try and push back and find where the new levels are, and that's something that comes, you know. We've mentioned about skill set, something that comes with developing that that particular skill set.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

It's

Integrating Wisdom from Old and New Approaches

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

getting our wisdom, mate, isn't it? There's no substitute for wisdom, and I think that that allows us to give a sort of nice wrap-up and conclusion on both science based and the old school. And I think we both agree in the fact that you know that the the new school gets some good stuff right, but you know, biomechanics, good exercise selection, work within your structure. We also want to pull on the old school of not being scared to get in there and experience things and gather your own wisdom and do the thing like you've just mentioned there. Don't be scared to make some mistakes and learn from it. Make sure you're coming in, big intensity of efforts, really getting after your training with some passion. And if you marry that together with smart exercise choice, precision, accuracy, you don't overthink things, you suck it up on some of those tough days and look at those as opportunities to get better, I think you're gonna be you're gonna be onto a winner.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Yeah, I mean the the smartest approach is you know context dependent, you know, start simple, find things that work. We talked about the basis of sorry, the basics to to bring that in, layer in a bit of science, see if it improves your results, but the number one things that that aren't you know they're non-negotiable is adherence, hard work, consistency, and and getting it done. There's no substitute for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Spot on, mate. Great way, great way to wrap this one up. So if anybody is uh interested in coaching and needs some help, needs some guidance, uh you can message uh Benjamin at Coach, Coach Benjamin Yeezus on Twitter. I'm at coach FHM, which stands for Francis Harry Melia, that you found out the other day. So, yeah, if anybody is interested in uh coaching, give us a message and uh we will get you sorted. But enjoy that one, mate.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

Very good, mate. Thank you very much. That was um very insightful. I enjoyed the conversation we had offline and and hopefully we've we've layered some of that stuff into what we've done here on the last hour or so, and um as you know, I'm already looking forward to to next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

And that's it. We're always we're always trying to get better, we always want to touch on topics, and we when when we do this ourselves, it it enhances our own learning, and that's what we're after. Uh so you know, continuous learners and students of the game, mate, isn't it? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

The minute you think you know everything, mate, you're done. Get out of the game. That's that's my take.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

That's it. Alright, everyone. Cheers for the support, and uh, we will speak to you next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Thanks everyone. Chat soon.