Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Chris Barakat on Emphasizing Training Quality over Quantity

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

If you’ve ever wondered if you're making the most of your workouts, this podcast is for you. That’s because I’m chatting with Chris Barakat all about training quality versus quantity. There’s been a lot of discussion in the fitness space over the past few years about the relationship between volume and muscle growth. The more volume you do, the better your results, many people claim. Is that completely true, though? Are all sets and reps created equal? Or are there ways to maximize your results without adding more sets to your workout? Those are questions Chris Barakat is answering in this podcast. We discuss . . . The concept of volume quality and why more isn’t always better Rep effectiveness versus “junk” volume Specific signs your reps are high-quality How to “feel” your chest during the bench press And more . . . If you’re not familiar with Chris, he’s a published scientist, educator, coach, and natural bodybuilder, and he’s a repeat guest on the podcast for good reason. His years of developing his book smarts along with his practical knowledge of gym know-how means he knows how to get results while also having something interesting to say, and I always learn something new in our chats. So, if you want to learn what the latest research says about training volume and how you can evaluate and tweak your own training quality to get better results, listen to this podcast! Timestamps: 0:00 - Try Recharge risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/recharge and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points 5:34 - What research are you currently involved in? 10:42 - What did your peak week protocol look like? 13:18 - Volume quantity. Is more volume always better? What's the state of the research? 20:34 - Rep quality versus junk volume 22:18 - What are the signs you're recruiting your muscles well? 26:27 - Reducing junk volume 33:06 - Intentionality, psychology, and training intensity 38:44 - Paying attention to bar speed 44:12 - Other signs of good rep quality 45:54 - How do you "feel" bench press in your chest 48:55 - What's worked for you for quad growth? 53:45 - Have you experienced poor back squat performance when you don't train it despite increased quad growth? 58:14 - Dumbbell bench press vs barbell bench press 1:00:44 - How do you evaluate whether you should increase volume or pay more attention to your volume quality? 1:03:59 - What sort of novel stimulus can you add? 1:04:56 - What exercises load your muscles in a stretched position? 1:06:02 - Dumbbell pullover 1:13:57 - How will your growth volume be different from your muscle retention strategy during show prep? 1:15:18 - Where can people find your work? Mentioned on the Show: Try Recharge risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/recharge and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points Chris Barakat’s Website: https://schoolofgainz.com/ Chris Barakat’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christopher.barakat/

Hey there, and welcome to a new episode of Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And if you've ever wondered if you are making the most of your workouts, making the most of the time that you spend banging weights, this podcast is for you because in it, I chat with Chris Barakat about training quality versus quantity, because there's been a lot of discussion about quantity in particular over the last couple of years. And I'm talking about volume here. And there have been people who have believed that the more volume you do, the better your results are, period. And so the name of the game was mostly just figuring out how to do more and more volume without burning out or getting hurt. Is that true though? Does that work? Are all sets and reps

actually created equal? Is it just a matter of quantity or are there ways to maximize your results without adding more volume to your training? Can you focus on quality to get more out of a lower amount of quantity maybe than you are even doing now? Well, those are questions that Chris answers in this podcast where we discuss the concept of volume quality and why more isn't always better. We talk about rep effectiveness versus junk volume. We talk about some signs that you are doing high quality reps and high quality sets, how to feel your chest during the bench press. A lot of guys in particular will tell me they don't feel their pecs working when they are benching. And so I get Chris's thoughts on that. And if you are not familiar with Chris, he is a published scientist, educator, coach, and natural bodybuilder. And he is a repeat guest on the show for good reason.

He has spent many years developing both his book smarts and practical know-how. Chris knows how to get results. So if you want to learn about what the latest research has to say about training volume and how you can evaluate and tweak your own training quality to get better results, maybe with less work, listen to this interview. Before we sink our teeth into it, your ability to gain muscle and gain strength is greatly impacted by how well your body can recover from your training and how strong you get in your training. And that's why it's not enough to just hammer away at the weights every week. You have to watch your calories and watch your macros. You have to maintain good sleep hygiene. You have to

avoid overtraining. And you can also speed up your post-workout recovery and your muscle and strength gain with supplementation. And that's why I created Recharge. It is a 100% natural post-workout drink that boosts muscle growth, improves recovery, and reduces muscle soreness. And the reason it's so effective is simple. Every ingredient is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research and is included at clinically effective levels. Those are the amounts used in studies that found benefits. Recharge is also 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. It contains no artificial food dyes, no chemical junk whatsoever. So if you want to be able to push harder in the gym, if you want to recover better from your training, if you want to gain muscle

and strength faster, you want to try Recharge today, go to buylegion.com, B-U-Y, legion.com, slash recharge, and use the coupon code MUSCLE at checkout, and you will save 20% if it is your first order with us. If it is not, you will get double reward points on that order. So that is 10% cash back. And if you don't absolutely love Re, just let us know and we will give you a full refund on the spot. No forms, no return even is necessary. You really can't lose. So go to buylegion.com slash recharge now, place your order, use the coupon code muscle and save 20% or get 10% cash back in reward points. Try Recharge risk-free and see what you think. Hey, Chris, happy new year.

And thanks for coming back on my show. Thank you, my man. Thanks for having me and happy new year to you and everyone tuning in. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. I've enjoyed our last couple of discussions. I've learned things and I like how you break information down, make it easy to understand to you. I've enjoyed our last couple of discussions. I've learned things and I like how you break information down, make it easy to understand and practical, and you really live

this stuff. It's not just theoretical. Obviously you, you take your training very, maybe seriously isn't the best word, but you are, you are deep in this. You're in the research. You also are coaching people. So I enjoy these discussions. Thanks, my man. Same here. Absolutely. Yeah. So I wanted to bring you on to hear your thoughts about a couple of things. And I guess the broad heading would be volume and effective volume. And to start out, I kind of want to go in some different directions here. Well, actually, first, what research are you involved in right now? Is there anything that you're particularly excited about?

Anything that people listening who like to keep up with the science should be looking forward to? Yeah, absolutely. So right now, I'm very fortunate to be a part of a lot of different projects. Some of the ones I'm most excited about actually primarily involve peak week for bodybuilding, but it could also kind of be applied to peak week for like fitness models or photo shoots. to peak week for like fitness models or photo shoots. So some of the data that we've recently collected is pretty novel and like the first of its kind. So I'm very excited about some of those findings to put some of that objective data out there and then see conversation that comes about from it. Any sneak peek there? I'm interested because I haven't competed in bodybuilding. I've gotten pretty lean for some photo shoots and I've tried some of the more traditional manipulation of water and sodium and carbs.

And I've also then not bothered with any of it. And I didn't really see that much of a difference. Now, that's probably because I didn't do it right. And that's fine. difference. Now that's probably because I didn't do it right. And that's fine. Uh, but that, that was, uh, my, my conclusion after going with, without it a couple of times was, well, for me and my needs, it looks like I don't have to worry about it. I just have to get lean enough and get a pump and stand in front of the camera. And that's about it. A hundred percent. It's quite interesting. Um, if you are super lean at a low body fat percent,

you should look great basically no matter what you do. And something that is interesting with the sport of bodybuilding is there are a few like properties or characteristics of the muscle or a certain look that you can achieve when you truly like peak really well, that seems to only be present more so in photo, uh, sorry, more so in person or super high quality video that like doesn't really get captured with photos. It's very, very odd. So, um, for competitive bodybuilders, I think peaking really can improve their look for show day. But again, if you get lean, you're going to look good basically regardless of what you do. If you look great in the gym, you should look great on photo shoot day or whatever it may be.

Some of the most interesting stuff that I found throughout the most recent research we're doing on peak week, we did a case study on my bodybuilding competition. And during peak week, we took measurements every single day. The most fascinating thing to me was we measured my subcutaneous thickness, this ultrasound, at seven different sites. And some of those sites were reduced by 50% or more in terms of my subcutaneous layer. And to me, that's fascinating. So like specifically my triceps and my quadriceps, the subcutaneous adipose layer decreased in size. Now there is absolutely no way I was actually losing significant amount of fat mass. I actually wasn't. I was eating in a massive surplus in carb loading.

But that change in skin thickness is super cool because I did see more tricep feathering, more quad feathering. And that's part of the peaking process. And that's what some of the goals are. However, is that pulling fluids into the muscle, you think? I are um however is that pulling fluids into the muscle you think or i don't think it's pulling fluids into the muscle i think it's the losing water from the adipocyte okay so flushing any excess water or being even slightly dehydrated um where you're losing water from that tissue, but potentially preserving water from your muscle

tissue if your glycogen levels are full, right? So, it's kind of like this risk to reward ratio. If you do it properly, it probably would serve you in a positive way. So, it was just really cool because there's never been data measuring subcutaneous thickness on a daily basis while someone's manipulating all these variables. So, you know, we saw that, um, we saw significant changes in my muscle thickness as I restored muscle glycogen. And, um, it's hard to say if that super compensation effect was there or not, but, you know, utilizing different tools like the DEXA, the muscle thickness, you know, utilizing different tools like the DEXA, the muscle thickness, we gained lean body mass, we gained size, and then we lost size underneath that subcutaneous layer. And it was only the subcutaneous layer, the significant changes were only in certain sites. But I just got really

excited to see that objective data because it's something that has been reported anecdotally all the time, but we never had numbers on it. So I'm really excited to continue working on that manuscript and putting those numbers out there. Yeah, that's very cool. For people listening who are wondering, I don't want to get off on too much of a tangent, but I'm curious myself, what did your peak week protocol look like? Maybe just on the whole, if the details take too long to get into. I'll give a general overview. Yeah, super general overview.

So the first three days of peak week essentially were primarily focused on depleting my muscle glycogen. So it was very, very low carbohydrate, pretty high in fat. Part of the high fat reasoning is to just make sure that your calories aren't super, super low and to potentially restore intramuscular triglycerides, which could maybe help with fullness. And then I did two days of really, really high carbohydrates to try to maximize muscle glycogen. And when I say high carbohydrates, I'm talking 600 grams plus on both of those days. And on those carb loading days, my water was also increased as well, quite high, like 2.53

gallons. And then I tapered down on water. I never cut water. Water stayed high. It was at one gallon. But when you go from drinking three gallons of water to drinking one gallon of water, you do have an excess of urine output. And then you can essentially force your body to going into a dehydrated state, even though you're still drinking a gallon of water. So it was an approach like that to say the least. Um, that's very basic overview, but the data is pretty cool. I was very happy with my look, um, on stage and everything worked out

pretty well. Nice. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to, uh, seeing that paper myself when it comes out. I mean, I'm not, I'm not planning on competing, but it is interesting just because I've done something similar in the past. And like I said, I've done it, not done it, didn't notice much of a difference, but I wasn't stage lean. And I probably wasn't even paying as much attention to what was going on as, as you do. Uh, I was just making sure that I was lean enough to look good on camera and just kind of playing around with it and seeing if I could notice anything looking in the mirror, you know what I mean? Um, but yeah, that's very cool. Um, so, so, all right, uh, let's, let's now segue to the main topic of what I wanted to talk with you about, again, which is volume.

And particularly, I want to hear your thoughts on effective reps versus junk reps, as people say, or effective volume versus junk volume. And maybe we could start, though, with your position on quantity. And just to give you a quick overview of something I've been saying for a long time, and I don't take credit for it. I originally came across it in Lyle McDonald's work many years ago, and it made sense to me, and it has continued to make sense to me. And I think it has continued to hold true as more research has come out. And that is for most people, to hold true as more research has come out. And that is for most people, we're looking at 10 to 20 hard sets

per major muscle group per week. That's a pretty good range. Newbies can get away with less, more experienced need to get away with more, or sorry, need to do more if they want to keep growing. And so I've kept it, let's just say, within those boundaries for my general recommendations and and so what are your thoughts on where the the state of the research is on volume especially

uh is is there do you think there's a linear relationship there is more volume always better if you can get away with it somehow if you can somehow do 30 hard sets for, you know, a muscle group in a week, do you, do you think that would be more effective than call it 15 to 20? Sure. So I would love to talk about this. Um, fortunately I'm, I'm investigating total volume and what we do in our labs. So in 2020, it was published. We came out with a paper where we investigated the effects of 12 sets, 18 sets, and 24 sets. And that kind of falls in between that 10 to 20 set per week recommendation. I do think for most people, that is a really, really good sweet spot for most muscle groups. One major problem with the research that we have to date that has demonstrated that there

is a linear relationship with volume and hypertrophy or volume and strength performance is that there's no consideration in regards to how much volume those participants were doing before they started the study. So for example, Brad has a really popular study that investigated nine sets, 27 sets, and 54 sets. 54 sets or 45 sets. Either way, it's an insane amount of volume and pretty large gaps between the three groups. One of the critiques there is, okay, well. And that was per week, right? Per week.

Okay, just to make it clear for people yeah people are thinking like what was that in a workout yeah yeah per week and they were training three days per week i think full body split um so the the thing that's interesting there is if let's just say i'm training at 25 sets per week before I start this study and I get thrown into the nine set group, if I don't grow or if I even lose performance, was it because I was doing nine sets or was it because I'm used to doing 25 sets? And then on the other side of the spectrum, if I normally do 15 sets and I get thrown into this group doing 45 sets, that amount of volume might crush me and I might not respond because of it. Or I respond really, really well because

the study is only eight weeks long, but it's something I can't sustain for 16 weeks or 24 weeks. So the duration of the studies are a really big problem. Most of them are eight to 12 weeks because of semester durations for the most part. A lot of this is being done at a university, so we work with our semesters. So there's a lot of flaws and confounding variables when it comes to the volume literature. When we looked at our study that had 12 sets, 18 sets, and 24 sets, the 12-set group and the 18-set group actually responded better than the 24-set group. And we were the first research group to ask the subjects, how many sets per week are you doing before the study? And we randomized subjects based on that.

So this past semester, we just finished a study that fortunately Legion supported. So thank you the first study that's really going to get a good eight-week look at what happens when you change your training volume or keep your volume the same. So I'm really excited to see what those results are. We still got to analyze that. But generally speaking, I don't think there is a true linear relationship when it comes to volume. I don't think more is always better. I do think that there is a ceiling and potentially if you're doing too much, especially as a natural, it can be hindering your rate of progress. I think something that a lot of people, a lot of gym goers do that are not even

natural bodybuilders are competitive in the space. They pick up a muscle and fitness magazine or whatever it may be. And they see a enhanced bodybuilders workout routine where they're doing three to four working sets of eight to 15 reps for like four to six different exercises. And they try to do that. And it's like, well, if you've been sitting on the couch, I mean, you see these workouts, I see them on even online. I mean, 30 sets for a muscle group in one training session, one session. Yeah. You know, it's like, maybe if you've been training for 12 years and you're an enhanced IFBB pro taking anabolics, you probably could recover from that.

But if you were sitting on the couch all year in 2021, the truth of the matter is, I mean, one working set of an exercise is more stimulative than the zero sets you've done all year. So you could literally start at one set per exercise and you will get a positive response. So I think it's really important for people to understand where they're currently at and then slowly but surely increase volume over time. And as you become more skilled, your volume requirements in terms of sets per week, I personally think they actually decrease because you're so skilled at recruiting your muscle to a maximal degree. Your skill acquisition of motor unit recruitment and keeping tension on the target muscle, all of those things are really good the longer you lift and you're stronger. So if you're doing 600 pounds on a leg press compared to 300 pounds

on a leg press, the magnitude of mechanical tension is higher. So do you need to do so many sets of it? Perhaps not. And then I also think novices and intermediates need to do a few more working sets because they just need to practice weightlifting more, not because they need a greater cellular signal or a cellular stimulus. I think it's more about just practicing how to lift properly. So those are some of my thoughts. Interesting. And it's a good segue into the rep quality and set quality versus junk reps or, uh, or drunk volume. And so you had just, you had just, uh, alluded to that with getting better at recruiting the muscle, um, and more fully recruiting the muscle. And so how is that something that you think just happens naturally as we do more of this stuff?

Or are there skill components that we can learn and get better at? Like, for example, I often get asked about the mind-muscle connection. How important is that? Or I'll get asked about making exercise selections. Like, for example, and I'll stop rambling and shut up, but these are the types of things I get asked about. For example, okay, if I do this exercise, I'm on the bench press, I really, I don't feel my chest. I don't feel that that muscle group nearly as engaged as if I do a machine press or some other chest exercise. Should I keep doing the bench press? You know,

those are some questions that I get asked. Yeah, absolutely. I'll kind of start, I guess, with the junk volume stuff and then try to dive into specific exercise stuff. I think your ability to maximally recruit muscle is going to improve over time just through practice. But I think it will improve at a faster rate if you're very intentional about that kind of being one of the goals of why you're lifting or that's part of what you're trying to achieve while you're training. How do you know, like when you're training, what are some of the, what are some of the green flags where you know, I'm doing a good job recruiting, good job recruiting my biceps for this exercise versus not?

Sure. So, for example, when I was a bit younger, my volume actually used to be way higher in terms of working sets per muscle group. And after a working set, I would be, with high exertion, I would be pretty fatigued. My entire body, systemically, I'd feel pretty tired. But surprisingly, I would be able to maintain performance decently well for three to four working sets. Now, if I do a really good set where I reach like true muscle failure, not like systemic failure,

my next set, there's almost no chance that I can match performance because I've accumulated so much fatigue on that actual target tissue. I think when I'm younger, when I was younger and what happens to a lot of intermediates that are training hard is they almost find any way to get the weight up. So they're using more of their accessory muscles. Maybe they're using a little bit more momentum, a little bit of bounce out of the hole, whatever it may be, but they're failing from like a whole body perspective, more so than like that

target muscle they were training just could no longer contract. And there's a different feeling there. So sometimes like now when I finish a really hard working set, I just feel like my muscle literally had nothing left, but my body as a whole actually had more. I don't know if that makes sense. But I see some people training super hard in the gym.

And it's like their total body exertion is high. But are they actually getting most out of that muscle? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I experienced that particularly in slightly higher rep ranges. I don't know about you, but like if I'm doing eights, tens or twelves, then I have the same issue. I can get, I'm doing tens even on the big exercises this week.

And it's not that my one or M calculations are off. I'll go set one, 10 and maybe one or two good reps left. This might be on a bigger exercise where I don't want to push too close. Like usually set one, I like to have two good reps left if I'm squatting, for example, because I know that if I'm pushing right up close to failure, I'm not going to, there's no way I'm taking weight off the bar for set two then. And so I'll go, I'll go set, I'll go 10, I'll go 10 and then maybe eight if I keep the same weight. And if I don't drop weight there, I might, it might be a six. And so, you know, I have to, I have to take weight off of the bar and I, I've experienced that enough. And I've also, I've experienced enough

of working with one or M estimations and doing AMRAPs. And it just seems to be what we, I've experienced exactly what you're saying, but for me, it's more in the higher rep ranges. I don't run into that issue when I'm doing twos, fours, probably at about sixes is where now I can sustain that performance through all sets. Have you found anything similar? A hundred percent. And that's a huge reason why I basically don't lift below sixes. I usually do a

lot of work in the six to 12 range and I go up to twenties, but I do most of my work is six plus. Same as well yeah i just feel like you're able to create enough of a signal internally to the muscle where the muscle is what's failing and it's not a neurological strength systemic reason why you can no longer move the load yeah so yeah i, I totally hear you there. And then something that's changed with me over time in regards to kind of reducing my junk volume is the way I approach my, my warmup sets. Um, I used to expend way too much energy on warmup sets where let's just say we're doing a flat dumbbell bench press and I'm working with 75s or 80s for my working set. I might do like 40 for 10, 50 for 10, 60 for 10, and then get into my

working set at like 75 or something. Whereas now I might do 40 for 10, 50 for five, 65 for three, and then go into my working set. And I feel like without realizing it, I was wasting energy on my warmup sets, even though the exertion level was low. Um, perhaps you're just running through some substrate. Um, it's more fatiguing than you realized, even if the exertion was low and you're kind of just, you're accumulating volume that's ineffective anyway. So why are you doing that much? I've made the same change. I went from three or four warm-up sets that were similar to that progression to now, if I'm doing eights or tens, I'm okay with two, actually. Even if it's a i'm okay with two uh actually like even even if it's a squat on a deadlift or a squat i might do a third which might be a one or a two with like 70 of my working weight okay um but but

if it's a if it's an exercise if it were a dumbbell press of any kind i probably feel comfortable with yeah one or two max warm-up sets and then just get right especially if i'm doing eights or tens because um i didn't notice i haven't noticed any any for me any benefit of doing more than that like i get some get some blood flowing and just get into the groove of what i'm doing and then just get to it you know yeah yeah i think it you know it's going to vary based on what exercise number you're on within your session. So if you're on your fourth exercise, you're not really going to need to warm up compared to your first. If you're deadlifting like 405, I can't do like, all right, 225, 315, and then 405. I kind of need to mentally prepare myself and physically feel the load. So I kind of, I spend a lot of time

warming up, but I keep the reps super low. So like I'll still do 135, 225, 315, 365. And then I just can't like jump into it. I feel like the potential risk of injury is too high and I'm just not like mentally prepared. And I feel like my confidence would be low to handle a heavy load on a big compound. But yeah, if it's a machine preacher curl and it's the last exercise of the day, I might not even do a warmup set. I might just jump right into my working set, especially if a log booking and you know, what weight is your normal weight? Like you don't have to waste time, but you know, so many gym goers, they don't even track their loads. So they're doing sets because they know they're

supposed to do three sets, but it's like, did they ever even find the load that was appropriately challenging? Yeah. Maybe the first two were just calibrating and then three was like, okay. And then they're off to the next exercise. Yep, exactly. So are those people actually doing three sets or are they doing one set? You're doing three, right? It's like, you're kind of doing like one set that was probably stimulative, even though your program or the sheet of paper you have in front of you said that you did three. Yeah. Yeah. It's a common mistake, a mistake that I certainly made in the past uh when i was doing more traditional pyramid training right and so i'm going from 8 to 12 to 15 to 20 and

the 8 and 8 10 12 with 8 10 12 those yeah might have been okay that was 8 but i actually could have done 12 so that's not a great set. And then the same mistake. And then finally, as I get to the higher reps, maybe then I'm getting to some effective training. But then that's not even ideal. If like your only effective sets really are 12s, 14s, 20s. I mean, it's okay. But to waste those 6s, 8ss, tens is obviously not optimal, right? Yeah, for sure.

For sure. And then another thing I'll quickly point out is just came to my mind. Some of our highest responders when looking at individuals from our previous volume research, some of them were actually doing slightly less volume per week than they stated they were doing before the commencement of the study. But they all admit that when they train in the lab for the study, the intensity was higher than it's ever been. So even though we're getting some data as to what they were previously doing per week. If the intensity was different, is it truly equal? Absolutely not. So even though these people are responding with less total work, if they're admittedly saying, I never trained that hard on my own.

And when I have you guys spotting me and kind of forcing me to go really close to failure, I'm getting a much better stimulus out of it. Well, then it's like, that makes total sense. No wonder why you're, you're making gains. Even if you're doing less sets per week, it's, it's there, there's their quality right there. Their quality has improved because their intensity has gone up. Yep. Yep. And that's something that I've tried to keep in mind in my training, because it's interesting to me now I've done for, for a couple of years now, I've followed more or less the programming that I lay out in my book, Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And so on the primary exercises, it's based on percentages of one rep max and there are rep targets and RPE targets basically. And you have to adjust if you're supposed to put 85 and do four and you get

four but set one as a grinder like okay it's a little bit too heavy we need to need to you know back off a little bit and then and then it's just double progression on isolation exercises and it's it's been interesting to me that i've been lifting weights for a while and i i i'm always been lifting weights for a while and I, I, I'm always cognizant of reps in reserve. And I really do try to do a good job estimating that. And I try not to be too generous with myself. And I do try to push, um, you know, close, close to close to failure on, on the big compounds. And I, and I'm okay going right up to failure occasionally on, um on exercises for smaller muscle groups where there's no real risk of injury. And what's been interesting to me though, is so every four months by training, it culminates with some AMRAPs where I'm putting some pretty heavy weight on the bar.

And, and this is weight that if I look in my training logs, weight that I was doing four reps with five reps, maybe six, let's say, right. And I look at my reps in reserve and that's like a one or two. And that's what I've put in my spreadsheet that I use to track everything. And then I'm, I'm doing my AMRAP load it. And I get eight with, with still one left. And I still, I'm not even going to absolute failure because I don't have a spotter on the squat. And it makes me question, is this just me? What's going on here exactly? Is this just me? Is this an intentionality point or something? Because again, I'm not like a wimpy guy in the gym. I really am trying to push myself. So how does that weight just in a couple of weeks that was a four or five maybe

a six and it was hard and then i could go in there and get eight and i could have gotten nine maybe even a tenth if i if somebody put a gun to my head you know what i mean so how intense am i actually training i yeah there's a huge psychological component um there's been it depends on the lift too right but like there's been days where mean, I should probably use percentages to keep things relative, but like on a deadlift, for example, i go in there and i absolutely smash it and then there'll be a day the very next week i'm doing 40 pounds less and it feels harder like did i did i accumulate fatigue yeah potentially of course but if if i'm just like not really in the mood to train, there's a massive strength performance decrease just from intention and motivation and psychological arousal and everything like that.

I shared a story last week on a different podcast where just recently I was in the gym and there was this 17-year-old that asked to work in with me on hack squats. I'm like, sure, man. So I'm going through my acclimation sets i get to my top working set and like he was he gave me a compliment on the intensity of that set he's like i thought you would have stopped at rep four or something you kind of kept going and going and going and then i put him through a set and he, like, I forced him to keep going. I'm like, Oh, you got another one. You got another one. You got another one. And he finished that

set. And he was like, that was the hardest set I've ever done in my life. And this kid was really well built for a 17 year old. I was blown away. And, uh, the funny thing is I still feel like he had a few more left and he was like, yeah, that was by far the hardest that I've ever done on any exercise. And I'm like, okay, well, next week when you come in here, since you've taken yourself to a new psychological level of intensity and effort, you'll be able to do another rep just because your mental confidence is higher with handling that load or because you've pushed to that new level of exertion. So the, you know, the psychological component is massive. Um, I've even seen it in the research run where we've had subjects come in and they do the same exact workout on different weeks. There was this one girl, she did, um, 70% of her body weight on the back squat. There was one week where she got like 25 reps with it and it was super impressive. And then the next week she only did 14 and she said she failed on both days, but you can tell

that that other time she came in, she just wasn't even excited to be there. Like she was in a bad mood. Uh, she just, you could just tell like she wasn't excited to train and that made a nine rep difference on an AMRAP, you know, it's, it's wild. So, um, yeah, that speaks to me because those AMRAP weeks, that's the most fun to me, but I mean, I enjoy my training. It's not that I, uh, am just walking through my workouts up to that but that is the most fun because it's kind of like okay let's see what the last four months yeah has wrought what what have what have i what have i gotten out of the last four months and so that alone could could explain the what seems in some ways inexplicable jump in, in performance. And something that just to comment on, on this intensity point and, and when you were helping this kid, something that

has, has helped me a little bit is to pay attention to, I'm sure that you do the same thing because it can be hard on an, on an, on like a squat, for example. Um, even when you're trying to think, all right, it's starting to get hard. How many good reps do I think I have left? Okay. I at least have a couple let's keep going. All right. Now it's getting real hard. Uh, we're probably getting close to, to, you know, ending the set here. Um, and, but it can be hard because of how difficult something like that or a deadlift is. I mean, I just, I'm doing tens this week.

So I did sets of 10 with three 25 for, for the deadlift. And that, that's the hardest shit that I do period. That is the hardest shit that I do, right? That's close. That's close to failure for me, or it feels like, but it can be hard because it is so fatiguing. It involves so many muscle groups. And so something that has helped me a little bit is to pay attention to bar speed so if if if i'm getting deeper into a

set and a rep felt really hard but i know that that bar barely slowed down i'm just gonna i'm just gonna keep going and i've come to trust that and and as you know and of course you know this but some people listening might not know there's, there's good research on the relationship between bar speed and true failure. And so putting some faith in that has helped me a little bit because I might've ended a set early. Otherwise, if I would've just went off of my observation, my feelings versus, yeah, it felt really hard, but but again that bar moved pretty smoothly yeah yeah this is uh this is interesting there's some like observational data or some people have put this out in the past um you know christian thibodeau from yeah i know he's i don't know him personally

but yeah he he actually put out something years ago that I find very true in the practical world. We just don't have plenty of data, like actual scientific data, randomized control trials. But there's this thought process that some people are more type one dominant or type two dominant. Some people are more fast twitch muscle fibers versus slow. And depending on how many reps you can do with 70% of your 1RM, you can kind of distinguish if you're a little bit more slow twitch dominant or fast twitch dominant. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I'm somebody who has a good ability. I have terrible power. I have terrible power. So my with this, this muscle fiber typing, where some people that are very explosive,

once they're no longer explosive, their ability to grind a rep is just gone. Like it just seems like they can't even do slow grinders. So that's very interesting to see, but I'm totally with you. If, if my rep speed hasn't slowed down on my last few, I know I have more in me because I'm really good at grinding out slow reps. So it's a good way to kind of distinguish, are you truly close to failure even, or is it more of like a psychological thing where your brain is tapping out a bit sooner than your actual body is? Yeah. Yeah. Well said.

a bit sooner than your actual body is. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. One of the guys who works with me is that explosive and then nothing guy. He's always been strong. He's always been big. He played football. I mean, he's the guy who training just a couple of times per week, just kind of for fun within a couple of months is putting up 315 on the bench. And that's him his his first if he's doing a set of four his first rep it's gonna the bar flies up the second rep flies up third rep uh oh slows down a little bit fourth rep uh oh slowing down a little bit more and then he's got nothing

and and that's it but still that fourth rep is is it might be as fast as your first but for it just slowed down enough where he's not and and he've spotted him and his name's Artie. Like, just try. Go for another one. He can't do it. So, it's interesting to see. I guess I'm probably somewhere in the middle. Sure.

I'm probably just normal in that sense where my first reps are certainly faster than my final reps. But I guess for people listening, it's a matter of just understanding your body, right. And, and how your bar speed relates to, um, true, true failure. And, and in with all of us, there is a point where if it slows down enough, we are going to fail. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And it's interesting. There's theoretical discussions on, okay, well, should your buddy already train in lower rep ranges or do more power work and strength work, even if his goal is to maximize hypertrophy, whereas maybe somebody like you and I would be better in a moderate rep range or a slightly higher rep range. And and again it's more

it's more in theory but i do think that there probably is some truth there i mean it would make it would make sense logically so it's pretty cool and then there's the enjoyment factor which you were just commenting on the psychological component of it that's how he likes to train of course because he's good at it and you ask him to do sets of 10 and he hates it. He's not having a good time. And so that, that alone would be a reason, uh, for certainly again, for, for his purposes, which are, um, to have a good aesthetic, healthy body composition and to, to reap the health benefits of regular training. And, you know, he's not trying to compete. So I've told him, yeah, do what you're good at, dude,'s fun yeah it being really strong so just do that yeah that's awesome uh so you had you had mentioned regarding rep quality um one one aspect uh which is a decline in

performance that you see that from set to set is is you, you know, that, okay, you're engaging this muscle group. Are there any other, um, um, effects that, that, that indicate to you? Like, for example, some people, they would say, oh, if, if you're getting a pump in the muscle group, um, then, then that's a, that's a good sign. And if you're getting more of a pump with one exercise versus another, some people might say if you're experiencing some muscle soreness after in the target muscle group. 100%. Yeah. So, again, I think it's going to depend on the types of exercise you're doing or the rep ranges you're working in. But generally speaking, if you're doing more moderate rep work that is typically labeled,-unquote hypertrophies training, you should

get a decent pump in that target muscle. You kind of mentioned before, okay, some people are doing a bench press and they say, hey, I really don't feel it in my pecs that much compared to a machine chest press or a pec deck fly. Maybe they're getting a great front delt and tricep pump, but their pecs aren't getting pumped. That would be a pretty good sign that the way you're executing it and the way your body is structured, you're probably favoring your anterior delt and your tricep. I think sometimes we get too caught up in trying to look for data to support that where it just, it seems to be common sense there. Um, so yeah, you know, you can, you can try manipulating your execution

on certain exercises. How might that look on the bench press in particular? Cause that is the most common exercise that guys reach out to me and complain about? Yeah. With the bench press in particular, I think there's a few things that can be going on or a lot of common mistakes. I would say a lot of people lack eccentric control in general. So if you have slower eccentrics, you want to feel your pec stretching and lengthening while you're doing that eccentric. And I'm not a fan of prescribing specific tempos for multiple reasons, but generally speaking, your eccentric should be controlled. It's good to potentially have a really slight pause at the very bottom.

It doesn't have to be a one second count. It just, there should, there can be a, a moment in time where that bar is motionless. You're, you're taking the momentum out of it. And then you're intentionally using the target muscle to move the load concentrically. Um, if you don't, if you don't consciously feel, okay, as I'm doing this eccentric on the bench press, I don't even feel my pec lengthening. You probably have your upper arm and your shoulder joint in a position that's not ideally aligned with those pec fibers, right? Maybe you have something going on at your scapula or maybe you're arching too much, whatever it may be, you're probably putting yourself in a position that's just not really favorable for the pec.

And you should adjust your setup until you feel, okay, at the very bottom of the bench, at least I have a good stretch there. And then you say, okay, how can I intentionally initiate this concentric by flexing my pec? It would almost look like being at the bottom of the bench and without trying to move the bar just like flex your pec as if you're trying to do like a little chest dance and then okay it's like all right i'm squeezing i'm almost crushing the bar and now i'm gonna push right yeah i like that cue personally there's certain things you can do where you know give yourself a a few warmups or take a little bit of weight off the bar and really go through your execution and your setup and

see what you can do to potentially feel more. Now, if you're doing a bench press all the time and you're not getting sore in the pec whatsoever, and you're not getting a good chest pump and your chest isn't growing, if you can't figure it out yourself and maybe you're not seeking an external person to help you with form, but you get great stimulus when you're doing a machine, just do the machine. For me, for example, I wasted a lot of time barbell back squatting where my ROI really wasn't there for my quadricep growth. And then for the past three years, I haven't barbell back squatted, and I've made massive quad growth.

What has worked particularly well for you there? I switched over to doing a lot of reverse banded hack squats, Bulgarian split squats, and more leg press. I just went to those movements. I went to movements that have more artificial stabilization, external stabilization, so I can increase force output on the target tissue. Some people are built to squat. I'm personally not. I'm built to deadlift. And that's the only movement out of the big three I currently do. And part of it is because I'm good at it and I enjoy it. And I suck at the bench and I suck at the barbell squat.

So I don't do it. And again, I don't have goals. You sound like me. Yeah. I don't have goals. My arms are too long for good benching. My legs, my femurs are too long for good squatting but my long arms at least balance out my long legs so i can be okay at the deadlift and i i do the other stuff because i actually

enjoy doing it i've just accepted that i'm never going to be a good bench presser even even if i were to gain 15 pounds and really try to optimize my training for i'm never going to be a good bench presser this is not going to happen sure for, I'm never going to be a good bench presser. This is not going to happen. And I'm never going to be a good squatter. It's not going to happen. Could I get my one RM up to the low four hundreds? Yes, I could, but that's about it. Like, you know, could I get my bench one RM up to the low three hundreds? Yes, I could. I'm close ish. I could do that. I could, I could be the three, four, five, uh, you know, three plates on the bench, four on the squat, five on the deadlift, but that's about it. I would not ever progress much beyond that. That's okay. squat, my hips would get destroyed. My back would hurt a bit more. You know, putting on my socks in the morning or getting into the car feel a bit painful. I've dealt with it for years and I kind

of just told myself to shut up and deal with it and, you know, be cool and get it done. But it really wasn't serving me well for my particular goal. So I got away from it and it's fine. That's another point I've talked about when people, they'll razz me a little bit about my numbers, right? And shouldn't I be stronger for a fitness guy? And my numbers aren't bad to be fair, but certainly they're not Instagram worthy in any respect. And there is that point though, in any, in any respect. And there is that point though, of not only do I understand my, my limits. And again, that would require me carrying around a lot more body fat, which I don't, I wouldn't enjoy. I kind of like where I'm at right now. It's sustainable. I think I look good close fit. Well, I like that. And so, okay, I'm going to put on this body fat and then I'm going to have to train a bit differently. I'm going to have to squat more. My deadlift volume probably would have to go down a little bit because I'm doing four sets a week right now. So a little bit less deadlifting, more squatting, more benching. And I know the actually I'm 37 now. And I'm also more cognizant of not wanting to get hurt. I want longevity. I want to be doing

this stuff, you know, 60 years from now, I want to be doing this stuff. So for sure. Um, yeah, it sounds like we've, we've considered similar factors and the calculus has come out similar. I still do the exercises again, but you have a different, you have different goals than I do. And so I understand the decision where you're like, I need my quads to grow. So, uh, all this squatting is not getting it done. It's time to change something. Yeah, absolutely. And, and I can see myself potentially getting back to a barbell back squat, uh, just because I want to move through that very natural pattern maybe one day. Um, or if I just had limited equipment, like if I had a garage gym and I just had a barbell, like, of course I would be barbell back squatting. But if I have

this array of equipment at a gym that I go to, I'm not going to spend 30 minutes on one exercise that isn't as effective as me spending 30 minutes on another exercise. It's just, I'm not going to do it at this point, But yeah, then I've seen people, you know, they've unfortunately gotten hurt, you know, doing the power lifting thing or kind of committing too much time and volume on that side of the sport. And I don't want that either. You know, I still want to, even though I don't like, uh, running for some or something like that, I do like shooting in basketball.

I want to, I want to be able to move around and not have a low back issue and longevity is definitely important. So you want to, you want to be able to play with your grandkids. You want to, you know, you don't want to be hobbling around because you were too stubborn to work with your body, basically, instead of against it. course for sure you know something interesting i'd be curious to hear your thoughts and i don't know if you've experienced this so for four months i was front squatting and i got in that four month period i believe my one rm was was about 275 to 285 so a decent decent one rm on the front squat Then I safety bar squatted for four months and my one or M on

the safety bar was like three 20 to three 30 in that range. Um, which is, which is not bad considering the safety bar for people listening. It functions similarly to a front squat. It's more like a front squat than a back squat, at least in terms of like performance. And then I go back to back squatting. So it's been eight months and i've made pretty pretty good progress uh on the front squat and safety bar and it is extremely hard my numbers sucked dude it took two two months for me just to get to my performance on on the safety bar. And then on my AMRAP after four months of back squatting, I got 275 for, I want to say eight and I didn't have my belt with me. So I, that probably cost me a rep, maybe two. Um, and, and I actually should have just gone for another rep. I think

right when I ended the set, the bar speed thing, I was like, yeah, that bar didn't release. Yeah. I should have, I should have went for the next. So let's just be generous and say it could have been two 75 for 10, which I don't have. I have a one RM calculator in my head, but, but that's probably three 3340, no, certainly no higher than three 50. And I was surprised at how difficult the back squat was after not doing it for some time. And I've not experienced that with any variation of the bench press. Like even going from just dumbbell bench pressing back to bench pressing, it seems to have translated a barbell bench pressing translated fairly well. translated fairly well um trap bar deadlift go four months of trap bar deadlift go back to the barbell deadlift stronger on it like gain a little bit of strength in the trap bar carries right over to the barbell but not the back squat and i've experienced that now a couple of times that if i don't consistently back squat my performance on that exercise goes to shit regardless of whatever i'm doing have you experienced anything like that?

I would say I have in the sense that when I do barbell back squat, my ability to perform from a strength perspective is pretty poor regardless of my actual quad and glute strength. Right. Where you would think based on what you're doing on the leg press and these other things, you should be able to load a fair amount of weight on this bar and then you try it and you're like what what is going on i think there's a huge component of upper back tightness and core strength that comes more so into play like you need there's a skill

there of keeping your back musculature really tight, almost pulling the bar down and into you where you feel super stable and your core is super tight. You've probably experienced this where sometimes I would, when I was frequently barbell back squatting, I would unrack the barbell and I knew immediately this is going to be a great set. Yep.

Or this is going to suck. Or this is going to suck, right? Those sets that I knew it is going to be a great set. Yep. Or this is going to suck. Or this is going to suck, right? Those sets that I knew it was going to be great is because it feels like the barbell was inside my trap and I was like one with the barbell and I just felt super sturdy. Whereas there's sometimes you unrack it and you feel like you did everything the same, but that it just not sitting on your trap shelf the way you want or just you're like all right this this isn't gonna go as well as i want it to go and you kind of just know it the second you unrack it um so i think that's why quads too just get destroyed like the that that that in particular i found was was was just odd right i mean i'm doing a quadriceps

focused squat i'm doing the front squat for four months and then i'm i'm doing a quadriceps focused squat i'm doing the front squat for four months and then i'm doing a also more quadriceps and obviously every squad is more quadriceps than hamstrings but but particularly with the front right and then the safety bar um and and then i come back to the back squat and my quads are getting fried yeah yeah interesting i know i and so anyway i was just curious if you experience anything like that because i i don't have a good explanation for it yeah it's very odd it's very odd um based on and this is strange too so based on my strength on other leg exercises my predicted strength on barbell squat is just not what it should be. If that makes sense, like the correlation isn't strong or it's not what you would expect. And then same thing with me,

I am a much better dumbbell bench presser than I am a barbell bench presser. And over the years, I probably have practiced the dumbbell more, but even when I did blocks and blocks of barbell benching and pressing, I just never got good at it. Yep. And it's funny because you would think that with a dumbbell, you're less stable because you have this unilateral component going on. But I always feel less stable with a barbell. And I always feel like I actually need to control it better or there's greater demand from a stability perspective for me and that's why i feel like my force output is worse with the barbell compared to the dumbbell

interesting i've had the exact same experience you know my my my my best numbers on uh the the flat barbell this was some time ago i want to say it was 295 for two or three. So, you know, maybe I could have done 315 for one and I weighed about 10 pounds more than I weigh now. But, um, and then though I I've gotten, well, I want to say, I think I saw a little video of it. I think I did one 15s for four on the, um, incline dumbbell press, which is that's more than that's that's quite a bit more than i can do now that's that's pretty strong and those things don't they don't quite go together you would think you would think i could do a bit more uh you know maybe 315 for a couple reps on the flat if i could do 115s for four and that that's not even pushing to absolute failure yeah on inclined dumbo i've never touched more than 265 on a barbell bench press

people like find that mind-blowing like you've been training for you know 11 years now and you look yeah you look like that i'm just like i i don't bench i suck at at it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you. One other question for you. And this is something that you've already commented on and it might already be answered, but I thought it would make for a good question to wrap up with. And that is, are there any other, or maybe it's more just kind of summarizing a lot of things you've already commented on. Are there any other, or maybe it's more just kind of summarizing a lot of things you've already commented on. So for people wondering now, they're trying to evaluate, should I be looking, let some things that they should keep in mind if they want to evaluate? All right, should I be doing more volume or should I look to the quality of the volume that I'm doing?

And that could be the intensity of it. We talked about what does it really mean to push close to failure or the quality of the reps? Yeah, I would always go with quality first before adding work. So like if you're not growing a particular muscle group or even progressing from a strength perspective on specific lifts or within particular muscle groups, I would literally never tell a client of mine to do more of what they're doing the same exact way they're doing it i would re-evaluate how they're doing it and what their true intensity is so a few ways to do that record your set and actually look at your rep speed as you mentioned um you might think you're trying that's how i started paying attention to that because i would look on camera

because i record for social media, right? And then I would see, oh, wait, that bar never even slowed down. And I ended the set. You know what I mean? Yep, yep, yep. So I made a video on this a long, long time ago, like on an Instagram post. But what I try to do is I try to have my eccentric speed stay the same the entire set. So rep one and rep 10 if I'm doing a 10 rep set,

I really want those eccentrics to look almost identical because that is just showing that I'm in control. And then the concentric should get a little bit slower. Let's say I do a set of 10 around rep six, those concentrics should get a little bit slower, a little bit slower, a little bit slower until you's say I do a set of 10. Around rep six, those concentric should get a little bit slow, a little bit slow, a little bit slower until you're really grinding them out towards the end. If that's not occurring, then you, as you mentioned,

you know that you're actually not getting close to true muscular failure and you're kind of cutting your sets short. So your first thing would be like, all right, I need to train more intense. If your target muscle is never getting sore, again, I wouldn't just do more of the current work you're doing. I would reevaluate form and I would reevaluate intensity first. I do think that there should be some level of muscle soreness, at least within your mesocycle, depending on what your periodization looks like, the stand third.

If you have weeks where you are supposed to be training at higher intensities and closer to failure, like a lot of people are doing right now, those weeks you should palpate the muscle the next day and say, oh, that's pretty tender. I actually have some muscle damage going on. Even if you're an experienced weightlifter, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I. Even if you're an experienced weightlifter, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I feel like if you're not getting sore at all, then you know, you're probably not training intense enough.

You don't have to do more total work. You just need to do harder work, more effective work, and you should get sore. And then you could always throw in like a novel training stimulus that will lead to muscle soreness if you're just not experiencing that. Right. The thing is, what might that look like? If you currently don't do any exercises that overload the muscle in their lengthened position, that would be the first thing I would do to induce a little bit more soreness in the target muscle. And there's a lot of data showing that leads to more growth, like super quick, like the seated hamstring curl has been shown to lead to more growth than the lying hamstring curl when you're doing it for a short period of time,

let's say an eight week study. And that is most likely due because that length and position is leading to more muscle damage. And therefore you kind of need, you might have greater muscle protein synthetic responses there, or you need more protein to recover from that. So yeah, if you're never getting sore, do something that overloads it in the lengthened position and you should feel sore. Would you mind just sharing a couple other example exercises? Because some people might have trouble picturing that in their mind, you know? A hundred percent. So like for chest, it would be like a dumbbell fly. That's going to overload that length and position.

For biceps, it's going to be an inclined dumbbell curl or a cable curl with your arm behind you, your shoulders extended. For the triceps, it's going to be something like a skull crusher, an overhead tricep extension. For the lats, it could be something like a skull crusher and overhead tricep extension um for the lats it could be something like the lat pullover or even just like a low cable row where you're aren't like you're allowing that shoulder blade to really protract and wrap around the rib cage and get a good stretch so um things like that my my gym has a lat pullover machine i don't know that's i it's first time seeing that where i mean

you've probably seen it but i was like hey have you used it over here not not yet actually i just i just realized because because i'm kind of new to the even the the gym right and there's a lot of stuff in the gym and uh so yeah you're in this position and yeah that was dorian yates's favorite lat movement the cool thing about the machine it is way better than a dumbbell pullover because the pullover is only overloading this length and position and then i've never liked the exercise personally i hate the dumbbell pullover yeah and you feel like your shoulder is going to come out of your socket yeah because you're trying to load it and then it starts to get really awkward it's a mess yeah one variation of that that's decent use a light

dumbbell attach a resistance band to it and then do it that's that's a decent option but the machine is great because you get to train through full yes shoulder extension and you're not going to lose load in the middle position or the end range so you're actually kind of equally training if that cam is set up right you're going to have equal tension throughout the entire thing like that's why i love like peck deck flies is because you if it says 70 pounds you have 70 pounds here 70 pounds here 70 pounds here 70 pounds here whereas with the dumbbell you only have 70 pounds here and you have zero pounds here so yeah that give that machine a shot at the end of your workout you'll you'll create a decent amount of damage because you're getting a crazy stretch here. So that should lead to stress.

And a loaded, right? So for people listening, that's why I mentioned that because. Yeah, yeah. And it's a novel stimulus. It's a new movement overloading the length and position. You'll get sore from that, you know, especially the first few times you do it. Awesome. Yeah.

Well, that's a great bit of advice and um is there anything else you wanted to say on this point of going for the quality first making sure that form is there making sure you're getting a pump getting soreness make sure intensity is there before adding volume and i'm assuming then hey okay if you're doing those things and and this goes all the way back to what we were talking about in the beginning, is there's a spectrum of reasonable amounts of volume for natural weightlifters to attempt. And as you get up to 20 plus, I mean, I remember Lyle's position on it was, even if more is better for natural weightlifters, you're just going to get hurt.

So good luck. is better for natural weightlifters, you're just going to get hurt. So good luck. Like, I mean, I was training with somebody who works with me. Who's now he's chasing after some girl in the, in the Czech Republic. That's where he's at right now. And a good training partner though. And, and so he, for fun, he, he did this bulking program for, it was supposed to be eight weeks. And so when he started, he's in his twenties now, mid or maybe he's like 26, he was like 23 or 24. So basically physiologically invincible on natural steroids essentially. Right. And, um, and so it was upward of about 30 hard sets per major muscle group per week. It required two a days. So he was training for three hours a day, major muscle group per week. It required two a days. So he was training for three hours a day,

two and a half, three hours a day. He was eating, I want to say 5,000 calories a day. He was eating a thousand grams of carbs per day and keeping his fats below 80, like 60 to 80, right? I mean, he was eating loaves of bread every day. So he went all in and a lot of protein and he made it. And, and he had a few years already he was young but he already had a few years of good training under his belt like he had already squatted 405 and he's been into this stuff um this this was a big jump in volume for him but he wasn't going from like eight or nine hard sets so he was already in the teens right sure and and he made it six weeks until he just was telling me he was like dude everything hurts everything like every inch of my body is in pain i think i think i have to stop yeah he gained a few pounds uh in that now how much of that was actual muscle tissue

unknown of course there's no question though he made some made some gains yeah but that was an interesting thing for me to observe because i mean it was just firsthand evidence like okay if somebody like this who maybe he wasn't made for weightlifting but he had already like he was not a a low responder just kind of skinny weak guy you know what i mean yeah um if if if that's if that was too much for him then i think lyle is uh is vindicated i agree i agree i i think you know there there comes a point where when you're doing too much i think you're just creating more muscle protein breakdown that you naturally can't create a net positive. So you're probably doing more harm than good. I think I've been there in the past. I think a lot of these novices and intermediates that are picking up a magazine and doing a very high volume workout where their baseline is zero or their baseline

fitness and work capacity is so low. It'd be like you and I trying to run a marathon this weekend with zero training, you know, just, it's really, really absurd. So yeah, more isn't always better.

Better is better. And yeah, I mean, right now I'm doing the lowest amount of volume I've ever done in terms of working sets per week, but each rep in each set is probably better than it's ever been. Interesting. And what, what are those numbers look like right now for you? For, so I would say, I kind of want to give you a per session. It's like four working sets

for my quads. It's about six working sets for my chest. It's about four working sets for my lats and four for my upper back. So that's eight for, for back. Um, but I I'm only doing like, I would say four to eight working sets per muscle group per session. And my frequency is pretty low too, where I'm hitting each muscle group like once every five days. Oh, interesting. So I'm still not even hitting everything twice per week. Yeah. It's, it's low, man. And I did that basically throughout my entire conscious prep. And, uh, I retained the, I retained the most lean mass out of any case study I've seen published from a natural bodybuilding thing. So it was, it was interesting. from a natural bodybuilding thing. So it was, it was interesting.

That is, that is interesting. And if, um, if you were eating more food, then, then you obviously would do more than that, but it sounds, it sounds like, uh, maybe not as much as in the past. So the goal, some of the reasoning behind that is my entire goal was muscle retention. At that point, it was no longer muscle growth. So I gave a lot of my sets my all while doing my best to keep the loading the same as my off-season numbers. And I didn't want to tap into resources and substrates that I wasn't having enough fuel via food to recover from. So the goal kind of changed. I'm not trying to maximize growth anymore.

I'm trying to maximize retention. And I think the best way for me to maximize retention is to retain performance. And the best way for me to retain performance is to not do too much. And the stuff I do do, give them my all. So that was the approach this year. And it paid off and the data's cool. And hopefully I can publish that, but I shared it on social. I've seen natural bodybuilding case studies where people lost 15 pounds of lean mass and 19 pounds of lean mass during the cut. And I only lost three pounds of lean mass via DEXA. And I don't even think that was muscle because I took ultrasound measurements and my ultrasound measurements

didn't go down at all. So yeah, it was a different, way different approach than previous years for me, but I was happy with the overall result result and i wasn't in the gym for two hours i was in the gym for like 75 minutes um which is nice maybe 90 minutes max including my warm-up my cool down you know so like that was nice too so yeah it's been different what are you thinking for for growth and growth volume really focusing on the quality so i I'm going to keep the concept similar where I always want to keep quality high. And then I'm going to use an auto-regulated approach based on how I'm recovering, how my performance is.

And then I'm sure I'm going to feel like within the session, oh, instead of doing one top set and one back offset, like I was doing, I could probably do one top set and two back offsets. Like I might just feel like, okay, I still have more in me. I have a lot of food coming in. I'm recovering better. So if I feel that, which you kind of just know

if you've been lifting for 10, 11 years, then you can auto-regulate and adjust your volume just based on biofeedback and performance. Whereas as a novice or an immediate, you kind of want set structure on a plan because you you kind of can't trust you can't trust yourself yet yeah you can't trust yourself yet right yeah i mean it's hard in the beginning just to even uh trust your your perception of of one set of how close to failure how many reps could you know what i mean so 100 yeah yeah yeah cool man, Hey, this was a great discussion as always. A lot of great

information. I always learn stuff, which is fun. And so, so thanks again for doing this. And let's wrap up with where people can find you if they want to check out your work and if there's anything in particular you want them to know about cool, like something that, you know, maybe an upcoming product or service or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. I do have a new upcoming service essentially being released right now where it's a four-week online course. Oh, cool. Class one starts like January 22nd.

I'm not sure when this is coming out, but if you missed that. I'll let one of the guys who works with me know, hey, let's push this. We can shuffle things around. Okay. That would be cool. Yeah. So, I have a four-week online course that's all about teaching you the primary principles of hypertrophy. So, super quick. Week one is on muscle physiology. Week two is on kinesiology. Week three is on dosage, which is what we spoke a lot about today, volume, intensity, and frequency. And then week four is practical programming. So, the course is mainly for coaches, competitors, or just avid meatheads that are really trying to learn the science behind muscle growth and then how to practically apply that. So, that's coming out.

Just check me out at schoolofgains.com. Gains is with a Z. And you guys can find me on Instagram as well. Just my full name at Christopher.Barakat. And I greatly appreciate you having me on, Mike. And I greatly appreciate everything you do with Legion Athletics and just everything you've done over the years. So thank you for that. Thank you. I'm flattered. And I look forward to our next discussion.

Likewise. Thank you, man. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode

or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.