PUSHING The Limits: How To Break Plateaus (Mindset And Strategies) WEEKLY Q&A

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🎓 ABOUT THIS VIDEO 
Ever feel like you're stuck at a plateau, pushing your physical and mental limits but not sure how to break through? In this episode of The Opticast, Nathan and Aubrey dive deep into the psychology, strategies, and biology of breaking plateaus and training beyond your comfort zone. They cover mindset, hormones, recovery, mental cues, and visualization techniques, sharing personal experiences and tactical insights to help you push past failure points and elevate your performance.

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🧠 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Pushing training limits: episode intro
02:30 - Intensity vs intentionality in training
04:15 - Hyping yourself: performance boost, mental cost
07:45 - Managing fatigue and injury with mindfulness
10:30 - Genetics, hormones, and anabolic drug response
13:00 - From conservative doses to pushing safely
16:00 - Mind-muscle connection: the neuroscience
19:50 - Building your visualization toolkit
22:45 - Environment and self-awareness: the basics
27:15 - Case study: execution vs intensity for growth
30:00 - The psychology of hyping yourself up
33:45 - Cues vs visualization: what works better
37:10 - Breathing, focus, and priming before lifts
40:05 - Training to failure without sacrificing recovery
43:00 - Visualization for raw power output
46:45 - Strategic workload and energy management
50:10 - Spotting habit triggers before they hit
54:00 - Environmental strategies for managing urges
58:05 - Communicating pain and injury during training
59:45 - Building resilience on hard training days
1:07:30 - Closing thoughts: progress and mental mastery

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up guys? Welcome to another episode of The Opticash with me, your host, Nathan.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And me, Aubrey.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Damn, she forgot the cue, dawg. It's been so long since we recorded a podcast that we fucking forgot. But you know what? Today, dawg, I am I'm I'm trying I'm trying to emulate what the fuck we're gonna talk about, okay? Because today we're talking about pushing the fucking edge, dog, pushing the limits, like intensity, intentionality, what's the difference? Uh well, hyping yourself up. What's the the the pros and the cons? What's the cost? What's the payoff here? Uh and the the uncharted territory, so to speak, of a strong mindset, and uh, you know, talking about a little bit about injuries, a little bit about our journey and all this good stuff. And uh, I'm really fucking tired. Like, I'm really, really fucking tired. Why? Because I've been working on something for you guys that is just absolutely out of this fucking world. Just we've never done something like this, and I'm really fucking excited to uh be able to share with you guys soon. So uh yeah, it's gonna be really fucking dope. But right now, since we're talking about like all of this stuff, and uh I realized today that we're actually uh halfway through uh a pivotal moment here. Up to this point, me and Aubrey over uh uh uh over a year into uh enhancement, Aubrey now has uh pretty much done like every anabolic that we wanted to test individually at uh lower doses. And now it's the first time that we are playing with two anabolics at once. The the way that I'm doing that is to actually bypass some of the issues. The the reason I'm doing is to bypass some of the issues that we encountered when pushing doses a little bit too high. So, what I'm trying to do is to give her enough of an anabolic load during the most stimulating portion of the day, which is doing the training window, and then try to lower the anabolic load overall that is sustained over the entire duration of the 24-hour period, right? So the the strategy is to have a longer acting uh ester that is holding her at a baseline that we know does not cause side effects, and then push the lower doses of the aurals pre-training in order to bring it up during the training window. And it's been working fucking crazy. Like the interesting thing is that we're now four weeks into it and we're we're pushing for eight weeks. We might end it up at six, but this is really good because last time when we were doing primo alone, by week four, which is now, you were already like, dude, I don't think I can do this, like this is too much and stuff. Like, you you actually expressed that by week three on your check-in. Like, it was like, dude, this is like way more than usual, like side effect-wise, you know? So we we pulled it at week four, week four and a half. We pulled it out. Right now, you are at week four comfortably. You just finished week four, and it's like way, way better than it was before, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I think so, but I also think that I passed a certain threshold on the side effects side, and I just kind of got used to it.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Well, sure, sure, sure. There's that, but at the same time, like, like uh you're like think about it kind of like a cut, right? So a cut just happens in like different parts of your body. If you just like put a little knife on it, it's gonna like hurt. Now, whether you get used to the pain or not, that's fine, but like in different parts of your body, it's always gonna hit, and you're always gonna feel the pain, like in the same way that it's always so you can feel the difference between more intensity and less intensity. So, like when it comes to like acne, like your acne is super fucking controlled, like way more than before. Like, we nailed we nailed your topicals, your serums, your injectables, and your supplements. So it's like we have a fucking arsenal. And by the way, the people who are watching who are in the optolab engine, I know you guys requested an acne protocol, so I'm working on it. I'm not gonna give you any acne protocol. You guys know that I don't do that type of shit. If you want something just so fucking simplified, just go online and look for it. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna teach you how to think about fucking acne in the first place and show you the process that I go through when I'm troubleshooting and solving acne problems for other people. Because the other person that experiences a fuck ton of acne, really, really bad. It's the only side effect that I give from high testosterone. And when I say high testosterone, I mean really fucking high testosterone. But it's the anabolic that I tolerate best. Like I can't even do that much Mastron test, I can push the fuck out of it. I'm I don't know, kind of like Chase Simers. I can also push the fuck out of GH and my HVF 1 doesn't go up. So very similar to Chase Simers. Now I want to cross-test our uh fucking genetic studies here, brother. Come on, but yeah, uh, I also solved that uh for myself. Like uh not a hundred percent because I am pushing the dose, and there gets to a point that like if we were to push the dose on you as well, you wouldn't be able to fucking tolerate that either. And it would it would just show up and into acne and stuff like that. So within reason, right? So that's why it's not 100% resolved, it's just because I I choose to accept that side effect, that transient side effect, right? But when when it comes to women, we know that women are not just small men, right? Their physiology is entirely different. I'm literally working on something really, really huge to distinguish uh endocrinology material from men and women, and applying a layer of the uh enhanced context on top of that, so that you guys are able to like work through a multi-layered process when you're helping your your clients and stuff like that, and uh as well as when you're trying to figure this out uh yourself. So, when it comes to that, like the non-reversible side effects, so to speak, though, how has that experience been up to this point? Because you were like the reason you tapped out was that, like during the first cycle, right? And it was like three weeks in, I was like, she's not gonna last six weeks. And just like for context, when it comes to dosing, this was the first time that we used the bottom end of what doses are recommended in like the major bodybuilding courses and stuff out there. So we literally did like four or five push phases before that we got a fuck ton of growth out of. Like, literally, your transformation looks insane. It's all over my Instagram. Uh, just look on the highlights. We did all of that under the minimum of what they say. Start here in order to be safe. I'm talking about the safer use model. It was like I'm saying we went more conservative than that for like for a full year.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, I was really like I was barely taking anything. It was like a little crumb.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Like, get a get a fucking the smallest milligram tablet you can and then break it in four and then just lick it. You know? Yeah, that was pretty much it. But yeah, and that is is it's different, right? Because it because I feel like you're thinking that like it gets to a point that like you're used to how it grows or becomes sensitive that like it doesn't affect. I don't think that's what happens. I think what happens is is not stimulating enough.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I'm talk yeah, I mean I'm I'm thinking about like all the side effects.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So like No, I'm just talking about that one, right? Because we just covered acne, so I want to go with them part by part.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Oh, I don't understand your question then.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Has your click been better or worse, bitch?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Better or worse? I don't know. It's just it's been I think it's been You're not tapping out at three weeks. Yeah, I'm not tapping out at three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Three weeks on the safer use model dose and she tapped out. Fuck. The bottom end. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

I don't know. I don't think I've noticed as many.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Which is still which is still less than what I hear fucking bikini chicks taking at the local gym. Yeah, fucking insane.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Definitely the like the side effects to growth ratio in my physique are they're not in your favor. No, they are. I feel like they are.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Oh really?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, I think I I dude there are there are women that like look at an Anavar tablet and they blow the fuck up like crazy, and they don't get any side effects. Like you can push there are women walking around like your testosterone levels is like 60. We push you to 70, you start getting issues, right? I know of women who have like 2,000 and they have no side effects whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Okay, so there's no side effects whatsoever. Does that have any correlation with like how the rest of my body responds to androgens?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

It's um it's it's multi-layered, right? So it's like, yeah, there's like how much your body responds to androgens. I break this down into four particular pieces, and I don't remember my own theory off the top of my head, so I am sorry. Uh, but I I uh the way you can think about drugs is like in genetics, right? Because what dictates how a drug acts is your genetics. It's kind of like genetics is the the the bullet in the fucking gun. Your hand on the trigger, but there is a trigger still. So, so like what is actually going to act is the epigenetic, epi, epitemkated, like on the table, right? So epigenetics is literally something that's acting onto your genetics, like based off of your genetics. So the genetics sets the pool of how you're gonna respond to everything. So, like, the response that you get out of food, some people blow the fuck up just from eating like more protein. Look at like fucking African Americans, like like a lot of them are just jacked for no fucking reason, right? Like, look at how some people respond to training. Like, some people look like shit, but then they go to the gym, they don't even eat right, and their training response goes up. Now imagine you find someone that has both. Okay, let's keep going. Now you add drugs to the mix. You find someone that responds really well to any dose that you throw at them. They just respond really fucking well. That normally doesn't happen. That right there is a Mr. Olympia. Whenever these these line up, you have a Mr. Olympia, okay? Normally you have someone who can either tolerate a high dose of drugs, but they get really, really, really like low benefit out of it. Me. Or you have people that don't tolerate a whole lot of drugs, but they respond really fucking well. These are the people that like quote unquote try to like set the standard on social media. They're like, no, I'm at the Olympia just running like a thousand milligrams, no trend, uh, no g age. I just don't think it's necessary. I then my TRT is 25 milligrams every month, uh, like some bullshit like that. Like, those are the people like that that have every all the stars lined up. I feel like for you, you get like a a moderate response from anabolics, like I would say on average, and I would say that from training, I would say it's a little bit under average. You locked in your nutrition for that, like to like step up your game and stuff. So I'm curious to see like what your nutritional response is gonna be like, how that lever is gonna play out. Also, with the supplementations, now we worked on timing a lot on uh uh figuring out the exact like windows for every supplement during the day and stuff. So I think that's gonna I think that's gonna have an effect.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I also think I mean that's what I was asking. So if I aromatize, like I I become more masculine when I what is that called?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

And like androgen, like if you viralize.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Viralize, that's the word. So if I viralize, that means that there's certain parts of my body that are more sensitive to the androgens.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yes, they have more androgen receptors and and they're more sensitive. Or either one.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

So if my vocal cords, for example, have more androgen receptors, would that indicate anything about the androgen receptors in my shoulders or my biceps or my quads?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Not necessarily.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Okay. That's what I was asking.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah, just like like for the though, it's and it's not just about androgen receptors, it's also about every other pathway that goes through. So like testosterone and trenbolone both act on the androgen receptor, but they act differently. Well, they act really fucking similar to the point that like raising one above the other so much kind of creates like the an odd effect. But like, let's use masteron, for instance. Like masteron, well, fucking, we don't know shit about masteron. Uh, let's uh do uh Nandrolone and uh Nandrolone and testosterone, okay? So Nandrolone, testosterone, pretty comparable like rates of growth, pretty similar uh effects now through a completely different pathway. So, like, let's say if you're getting side effects from Nandrolone, those are becoming happening through like prolactin and progesterone and things like that. If you're getting it from testosterone, it's usually becoming coming from like estradiol and things like that, so or DHT. So, like the side effect is a a readout of what's happening inside, but just because it is an android, it doesn't mean that the androgen receptor is what's causing this. There's literally like different ways that this thing is touching like the same board, which is one of the reasons why we don't start blasting gear, taking 15 things at the same time, because then we don't know, you know. So, with you, we've mapped out how you respond with Anivar, fucking perfect, how you responded with Masteron, absolute dog shit, but it will be definitely be used during contest prep. I'm sorry, but not really. I just want to see you uh do your best. Uh primo, the absolute fucking best. But here's the catch, guys: it was primo acetate, not oral. Yes, injectable primo acetate was the actual tits. Uh, yeah, if you can find it, it's uh really fucking cool. That was the first time to try Primo, and you're like, Yep, everybody was right. But it was also the first time that we could get our hands on uh primo that was not uh ridiculously affordable. Surprisingly, we always had Primo available, but it was always like fuck this price, dog.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

I'm not paying that shit out of a out of principle, but I also think that it's gonna be interesting to see because this is my first push phase when I'm not insanely stressed.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

And I can tell. I can tell.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

So my growth, I feel like, has gone up. I feel like my quads are smaller, but I think it's because my upper body is growing so rapidly. And yeah, we're looking at pictures. Actually, my quads have gotten bigger.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah. You want to hear something? Fuck, dude. I wish I could share my screen. Let me see, let me see if I can share it. Share my screen. It's just I don't want to share absolutely fucking everything. How do I share the entire screen? No, but on the window I don't have access to the picture because you never submitted your fucking check-in.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I haven't submitted it yet. It's I know.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

You want to do it right now on on camera?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I could.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Because I can choose between doing this or doing that. So fuck that, it's too late. Let's just uh just trust my word, okay? Uh but yeah. Well, yeah, you'll see the pictures after, but the wild thing is that we're looking at right now, like this was well, let me just do this. This is a week behind, okay? So just take that for what it is, but we are a week behind here, okay? So this was last week. You wanna hear the crazy part? You're a pound lighter here. So actually, since the begin well, not a pound entirely, but like since the beginning of your growth phase, you actually only went up a pound. So on average, your your weight went down. But which is which is uh which is wild, but this is why I don't coach off of uh fucking uh you know weight or just just data. I have uh everyone write shit, I have everyone like send me their photos and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Dude, it's gonna be crazy. I can't wait to see at the end.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah, because we're halfway through. Yeah, the side shot looks really good.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

My my hamstring is coming in.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah. Back shot looks really good. Yeah. Definitely softer, but like the hamstring is fucking insane. Yeah, the hamstring is fucking wild.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

I'm so excited about my legs. You guys have no idea how hard.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

I almost yeah, your hamstrings are really gonna coming up like very well.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I almost died in a and my my glutes. I almost died in a on a leg press. I used to go so hard on leg press, that's how I grew my quads. I had little chicken legs for my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

My coach has me doing the most insane like leg days ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Like a Brazilian wellness chick.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, dog. So uh you guys know how my legs respond. So we're gonna I I let's see what we're gonna build. I'm really fucking excited because I can see it happening. But just to give you an idea, we had a what was it, quad focus day? So my split is super fucking weird. But I had a kind of quad focus day on one week, and then the following week I have hamstring and then a quad pump day. So for one week is just quads, just one set of hamstrings, and then next week is four sets of hamstring plus full quad day. So doing my quad day. Step up and you do like four sets of leg extensions and leg curls, alternating between them, and you're potentiating the muscle. So you're not just warming up, you're actively like choosing a weight that you're gonna progressively drive more and more blood flow to it, and you're gonna you're you're not pyramiding up here yet, uh, but you are like keeping the same weight and progressively increasing the blood flow and the tension and the mind muscle connection, right? So you're you're doing that a lot. So four sets. So you start your priming phase is eight sets, which is okay, let's get it, okay? Just for context, my the last time that I was training legs on my own training program, I was doing like three to four sets twice a week. So, okay, my warm-up is eight sets. Let's go. So I go for that, and then uh we go for max effort set on uh on a squat. So I chose pendulum squat. So go for that. You pyramid up. So starting at like uh, you know, like well, you actually don't pyramid up because it's a strength very focused uh prime, right? So we really like do like three to like six reps. So you put like one one fucking plate and you do like six reps. You put the second plate and you do like four reps, and then you put the rest of whatever weight you're gonna use on the pendulum squat because by this point I'm using two and a half plates, okay? So I'm doing two and a half plates and I'm gonna do like five to seven reps. I do eight. So fuck yes, amazing. Shaking my ass off. Go for the second set. The second set is you are obligated to do the same exact number of fucking reps that you just did, just with the spotter now. So grab my spotter, do the second set, and by this point, y'all, you don't understand. My legs are done, like fucking done. Literally two actual sets into it, and my legs are done. Okay, now let's move to the leg press. Go to the leg press, and this is a no rest, okay? So there's no rest here on the leg press. You get the machine, no weights, single leg, pyramiding up, other leg, pyramiding up, done, out of the machine, one plate at a side, pyramid up, pyramid up, one plate at a side, pyramid up, pyramid up, one plate, and just keep adding until you get to your target weight, which by this point for me is two fucking plates, like 2.1 plates, dog. I have a 10-pounder in there, so I do that and I'm doing the reps, and I'm supposed to do fucking 12 reps now because it's not really a strength exercise for us here. I do like eight. And I'm like shaking entirely on this eighth rep. Go to do the other leg, do eighth as well with all the struggle in the world, and then once you do that one set, what do you do? You fuck yourself and you load another plate on this bitch, and now you're gonna pyramid up without rest with your fucking two legs now on the platform. Which for me, it literally means just adding one plate. So I had one plate, and now you're supposed to do 15 reps. So I had one plate, and I do like 12 reps, and I'm fucking done, and then and then you're supposed to walk to uh the pulley, and by this point, I can't even walk. Right? Like, I'm I'm just holding on this fucking pulley. I load the stack to the maximum, and now you're gonna do pistol squats. So you're supposed to do two sets warming up with uh three reps, okay? And then you're gonna grab weight, and you're actually gonna do pistol squats with weight, one set to failure, and then you're gonna do another set to failure, and once you hit failure, you're gonna drop the weight and keep going until you hit failure. Guess who couldn't even do the warm-up? This fucking guy. I couldn't do the fucking warm-up. So I literally like went, I had my camera to like send him for a review, right? And I'm there fucking shaking just by holding on one leg, and I'm like, here we go, man, then let's fucking do it. And I'm coming down and I'm trying to grab like there's nothing, but I'm trying to grab something, and I I like I literally just fall. So this type of shit is happening like four times a week for me now, which is like I don't need to train five times a week, four times a week is just fine. Um, but yeah, dude, intensity is something that we really have been ramping up. I did a three and a half minute set for chess this week. Like, but the shit that I'm learning is really fucking cool. Like I told you, like, I'm I'm connecting with the left side of my chest in a way that I've never before. Like, well, I have with unilateral, but now doing bilaterally and connecting this way, like the the the neuro stuff, the activation and the the priming and stuff, I really want to dig into and because it seems uh, at least for me in this area, like fucking fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Could you use nootropics to I already do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Yeah, I already do.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

For that purpose specifically, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

I talked to uh I talked to Joey Sullivan, he actually used nootropics and psychedelics to restore some function after an injury and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Interesting. Would you pair nootropics? Like for me, just as an example, push phase, health phase, recovery, you know, cut, all the different phases. Where would you pair nootropics if you were trying to get me to like basically learn how to connect with my muscles better during my training?

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Would you like to do that? Okay, so like what stack would I build for you?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Like which phase would you I mean yes, but also which phase would you employ?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

I would I would I would put that well if it's is it an injury or no? Just like a body part that you don't connect well.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Like for me, but it's just I'm a healthy person.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

But it's just like a single body part that doesn't connect well, or is it like to connect better in general?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

In general.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

I would probably like uh run something that's gonna be focused on the growth and uh maintenance of neural pathways. We're already using DHT compounds, so we know that DHT has an effect in uh in uh fucking motor learning. It's not spinal adaptation. What the fuck is the name? Well, neural development and neural learning, I think is the name. Um but so leveraging that, like adding the other nootropics on top of that, which is our couple that come to mind here of interest, I think that would be good, but I would also I would primarily make changes through training first, and uh I would go for some injectable pre workouts. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Like I would absolutely vomit. What are they? I don't like pre-workout because I they make me so sick.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

It's not a stimulant at all. Okay. It just it just like brings the fuck out of blood flow. So the pump that you get out of an out of out of an oral pre-workout cannot compare to the pump that you get out of that. It's almost like steroids, literally.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

But I feel like pumps help you connect more. Okay. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah. So if you're struggling with connection, that's something that I would pair. So like I always used to take injectable before my chest workout. But the pumps that I'm getting now with training changes have been greater than when I introduced the injectable.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Yeah, I might I would like to try that for my rear delts and kind of my shoulder workouts. Cause I'm diff like my skeletal system is messed up and I've had surgeries or surgery, so I'm already a little uneven. And it's so difficult to get the back of this to connect. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

And I like keep moving stuff. Let's uh let's work on that. Yeah, let's work on that. But your rear delts have been coming up though. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

They grow. I just you know, you I can just feel the difference.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

They're probably they're probably just too small. You know when they're like too small to connect well?

SPEAKER_00 23:18

I can feel it perfectly in the other one. That's my problem. And they look different in a video. Like I've done some adjustments to try to see if I can get it to engage. And I think my I used to have really bad shoulder blade winging, and then after I had my scoliosis surgery, they pushed the shoulder blades in so they're more flat. But I think this one tends to wing. No, actually this one wings out more.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

How is that going to help you find a solution for it? That's just my question.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

I don't know. I I don't know. I'm just looking at my videos we wing.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

We were literally talking about building a protocol for you. And then and then we ended up here talking about the scolios, but I don't I don't I don't know like how that would be like uh uh it sounds like a cool explanation, but I don't I don't think the why here is that like the root cause is not necessary.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

No, I'm just sharing something that I've observed from watching my own training videos.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Okay. But I in case everyone has imbalances. Like my imbalances are retarded. It's crazy, but you just learn to pose around them. Like the way for me to pose, I literally need to push, like for a back pose, I need to push my right shoulder all the way to fuck down and push my my uh left shoulder a little bit up because otherwise it's still uneven. You know, and like yeah, it's just really fucking it's weird, but it is like the the symmetrical part of it. The the best thing you can do about it is just presentation, because like for most people, like for you included, myself included, we just need so much mass overall that like working on a very like minute spot, like that's not like unless it's really gonna help you win a show, but like details are usually something that you work on at a way, way higher level, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah, and I don't know if it's even affecting the way the muscles look themselves. I'm just talking about the way that I can connect with the muscle while I'm doing the training.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, I think training is gonna be the biggest variable for you. Yeah, with like activation and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

That's why I'm talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

What?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Yeah, I I think that the like the skeletal issues that I was referring to have to do with how I was executing the movement or something.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Okay. Well, the point is when I started this conversation before answering the protocol, not really protocol question, is that uh the biggest like thing that I'm seeing like the the most like difference in my uh physique right now comes from the same variable that uh I uh noticed in my first cycle with well the what I consider to be the first push phase, which was my master on growth phase. For that phase, what I did is I literally just said I'm gonna move as much weight as fucking possible. I got really fucking hurt, but I also got really strong, and I grew a lot. Like I literally went from 170 to like 20 something over the course of 18 weeks, and I still had like veins all over myself, I still had abs, still had quad separations and stuff. I was like 13 to lean, you know? So for the following growth phase, I didn't do that because I didn't want to get fucking injured. So I focused more on execution, and that made me blow the fuck up. So now what we're doing is we're basically pairing the execution component with the priming and the the activation of the muscles and stuff with the intensity, so all the intensity with the with the drop sets and all this type of shit and everything, but what is really doing it is not the drop sets, it's not just the blood flow or something like that. It is, in my opinion, which is the topic of today, uh, the actual intensity of like how you approach these things because you can do a fucking triple drop set that doesn't do much, or you can do a straight set to the max that dude, the next exercise, you should just pack up and go home. So that intensity, right? That is the that is the thing that I feel like is the most like critical variable. So the way that I that I work, whenever we're starting to like work together, are always gonna fix execution first, right? So getting the the fundamentals right and all this stuff, and then after that, we start pushing the intensity. So I don't know if you remember, but like for you it was very much like let's just like focus on contracting the muscle, focus on like the right like range of motion and the tempo and stuff. And once we did that, it was like let's move up a notch and start pushing and stuff. And then it got to a point that it was like, you know what? Fuck the technique, just blow the fuck up, just like do everything that you fucking gotta do. What did we find out works really well for your legs? Not really the answer for your upper body, right? So like that, like I feel like the the the the way that you approach the training is gonna be probably the the biggest like return on investment you can possibly have uh in terms of like uh the topic of today, right? Which is the the the getting to the edge of like your performance, right? So obviously everything is gonna play a role, right? But like I honestly haven't seen uh past a certain threshold, food is just gonna make you fat. Drugs are just gonna make you fucking get a bunch of side effects, and like training, you're just gonna get fucking injured and not recover. So I feel like for all of them, you want to push the boundaries as much as possible, but then like find your max and only approach that when you're ready to pull the brakes and just fucking take a rest and take a break, right? So uh things usually go escalating up with me, like doses, food, training, and stuff like that. But training is actually one of the things that I move the latest because I really want to nail the execution, and guys blow the fuck up and girls blow the fuck up with the way that we've been doing this shit. So I'm definitely onto something here. But uh yeah, let's talk about the psychology of getting hyped, cuz it's a lot. I uh at the gym I cried almost every workout this week, dog. Because like you gotta understand that like how much you can push is always going to be limited by who you are on that day. So I had some person come to me on my DMs and say, like, that set was not to failure. Maybe that set was to failure by like that was your cycle, like your fatigue limit, but it wasn't true failure. And I'm like, I'm not even gonna chase that because it's so fucking dumb. Like, dude, like you are always gonna be limited by your state of fatigue. You can't separate that, like you you can just remove that variable because you're well rested. That just means that you are dealing with the fatigue variable very well. Like, what the fuck? You can't escape the variable. So, so we always have to deal with that, but you can you always have a choice of pushing to the limit. So I'm really fucking tired, but god damn it, I'm giving it everything that I got, and almost every workout I get to the end of it, and I'm fucking exhausted, like really fucking tired. Where is whether it's a fucking arm day? I got to these to the sets that I'm supposed to do pumps, so I do six sets of for biceps, six sets for triceps, and then it's just like a bunch of volume. I got to that, I couldn't even move like 10 pounds overhead tricep extension. Like I was smoked. So that is like let's uh let's talk a little bit about that. We got some questions here from the clients. Uh, what is the first question?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

I know getting hyped before a workout creates a high that can always be matched with a low. Given this, do you get hyped to take yourself into uncharted territory, or do you get hyped after venturing out into uncharted territories? How do you handle days that you want to push a little extra?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Okay, fantastic fucking question. Uh, there is a very high cost to hyping yourself up, right? So, like all of the stories that you hear about the people that did the impossible strength-wise, when they were like supercharged up with fucking adrenaline, there's a cost to that. Like, after that, you crash very, very hard. The same thing happens with your workout. I'm sure you experienced this before, where you like push so hard in the first two exercises that you can't finish your entire workout, kind of like what I just described with legs. So, like, usually that happens like one, because like, okay, maybe the workout was just like way too much for you, like, you're not at that level yet. Or two, what happens most often is people try to like uh have the same level of intensity for every exercise, and that like if you're gonna do that, that's fine. I'm not saying that that is wrong in any way, shape, or form. But like the way that I've been doing it for myself as of late is uh basically like there is an exercise that I'm gonna focus on for this day. So I'm gonna push the fuck out of this exercise, then I'm gonna have exercise that I'm gonna be focused on like the actual like background type of growth, so to speak, and then I'm gonna have something that is just focused on like a touch-up, like just cleaning it up at the end, just wrapping it up in a nice bow. So I don't need to approach this here with the same level of fucking intensity as this one right here. So it works very, very nicely. And when I know that I only have like one hard set of chests, like that's fucking great. Because I'm gonna give it everything that I fucking have.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

You know? So it's I I feel like that is a really good approach because if you start breaking that down, it just allows it's just it becomes very clear what what you're how you're supposed to approach every single set. Right? The way that I structure training for people is I push the things that I wanted to be a priority earlier in the set. Right? It's faster than like teaching all of this stuff. But as we're teaching this stuff, the first thing that I teach you is basically like get to 100% on everything. Because like eventually you're gonna get to the point that you're gonna learn that that was not your 100% at all. But like, let's get you on a base, like steady, like state for everything. Like, you can at least finish the workout and you feel like you're pushing and you feel like you're doing a great job and stuff. That's when the coaching hand comes in and be like, yo, let me show you an entire new fucking world that you didn't even know existed, that you don't even think it's fucking possible. But let me tell you, every single time that you hit failure up to this point in your entire life has been because of your mind and not because of your muscles. And I'm gonna show you how. And then like you work on that with the client week over week, and they blow the fuck up again. So it's kind of like you can you can like your coach should be able to like structure your growth. Like the people that I get that like just started at the gym, never been to the gym, some of them, uh, or like just started treating workouts serious and stuff, they are the ones that develop the most because I'm not gonna throw everything at you at once. I want your body to process every single bit of of information, of input that we're throwing at it, so that as I get outputs, I'm starting to know the patterns and the trends, and then I can guide you through the exact spot that's gonna get you there. So it gets you in a fairly flat position, but then we literally grow your skill set to the point that like you are developed as a human being, and now you can tolerate a level of programming that is so much more intricate. Like, can you imagine if I threw your supplement plan like at you when we just started, like that wouldn't fucking work, right? So, the same way with your training, I am going to leverage every little bit bit and piece of it by breaking down your learning on everything you need to learn. There, I I wrote a book on this for my clients on how to train, just basically layering out this story that we are going to unlike write ourselves for us uh together. And uh, once you get to the point of like really, really pushing, like I'm pushing right now, or like breaking through a plateau and stuff, it's very easy because you know exactly everything that you have tried, you have good data, you have good learning point, like I know what data I can trust, what data I cannot trust, and it just makes the process so much faster for you. So you get someone that literally never been to the gym and they've been to the gym for like a year and a half, and they look like they've been on steroids for six years. Like, like, look at Ryan, he looks like he has been on actual steroids for like three years, four years, like and dude literally been training for like two. Like, max, you know, like that's fucking crazy. It's not even two years, like a year and a half. Yeah, dude. But um, do I take myself to uncharted territories by getting hyped? Yeah, I absolutely do. So a couple of things that I do, I do I increase my breathing rate a lot. So as I'm approaching the exercise, I'm gonna like basically focus on it. So I already warmed up. Cool, I'm warmed up, but I also done the exercise with a light enough weight that I am literally feeling like exactly what I want to feel, and I'm like locking in the pattern that I'm gonna execute so that when it's time to execute, I'm just doing it. I'm not thinking about the technique, I'm literally just pushing the fucking shit to shit. So once I sit down on the