Train. Eat. Think. Episode 16 - Q and A

In this episode, Benjamin Yeezus and Francis Melia answer a wide range of questions asked from our listeners - about training, nutrition, and mindset, providing practical advice for hobbybuilders and gym enthusiasts of all levels. 

We look forward to having episodes like this every so often. 

We welcome any questions you have and we can deep dive on any topics you wish. 

Thanks for listening and enjoy. 

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

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Train, eat, think. Episode number sixteen QA. So the people have spoken, and of course Francis and I have listened. We're always looking for topics that people want us to take a little deep dive into and to help give you guys the best value out there. And we've had some questions in, and we're going to do some episodes like this every so often. So Francis, over to you. And we'll kickstart this week. Excited to get in.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, so we we put it out last week that we were going to do the Q ⁇ A. We've got a good reception on Twitter. So we just want to say thanks everyone for the responses. And yeah, we're just gonna we're gonna delve into it. We'll probably get to maybe an hour, six questions. So let's not let's not waste any time. Let's just delve into it. So, first question from someone called uh Jake Andres Should beginners in the gym that have some extra fat get rid of the fat as soon as possible and then focus on building or go into a small deficit to build muscle and build strength simultaneously. Let's say someone is 15 to 20 percent body fat. Good question. I'll throw it over to you, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

A very, very good question, and somewhere I found myself um as a beginner, and my advice here is to get the body fat off first and foremost. I would say maybe the caveat to that would be if you're on the side of 15% body fat, there could be a touch and go where you might be more inclined to take like a recomp type approach, but if you're certainly on the edge of 20% body fat or above, then it's definitely something to look at. Start getting the body fat off down so you're focusing on um a caloric deficit with uh some good training, of course, so that you're keeping as much muscle along the way, um, and then as we always speak about, mate, creating the best possible runway that we can get. That when we go into an improvement season, then we've got a nice long runway and done well creating the habits and things like that to set us up for success, not only in the deficit, but for what's to come in the eventual growing phase.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah, I I agree. I think it it sounds like the typical the skinny fat example of someone who quite under muscled, um you know, not lots of body fat, but you know, the in terms of the body recomp effect, these type of people they they can drop body fat and build muscle simultaneously because of such just the the new training stimulus, is such a novel stimulus. That's the powerful catalyst here, that's what's gonna happen inside the gym. So these sorts of people, if they are in that 15 to 20% body fat and you're new to lift them, you definitely, definitely for me, like it's just off the cards. You don't want to go into a surplus, that makes no sense, absolutely no sense. The minimum is sort of gonna be maintenance calories to maybe a slight deficit. If you can shift off that body fat, I think the big thing, as you mentioned, there is it is to create that runway by shifting off the body fat. But I think if something that really goes underrated and under the radar for so many people, is that people don't think about your ability to utilize the extra food and carbohydrates that will come in once you get a little bit leaner. When you've got more body fat on you, you're not gonna be as insulin sensitive, you're not gonna be able to utilize the carbohydrates as good as you will be. Is if you're someone who's 17% body fat and you bring yourself down to 12%, you are going to be more insulin sensitive. You're going to utilize carbohydrates a lot better, you're going to partition the nutrients a lot better, plus creating that runway to then be in a sort of building phase and an environment where calories are raised for a little bit longer. So the the answer would be, you know, if someone 15 to 20% body fat, definitely not a surplus, absolutely not. Maybe maintenance, slight deficit, don't want to be too aggressive. Uh, but yeah, in that range where we're trying to shift off a little bit of body fat, and you let performance inside the gym very propels some of the body composition changes by uh extra muscle tissue coming on as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

I just scribbled down here, lose insulin sensitivity. Um that's absolutely right. You know, that's one of the things that you're battling from from the beginning. I think what's really important to say is if we're assuming that the person is, you know, skinny fat, there's not a lot of muscle there to begin with. Again, some some place where I started, I didn't have a lot of muscle. You don't get jacked by dieting at that point, but that's not the main point, so to speak. The point is you're trying to create habits, uh, routine, getting used to training, and you're giving yourself the pathway, then, as we're mentioning, when you've completed a successful diet phase, you should be doing it um sustainably, you should be looking at the the habits, all of the things that we talk about and in a cut and in our cutting episodes that then sets up a successful and improvement phase. One of the things you're going to battle against as well, that we're mentioning that the higher you go, closer to 20% and above, if you've lost the insulin sensitivity, more body fat doesn't necessarily mean more muscle. You're going to have a heavier and harder diet phase on the back end because the more body fat and the more adipause that you create on top of where you are at the moment, it just means that you need to diet at some point, and it's probably going to be even harder because then you've got a lot of body fat to shift, and in all honesty, your net position is still going to be pretty much the same. You're going to have to diet at some point to get yourself down to that point where we mentioned you know good insulin sensitivity, again, good habits with what you've been doing. But once you take that that body fat down, it's just a really good spot, and it doesn't mean that you necessarily go from you know X calories and add a thousand calories per week or per day, even something like that. You know, you're going to just go incrementally, nice and slow, like we say, sustainably. Something that's going to give you long um a long runway of progress to get to you know getting some muscle tissue on with that focus. It doesn't necessarily need to be thousands upon thousands of calories to in essence get fat again.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

That's it, I agree. The bringing in the big the big rocks are pulling on the big levers of fixing habits. You know, if you the training stimulus is the most powerful thing, you get someone in a slight deficit, so maintenance calories, good protein feeds, good food quality, micronutrients are in there, good timing of carbohydrates around training, you know, step count coming up, cardio coming up a touch, pulling on all the big rock big rocks and fundamentals that we we've touched on. If someone does that, yeah, if you're in that sort of 15 to 20% sweet spot where where that range might be, that will start tapering down, and then you'll be ready for a uh an actual improvement season where we can actually raise food.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And I I loved your your term. I can't remember when you mentioned it, Francis. We talked about more sponge, and and that's why we do the improvement phase. We're looking to get more muscle tissue. With that, we get more sponge. So when you go through the relevant phases and the deficit, you're looking to get as lean as you can. But when you're coming into a successful improvement phase, you get more muscle tissue on, which means more sponge, which means when you come to diet again, you get to diet on higher calories, assuming all things are equal, like like Francis had mentioned there, your nutrition, your micronutrients, not just your macros, but your micros are on point. You're getting great progressions in your lift because you've got the right balance between volume and frequency. One thing we have mentioned, and and it's never a criticism or any disrespect. When you're new to lifting, you won't be able to train as hard as someone who's advanced because you're still learning, you won't have four or five, well, you probably shouldn't have four or five plates aside on something. You're looking to build up that strength, and with that over time, that's the exit to be honest, is the real exciting part of your journey because it's all new, you're getting great stimulus again, as Francis has mentioned, you're building the strength, even in that deficit, and that's why we mention it being small in size, because then it's a it's a pathway for you to get you stronger, even in a deficit, and that comes back to part of obviously what the podcast is named after think. So it's about how you're thinking about getting into the gym, and even as a beginner, even in a deficit, you should be looking to make progress as much as you can and in everything that you can.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Absolutely, mate. I'm gonna uh I'm gonna pull up another question as I have into another one for us. So, Nick Thomas, how do you feel about throwing cardio at the end of a lifting session versus keeping it off days? Uh also one of the trainee thing branded stripy lifting pants coming out. You must be talking about the uh obviously the the pants that I've got. But yeah, just to go into that cardio placement for me, I definitely wouldn't put cardio before a session. I think we've we've touched on this in the past, like we we want to prioritize the lift and weight side of things as much as possible. Now, whether that be if you're in a deficit, the training session is there for muscle retention, right? If you're on a surplus or you know, within an improvement season, the training session that is the match that sparks the fire for muscle growth. So our lifts are very, very important. We've got to protect that. If you're coming in and you're throwing cardio pre-legs or you know, pre-training session, again, talking about that sponge that we've got, that's gonna take away from the sponge or the energy that we can put into our lifts. So if you was going to place cardio uh strategically, it probably makes sense. Okay, maybe put a little bit of cardio at the end of a session if you'd had time. Um, but ideally, I think a lot of cardio can come as far away from the training session as possible. In a perfect world, I put it as far away from the training session as possible, um, just so you can focus uh maximal efforts on your actual lifting sessions.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, uh totally agree with everything you've said. Um, but it's the best place for it. You you should be focused on your training first and foremost. We're not saying don't do cardio, it's obviously a great modality, it's something that we push year-round, it's something that does go to the byway sometimes when people go into um the surplus, it's much easier. People get much more into it, I think, what when they're when they are in a cut. Um, but it's definitely something whether you do it fasted or you do it immediately post-workout or you do it after, for example, your post-workout meal. Um, I've actually I've actually done all three, truth be told. Um I I I love my cardio fasted from a preference perspective, just because you get up, you slam the coffee, and and out you go just to get it done for the day. Um, it can be as well when I've been doing competition type diets, um, my cardio split, so I'm doing some in the morning and I'm doing some after my workout, and I am doing that seven days a week. Um, so again, it comes down to what you've got available to you, uh what times you can actually get it in, and how many minutes you've got across the week. And it's something that I always ask people, even when I'm setting expectations and calories from the very beginning, because as we know, different people have got different responsibilities. Uh, some people might be, I can only commit to 30 days of of sorry, 30 minutes of cardio on any given day, and that's absolutely fine. You just set the expectation and you know that you're probably going to bring down food a little bit more than than the next person if they could do maybe 45 minutes of cardio, for example. And I'm talking about getting there into the depths of a of a of a deficit, um, probably in your improvement phase. You're probably going to want to hold cardio, I would say, 20 to 30 minutes a day just to give you like overall health. Um, but yeah, hopefully that gives a we have a context to the different placements of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

I think what you have to watch out for with placements as well is where do you put your cardio in in relation to your leg days, uh, especially if you are doing things like um, let's say steer master or you know, heavy sprints on a bike or hill sprints, whatever cardio shows you're doing, you've got to be mindful of the type and the intensity of it and where you are placing it on your leg days. Again, if you've got leg day coming up tomorrow, you don't want to be doing heavy stear master the night before because you the glutes and quads are gonna take a little bit of a beating from that, so then you're gonna go in sub power performance with your leg sessions, so maybe your more intensive lower body cardio sessions, you want to keep them as far away from leg day as possible. I'll give you a good example. Like I I had a client the other day, um, he went out for it just just just randomly. He laced up his shoes. I didn't tell him to do this, by the way. This is this is why this happened. He laced up his shoes and he went out for a run outside on the concrete. He had a little bit of a turn as Achilles tendon. Why is that? He's not used to running outside on the concrete. He normally does things on the treadmill. This is just an example of where you've got to be careful. Again, don't just uh go out willy-nilly and do random cardio. If it's not in your plan, if it's not structured, be mindful. Because now, you know, he's he's looking at it maybe a couple of weeks of being careful because he's he's tried to go and do cardio out on the concrete that he's not used to. So I just I wanted to I wanted to bring that in because people have got to be you've got to be careful with what cardio you are doing and your placement of it, because if it if it then ends up negatively impacting the whole program and you lifting performance, so what we're trying to do there, you've got to ask yourself, is it worth it?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

I think that's a fantastic point. Um structural is one of those some people I know like to do a little bit of um the roar, maybe some of the stairmaster. I I like I like it's pretty much like lifting when you when you choose a lift and you stick with it and you're looking to get better with it over time. I like to stick to one one modality so that you're getting the progress in that and you can always look at your metrics like distance and and pace, for example. I'm kind of married to power walking, I will be honest. For me, it's all the benefits of cardio. You can get good pace in it, there's good accessibility, you can do it anywhere. Um, obviously, weather dependent here where I live, it rains a hell of a lot, so you end up in the gym doing the power walking, but you get none of the drawbacks as well. Francis makes a great point. Not much point going out doing hill sprints and hit when you've got legs the next day, or even maybe even a heavy back session, because you're drawn down then potentially on what your main focus is for people that do normally come to us, which is we're looking for muscle gain, we're looking for hypertrophy. Now we're never saying that fitness doesn't play into that. We we we do say fitness is important because it costs you reps in the gym, you don't want to be blown, which is why we say cardio is so important even in your improvement phase. But having that having that structure around it and doing the same thing, I think, is is very, very useful. I know that some people like to check the boxes or maybe get a little bit bored. That that's understandable to go with that, but I think it just depends as well, like on the modality that you choose, and that's why I'm such a big, a big fan of powerwalking.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Low invasive cardiomies, isn't it? I think you can't go wrong with that. It's the low invasive stuff, the stuff that gets the job done in terms of getting our cardiovascular benefits, but then it protects the training performance. That that's what that's the balance and the blend that we're trying to get. Because, again, as you mentioned, a lot of people are coming to us for um hypertrophy, strength adaptations, muscular adaptations, of course, fitness and health benefits, of course, we know how important that is, but we're not trying to be the fittest runner in the world, we're not trying to sprint the fastest. We don't we don't really care about that unless someone is coming to us for that. Most of our clients are you know, they're trying to get a better physique and obviously the health benefits that come with that. So you've got to look at what is the main goal, and you prioritise and execute them, and that and that's where like you know, excessive cardio on the wrong forms of cardio, it doesn't really let it lend itself to the clients that we're working with and the results that we're after.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

I think as well, another thing really worth mentioning is age, and I I see content on this about you know uh you get to a certain age and you can still do X, Y, and Z. For me, if you want to start sprinting at the age of 45, 50, and you haven't sprinted since like the age of 16, I think you'd be to be really, really careful here. You made a great example about your gent that went running on on tougher um tougher material, concrete, and he's given himself, you know. Always got to be so careful with things like Achilles and your rotator cuff because those are really big potential injuries of they take you out the game, you know. You take your you take your rotator cuff out, you can't push, you can't pull, you can't even do a like a squat, like a hack squat, because you can't set anything on the shoulder. These are you know things that feed into also the psychology then of you being stuck on the couch for many, many months, potentially needing surgery or whatever. So I think that's got to be a point where you're trying to help people and and help them become yes, absolutely fitter with a reduction in body fat, reduction in BMI, increase in muscle tissue and strength, which are you know markers of longevity, longer life, stronger life, all that sort of good stuff, quality of life. But we can do it in ways it doesn't need to be. I saw uh runner X and and they they did this fantastic thing and such a such a great time. Um you make a great point, Francis. We we don't necessarily need to be that person. I've obviously got clients as well that uh run marathons or run half marathons and do them as challenges, and that's absolutely fine. You know, we just make sure that we set out at that point in time that there could be, if you're doing marathons, potentially a little impact into the training that you're doing. We manage those expectations accordingly, maybe less so on a half marathon, depends on how fit the individual is. But for the most, you know, you really want to stick with something that's not as draining, I would say, on that end, especially if that's your priority and and your goals that you want to work towards.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Absolutely, mate. 100% agreed. Have you got any other questions for us?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah, I've got a couple here on the side. Um one's this is actually a really good one, um, which is fair. So helping people in the gym, if you spot someone doing a lift and it's bad form, do you ever politely intervene? Do you offer some advice or do you just stay focused and carry on with your session? And that's from Will on X.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

It's a good question. He's he's actually uh he's actually my client. Um he told me that he sent this one through. Um, or my good clients, Jack's name is um so uh for me, I I just go in the gym and and and I just focus on my own stuff. Um there's been I'd say I can probably count on one hand over the last 10 years where I might have um offered someone a little bit of advice, you know, there'd probably someone who are who I know in the gym and I've seen the face quite a few times. I wouldn't just go up to some random person I don't really know and start offering you know unsolicited advice because you know that that's not my job to do that. I have, you know, I've politely, I can give you the good example of the there's a fella in the gym over here. I I always see him, you know, you know the people you you walk in the gym, you always give them the head nod, you know, the bro head nod. I know it's just I don't really speak to him, it's just you know, nod of the head. You know, you're on good terms. I was working in with him on the chest supported T-bar, so I'm actually working in with him, right? So it's not as if I've spotted him from the other side of the gym, got my binoculars out and went, ha, looking in doing that over there. I need to go and say something to him. You know, I was working in with him, and I have my weight on, and this is no disrespect to to this to this fella at all, but he's he's not as strong as me or hasn't got the muscular development to be using the same weight that I'm using, and that's not me being some dickhead, like, oh look at me. No, it's it's just it's just fact. So I had the weight on, and he was trying to use the same weight that I was using on the chest supported T bar and mate, like you can you can only imagine if he was on it and he was just he's flinging his torso off the form. Was terrible. He was probably going to hurt himself. So at that point, you know, I'm standing next to him waiting for his set to finish and I'm watching him. And I said, I just said to him, look, like take a just take a plate off and just watch, watch, watch my set now and watch what I do. My chest's glued to the pads, driving with the elbows. I'm not swinging from the lower back. I'm keeping my chest against the pad. So I showed him a good set and went, take that plate off and just try it with that weight for you now. Try it. See how it feels. And he done a set, took the weight off, and it was much safer, much more efficient. And it his eyes lit up at the end of the set, and he was like, ah, I see what you mean. It makes sense. So that's that's an example of you know how I've given advice in the past. But I I definitely wouldn't, I just wouldn't walk up to someone randomly in the gym uh and and start giving them form tips. I think you've got to have a good bit of sort of social awareness with this one. And for the most part, I just keep my blinkers on and focus on it and cracking on on my own training. So yeah, well, what's your take?

SPEAKER_01 23:02

I bet you felt the set as well, which is one of the most important things, you know. I can feel that working my back musculature as opposed to I'm just throwing the weight and seeing how much I can get from this. From my own point of view, mate, I I normally try and just stay away and stay kind of in my own lane if I'm totally honest. Um, if I'm ever asked, I would always try and help or make suggestions or or say um, you know, you maybe want to do this or that. Um I I did have a gent in the gym come up to me and ask if I could if he could I could take some pictures of him. Um he was he's he's been in the gym many, many years. Again, like you say, how you doing, mate? Turns out we support the same football team. So we've had a few conversations about that over time. And I was in just training away. I was doing um cross triceps and I had my headphones on and he tapped me on the shoulder and he's like, Would you take some pictures for me? I said, Aye, absolutely no problem. So he's like, I'll be about half an hour or something. I said, Just come and get me when you're ready. So, like that, we went up. There's a little bit up the stairs in our gym where it's a bit a bit more you know secluded, so there's there's not so many people on the main gym floor. It's a bodybuilding gym anyway, so there's never any old gym's like that. It's not a pure gym where it's slightly different like that. Um, and he told me he was having some trouble with um doing hack squats, for example, because it's hurting his knees. So I said to him, you know, why don't you try just taking a load off your knees a little bit, maybe going up, moving your legs, for example, on the pendulum squat or the hack squat, move them up a little bit so that you're getting maybe a little bit more hamstring and glutes and see how it takes the pressure a little bit off your knees. Certainly on the pendulum, you know you're gonna get down, it's gonna help you. And on the hack squat, to be honest, this is something that I do. I do more predominantly like a glute and hamstring movement as opposed to the quads. It never feels good on my knees either. I don't know why, I just don't like it. It's never really worked for me. Anyway, turns out he tried it, came back, and he's like, That's fantastic. He's like, I've now got another two things in my arsenal because I've been struggling for so long. I've only been able to do leg extensions, but he's got to control how he does it because when he gets to full extension, his knee hurts. So I was like, Well, that's great, and and a good example of someone coming up and asking for help. The only other time I'd probably get involved is there's a machine in our gym that people use as a as a calf machine, and it's like a hack squat, and people put their feet right on the edge to the point where if you slip off that there's no safety on the way down, you can't you can't kick the arms out because you're gonna be falling, and it's probably one of the only times I'll say to people, maybe don't want to do that, and find something else to do like a standing calf on. So, aside from that, if I've if I if I've ever I've seen someone maybe gonna really hurt themselves, I would maybe respectfully as possible just say you maybe want to try that, whether or not they listen is entirely up to them, but that's the only way that I would ever get involved.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, I I I know what you're saying with that. If someone's really gonna hurt themselves, and you know it's within your you know reach to maybe say something that that makes sense, but I'm I'm with you, mate. For the for the most part, it's it is just it's I go in there, it's just blinkers on, and I just want to train and focus on my own training because you know, as you know yourself, like if you went round correcting everybody in the gym, you'd be there all day. So they need to come and listen to the podcast and uh watch some of the content on YouTube as well, and uh they'll be good to go.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

I'm gonna get my train eat think pants on, make sure that everybody knows about it. Just typey pants, that's what we need. So, continuing on with Bill, he's asked us another question, which is very kind of him, and he said, if either of you could train with one bodybuilding legend for a session, who would it be and why?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Who would it be? I think I'd uh I'd probably go right in with Dorian Yeats. Um, so on why I would pick Dorian Yeats, just because I'd probably say his training philosophy and training style is is probably more suited to the way I like to train. And that's not me, I'm not trying to compare myself to to Dorian Yeats at all. I just uh uh I like to I like to think very methodically about my training, and it's every set that I do, it's it's all out. I'm not leaving reps in the tank, I'm not doing lots of volume, I'm not pumping away. It's I'm in the gym, present. It's very like sort of Zen like this is my moment, this is my training focused time, and I'm here to get after it, and we are getting stuck in. So I had just you know, when you watch some of the the blood and guts videos, and he's with Big Leroy and they're all shouting, Go on, Dorian, one more, you know. I just uh that would be that would be amazing that for me, like having a session with Dorian back in the day in that temple gym in Birmingham at a good leg session. It's just for me that's that that that's bodybuilding, that is what it's all about. Um I pick uh I picked Dorian Yeats.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

It kind of adds to the mystique, doesn't it? Um being called the shadow and training in this gym that okay, there's pictures out there, but when you hear it's like the basement gym and all that sort of good thing, it just adds to the the kind of mystique of of everything. Um is really really good.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Shadow, yeah. Because he I I've heard him on many podcasts, he said that all the all the fellas in America, you Sean Ray, you Kevin Lerone, they all knew each other, they were all friends, they were all in Gold's gym, so they could all look at each other year round, they could all suss each other out, uh, they all knew each other's strengths and weaknesses, what someone was doing, what was going on, they all they all knew everything about each other, but they knew absolutely fuck all about Dorry, and he he he came over, he'd win the Olympia and he'd go hiding for the year again, and he just didn't know what he was doing, and he was in the back of the mind all the time, and here he is, just in in the the dirty dungeons of Temple Gym in the middle of Birmingham, just getting stuck in, and all the Yanks don't know what's going on, and he just came over and smoked them every year for six years straight, and the shadow, what a great name.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

I think it it goes to show as well what can be done with I'm not gonna say basic equipment, but when I say basic, I mean you know, just focusing on the basics. He eventually gave up barbell squats because he hurt his back, so he was in favour of the hack squat and the leg press at the time, and still to this day we see them being you know chastised online. I know we don't want to get into the debate of what's better and whatever, but it's just an example of someone proving that it's less about the the equipment, so to speak, and more about how you utilize it. 100% mate, who who would you who would you go with? Who would you pick? I smiled when this question came through because I've I've already done it. Um mine was Jordan Peters, um, who I worked under for for seven years. He was he was my coach, and I travelled to um well I forget the name of the place now. It was down London, near Stansted Airport. Got a flight down, um, and he buried me in 28 minutes to the point where I couldn't put even two and a half kilos on on the hack squat. Um learned a lot that day, learned a lot about myself and how much I had left to sort of give, to learn, to understand about the you know the intensity of training, getting through sets. Obviously, it was his sort of job at that point to to bury me. He couldn't not send me back up the road saying oh that that felt kind of good. Um pretty much fell asleep in the airport on on the way home and um really enjoyed it. And I've been lucky that I've trained with uh with a few um that have been on the Olympia stage, one being Nathan De Asher, um close to your own heart, mate. Yeah, um again, buried me in like three sets, took me straight off the pendulum, right onto a leg press, back onto the pendulum, back onto the leg press again. The thing is, when you don't train like that, which I don't, you know, normally got good rest between sets, we're pushing to failure, pretty much as you mentioned, Francis. But when you train like that, you literally I was shaking for about two and a half hours after those four sets because he's just in your ear, kind of shouting, so that was quite fun. And um one day as well, I had a session with um Ryan Terry in my own gym in in Glasgow, Extreme Gym. It was a SFN, I think it was called, it was like a fitness expo, and Ryan Terry turned up. He asked me to spot him, and I was like, Can I jump in and get a couple of sets with you? And he's like, I jump in. So I had a good conversation. I'd actually met him previously, um, just after I think it was the year after he got his pro card. I was really into it. It was one of the things actually that drove me forward early in my lifting was was Ryan Terry, he was kind of like a hero of mine, and I spent an hour and a half talking to him in a in a shop somewhere, it was actually in Falkirk. I went to meet him, and it not a lot of people knew who he was at that point, but I did, and he very kindly there was nobody else around, so I just kind of spoke to him until somebody else turned up and he kind of remembered me. So we'd we'd done a few a few sets and um I thanked him for it. So I I a little a little few people that I've I've trained with there, mate, and obviously Jordan was was absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Quality, and I know you've met Dr. Scott as well, Dr. Scott Stevenson. For anybody who doesn't know, you should definitely check out some of his uh podcasting information out there. But got another good this is a good question, this one. Right? So uh Johnny Toiney on Twitter should lifters in their first few years of training focus on strength or hypertrophy, or is it the wrong way to think about it? I think this is a good one.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

I think it's good that he's thinking about it. I think it's uh important to think about both, but not in equal measures. You want to focus on hypertrophy, of course, so that's getting into upsets and rep ranges that create that stimulus, especially if you're at the start. Again, we've mentioned earlier, you're gonna have a great runway, you're gonna start off at a weight, you're gonna log your lifts because your logbooks are really important, and over time that's when your strength's gonna come, but it's not gonna come at the expense of your execution, of your form, of your range of motion, of your connection, which is just as important. There's been a lot of discussion this week on X about the importance and how people can grow without mind-muscle connection, and even the fact that maybe new people don't experience that. I would say, in my opinion, it's one of the parts of the skill set that you want to learn. Come back to your story from a little earlier, Francis, where you said the guy was just chucking weight around. We're assuming that he's a newbie, let's just say, for the for the purpose of what we're talking about here, he is fairly new to the gym. So that person's learning curve there was you need to take the weight off. When you take the weight off, you're going to connect better with it. Now, mind muscle connection isn't the main driver of hypertrophy, we know that it's mechanical tension. But when you're getting tension on the muscle, not just shifting something from A to B as quickly as you can to get the numbers that you say, Oh, that's me, I got 10 reps there. And one of the ones I always link back to, you know, when you're getting stronger over time, you may start at one plate, you might eventually get to two plates with the the right levels of progression, whether that's adding a rep each week, get to the end of the rep range, add another bit of weight on that strength's going to come over time, but it's not the most important thing because the most important thing is doing the sets to hypertrophy type levels, but learning that strength's a part of that, and just to finish off, you don't normally see someone with a small back that's doing four plates or four plates aside, for example, and the proofs in the pudding there, but you're lifting that with good form 100%.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Mate, I I I think I think it's a continuum, right? I think the strength and hypertrophy they're or strengthen size, they're on a continuum, right? If you want to get bigger over time, you're gonna get stronger in some capacity, right? Absolutely. I mean there's a reason that the the biggest humans on the planet they can also shift some weight. I've actually just done a video on this before, like there's videos with Nick Walker, like inclined bench pressing five plates aside, doing RDLs with seven plates aside, um, squatting with six plates aside. Now I know he doesn't train like that now, but he's done all that. He's built the cake first before focusing on the ice and stuff. Just be so if you want to get big over time, you are going to get stronger on whatever movements that you're doing. Now, I think this question in particular for beginners, what should they focus on? Again, they both go hand in hand. I think the more you are as a beginner, if you were to focus on just getting stronger anyway, on your let's say big barbell compounds, you're gonna build some muscle tissue, a lot of size off that anyway, in the early days. As you get more advanced, as you start getting, you know, maybe closer to your genetic ceiling in terms of muscularity, going from a one-plate squat to a three-plate squat for ten reps, you're gonna see a lot of quad size, glute size, glute development from that, right? As you as you're going from a ranked novice and you're moving up the ladder. But if you're someone who you can squat you can squat four plates for ten, if you go from four plates to ten to four and a half plates for ten, are you gonna see as much improvement of muscularity and focusing on strength in that capacity as the person who goes from you know one plate to three plates for ten? Does that make sense what I'm saying? So I think as a beginner, I think strength might matter a little bit more. Strength will goes hand in hand with the hypertery side of things. As you get more advanced, you don't then just focus on strength, stronger, stronger, stronger. I have to drive the absolute load up on this to get bigger because your connection, your internal feel with a lot of muscles and movements that you do, that will start to matter even more as you become more advanced, as you're you're scrapping for these extra extra couple of pounds of muscle tissue. Does that make sense? What I'm saying, and the sort of nuance behind it, and I think that's what a lot of the starting strength they do get right at the start with squat bench deadlift, they don't complicate it for people. You know, I know I I know obviously everyone's got different biomechanics and leverages, we know that you don't just force a square peg into a round hole. But if someone takes the, as you mentioned there, you've never seen anyone with a small back who can deadlift four, five, six plates. You know, if you take someone who's deadlifting 225 or two plates off the floor, and over the next year they build that up to five plates for six reps, everything's gonna be bigger, absolutely everything's gonna be bigger, versus someone who comes in fanny in an arm with the the lowest weights possible and hardly adds any weight to the bar because he's just so focused on form. You see what I'm gonna get the the balance and the blend right?

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Absolutely, and and until you get to that point, you know what you're sort of implying there is that at a point there's a risk-reward ratio, yeah. And for example, Nick Walker has probably got to a point, and I know that that Jordan got to that point as well. When you're getting so many plates on the bar, and obviously we are talking about you know kind of high-end uh bodybuilders here, they the risk isn't worth the reward of loading up so many plates, so that's when they need to start being that little bit cleverer in terms of finding out how to eke a little bit more out of the top end. But I think for most, if we're being honest, and most of our audience, you know, that that's a nice long runway. You're probably talking 15 years plus if you're doing things in the right way before you need to worry about you know your upper inner chest, grow your chest first, use the the basics, the meat and veg chest exercises that we talk about, your incline Smith, your your plate-loaded machine type stuff, your your cable flies, seated, of course, um and all that stuff's gonna give you 95% of what you're after, and for most people, unless you're looking to be like a top-level pro, you're probably never gonna need to step into the confines of that.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I think this goes into there's a video, I think it was might have been about six or eight weeks ago. You'll remember the one there's a video of like Samson, Samson Duda doing a single arm tricep push down, and he literally had like one plate on the stack, and you had everyone quote tweeting that and retweeting that, going, Ha, look how look how big Samson is, and look at the weight that he's using. And this is what happens at social media, and this is the problem with it, is that people will look at the way that these top pros and people with a lot of muscle tissue, the way they train now, that is different than what they might have done to build their whole physique and again build the cake maybe 10-15 years ago. You're looking now at a snapshot of their training performance of for what they need to do right now to get their paychecks for the show. You know, these top pros, they need to, you know, they compete six months, nine every nine months, whatever it is. They need to be healthy. It makes no sense now for Nick Walker to be coming in, even risking putting fire plates aside on a press for an incline barbell. It makes no sense for him to risk that. His career, his paycheck, everything, his livelihood depends on him remaining injury free and safe. Now, someone who's new in the gym, you know, good old little uh Johnny one plate who you know is struggling to bench one plate, looks at Nick Walker and goes, Look at the way Nick Walker's training now. I'm gonna train like him. And he never ever ever builds any meaningful muscle tissue because he doesn't push his weight up or you know, and maybe allow form to get a little bit scrappy in in in in in for the sake of trying to push some weights over time, and then you clean it up. You can't emulate and execute the exact same way as these top pros do. They've spent 10-15 years plus building the cake first for traditional methods. So that's that's where a lot of people do get lost looking at what these pros and the top-level athletes are doing now. They haven't always done that. There will have been a good time frame where they were just getting stronger and moving some weights around, and then they sharpened up execution even more as they got a little bit uh further in the career. So that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

I think as well that for in terms of the Samson video, there was no context around that particular video. Nobody knows if he was doing a warm-up or was he at the end of his workout that he was maybe even doing a little bit of you know um myofibula type work where he's he's he's he's trying to just push a little bit of blood in, could have even been carrying an injury where he's maybe trying to rehab it a little bit just by getting some blood in to give it some um some of the some of the minerals in there and stuff just to try and help it heal a little bit. So there's a lot of that context missing if you don't see or watching the full video, which which I didn't. And in Nick Walker's case, he's really come back to really focusing on the control, like the eccentric and concentric parts of the lifts, where he's finding that that's helping him grow again and and get the get the most, it'd be arguably even from the least. But again, it feeds into the point that you make, Francis. These guys want to be in tip top shape, they don't want to be carrying. They don't want to be beating themselves up. So it's why they're pros, because they they know and learn their bodies and say this is what I need at this point in time, and why they change those lifts from being, you know, let's say uh deadlifts and squats to more machine-based stuff, um, things like maybe like an RDL or a like a hinge like that rather than pulling from the floor. And again, it makes sense when you when you think about it and analyse it. If they're gonna keep going, I guess they can't just keep adding plates and plates and plates unless they're Ronnie Coleman, everybody will point to what happened to Ronnie, but that happens, in my opinion, because he kept wanting to come back too soon, couple of bad surgeries as well. So, again, maybe just some people looking at longevity and saying I want to stay in the game, I want to be, you know, doing what I need to do. And the thing is, if we use Jay Cutler as a good example, he never really suffered a lot of injuries in his career, and you know, he was able to find that sweet spot of I'm gonna grow, but I'm not gonna put myself out for too long. Absolutely, mate. Uh, have you got another one for us? I've got one here, I really like this one actually. This is from my client Rob, and he says it's a it's a doubler, so I'm gonna go with it. Does hobbybuilding attract disciplined people or does it create them? And what do the strongest minds that you've coached have in common? It's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

That's a very good question. There's a lot of uh lays with the onions appear back with dish one. So, what was the first part of the question?

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Does hobby building attract discipline people or does it create them?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

I don't think it attracts people. Um, no, I don't think it does because I've I've worked with people who when they start off, they're not really as disciplined, but they build the habits, they build that resilience and that discipline. I I think that's something that is built as well. I don't think you just have God-given discipline and resilience. That's something that you have to level up. So I I don't think it attracts those type of people. I I I I know certain people are the way inclined, people want to chase progress and and they want to see themselves getting better. I understand that. But the discipline element of it, no, I I think I think that comes over time by doing some hardshift, like doing some hard training sessions, going in there and pushing some of these big heavy leg sets when you don't really want to do it, you know, big deadlift sets, you know. If we're talking from a dietary standpoint as well, pushing through the the end of a cut, you know, when you when you're flagging, you're tired. That that all builds discipline and resilience, and the only way to do that is to go through the ringer with it. So I I I don't I I don't think it attracts those type of people, I think you build it. That would be mighty. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yeah, I think it's a blend. I think you make a a great point there, Francis, when you say some people come through and they've got maybe some of those kind of features already. But when you when you plug and play them into bodybuilding, hobby building, creating a physique, what always strikes me is the bleed over of the gym. You know, people just caught the the gym, I'm gone training or whatever. But when you see people making great progress, whether that's you know adding plates to lifts, uh dropping belt sizes, confidence in the gym. A great one I had this week from a client was I've started wearing vests to the gym because I feel a bit more confident in my appearance. I almost feel like I'm deserving enough to wear it, and that's also bleeding out to outside the gym and some of the stuff that he's wearing, he's just got a general confidence around what he does. So I think that from that that from that discipline and learning and applying, and when people start to see results, I think what that does is sends a lot of people down the rabbit hole, so to speak, or it's a it's a cliche, but once you see results, that's when it kind of becomes an addiction because you want to see more. And when you start, and I I know I've felt this, I was so frustrated in my journey. It's the whole reason I got a coach in the first place. I I wasn't I wasn't moving anywhere, I I felt like I was doing the same things over and over and wasn't getting any progress. The minute I brought a coach on board, things started to change for me dramatically, and then when you start to see those changes, you're willing to work harder to get more changes, and that is what drives that. So I think I think as well, it's a little bit of when you start to sort of gather a bit of moss, gather some momentum, start to see things that it drives. So you've got a little bit of discipline, some habits at the beginning, and when you start to apply them and you're really seeing the progress, that just makes you even better.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Yeah, it's a positive knock-on effect. I think you'd have someone who comes into things, and you know, they might not be as disciplined up front, but then they're rewarded for their efforts, they start to see the physique change, they feel better, feel stronger inside the gym, feel fitter. I can get this by being disciplined, organised with food, organised with training, adhering to sleep and wait times, you know, all this stuff that contributes to the best training performance, the best recovery. So when they start to see the positive knock-on effect of this, that's where the discipline builds. It comes from haha, it's like a penny drop moment. This is what I can get, and this is how it works if I put this effort in. So that's that's the way I see it. It builds, it builds over time. So, what was the second question?

SPEAKER_01 49:56

What do the strongest minds that you've coached have in common, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Good question again, and we we we've we've touched on the psychology of lifting a couple of podcasts ago, but I'd say the number one for me, mate, the number one is that they they see setbacks as opportunities to get better. It's it's not ah, something has happened, that's the end of the world, we've got to give up. No more coaching, no more training. I'm gonna sit on the couch and he crumples for the next four weeks. It's like, no, like the the mentally resilient and the mentally tough ones. It's look, Francis, uh, I've got a little bit of an injury here, or something's coming up. Uh, what can we do? What can we do to work around it? I know it's not gonna be perfect, but what can we still do? It's that mindset, it's that approach, and that is that takes so many people so far because you're not just you don't just panic. Again, we say like a deer in the headlights when something happened, it's like, oh shit, I can't do nothing. It's like, no, it's it's those type of people, they're the ones that will they struggle long term to get results because as we know, there's always things happening and life, like life happens, life is busy, life is there's always shit happening. When life throws you a care, but the most mentally tough, mentally resilient clients, they all have the same trait in common where they they bounce back, bounce don't break, so to speak. When something happens, they bounce, they don't break. They look for the opportunity, they look for the solution, they look for the way around it, and that'll be my my number one.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

I I I can't argue, mate. I I think you've hit the nail on the head, to be totally honest. You know, resiliency in there, you mentioned everybody wants a linear journey of you know, I want my calendar to be clear, I want nothing to ever happen in my life, and I'm just gonna do this hobby building thing, I'm I'm I'm gonna go for it. And as we know, you know, the the journey is filled with things happening curveballs, life events, speed bumps, and that's where you've got to sharpen the mindset to be resilient and also to zoom out, you know. Things might not have been perfect for the week, they don't need to be. You don't need a hundred percent in everything to make steps forward. 80% is fine. If you can get 85%, even better. But if you're getting 80% of the things right, you're gonna make more progress than 0% just chucking it because a little speed bump came along, whatever it was. Now we can all have bad weeks, we can all even maybe have a bad month, for example. It doesn't make it a bad year, it doesn't make it a bad life, and even if you get consistently knocked down, one of the ones I really like is fall down seven times, but stand up eight, and if you just keep coming back, as long as you don't quit, if you just keep coming back, okay, you got knocked down, maybe it was a couple of days, you got knocked down again, maybe it was a week. It's always gonna happen, you're always gonna have challenges, you're never just gonna have we'll we'll we're not 16 with no responsibilities, you're always gonna have challenges, and and you'll plenty of people have had them in their professional lives or whatever, and you move forward from them, you keep going, you keep going to work, and that's really what you need to do here in this case. Resiliency, find ways. Do you need to get up a little bit earlier? Maybe. Do you need to watch a little less Netflix? Probably, and then with that, you know, you can make good strides forward.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Well, it comes back to again. We we always choose our response. Nobody tells you how to think. When something happens in life, you've got two choices. It's the negative response where you have to have a victim, the world's against me, I can't do nothing, the situation, it's out, it's all out of my hands, everyone's against me. That's the negativity, victim mindset. Most people fall into this path. Unfortunately, that's the way of the world. Most people do that. The flip side is okay, it's sort of a fighter mentality. I'm gonna fight with whatever obstacles come up. What can I do? How can I, yes, I might, I've just lost a round, but how can I get back up off the canvas and land a couple of punches back on the opponents? What can I do to fight? What can I do now to move forward? That's the approach to have. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it's it's that approach, not just sitting there like a victim thinking, okay, what can I do? What what's what's in my control now? What can I control over this next day, two, three days, week, whatever, what can I do to deal with this obstacle that's in front of me and move forward? And if you can do that, you know what, all the shit that comes up in life, if you can just have that approach, I know it's easier said than done. I'm not telling everyone that you're gonna fit you're gonna do this right away, but when you start looking at things that happen in life, because you know yourself, you're you know, you're a dad, you're very busy, there's shit always going on. It's ne you'd never get it, uh you never ever ever get a perfect clear run where everything is just perfect and there's never any challenges. It just doesn't happen, it never happens. So if you want to get anywhere meaningful in life, you're gonna have to deal with some of this annoying shit that happens and responding to in the best possible way that you can and move forward. And yeah, that just it's it's such an invaluable street, mate. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

I love the point you just made there, mate, about in essence put a put a flag in the sand. If something's happened, that's fine. Address it, acknowledge it, it's happened, and what can you do to move forward? Doesn't mean that you need to say uh on Wednesday, well, that's the week done. I'll wait until next Monday, or it's the 17th of the month, I'm gonna wait until the first of next month to get going again. Just go, you know, try the if it's a meal, try the next meal. If it's a training session that you dropped, go tomorrow. Just find find those ways. It really does come down to I'm not the biggest fan of how bad do you want it, but how much do you want it, and that's when you can prove to yourself because everybody's got responsibilities, everybody's got challenges in life, but it comes down to what you want to do to move yourself forward. I've got one more mate, uh one one more, probably before we get to we've done it again.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

At what point should a hobby builder stop following the evidence and start trusting their own, and we call it n equals one experience? And I think this is a really, really good point because this is where we are, Francis, when when we talk about everything that our our approach and and our podcast I think encompasses. We're not just this, these people get put in a room and this science study said that. Neither are we just you know, get this done, just do this for for whatever reason, and and this is because I've said, you know, we're somewhere in the middle that if if we see something, we've got a lot of um anecdotal experience between us, you know, 30 years in the gym. So we're able to bring the best of both worlds together and say this is where we need to go, and again, that's what we try and instill into those that we work with.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

100% mate, and to answer this question, let me pose your question to you. I had a nice little bit of fun with it. So if you were to take two lifters, the first lifter is someone who just he sits there reading the science, and everything he does is just based purely on science. He does nothing that isn't in a study, everything is just by the book. That's lifter A. Lifter B, the second one, is someone who he's got in the gym and he's just running with it, he's putting full effort into the sets, he's not overthinking things, he's got a decent programme, and he's just getting stuck in, and he's executing, and he's letting his body feed back to him. He's adding weight when he needs to, he's pushing his reps where he can, he's eating and sleeping, recovering, and he's just not overthinking it, and he's just getting stuck in. Out of those two lifters, who is gonna get better results over the next five years?

SPEAKER_01 58:29

It's it's B for all intents and purposes, it's not even a decision because you've got someone taking action, someone learning a little bit on the job, as as we've had to do, you know, some things that we found made mistakes with, and that's obviously what we're trying to help and prevent others from making those mistakes to save time to make sure that the effort's gone in, but the perfect plan, the perfect keen and flap doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Keenan flaps, terrible, terrible. Well, I think as a final point there, mate, with that one, I think that can be if someone is an overthinker, they really just they they they can't stop overthinking everything to do with the training and nutrition. That's where again, uh a really good coach or a trusted second pair of eyes coming in. Again, they've got the wisdom and and the experience, they know what works from working with a lot of people, they will be able to analyse where you're at, your level of muscularity, your needs, and they can come in and they can shift through all the noise and all the shite that's out there and get you on a legitimate plan, so then you can just start executing them and you can stop overthinking all the studies. Am I doing the right exercise? Am I doing the right reference? Am I doing the right amount of volume? Am I eating enough calories? Is this my maintenance? You can see the absolute shit rabbit hole that people go down, and again, that can stop people from making progress. So sometimes actually just biting the bullets and going, you know what? I'm gonna work with this coach, I'm gonna sign up with this coach, I'm gonna work with him for one to two years, I'm gonna listen to everything that he says, I'm gonna soak everything up like a sponge, and I'm gonna execute. You know exactly what you've done with Jordan. You work with Jordan for over six years. I'm currently working with AJ, I've been working with him for close to two years, gonna be working with him for many, many more fruitful years to come. Just working with someone and having someone in your corner. If you're one of these people who is an overthinker, it's a game changer because you can just put your blinkers on and execute.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

I mean, outsourcing is I can't say enough about it. You you remove all of that worry, you've got somebody there in your corner that's going to say to you, these are the things to focus on, and these are the things that are going to deliver you to the goal that you want, rather than trying to figure it all out in a social media world where there's a lot of people out there purposefully putting out a lot of misinformation. Something I might add, you'll never see us do because we're not we're not there for the clicks, we're not there to rage bait people or whatever. We're there putting out good information, solid information, you know, information that's coming from a point of experience, and just trying to help and put value out there to people. So many conversations that we've started, for instance, people that we've helped just from I saw your tweet or I saw your post on this sparks a conversation, and it might be that that person is in a spot where they're they're looking to they're looking to change, they'll they've had enough of reading it, and it's not that you're you know trying to bring them in and and sell sell sell. You you you're genuinely helping people because it comes from a place of you know you'd rather help than see someone struggle, and obviously the best progress comes from getting somebody on board. I I've experienced it myself, and I shared on previous podcasts, even before I was a coach myself, even within like three months of working with Jordan, I would say to people, get a coach, it's an absolute game changer. The progress that you make, the time that you save, the the worrying about you know, it's salt good, it's salt bad, all of that sort of stuff, it just goes away. And you get to progress, and that's worth it's weight and gold.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Absolutely, mate. It comes down to time as well. You know, we have limited time, don't waste it. If you are one of these people and uh again, you've you have got the funds that outsource, do it, don't waste time. Because again, time's the most valuable asset that we have, it slips by very, very fast. So don't waste years, you know, get yourself on a good plan and execute. So we've uh we've done it again, mate. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Very thank you everyone for the questions. Really appreciate it and really look forward to doing more.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Yeah, uh I think every every five or ten episodes we're gonna throw it out for a QA. Uh um, we'll uh we'll get some questions in like that. So, again, if anybody is interested in coaching and working with a coach, you can message Benjamin at Jesus. So Benjamin at Benjamin Yesus on Twitter. That was a mouthful there. Um, I'm at CoachFHM. You know where we are. Give us a message if you're interested, um, and we'll have a chat. But we just want to again just gonna echo again the thank you everybody for the support that we're getting on this podcast, both on the YouTube, Spotify, Apple. We're building nicely, and uh we're just gonna keep going, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

And uh apologies to anyone if we didn't get to your question. What we'll do is we'll take a wee note of that and we'll we'll include that in in the next QA. Um, and I'm gonna look forward to next Monday, mate. It's it's an absolute pleasure as always, and and thanks to everyone for all the DMs and the support um on the WhatsApp messages during the week. We really do appreciate it. Yeah, we're gonna keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

So, right, thanks for the support, everyone. Hope you enjoyed, and we will see you next week. See you later. Cheers.