Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Interview With Mark Rippetoe on CrossFit, Exercise Science, Strength Potentials, and More...

Episode Date: December 30, 2014

In this podcast, I interview Mark Rippetoe and we talk about the failings of CrossFit, what's wrong with much of today's exercise science, natural strength potentials, and more... STARTING STRENGTH: http://amzn.to/YTXsqr MARK'S WEBSITE: http://startingstrength.com/ ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: Does CrossFit Work? http://www.muscleforlife.com/does-crossfit-work/ How to Reduce Muscle Soreness: http://www.muscleforlife.com/reduce-muscle-soreness/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

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Hey, this is Mike Matthews from MuscleForLife.com. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for stopping by and listening. In this episode, I'm going to be interviewing Mark Ripoteau. If you've been in the weightlifting game for any period of time, you've probably heard of Mark, or at least heard of his best-selling book and very, very popular weightlifting program, Starting Strength, which is a book that I have recommended from the beginning. Um, and a book that was probably the first book that really made the point of heavy compound weightlifting is the real key as a natural

weightlifter. Um, and really broke down proper form for me, uh, on, on the big lifts, like the squat deadlift, uh, bench press and military press. Um, and you know, I'm sure I probably, bench press and military press. And I'm sure probably millions of people by now have used Starting Strength successfully. It's a great program, great book. I definitely recommend you check it out. Mark, he's written other books as well. He has several best-selling books and probably is one of the most respected strength coaches around these days.

So I was pretty excited to have Mark on the show. He's also just a cool guy. So I apologize pretty excited to have Mark on the show. He's also just a cool guy. So I apologize on the lower quality of the audio. I was using a new program to record the Skype call and it was working fine when I was testing it with a friend of mine. But for some reason, the call with Mark, it got a little bit scratchy, so I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm just going to go back to what I was using before, I guess. So with that said, let's get to the interview. All right. Hey, Mark, thanks a lot for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Mike. Always a pleasure. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm excited. You are definitely, I'm a big fan of your work. I've been recommending your work, especially starting strength, of course, from the beginning.

And it was one of the first actual good workout programs that I was introduced to that emphasized heavy compound lifting. And it's kind of like one of those aha moments because I came from when I first started weightlifting, I did the same. I went and bought some bodybuilding magazines. I was 17, and I just wanted to impress girls so uh i went and got it i think we all started off like that yeah that i think that's just a right a rite of passage yeah uh so so i go and buy the magazine and i do the shitty program and undo all the isolation stuff and blah blah blah and uh and it took me i think seven years of i stuck with it just because i came to enjoy the other benefits of i mean my body was okay but i also you know there's a lot of the

benefits of exercise so it kind of just became a healthy thing to do but um when it was about seven years until i finally learned that if as a natural weightlifter if you're not emphasizing heavy compound lifting you're just not going to get very far, basically. Well, you picked it up faster than I did. It took me quite a bit longer than seven years to figure that out. I'm just kind of dense, basically. Yeah, right. I tell you the process by which I generated all these theories and things that we put in the book, is running a commercial gym and not really knowing any other way to do it,

but teaching everybody how to squat, bench press, and deadlift, and power clean. After you operate your gym in that way for about 20 years, teaching everybody that walks through the door the basic compound exercises. You accumulate quite a data set. And, you know, I had machines in the gym. I had everything I needed at my disposal to accumulate quite a bit of empirical data.

Most people don't understand that empirical data is not always generated by an academic peer-reviewed study. Empirical data is numbers. It is objective facts, observations, a set of observed facts. And the process by which I observe all these facts eventually just leads to a logical conclusion and that's where we are with the books. years. I wasn't particularly trying. I wasn't even actually, I didn't realize that I could have a much better physique and be much stronger and be in much better shape for whatever reason. It was

me and my friends and we'd go to the gym and none, no one was on steroids. So I wasn't really exposed to that. We just kind of went and did our thing. But when, uh, after six or seven years or so, I started noticing when I was like, okay, I want to do more with my body, but I need to get educated. I knew that I didn't know really much. A simple observation was a lot of the guys who had the types of bodies that I liked, I don't want to look like a massive bodybuilder, but have some muscle, be lean, be strong. They all tended to train in that way. They were a lot of heavy weightlifting, a lot of squatting, a lot of heavy weight lifting a lot of squatting a lot of dead lifting a lot of military pressing bench pressing a lot of stuff i wasn't doing so

even that alone where that was one of my earlier observations was like those guys are all big and strong and look good and they all tend to train in this way i should probably look into that you know what i mean yeah it's uh it's a it's a it's the look that is typical of strength athletes not bodybuilders right bodybuilding is all about hypertrophy and size and drugs i mean let's face it and you know sure sure it's part of the equation and uh i mean you're a fool if you don't recognize that fact but it's you know over and above the drugs because there are a lot of strength athletes that take drugs too. Yes, that's true. The physique that results from heavy strength training

is a completely different one than the big fluffy bodybuilder looking look that wins the Olympia every year. Yes. And, you know, I'm not a great big fan of big, giant picks, and I like a grimace physique over a Dorian Yates physique. Right. And, you know, I think most people are that way. Yeah, the vast majority of guys I talk with, they want to look.

The vast majority of guys that I've trained are strength athletes, and the lift that you're talking about is the lift that you get from getting your squat up to 550, get your deadlift up to 600, get your bench up to 350, get your press up to 200. Exactly. At a body weight of over 200 pounds, that's what we're talking about. Yeah. That's the emphasis on the type of training that we do. Yes.

I'm not a coach of elite powerlifters. I don't know anything at all about bodybuilding. I'm an Olympic weightlifting coach, although the Olympic weightlifting community is reluctant to admit that. And I have been around a very long time, and I have learned over the course of 38 years in the gym business that essentially you and I are in the same business. We're dealing with entry-level people.

How do we start people out in the direction of their goal most effectively? Now, once a guy's been training five years, he has accumulated enough wisdom and intelligence about what he wants to do to make his own decisions about it. But that's not what I do. We teach people how to do the squat, how to correctly perform the squat. And we teach people how to coach that from the perspective of why do we do it that way, not this is the way Rip likes it, no.

We want everything explained. We want answers to the question why. And I think this is what sets our program apart from everybody else's. If we can't answer why, then we haven't thought about it enough. Yeah, and your book, Starting Strength, that was the beginning for me. On proper, like that's where I learned to squat, that's where I learned to deadlift, that's where I learned to press, and I've stuck to those, the principles in your book for ever since.

I mean, it's been close to five years now or so that I've been actually, you know, been training properly and the changes in my body have been, I mean, I mean, it's been close to five years now or so that I've been actually training properly and the changes in my body have been I mean, I expected something, but I didn't expect as much change as I saw. And, you know, if I only would have known from the beginning. Well, we hear that a lot. The important thing about answering the question why is that it might yield a different answer than you think. It might mean that you've been doing something wrong.

But if you've never stopped to answer why, then maybe you could be doing it better if you thought about it a little bit more. And that's what we're trying to do. a little bit more. And that's what we're trying to do. That's why we've tried to apply this type of first origins argument analysis to everything we do. Why do we do the squat the way we do? Because it satisfies our criteria for effective exercise. And, you know, it's not immediately apparent why you should look at the floor

when you squat. That's not immediately apparent. Most should look at the floor when you squat. That's not immediately apparent. Most people don't coach it that way. But when we demonstrate to you that it actually works better, it's kind of a hard refute. It really is. Yeah, I agree. A lot of people don't agree with that.

But we have found over the years that it just works better. The way we teach it just works better. We've changed several things up. Because I'm not afraid to ask why and can I do this better. And if I can do it better, why don't I? Right. So I like to think that's such a support. So speaking of doing things better, let's talk about CrossFit for a second.

Oh, good. Obviously, I get asked about it a fair amount. I wrote an article on it that has gotten a lot of traffic and mixed comments and whatever. I'm not a fan of CrossFit. I know that you're not, but I wanted to get your take on what do you think are the downsides. Well, let's be fair. What are the pros and cons of CrossFit? Well, I've got a fairly large amount of attention from the article I wrote about that for T Nation a while back.

a while back. And let me first say that on balance, CrossFit has been a net positive for this industry. And I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that it's all bad. It's not all bad. I agree. It's highly dependent upon the guys at the gym that you happen to be in. And if you do that, if you're in the right gym and the people running the gym are experienced, then you are in a situation where you're going to be subjected to a pretty productive strength program.

And at least you're going to be exposed to barbell training. Yes. And barbell training is extremely important. We know. Yes. The problem comes with the primary philosophy of CrossFit, which nowadays is not being called random. They want to call it constant variation instead of random. Because for some reason, random isn't good and constant variation is good.

It's hard to market random. Oh, yeah, we follow random training. Random training. Random training. But constant variation, see, that can be very, very intellectual. It can be very difficult for stupid people like me to understand. So, you know, these things are obviously over my head. But the constant variation is the thing both that is the problem and the thing

that makes it popular. Because CrossFit is not boring. Yes. I get that from a lot of people that like it. But it's not boring. You also have the group and everybody is doing the thing together. Sure.

People are social animals. People like to associate themselves with groups. And if you can be associated with a group that not only is all doing the same workout in your room right there today at 530 after you get off work, and a group of people all over the world that are also doing the same thing, that's pretty thorough social in-group kind of stuff. Yeah. And it works real well. It's very well paid. And people rabidly defend it.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I like to see why they would, because for most of these people, this is their first exposure to hard exercise, the kind of exercise that you must do if it's going to be productive. Well, anything works at first. My article, one of the probably more intelligent articles I've written is called The Novice Effect, and it's on my website at startingstrength.com.

And it details specifically why CrossFit, P90X, Pilates, everything works at first for a novice who has never done anything. And with the inability to distinguish that effect from the actual potential of the program long term, most people are going to think that CrossFit works pretty well until they get hurt. it works pretty well until they get hurt. Now, the buzz nowadays for CrossFit defenders is to say there's no evidence. I just saw a study recently that actually showed a higher injury rate. I think it was higher than even Olympic weightlifting, which Olympic weightlifting is dangerous.

Oh, I don't agree, Mike. Olympic weightlifting, even as a competitive sport, is not that dangerous. Oh, I don't agree, Mike. Olympic weightlifting, even as a competitive sport, is not that dangerous. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess I can't say it's dangerous. You have a higher chance of getting hurt doing Olympic lifting than you'd be just like if you're doing a regular barbell training type program, right? Sure. Yeah. Sure, and I'll tell you exactly why that is in just a second.

Okay. But the thing now that everybody that's defending CrossFit is saying is that there's no evidence. Well, one of the reasons there's no evidence is because if CrossFit affiliates won't submit the data, then of course there's no evidence. If they won't cooperate, no, then there's not going to be any evidence. Of course. We don't need evidence from CrossFit affiliates. All we need to do is ask the doctor, the orthopedic surgeons,

and the physical therapists that end up treating these injuries what the latest and greatest thing that's increased their business is. That would be the way to do the study. Don't involve CrossFit. Ask a thousand physical therapy clinics across the United States if they've seen an uptick in CrossFit-related injuries. At least half of the people. They've all got it written down on their report.

They've all got the data. That's where you find the data. CrossFit's not going to tell you. Now, the question would be, why is CrossFit prone to produce injuries? And the answer for that is quite simple, but it's going to require some background vocabulary words. So let's start with what does the term exercise mean? And, you know, we've never had a serious argument about this

because once you think about it, it's real obvious. When you say the term exercise, I'm going to go exercise today. I'm going to get some exercise. I'm going to, not an exercise like the squat, but exercise the activity. Yeah, I'm going to go move my body around. I'm going to move my body around and I'm going to do it specifically for the effect

it produces in my body today. Yeah. I'm going to move my body around because I want to get hot and sweaty and feel like I've accomplished something in terms of physical activity. I want to burn some calories. I want to burn some fat. I want to get sweaty and tired. I want to breathe hard. I want to burn some calories. I want to burn some fat.

I want to get sweaty and tired. I want to breathe hard. I want to help my heart rate and all this other shit. So when I do that, I'm doing exercise, and the criterion for each one of those workouts is did I do something today that made me feel productive today? Right. do something today that made me feel productive today. In other words, my subjective judgment about today's workout is how did that workout make me feel today. Training, on the other hand, is a process by which people accomplish

an objective goal in terms of physical performance. And since physical performances are dependent on the specific nature of the performance, in other words, what are you training for? A person training for a marathon is not training with the same process that a person training for a powerlifting meet because the physical adaptations are different and they're specific to the competition that you are training for. So the training is the process by which you accomplish a goal through time.

And in that context, each workout is important in that it is a component of the process we don't care about how we feel today because that's not the point yeah the point is what we do yes at the competition that we're training for now a competition even how that applies to the average person i mean yeah if you're not competing or whatever but there is a a distinction there. There's a difference of, you see a lot of people going in the gym to exercise and it's random motion almost is what it's like. You know, it seems like they just

wander from machine to machine and doing whatever versus... Yeah, exactly. Versus training where you are working within a structured program that has you performing certain types of exercises, but you're looking to progress. You're looking to, you know, you want to add X pounds to your squat this year.

You want to add X pounds. Progression at some level is the point of training. Yes. Whether it's endurance progression or straight progression, the progression is the hallmark of the training process. Now, it's obvious that these two vocabulary words are legitimate descriptions of human behavior, right? Right.

Performance is what we train for. Now, what is a performance? A performance is the thing you do at the end of the training cycle when it counts. You're in the marathon. You're at the meet. Hell, it may be just a PR test. If you haven't got the gumption

to sign up for the meet, you just want to see what your squat, press, and deadlift are. In three weeks on a Saturday, that's the performance. You're going to perform and you're going to see how much you can do. Now, when you decide you are going to perform, the performance itself becomes the objective.

And if the performance is the objective and not health or fitness or whatever, then we're subjecting ourselves to a different set of criteria about how hard we are going to push today. A performance is when we see what we can do. Typically, we have trained for that. Think about CrossFit. The workout of the day today is Isabel, which is 30 reps of snatch at 60 kilos for time. If everybody's doing Isabel today,

the fastest time is the one that, quote, wins, right? Or the fastest time is a PR. But when's the last time we snatched? Have we prepared for this performance? And if the answer is no, but if we are still willing to push ourselves in the absence of that training, in the absence of preparation for the performance, for a performance-level physical expression of our ability that day, then it's not surprising that we have now turned what should be a workout

turned what should be a workout into a performance situation in which the motivation is there sufficient to get you hurt. Yes. I mean, and it wouldn't be a big deal if... You see what I'm saying? Absolutely. I mean, if the performance... If the day isn't a workout, if the day is a performance, well, performances are when you see what you can do and you're willing to accept the risk of injury.

Yes. If you have not prepared yourself for the performance, then you increase the risk of the injury because the preparation did not take place. And this is what is fundamentally flawed with the CrossFit paradigm. And it probably wouldn't be such an issue if our performance was who can do the most curls with 15 pounds. Right. Then we'd be okay.

Then we'd just grab our biceps. Yeah. But if we, in fact, if we take the example of a performance-level effort and we repeat that several times a week. We are doing essentially what is the antithesis of training. The high eccentric component of this type of activity produces system-wide soreness. System-wide chronic soreness might as well be a disease process. It is not productive.

It is people. It is not good to be bone-deep sore all the time. That's not good for you. That's not the normal, active, physical expression of the human condition. Yeah, and ironically, muscle soreness, this is a question I get fairly often. I actually wrote an article on it that I always link people to, muscle soreness. Just if you, the listener, don't know, it's not associated with muscle growth necessarily. Just because if you go do a bunch of downhill running, your legs are going to get sore,

but it doesn't mean that you're building leg muscle by doing a bunch of downhill running, obviously. You know, I rarely get sore. Mornings is only indicative of a high level of eccentric work to which you have not adapted. Exactly. That's all it means. Yeah. That's all it means. It's eccentric work to which you have not adapted.

It does not indicate good. It merely indicates a lack of adaptation. Now, training is predicated on stress, recovery, adaptation. That's the process. If you're constantly sore, then by definition, you are not adapting. Someone in training for a powerlifting meet is not typically sore all the time. Now, there's eccentric components to all these movements that we do. Sure.

But you adapt to that amount of eccentric work. You adapt to the negatives that you do in training, and you're not bone deep sore all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not very sore. I mean, I still get sore in my legs from the squatting and deadlifting, but it's nothing. I don't even notice it unless I'm like really, you know, if I go to massage my leg, I'm like, oh, I feel that. Otherwise, I don't really notice it.

And it's certainly not the objective for which you're training. Sure. It is a side effect of the process of getting stronger but it's not the objective itself yeah uh there are a lot of crossfit people this is not all of them of course there are a lot of crossfit people that wear soreness chronic soreness yeah it's like a badge of uh as a badge of honor yeah hands. Hands torn all to shit. Calluses torn off their hands. That's a badge of honor. No, people, it's not.

It's a badge of stupidity. Yeah. It means you're not training productively. It may mean you're performing all the time. It may mean you're exercising at a very, very high intense level. Yeah. But it's not training and it's not productive. And chronic soreness is not good for you.

Yeah, and it's going to lead to some sort of injury. If a person in that condition, in that state, if they haven't gotten hurt yet, they're going to get hurt. I hear from these people all the time. Mike, it's indicative of something much worse than that. chronic soreness and chronic respiratory inflammation produce systemic problems, cardiac problems. Some of you people listening to me right now, that pain in your chest you get 6 o'clock in the morning,

that's not good for you. There are people listening to this right now that will know what I'm talking about. I actually haven't heard that. That is a result of chronic inflammation and a lack of recovery. Yeah. So just keep that in mind. Yeah. And that's, you know, I wrote an article recently on, on frequency, workout frequency, and it's a murky subject scientifically. And, but, frequency and it's a murky subject scientifically and but uh where a lot of these crossfit workouts i mean where you're you're hitting muscle groups over and over and over with such high volume workouts uh recovery in my opinion is an underappreciated thing at least in a lot of uh with more in the i wouldn't say aesthetics kind of world, but the bodybuilding, trying to build a good physique. Right now it's kind of trendy to these very high, very, very high weekly volume

with quite a bit of frequency. And I'll get guys emailing me. They're training everything two or three times a week, which is not inherently bad, but these are big, long workouts, two or three times a week, and they're just getting beat into the ground. Sure. And, you know, so you see that. Recovery capacity is a finite quantity.

There's only so much you recover from. Yeah. You know, this is why people that choose to do so take drugs. Yep. Pharoids increase recovery capacity. That's primarily how they work. Yep. And for the vast majority of people taking.

Yeah. Recovery is finite. There are only so many things. Yeah, I mean, your body has to, this is a real, it's not just like, oh, until your CNS settles down a little bit. No, it needs to rebuild tissue.

It takes time. It only can do it so quickly. Anabolic processes take a finite amount of time yeah and if you don't eat enough if you continually beat yourself into the ground with very light weights not only is the volume too high and the eccentric load too high the intensity is too low to make you stronger yeah strength is force production. If force production, the amount of force being produced at any given rep, is low enough that you can do 100 reps with the thing, then it's not a strength.

No, that's just muscle endurance. It's just muscle endurance. That's not how you get strong. Right. Yeah, and what are your thoughts on, I mean, I always, one of the critiques I always, and when I come across people, whether it's online or in real life, that are doing CrossFit, I understand the reasons why, if they like the group thing and they like all that, but I always kind of warn them that when you're fatigued, you lose awareness of, you know, let's say you're squatting heavy, deadlifting heavy.

And this happens to me. I think it happens to everybody where it becomes harder to maintain your form. You can, but it takes a bit more, you know, even if I'm just doing a set of, let's say, six reps, six or seven reps, 80, 85% of one rep max. Those last couple reps, six or seven reps, 80-85% of one rep max, those last couple reps, I pay attention. I make sure that I'm getting deep enough in my squat or I'm not shooting my hips up on my deadlift. But when you're

then now trying to do as many reps as possible deadlifts, your form is going to just go to shit. That's just part of the deal. You know what I mean? If you're trying to hit these Olympic lifts, which are tricky,

and you need to learn them properly, the Olympic lifting is, I mean, I think you'd agree that it's harder to learn proper Olympic lifting than it is to learn a proper bench press, for instance. Well, yeah. Especially if you don't know how to teach the movement.

Sure. It's much easier to teach a bench press than it is to teach a clean or snatch for a person that's not very good at doing that but so you have these people they're just there to get in shape and they're trying to perform these Olympic lifts that they've been trained on improperly and then they're being pushed by all their friends, come on, do it, come on, add some more weight, get it, get it, get it,

and then they get hurt, like, oh, what a surprise. Shocking. Shocking. Because, you know, there are structural explanations for why that occurs that are, you know, outside the scope of a general discussion like this, but it's intuitively obvious to everybody that if you are executing motion that's extremely dependent on repetitive movement pattern accuracy,

then, in other words, the kind of thing that practice perfects. Now, here's another vocabulary word. Practice is the way we perfect a repetitive movement pattern that is extremely dependent on accuracy and precision. It cannot be approached randomly

or even with constant variation. Now, can it? I can relate. I'm picking up golf, so I can relate. You can't become a better golfer by playing tennis. You can't become a better tennis player by playing even racquetball, because even though it's similar, it's not the same thing. Something that demands a high amount, a high degree of precision repetition of an accurate movement pattern requires practice specific to that skill.

That's what practice is. Practice is different to training, isn't it? Yeah, and usually that's going to mean breaking the whole movement down into pieces. Oh, it sometimes does. Olympic lifting is not. That's totally your world. In general, if you're... Olympic lifting, people have tried.

In the United States, people have tried to do it that way for a long, long time, and it doesn't work very well. Hang snatches don't really get you good at doing a full squat snatch off the floor. That's a little bit more technical than we need to deal with. But practice is extremely dependent on the

precise repetition of the thing you want to do. How does a pitcher learn to pitch? He doesn't play golf. He pitches. How do you learn to play the piano, for God's sake? And also, you have to pitch. He doesn't play golf. He pitches. How do you learn to play the piano, for God's sake? And also, you have to learn it. You've got to learn the easy stuff. You don't just go into

take-take pitching or piano. You're not going to try to play some Beethoven right away. You're going to... You can't. You can't. You have to learn... But that's the equivalent of cross-candid. The basics can only be learned by repeating the basics over and over and over. Repetitive, constant repetition of the same movement pattern is how you learn anything that requires practice.

Constant variation doesn't do a very good job. Exactly, and that's where poor coaching screws people over is because they don't know. That's absolutely true. If you don't have an opportunity to coach a guy through the snatch at least four times a week, he's not going to get very good because although once you've learned the movement, it's not that complicated. I mean, it's a snatch, for God's sake. It's not like judo or downhill skiing. It's a snatch, but it is a skill-dependent movement.

The bar must move in a certain pathway that you must learn to repeat with both light and heavy weights, and with weights that will win the meet. So all of this stuff has to be practiced. These skill-dependent movements must be practiced over and over and over. And if, you know, the same way you learn how to shoot, you have to run a bunch of rounds through the weapon.

And you have to learn how to do it. And repetitive motion is how it's accomplished. An accurate motion, though, or you're going to ingrain incorrect motion patterns and then, you know... Absolutely.

You start adding... You know, it might not be a big deal when you're just using a bar and you're maybe using... But then you start adding weight to it and all of a sudden, you know, it might not be a big deal when you're just using a bar, but then you start adding weight to it, and all of a sudden, you know, it all falls apart. Well, here's an interesting question. Can you learn how to snatch a barbell with a piece of PVC? I have never tried, but I wouldn't think so.

You need the weight of it, right? Well, yeah, it's a different deal. I mean, you know, what constrains the movement you have to learn how to move the barbell in a bar path that will generate the rack at the top of the snatch and a piece of pvc that weighs it you know 55 grams is not going to reproduce allow you to reproduce the same movement pattern that is necessary to do it with 100 kilos on the bar. Yeah. You know, these things are specific. Yeah. They must be practiced specifically, and a 55-gram piece of PVC is not specific to Olympic weightlifting.

Yeah, totally makes sense. So, I mean, there's, you know, there's all kinds of problems, but at any rate. Yeah, I think that's a good uh summary of of the the matter um so let's shift here quickly to another subject which is something that i've kind of wondered about i haven't been able to find much good research on it um and i haven't heard i don't know whenever i talk to people like you and they have a lot of experience it's it's something i'm kind of always curious about is what are your thoughts on, and just based on your experience, obviously this is an anecdotal thing, but what

are, what are your thoughts, um, on the, the, the upper limits of, of strength that a person can achieve naturally? I've seen some good models out there for lean mass that, you know, uh, using fat free mass index and such that you can get pretty, you can accurately, semi-accurately tell somebody, okay, you're probably going to max out somewhere around here in terms of total lean mass. But, you know, strength, I've kind of wondered about that. Like, do you think there is a ceiling or? Well, and I also think that there is a rather tenuous relationship between the amount of lean mass a person displays at a certain height and body weight and the amount of strength that that particular phenotype can generate

because there are a bunch of variables in terms of how strong you get. You know, there are just lots and lots and lots of variables, and it's terribly difficult to say how strong a guy is going to be based on what he looks like. That's what essentially we're saying. Do you remember Mike McDonald? There was a guy by the name of Mike McDonald that was a power lifter back in the late 70s.

And Mike McDonald benched 600 at 198 with a 16-inch arm. That's just superhuman freak. Yeah, it's superhuman freak strength. And you see this guy, he does not look like he can bench four, and he was an amazing, amazing specimen. Yeah, I've seen guys like that in the gym. Not 600, but I've seen guys putting up 315 where I actually thought, like, I need to go over, this guy is about to kill himself,

and then they just rep it. I'm like, what did I just see? You can't tell by looking is what it boils down to because there are other considerations operating in there that you can't see. They're obviously the hormonal milieu that affect very wildly from individual to individual. Whether you're taking steroids or not, some guys have more testosterone than other guys. They just, I'm sorry, they do. And if it becomes a big enough number, it'm sorry, they do. Yeah. You know.

And if it becomes a big enough number, it can make a difference. Right. It certainly can. Yeah. Some guys want it more. As a result, will train harder. Right. Are capable of pushing themselves harder. Right.

Some guys' levers are better. In other words, their muscle attachments around their joints and all these things that contribute to the effective moment force that you can generate around a joint. All that varies with the individual as well. Yeah, and all stuff you can't see. It's extremely complicated. It's hard to investigate. Yeah.

And here's another extremely important thing that will have a lot to do with a person's ultimate ability to generate force, and that is their genetic capacity for explosion, their power. A guy with a 36-inch vertical jump that walks in the gym will eventually be stronger than a guy with a 22-inch vertical jump that walks in the gym. Guys that start off with big verticals get strong faster and get stronger than guys with small verticals. Now, that doesn't mean, let me make a caveat here, that doesn't mean that a guy with a 22-inch vertical can't get real god-awful strong right because he can't

but the guy with the big vertical has got a neuromuscular situation that is different than the guy with the low vertical he's he's more efficient in a neuromuscular sense yeah i remember reading about that recently that alone was uh was like uh one of the best single predictors of um i don't remember which sport. It might have been football or just their athletic capacity. For any sport, it requires power. Any sport that requires power. And the downside of this is it's genetically controlled.

Right. You can't take a guy, and there are going to be people calling you on the phone when I say this. You can't take a guy with an 18-inch vertical jump and get him up to a 36. The only place that happens is on the Internet. That doesn't happen. Right. Because these types of neurological limitations are not terribly mutable. We can't train that very much.

Right. To the extent we can train it, the stronger your squat gets, the higher your vertical is going to be. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that you can take a 22 and make it into a 32. Right.

It doesn't even usually mean you can take a 22 and turn it into a 26. It just doesn't vary that much. It's interesting. And there's going to be these guys that go, well, I've got to where I could jump over a car when I couldn't jump over a car before. It's not the same damn thing. The standing vertical jump with just one counter drop and a

reach up, you know, like we measure on a Vertec, doesn't move up very much. Now, I wish it did, but it didn't. You know. But you can find websites devoted to this bullshit. Look, the reason the standing vertical jump is so

valuable as a test is because it can't be manipulated with training. It is a way for us to determine who we're talking to here. What are the genetics of this guy? Do I want to hire him based on his genetics? Well, he's got a 36-inch vertical. Well, I'm pretty sure he didn't get that up from an 18-inch vertical, so I see this guy's got a hell of a lot of potential for the development of power and strength. I'll hire him. So that's one of the things that's real critical. So the question of how strong can a guy get? What do you think are, let's phrase it this way, what do you think are, because I get asked these types of things,

that's why I wanted to run it by you, what do you think are some respectable, what are some good longer-term goals, maybe related to body weight, that a person should be looking for in terms of some pulling, pushing, squatting? Well, there's the old standard. A guy weighs 200 pounds yeah ought to be

able to press 200 bench press 300 squat 400 and deadlift 500 and those are all one reps right yeah yeah that's not a that's not a tremendous achievement except that nowadays a 200 pound press for a body weight press for a guy is pretty damn good press. Yeah, that's good. That's hard. You know, so I would skew that. If I was going to say that, I'd probably say 175-pound press, you know, 275 bench, 400 squat, 500 deadlift. Yeah. A 200 is a good starting point. Yeah, I agree. It's a good starting point. Now, that's not indicative of a strength specialty because a 500 pound deadlift is just not that hard. Yeah. I can do that right now and I'm 58, you know, and I just basically trained to hang on,

you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to get stronger. I'm just hanging on. I can pull 500. But, you know, if you can't pull 500, you need to get to where you can, you know, unless you weigh 110 pounds. In which case, you're a female or a little short guy or something like that. You know, all things being equal, a guy with 5'9", 5'10",

ought to weigh 200 pounds. He ought to be able to press 175. He ought to be able to bench 3. He ought to be able to bench 275. He ought to be able to press 175. He ought to be able to bench three. He ought to be able to bench, or 275. He ought to be able to squat four, four and a quarter, 450. He ought to be able to deadlift five, five and a quarter. He just ought to be able to do that. Yeah.

Because that's not hard to do. Now, if we want to take... And to qualify that. I mean, it takes some time. It's not that... It's going to take you a year and a half. Yeah. You know.

But, and this assumes average genetic endowment. Right. You know, it's going to take you a year, year and a half. But it shouldn't take me longer than that. Right. It really shouldn't, because, again, those are not... Depending on how you train, of course. Those numbers don't represent a specialization in strength.

They just represent strength. Yeah. You ought to be that strong. They just represent strength. Yeah. You ought to be that strong. A guy ought to be that strong. Now, what can that same guy do at that same body weight? Well, at some point you reach the end of the capacity of the muscle mass that you've got right now to generate increased amounts of force. Yeah.

At which point you have to grow, which means your body weight has to go up. Yep. You know, what would represent a strength specialization body weight with an athletic amount of body fat at 5'9"? Oh, I think you'd have to say 245. 245 pounds? Yeah. That's as long as he can get at 5'9".

That's a big boy. Yeah, but Ed Cohen competed at 242 and Ed's 5'5". Yeah. I mean, there are outliers. But if we're talking in terms of the – like how tall – how much will a six-foot-tall guy weigh if he's real, real strong? And I'm not talking about a competitive lifter, but a guy that's real strong is an athlete at six foot. It depends on body fat, right?

But it's somewhere around 200. At an athletic body fat of 15%, what would he do? I would say probably, what do you think, 200 to 215, 210, something around there? Oh, I'd say 250. I'd say 250, Mike. I think you need to start upwardly adjusting your body mass estimations because a six-foot-tall guy that has trained for four or five years for strength is going to weigh 250.

Yeah, he is. And if he doesn't weigh 250, then he hadn't tapped his potential. I think you've got to see your... I just don't know. I wish I knew more guys like this. I just don't. My gym is full of goobers. You've got to be around a bunch of strength training people.

I wish. They're pushing their strength numbers. I wish I had that. Strength numbers require a heavier body weight because at some point the muscle has to grow. Yeah. And bigger muscles weigh more than smaller muscles. A guy 6 foot, that's not a particularly tall guy.

And 250 is not a particularly high body weight. But you take a big, strong athlete that's 6 foot, I mean 6'5", 6'6". Yeah. He's 300 pounds. These guys in the NFL. I mean, look at them. Even lean, they're 300 pounds. Yeah, they're monsters.

275, they're just monsters. They're not like we are. But you take a guy that's 5'8", my height, you know, I competed at 220, and I was probably carrying 12% body fat at the time. And I tell you as a fact, I was not heavy enough to be standing there at 5'8 as a powerlifter. That's the biggest mistake that I made in my training was to not take my body weight on up to 242 or even more. Because at my height, look at the nationals.

Go to the nationals and how tall are the guys in the 181 they're 5'4 5'5 they're huge they're huge and they're not fat people yeah I mean I guess also I just think of my body weight

it's always been strangely low I'm about 6'2 right now I weigh about probably 188 I'm pretty lean'2". Right now I weigh about probably 188. I'm pretty lean, though, about 7%, 7 1⁄2, whatever. Yeah, and, you know, if I had you to train, my friend, our first goal would be to get you 200 pounds, and that'd take me about two weeks. Because I would tell you to quit worrying about your body fat

and let's go ahead and get strong. Yeah, no, I know. I'm sure you look like a, I'm sure you're an Adonis. I'm sure you're an Adonis with abs, flowing, golden locks, that sort of shit. But I'm telling you, if you want to get strong, a guy at your height is going to have to gain a bunch of weight. Yes, no, you're totally right. You're totally right.

And it's, I don't know, I like being lean. And it's, I guess, in my world because I do have to show that I walk the walk. You know what I mean? Well, it just depends on what a guy wants out of his training. This is the way I've always looked at it. If I look at you in pants and a long-sleeve shirt, can I tell that you train? And at 6'2", 180, I can't. You'd be surprised. My weight is deceptive. But at 6'2", 275, there wouldn't be any question. You got a guy with a 6'2",

275, 40 inch waist. You say nothing. You just shake that guy's hand. You're going to look like you train, my friend. You're going to look like you train. You shake that guy's hand. All right. Let's move on quickly to the last thing I want to touch on here, which is it was a few months ago. I want to say May-ish. I read an article of yours.

It was on T Nation about some of the problems with exercise science. And I really liked it because I run into – I don't run into it that much. I run into it here and there where people come to me with – and I totally welcome people to argue with things I say. And I'm open to, hey, share more information. I don't pretend like I know everything. But where people come to me with, that haven't really achieved much in the way of building strength or building muscle, but they have, you know, they have a big fat PubMed account

and they'll come to me with almost like using studies like poker chips where like they'll see my study that I cited for this one thing where I was talking about the importance of heavy weightlifting, and they're going to raise me three poker chip studies. You know what I mean? I'll do your two studies and raise you three. Yeah, raise you three that says, you know, if I do 30 rep workouts every day, I'm going to get even bigger and stronger.

Like, okay, well, why don't you do that first? So I liked your article, and i thought it's a relevant site you know it'd be great for the listeners to kind of hear your your views on kind of the some of the issues that are out there with exercise science and why we can't just take papers as as dogma and say oh well this study said this and that's it or even worse read the abstract and be like oh okay i understand that now yeah you can't read the abstract is you like, oh, okay, I understand that now. Yeah, you can't read the abstract. An abstract is an excellent way to lie about your study. It's like this, Mike.

In the absence of a bunch of controlled peer review studies about any phenomenon, what do you have to rely on in order to understand it? In the absence of literature, quote-unquote, on the substance, what do you have to rely on for an understanding of that material? Yeah, other people's experiences. What you have to rely on is a logical analysis of the things that you do know. Now, what do I know, having been in this business for 38 years? I know a lot of stuff. Now, how much of it have I written down?

Well, in this particular instance, quite a bit. in this particular instance quite a bit. But I haven't done any peer-reviewed studies on anything because I don't need to. Right. Here's an example. And this thing is probably the best way to illustrate the whole point you're trying to make, and I know we're short on time.

Back in 2009, a study was published in the journal Strength, Condition, and Research. The NSCA's, quote, science, quote, unquote, journal. And the study dealt with the ability to generate

a one rep max on the bench press. And the problem was, actually, I'm not making this up. This is in the literature. So if you're running an evidence-based practice, then you can base your practice on this evidence. What was the difference in one RM strength while laying down on a bench

or laying down balanced on a Swiss ball. I may have actually seen this paper. And this is the paper that made me decide, you know, I've got to drop my membership in this ridiculous organization. I can't have my name associated with these people. The study was published, and the conclusion drawn was there's not any difference in one rep max if you're balanced on a ball and if you're laying on a bench. Now, I don't need to see a study to know where I can generate the most force

in a bench press on a stable or an unstable surface. I don't need to see this study to know that no one has ever bench pressed 600 pounds. On a BOSU ball. On a BOSU ball. The fact that the peer review committee accepted this paper for publication and reviewed it and said, yeah, we'll publish this, tells you quite a bit about both the people that wrote the study and the people that reviewed the study, doesn't it?

It tells you that they're not operating from the same standpoint of a logical analysis in the absence of the data that I have. Now, let's just assume for a minute that the data was useful, which it wasn't. It was like there were 11 people in the study or something like that. Right. And the strongest guy in the study bids $250 or something like this. And everybody's lighter than that. The ship was all over the place,

and if you do an analysis, you just look at the data, the data is shit. Okay? That having, let's just ignore that. What kind of an idiot would think to ask the question,

having ever been under a 300-pound bench press himself? Yeah. What's the point? These people are not operating from a position of sufficient experience to even know what they don't know. Yes, what the actual good questions are. What are the good questions? That ain't one of them.

Okay, that's not one of the good questions. That ain't one of them. Okay? That's not one of the good questions. That's not where we spend our money and our time. But if all you need is a publication credit for your master's degree, well, hey, what the hell? If these idiots decided they'd publish it in the journal, well, what the hell? The problem with that is now that thing's in the literature.

If some clown operating a personal training practice doesn't see that there's a problem and you know, with this data, with this conclusion, with even asking this question, you know, how are you going to

get somebody strong if you base your assumptions about how to do it on that? That's the problem I've got with exercise value of anecdotal evidence that's out there. In a lot of cases, that's all you've got. Yes, and especially with – there's certain – like you say, there are a lot of good questions that haven't been asked, and we don't have good peer-reviewed studies to answer those questions. been asked and we don't have good peer-reviewed studies to to answer those questions so here's the here's the assumption that they make that that you know people that aren't particularly sophisticated in terms of understanding science make there are several different types of data data generated by a peer-reviewed study is one type of data but it's not the only valuable data

yeah the data that i have accumulated over 38 years of experience i think you would probably you ignore that at your peril you know there's some stuff i know that the guys that wrote that study obviously don't so uh yeah one kind of data i i agree and i i think that um it's a good sign that when i'm when i'm you know if i come across somebody new in this space whatever and i want to check out their work uh it's a good sign if they are referencing the literature if they i mean i of course you have to you can't take the citations just at the at. You have to look for yourself. So I think it's good that we see a lot of that out there. But what I think where it goes too far is where you have these PubMed warriors that they haven't actually really accomplished anything with a lot of this theory that they have.

And without the experience, you can find studies that would conclude just about anything. you can find studies that would conclude just about anything. You could actually just do everything wrong and have it all backed up by scientific research and get nowhere. You know what I mean? Absolutely. But let me clarify a point. I am not saying that scientific research, peer-reviewed studies, conducted like the kind that get published in peer-reviewed journals,

is of no value. That's not what I'm saying at all. That's absolutely not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that just because it has been peer-reviewed and published in a journal doesn't mean that it is either valuable or even correct. You have to know how to evaluate this stuff. You can't get out of exercise science school with your bachelor's degree and accept that all of this research is like Jesus gave it to us.

Yeah, it's the end. It's written in stone, and it's never going to change. It's the way it works. That's an excellent way to avoid having to think about stuff yourself. And that's never acceptable. Yeah, a good example of that is just the importance of heavy weight lifting where you can find quite

a bit of research that supports that position. You can find quite a bit of research that says, hey, do a bunch of high rep stuff. It's all the same. You're going to build muscle. You're going to build strength. Yeah, lightweight for high reps is the same as heavyweight for low reps. Yes, you can find it.

Now, what kind of a moron would conclude that? I mean, the physics of it is complex. But nonetheless, that's in the literature. Yeah, I know. You'll build the same strength. You'll build the same muscle, especially with muscle growth. That's where it really, like, a lot. And I run into quite a few natural weightlifters

that were doing the high rep stuff for a while stuck. And then they, they switched to more emphasis on the, on the heavier, um, and especially on compound and lo and behold, they're, you know, their muscles are growing larger than they had ever been. And they don't, you know, they're so surprised because traditional hypertrophy is supposed to be 10 to 12 rep and you know that's one of those things where where is the actual evidence of that how did that even come about you know what i mean yeah it's uh it came about from bad research done on leg extensions and extrapolated over to actual human behavior it doesn't work yeah and especially extrapolated over into okay human behavior. It doesn't work. Yeah, and especially extrapolate it over into, okay, so yeah, you're looking at a single set of leg extensions

or a couple weeks of leg extensions, whatever. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that a couple years, that is better than squatting heavy over two years. It doesn't mean anything is the critical thing here. That kind of research doesn't mean anything is the critical thing here. That kind of research doesn't mean anything. And furthermore, all of the research that indicates that 8 to 12 reps with a minute, you know, 5 to 6 reps with one minute between the standard recommendation for hypertrophy is irrelevant to someone who is not already deadlifting 550.

The way to get big, the way to hypertrophy your muscles until you reach a certain point, which will vary with anyone, is to get those muscles strong. And how do we get muscles strong? With sets of five. with sets of five. Yep. Sets of five, therefore, are the best way to hypertrophy, unless you're already real big.

Yep. See, nobody wants to hear that, but that is, in fact, the case. A guy with a 200-pound deadlift is not as big through the muscles that do the deadlift as the guy with a 500-pound deadlift, and what's the best way to get the deadlift from 200 to 500 sets of five lift heavy ass weight lift heavy weights for sets of five yeah that's how it's done so that's the way to hypertrophy yep and that's i mean that's that that's what i preach i mean that's in my book bigger leaner stronger that's what it's all about is four to six rep heavy heavy progress over time all the way it's the way it's done. The way it's always been done.

And then for more advanced weightlifters with the higher rep where you actually can move weight, I think that's what you're referring to, right? Where you have enough strength to actually move real weight for 10 reps, not pushing the bar. A guy with a 200-pound deadlift can't do the same reps of 10, same set of 10 that a guy with a 500 pound deadlift yeah and therefore the stress applied is not the same experience exactly yeah okay well that's great um i mean

there's so many i'd love to pick your brand i know we're already planning on a second podcast which i'm excited to to get into with you um but uh just so that in case the listeners don't know, where can they find you and your work? I mean, I recommend your work on my website. So you guys, I mean, you can find his books. You can find Starting Strength at my website. But where can they, what's your world? We are at startingstrength.com

and all of my stuff is there. All of my, in fact, this audio interview will be linked from startingstrength.com, video interviews, audio interviews, all of my articles written for both my website and outside media are linked at startingstrength.com. We have more forums for discussion there than I can count. Some of them are extremely high quality. Some of them showcase the dregs of humanity. It's called the Internet.

Yeah, it's called the Internet. We're a representative sample of the Internet, I'm afraid. But we have fun. We have intelligent conversations about all kinds of things there, in addition to articles about weight lifting and bodybuilding and power lifting history written by authors like bill starr marty gallagher ken leisner dr ken leisner premieres with us tomorrow in an article tomorrow being wednesday the whatever the hell it is in september for those of you listening to this september, today's the 9th, so tomorrow's the 10th.

September 10th, Ken Leisner goes up on our website. Cool. And his perspectives are always interesting. He's a staple in the Iron Game literature for the past 45 years, and we're proud to feature him on the website as well as, you know, writing by our coaches, by the Starting Strength Coach community, and videos and all kinds of stuff. And it's a big website. Yeah, it's a great resource.

And, you know, startingstrength.com, that's where I'm at. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. It's a great resource. It's definitely a site I recommend that everybody check out and just frequent regularly to get good, no-bullshit advice. All right, so thanks again for taking the time, Mark. And then, yeah, I'm excited for the follow-up. We'll do it again.

Yep. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day,

actually. I release kind of like four to six new articles a week and you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right, thanks again. Bye.