Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Jeff Alberts on How to Get and Stay Fit at Any Age

Episode Date: November 25, 2016

In this podcast I interview Jeff Alberts, who’s an accomplished natural bodybuilder with nearly three decades of experience competing, and 2 pro card wins, 16 class titles, 26 top 3 finishes, and first place in the 2014 IFPA Pro International. As you’d expect from someone with so much bodybuilding experience, Jeff’s also an accomplished coach. He’s worked with hundreds of athletes over the last 5 years, and started the 3DMJ brand, which has now expanded to include four other coaches, including Andrea and Eric, who I also recently interviewed. In this podcast, Jeff and I talk about the major lessons that he has learned about what changes as you get older, and what you can and can’t do in terms of gaining muscle and losing fat. I get asked about this type of thing all the time because many guys and gals think that if you’re over a certain age and not already in great shape--40s is usually the cut-off--you’re basically screwed. They think that you won’t be able to build any muscle to speak of, that you’ll probably get hurt trying, and that your metabolism is going to grind to a halt and you’re going to be fat forever. Well, they’re wrong. Physiologically speaking, things don’t change nearly as much as people think, and while you can’t get away with as much shenanigans in your 40s as you can in your 20s, you absolutely can train hard and build your best body ever. And that’s what Jeff breaks down in the interview. We touch on many things, ranging from how to know when you’re under-recovered and how to recover faster, how exercise selection changes as you get older, how to periodize your training, how to deload, and a lot more. This is a good interview to listen to regardless of your age, too, because if you’re like me, your goal is first and foremost longevity. We want to be doing this for the rest of our lives, and that mainly boils down to preventing injury and burnout, and that’s what this discussion is all about, really. Here it is... 10:49 - How do you train smarter for longevity? 12:19 - How do you know you're under-recovering? 17:34 - What changes as you get older? 20:28 - What helps you recover faster? 28:53 - How does exercise selection change throughout training? 34:31 - What about exercise form? 42:04 - How does muscle density develop in training? 46:00 - How do you periodize your training? 48:24 - What does a deload look like for you? 52:44 - Where can people find your work? 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/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

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about my supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hello there, this is Mike from Muscle for Life and I'm back with yet another episode of the podcast. And in this episode, I interview Jeff Alberts, who is an accomplished natural bodybuilder with about three decades of experience under his belt and two pro card wins, 16 class titles, 26 top three finishes. And he took first place in the 2014 IFPA Pro International. And as you would expect from someone with so much bodybuilding experience, Jeff is also an accomplished bodybuilding coach. He's been doing that for about five years now, and he has worked with hundreds of athletes,

and he actually started the 3DMJ brand, which has now expanded to include four other coaches, including Andrea and Eric, who I also recently interviewed. So as you'll see in the interview, it's always great to talk to someone like Jeff, who really is a consummate professional, who has a ton of experience working with all different types of people, men and women, you know, different ages, different circumstances, different genetics has really just seen everything and knows what he's talking about. And in this case, what we talk about are the major lessons that Jeff has learned about what changes as you get older in terms of gaining muscle and losing fat. Now, this is something that I get asked about all the time because many guys and gals think that if you're over a certain age

and you're not already in great shape, somewhere in the forties seems to be the usual kind of cut off that people have in their minds. And, and, you know, people think that you're basically screwed. You know, they think that you will not be able to build any muscle to speak of, and that you'll probably get hurt trying build any muscle to speak of and that you'll probably get hurt trying and that your metabolism is basically just on a downward spiral and it's going to grind to a halt and you're just going to be fat forever. Now, most of you probably know that aging isn't that dramatic, but you know, physiologically speaking, things don't change nearly as much as you probably think. I mean, you can't necessarily get away

with as many shenanigans in your forties as you can in your twenties, but you absolutely can train hard and build your best body ever. And that's really what Jeff breaks down in this interview. I mean, we touch on many things ranging from how to know when you're under recovered and how to recover faster. And those are very important points because that is the main thing that changes. You get older is your body's ability to recover from your workouts diminishes. Uh, we also talk about how exercise selection changes as you get older or how it probably should change or just will need to change in many cases, um, how to periodize your training, how to deload and a lot more. And this is a good

interview to listen to regardless of your age too, because if you're like me, your goal is first and foremost longevity. I mean, sure, we want to gain muscle and lose fat as quickly as possible. We want to look a certain way as soon as possible, but we also want to be doing this for the rest of our lives. And that mainly boils down to not getting hurt and not getting burned out. And that's really what this discussion is all about. So I hope I have whetted your appetite for it and let's get to it. Jeff, thanks for taking the time to do this. So you're number three from 3DMJ. First was Eric and then Andrea and now the patriarch. Hey, it's a pleasure

but man eric gets first dibs man i don't know yeah i know he was great he was fun to talk to which is i mean i've been a fan of his work for i could recommended you know um his books and his research and stuff so it was cool to talk to him oh yeah he's he's what 12 years younger than me and i've been around a lot longer but i've've learned so much from him. Uh, that's really kind of helped this last leg of what I have left in this sport. So he's a good dude. Yeah. Yeah. He was fun to talk to. All right. So let's just give everybody a quick little preview of what we're going to be talking about, which is a subject that I've been asked quite a bit about. I get emailed on it pretty frequently. I even actually just recently sent out a survey kind of just

asking people, how can I do what I'm doing better? What are some things that I haven't covered extensively enough? And this area of longevity is one of them. So I guess there's kind of two facets to it. It is, there's the longevity. So you have people that are maybe in their 20s and 30s that are looking forward saying, Hey, I want to be able to do this when I'm 40, 50, 60. And then people that are 40, 50, 60, that either most cases they're newer to it. And they are kind of like, they usually are wondering, is it too late? That's kind of their first, a lot of people asking that. And then people that know that it's not too late wanting to know how do they reduce the risk of injury and how do they stay healthy and um you know they figure they can't go at it in the way maybe they did in college things are probably different now so oh yeah and

it's good because i haven't i've written a little bit about this and i actually i actually spoke with mark ripito about it i mean i don't, maybe six months ago. And he's always fun to talk to, but he gets off on tangents. So I think there was some, you know how you go, he'll just start ranting on things, which I think it's, I mean, I love talking to Mark. I think he's hilarious. But, you know, I was excited to talk to you about this because I know this is what you live, not just personally, but, you know, through your coaching. I know this is what you live, not just personally, but through your coaching, who better to talk to than people that, when you're coaching competitive bodybuilders, and these are guys and girls that are really taking this sport to its extreme. They're putting their bodies through a lot more than what the average person has to do. So, if you can help them do it, then you can definitely help the everyday person that just wants to, you know, be in great shape for the rest of their lives, basically. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's the mentality I've had like early on versus now, like early on,

let's say in my twenties versus now in my mid forties. Yeah. The mentality and the approaches is a lot different. And I think that plays a big role with longevity. Like early on, I was a pretty intense trainer. Like I came from the Dorian Yates, Mike Mincer, which was basically, you know, low volume, but taking everything to extreme failure. And basically I was, you know, running myself into the ground, like literally every workout, every set, every rep. I mean, I made sure that everything was, was counting, you know, and I got pretty lucky that I didn't get any major injuries early on. So I kind of feel lucky now that looking back in hindsight that I made it through that. But I can only imagine. I did a bit of that when I was younger. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not,

I'm 32, but I, you know, 10 years ago, I remember you say I used to go into the point of like mental failure. Like it's beyond physical. It's very mentally, you can't even conceive of doing another pushup, let alone a bench press or something. Yeah. Like when I'm talking to failure, like I would literally take like the positive reps, like I can't do another rep. But then once I completed that last rep, then it was like a static hold.

So holding it as long as you possibly can until you're just basically done. And that's how intense I was. So like a lot of times now when I talk about this subject, usually like on Instagram or the social media outlets, you know, I always get some of the younger crowd that kind of like looks at me like, you're soft or you're not hard enough and things like that. It's just, I've learned to really train a lot more intelligent over the years. So I can stay at the top of my game like I am now. I'm still training at a high level, still competing at a high level, you know, into my mid forties. Yeah. And so I guess that's just

kind of a segue into some of the, I guess some of the key lessons that you've learned. So how do things look now versus then? And what does that mean training smarter? Because it's also just, just talking about that super high intensity kind of training. That's something that I get asked semi-frequently about, like, what do I think about that as a, you know, viable, not just for bodybuilding, but for people, because I deal more with people, just everyday people that want to get in shape as opposed to, you know, the competitive crowd, which you obviously specialize in. So how have things changed now and then looking even forward, so you're looking forward for you for

the next 20 years, like, what are you, what does that look like in terms of training and recovery and diet and you know just the kind of questions that people have that don't know what are they what is too much what's too little what should they be doing yeah so it's hard to say because there's it's very individual like what people can tolerate the intensity levels and actually the the amount of volume that you you can handle like we hear a lot, you know, volume, volume, volume. That's the key for progress and growth. But you have to be able to recover from it.

And what I'm noticing with myself, especially as of late, like the last year, I'm running into a little bit more aches and pains, and it's getting harder to recover from workouts. So I've had to be a little bit more strategic as far as giving myself a little bit more recovery days so now I'm kind of like training take you know training one day taking the next day off just so I can recover because I was noticing was I was training a little too frequent and it just was like feeling beat up and run down and how does that how how just to be specific because that's something again that's a point of like how can what does that, how, how, just to be specific, because that's something, again, that's a point of like, how can, what does that look like for you?

At what point were you like, no, this is not just me being soft. This is me under recovering. Yeah, because I mean, you'll hear it like there's no such thing as overtraining. Exactly. I mean, there, there is. I mean, you can definitely get run down. Like when you're, when I start experiencing, like I'm just not motivated to go train or I'm in pain most of the day. Like I'm just achy and, you know, tight. And I'm like, okay, I'm probably doing a little too much here. And quite often, you know, when I, when I do work

with, let's say a new athlete, you know, that comes in, they apply and, you know, they have, we have a breakdown of, you know, we ask how their training is, what their intensity levels, you know, the volume and, you know, what their setup is like, probably I would say a good 70, 80, 90% of the time I'm lowering down people's volume. And the first thing is fear. It's like insecurity and fear. Like, okay, if you're taking away work, then I'm not going to progress. But often it's like my poor ex-wife, but basically it's a a story of like I was married for 20 years and I thought that was a good marriage you know I thought that's what it was normal and it wasn't until I actually got out of the marriage and I look back in hindsight now that I'm married for the second time happiest I've ever been in my life I look back but wow that first marriage really wasn't what it was supposed to be. So sometimes removing somebody out of their current situation and putting them

into a new situation, they could kind of see things a lot more clear because they're looking at it from the outside, looking in. Sure. So a lot of times we can make progress with less, but it's just getting people to, you know, accept or embrace that change. Like, you know, sometimes better is better,

not more is better. Right. So, yeah. So for me personally, it was just like I was, I was doing too much and that can change. Like I can go, you know, train for a month, training three days a week and all of a sudden I'm recovered. I'm like, okay, I'm feeling really good now. Okay. Now I could take this maybe for the next month. Let me see if I could add another training day in or maybe add a set here, maybe a set there, maybe throw in a couple more exercises. So you tend to overreach a little bit and then you're like, okay, it's going to accumulate again.

That fatigue is probably going to accumulate again at some point. So I'm going to have to back off. So it's basically periodizing your training. So just picking your spots when to push, picking your spots when to back off. And would you say that that's, I mean, it's, I hate to say like, you know, listening to your body, quote unquote, but there's something to be said for, I guess, getting a feel for your body and knowing, like you were saying, at what point can you push it in overreach

and at what point, I mean, I know I've run into it in my training where like, I'm not exactly feeling like I'm up to it, but I feel like it's, I need, I know I've run into it in my training where like, I'm not exactly feeling like I'm up to it, but I feel like it's, I need to, because I haven't in enough time. Like, I feel like enough time has gone by where I haven't really tried to push it. And, you know, and then it turns out I was right. And everything just feels way heavier than it should be. And it just doesn't really, it doesn't really go well, but I think i guess would you agree that it takes time it takes time training to just get a sense of these things i mean i don't know of any like formulaic like then you can get x number of weeks you know what i mean yeah yeah i wish i would could just give

you some type of broad generalization uh but really it's like like kind of like you said it's it's it's experience you start learning yourself as you go and i know when i when i work with athletes from the get-go it's like yeah i could set up this training program based off of their individual needs and you know when we write it up right there on the spot in in theory it sounds great you know you set up this plan you're like okay here's the plan but then you don't really know how it's going to unfold till they start executing right so usually you know, you know, a month, two months go by, you know, then we have to reassess things, you know, what's working well, what's not working well, and then make the revisions to kind of keep that person progressing and evolving. And sometimes, you know, I've written programs where I've stripped the volume and we find out that, you know,

they recover really well and it's not enough so we have to actually add volume and there's other times where i made the right call from the get i was like okay yeah this person's like progressing so well you know on less so it's just it's just a matter of setting things up and then you actually have to run it and and assess and see how it goes and make revisions based on what you're seeing. And I think, you know, someone who's just starting out, they're really not going to understand how to make the right calls for themselves in most cases. And I think that's where coaching comes into play. Like I really don't recommend people just run out by like 8 or 12-week weight training programs

because you're just following something blindly. Right. Whereas, you know, if you get an 8- to 12-week program, but you have someone helping you and coaching you through it, then they can help you make the assessments and then make the adjustments. Then you learn how to make those calls for yourself. Yeah, and then hopefully by the end of that time, you're self-sufficient to some degree.

Yeah, but getting back to it, yeah, but getting back to it, there's just really no broad generalization, how to, in my opinion, how to have people know how much volume, what is enough, what's not enough until they actually go through it. Right. And to the point of aging, so what is the major thing then that changes as you get older because a lot of people again i mean i hear from guys and girls that think that it's not um they think that really like once you get over let's say 40 years old your ability to gain muscle and strength just plummets and everything goes to shit basically is what they kind of think and that's obvious that's obviously not true no i said i've made really good games from the time i was like 38, when I was 38 years old, I competed in 2009. I was at 38.

I was 38. I weighed 160 on stage. A couple years later, I was 170, just as conditioned. But it really had more to do with not gaining muscle in the off-season because at that age, yeah, you're not going to gain 10 pounds of muscle as a natural lifter. It was more about the way I dieted, a lot more intelligent, took a more conservative pace, so I held on to a lot more muscle. But, yeah, I mean, as far as, like, what I'm experiencing now, someone, I'm 45, probably the last couple years,

this is more you, the recovery is probably more something i'm dealing with like noticing that the recovery is not as good so the aches and the pains are there they're more prominent whereas like maybe in my early 40s right around 40 ish i still felt pretty well like i could train hard and still recover decently well but now it's like i'm noticing it's starting to slow down a little bit as far as recovery but the actual performance i'm still you know gaining strength and it's starting to slow down a little bit as far as recovery, but the actual performance, I'm still, you know, gaining strength. And it's just dealing with these little tiny little aches and pains that prevents you from performing well. When you're hurting you to push hard. Yeah. So that's kind of the biggest challenge. And I think so now it's like, instead of like

thinking about, okay, how, how ways can I can what ways can I progress other than increasing let's say the load it's like okay well maybe I can do a higher rep range you know so we're in higher rep range obviously the load doesn't have to be as high and you can still make good gains in higher rep ranges sure so it's just one way to kind of take take some of of the stress off the joints. I've done a little bit of BFR training, too, for arms, you know. Blood flow restriction, just so for the people that are listening. Yeah, blood flow restriction. Okay, yeah.

So just basically, yeah, you don't have to work with heavy loads. Again, it's just taking the stress off your joints. Yeah. Rest pause can be good for that, too, as I'm sure you know. If you don't want to, I it's different than bfr obviously that some people are turned off by bfr just because it seems kind of weird and it's yeah it can be like see like what's that even for me when i first saw it i was like i don't need to do that you know but that's when i wasn't feeling what i'm experiencing now it's like okay it's getting a little bit harder to train now. So that it makes sense at times to do things like that. Yeah, sure. And are there any other things that

you've found just help you recover faster? Are you finding that you need more sleep? Or is that not has that not changed? I do notice that this with other athletes that I work with, too, is just stress levels plays a pretty big role. as far as performance in the gym and recovery. I know it's like when I'm under a little bit more life stress that my performance tends to suffer a little bit. And it's just I don't recover as well. Obviously, higher stress levels are going to do that. So same thing with athletes I've worked with. A lot of times, if they have, let's say, college exams or college student, they've got college exams coming up.

They got they're working, you know, part time, full time at the same time. Maybe their girlfriend issues or whatever, boyfriend issues. I mean, that stuff plays a huge role in in training and all that. And so, yeah, I think keep trying to keep as much handle on stress is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've just, just for anybody listening,

if you go to multiple life, you search for relax. I wrote an article a bit ago on just like some simple evidence-based, like some, some ways to lower cortisol levels, essentially to have some science that aren't just like take weird supplements, but things that you can, you know,

good bedtime routines and good sleep hygiene and stuff like that, that matters matters i know a lot of people like meditation was never really my thing but it seems yeah some people yeah i've never meditated but i definitely like when i can i because i'm pretty aware i'm doing this for so long i get i'm pretty aware like when my stress levels outside the gym is is pretty high that i, okay, I need to probably tone things down in the gym. Because if your body's under a lot of stress, both physical and mental, you're more susceptible to injury. So I definitely make sure I'm aware of like, when my stress levels get kind of high, that I tone like intensity down in the gym, or I take a day off here and there if I need it. And I think that's a, even when your

shuffles aren't that high, if you're experiencing like some extra fatigue and all that, I never fear like taking a day off from the gym. Yeah, no, that's a good point. It's something I even myself have kind of had to force myself to learn just because it's again, I mean, okay, fine. I'm 32, but I work a lot. I don't sleep that much. I don't go crazy with my exercise, but I don't feel like I'm particularly stressed, but I'm sure my body is. I feel like I kind of push it, and it's different now than it was five years ago. I feel like five years ago, I had the same type of lifestyle,

but I could go real hard and heavy always in my training and I never noticed anything it was just like yeah and now I'm starting to notice a little bit so I'm you know it's been an interesting transition even for me where I'm like I think I'm gonna go even just the idea of like I think I'm just gonna work in like the 10 to 12 rep range today because because I think I think I need to you know what I mean or I think I'm gonna I think I need to. You know what I mean? Or I think I'm just going to go four days this week. So I think for people listening, it's good to want to push yourself. But it can be weird because then, like you were saying earlier, you can feel like, am I just being soft? Am I just being lazy?

Do I need to just shut up and do the work? Yeah, because usually, I mean, I guess there's two sides to the coin to this is like i guess sometimes people actually talk themselves out of not going to the gym when they probably could go to the gym right so if you're doing that too frequently then obviously you're not going to make too much progress doing that so you kind of have to kind of differentiate between if you're just mentally fatigued, like, I just don't feel like doing it. Or if you're actually really like physically and mentally fatigued, there's a difference. Yeah. Yeah. Because the one experience I can share is that three years ago, I tore my calf. And I didn't listen to my instincts. Basically, going into that workout, my first set of squats felt terrible, like awful.

And, you know, I knew. I'm like, okay, I just don't feel it today. I feel off. But I'm like, okay, don't be, you know, don't be soft. Push yourself. So the ego got the better of me that day. No pain, no gain. So I got through my squats, got through my leg curls, and the whole workout just felt terrible and off.

And then on my second set of calf raises, my calf just said, nope, and it tore. So I just think after going through that ordeal, and basically I was out like 11 weeks, that anytime I feel off in a workout, like if I get to the gym, I just feel off, I stop. I just say, you know what? I'm just going to go back. I have a home gym. So I just say, okay, I'm going back in the house and I'll just do this tomorrow because I'm going to be more rested. I'll have more energy and I'm probably going to have a better performance when I'm more rested. So in a sense, quote unquote, I'm going to get more volume then by performing well the next day. So yeah, that definitely taught me valuable lessons, especially. So that's the time that I preach with a lot of younger guys is that if you want to make it 30 years like me,

I mean, you can't, you can't do, you can't just listen to your ego. Otherwise, you're going to get busted up and you're not going to make it. So that's pretty, pretty key, in my opinion, is to kind of listen to those, your instincts that are really telling you if you can or can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah no i totally agree what about warming up just in our in emailing back and forth so that was a good point and having a having a good warm-up routine what's your warm-up routine like now did that change over time because yeah the average the average like gym bros warm-up is is what you just throw some weight on the bar and start going right i mean yeah that's basically kind of what i do now but it's kind of like gearing myself up to perform so like let's say

for example i start out it's a it's an upper body day i'm doing bench press first i'll warm up with the bar on the bench you know like you know three or four sets of 20 with the bar yeah um so i'm getting pretty pretty warm you know with that i don't do like a lot of the you know the typical dynamic stretching and all that stuff it's just yeah whatever like if i'm squatting okay it's pretty pretty warm you know with that i don't do like a lot of the you know the typical dynamic stretching and all that stuff it's just whatever like if i'm squatting okay it's going to be body weight squats you know two to three sets of 20 to get really warm i might do a little bit of goblet squats warming up and then i'll do acclimation sets which is basically just you know working with a light load and then just gradually increasing the load but

dropping the reps down so you don't obviously uh burn yourself out yes yeah getting yourself acclimated to a heavier load to the heavier load so when you do your top sets your body's ready to go yeah um when i was in my 20s early 30s it was just like like you said hey bro let's get in there and just throw weight around yeah so some people need more mobility work prior some people not so much um but yeah we would definitely have uh eric made a good video on on warming up so there might be where can people find that but the 3dmj youtube channel yeah youtube team 3dmj okay cool yeah it's uh can't remember that the video offhand the name of it But we could probably get the link for you and shoot it over to you. Okay, cool

Yeah, I can post it in the description and people that are familiar with my stuff will be that's exactly how I recommend they warm Up so a lot of people listening are in already. That's what they do is and that's what I do is Exactly exactly the same same approach. So once I start hitting the heavy weights like i'm ready to go yeah and even like jumping on a stationary bike five ten minutes prior just to get the body you know get the the temperature up yeah so you're ready to go yeah that that works pretty well and obviously it's not that impactful so it doesn't tire you out yeah yeah i would say that i know it's a good idea but i generally don't do that i usually just start with the weights it's one of those things are like i had some people i'm like just

give it a try if you like it and then do it like theoretically it's a good idea yeah yeah i'll just drive to the gym with it with my heater on all and then so my body feels fine there you go well my my garage in the summertime it's it gets up it's like 100 degrees so so yeah it's where do you live i live in uh stockton california oh okay which is uh yeah central valley so it gets pretty pretty hot in the summer yeah yeah but you have the nice rest of the rest of the year climate yeah it's cooling down now it's like we're about 80 today so the the gym is like maybe a few degrees cooler than that so that's very nice nice all right so what about exercise selection so what does that look like as time goes on that i mean

that could be that could go for young or old it's basically the way I kind of see exercise selection. You want to use exercises that are safe for you, that are comfortable, and you enjoy. I think those three things is pretty key because obviously, let's say you're just not built for squats, you know, then to force your body to squat when it creates pain or discomfort or it doesn't feel good, and obviously it's not going to be enjoyable like that so you know you're going to end up getting injured or you're just going to be like frustrated because you know it's just it's just not going to be a lift that's going to go too well for you so for me personally for athletes I work with that's that's huge like I try to find exercises that are going to be safe fun but, but also effective. So it's going to give you the most bang for your buck, you know. And do you normally start with like, okay, I would like you

to be able to do these, you know, here's kind of your, here are your foundation lifts and it would be nice if you could do these. If you can't, we can work around it, you know. Yeah, the compounds, you know, the basically the bench squat, deadlift, you know, a row, an overhead press, you know, the core movements and then build around that. But that's not to say that, you know, you can't progress using alternative exercises. Sure. So if you can't squat, leg press, hack squats and things like that. Yeah, front squats even. But yeah, that's like one of the main questions I'll ask somebody before I start working with them is, you know, any aches, pains, injuries, you know, figure out kind of what they can or can't do.

And then from there, it's like, what do they actually enjoy doing? Because chances are, if you give them something, I know for myself personally, if I do exercises I know I like, I'm going to stick with it. Absolutely. I mean, similar with dieting, right? I mean, that's like the little the old adage the best diet is one you can stick to and that's true to a point i think it's it applies to training too i mean i've said that many times we're like if you okay let's just say that this were scientifically on there's no question that this is the best way to train to maximize muscle growth

but you hate it that's a bad program for you Yeah, I'd say probably you might follow it for a couple weeks, maybe a month, and you're like, screw this, and I'm going to go do something else. So, I mean, I could look at my last contest prep a couple years back, and on paper, if someone looked at my spreadsheet, they'd be like, there is no way this dude got in that shape following this because it's just in science eyes it's not the most optimal but it was optimal for me because basically i'm a veteran i've been doing this forever so everything that i did was based off of past history so sure you know i'll look at science and i'll go okay this makes sense this is optimal can we apply this to this person? If we can and it works, great. If not, then we need to find something else that's going to get the job done. But yeah, I mean, adherence and sustainability, it comes down to enjoyability, too.

Totally. Especially when you're talking longevity, because if you want to make it a lifestyle, it's hard to force yourself to do something that every day you just really don't want to do exactly you're gonna be like i can do this yeah um even like right now i'm contest prepping and yeah i just wasn't having too much fun part of it was the aches and pains i'm dealing with but the other part was like i was putting a lot of pressure on myself you know trying to do better than the last time or try to you know climb certain status i'm like wait a second i'm putting too much pressure on myself i'm not enjoying it right now so i did a lot of soul searching in the last couple weeks i'm like i just need to get back to having fun again and so it's just totally changed my mindset and i'm like okay now this actually this week i'm starting to have fun again doing it i'm like okay this is actually good again i've heard a lot of

professional athletes talk about that kind of thing actually i don't follow much sports but i'm kind of into golf so that's actually like where i've kind of heard from quite a few golf you know just top tier professional golfers that ran into that problem where they just were getting burned out on it and not having fun anymore because they're putting so much pressure on themselves and performance and then you know winning and trying to do this or do that. And then coming back around to what you're saying, where like it was a relief for them. I can think of a couple that made comments along those lines to just be able to have fun again, to actually just be able to go out and play the game and enjoy it like when they were younger. Yeah, I think you could relate it to just like maybe people that kind of follow you.

It's like even though it's maybe, let's say, not a high-level competitive athlete, still they tend to put pressure on, okay, I need to lose weight, or I'm trying to change my body composition or whatever. You put a lot of pressure on yourself to make that progress, and if you put that pressure on, what's that do? It kind of elevates your stress levels. Yeah. And when your stress levels are elevated, that's when progress is harder to come by because your body's not in the ideal environment to make progress.

Right. So that's what I was experiencing as of late, like putting just way too pressure on myself, trying to better my previous season where I did quite well. I'm like, why am I putting so much pressure on myself just making this a miserable process? Yeah. So, yeah, it's just like I let go of that and I go, you know what, let me just focus on the process itself, enjoy it, and just let the progress follow. I think anytime we try to force progress to happen, again, the stress levels go way up. So I think it's huge to kind of keep you know the the mindset

needs to kind of be a good one a calm one yeah that makes sense yeah totally so what about exercise form that's obviously also one of those things that when you see a lot of younger people just kind of it goes by the boards or it's just you get that weight however you get that deadlift however it gets i don't care what happened yeah i think it's pretty important obviously if you're not doing an exercise correctly especially a deadlift or a squat i mean you're more susceptible to injury and i mean you got two camps you have one who's like okay form nazis um where they're just like okay everything has to look super super perfect yeah and then you have other people say no it's okay to be a little bit loose i think

you know you can be a little bit loose but as long as everything looks mechanically sound you know i think if you're heaving i mean obviously if if you're you know your deadlift form is totally off you're going to get injured but if you're if you're pretty pretty sound i mean that's in my opinion that's your insurance policy for to prevent injuries and for longevity i think for me personally i'm more kind of on the side of like a form nazi like i try to keep everything pretty pristine so i'll never sacrifice load for you know perform at all like priority for me and with athletes i always encourage them like priority is form form overload at all times anytime your form starts to break down at all like you start using a lot of momentum or you're changing body english it's too heavy just lower

down clean it up and then go from there a lot of times if you it might seem like you're taking a step back because you're lowering the loads down but i like to call it timeless form meaning if you lower loads down clean your form up you make it timeless then you're going to be able to probably increase your loads higher over time because you're using proper form because you're only going to go so far especially like on a deload or squall or something like you're only going to go so far with crappy form yeah you know either you're just going to get stuck or you're going to get hurt exactly and i ran into that myself years ago when i finally first started like actually educating myself and so i had to i remember on my squat so i had gotten up to 405 with shitty you know

one-third rep type nonsense and it was years ago and then i finally learned how to squat properly i remember i had to go down to one so i was doing like 405 bullshit reps for a few and i had to go down to i want to i think it was 190 no i think it was like 205 for like sets of 8 to 10 with proper form i remember that i was humbled humbled yeah that that's pretty key is being humble in the weight room because again if your form if your form is on lock i mean you're gonna prevent probably many aches and pains and injuries but it's it's hard to keep i guess i guess say older people but the younger crowd it's like they tend to want to chase those those personal records you know the one rat max is and sometimes i'll see the form

video or you know watching them do it in the form i'm like cringing going oh my gosh you know that's an injury waiting to happen and that's kind of like how i was younger i'll still i had pretty good form in my 20s but you know i was i would get after it a lot more so when i was trying to do those one-hour rounds you know the form would break down obviously you know he was in heavy load like that it's gonna break down you're not giving up you're like whatever i'm gonna so i mean a 20 year old versus a 40 year old obviously your body's probably gonna be a little more resilient when you're younger but i would say i just got lucky there was a few occasions where i'm like okay i just i got lucky yeah it could have went the other way yeah and i think that speaks to

the point of something you had mentioned earlier which is patience so like common reason why just doing people i talk to why their form will it though it'll slowly go out is because they want to they want to see that progress, especially if I've seen it with people that are newer to weightlifting. And so they had a first year that went really well and they have their newbie gains. And especially if they start out with doing everything more or less right, and then they're now moving into year two and things are slowing down and they're feeling impatient. So you can just cheat a little bit on form and then all of a sudden you're still adding the weight as you were before but you know eventually like you said you pay the piper one way or another yeah i mean you could get you could definitely get injured like

we talked about but also too i think form has you know as far as development goes like you could be shooting yourself in the foot as far as actual making good strides with your physique if you're if your goal is let's say um you know getting more muscle especially with like let's say back movements you know how many times have you seen people who don't don't do a row correctly or don't do a pull down correctly right you get those the loads get way too heavy you see a lot of momentum and swinging you see a lot of the arms taking over and they wonder why they have big arms but no back. So I think not just for health reasons and safety reasons, but also as far as trying to improve your physique, you want to make sure you're doing things correctly so you maximize the targeted muscle. Like you were saying earlier, it's quality.

It's the quality of the work matters, not just the sheer quantity of times you're moving your limbs. Exactly, yeah. And like you said early on, yeah, you might make these serious strides and gains, but over time, especially if you look at someone like me who's been doing this for 30 years, that's going to slow down. And it's 30 years consistent, so it hasn't been like, okay, off and on. It's been consistent. So I know at this stage of the game, it's like trying to gain muscle is going to be really, really slow or maybe non-existent, you know? So it's, you've got to be super patient and realize that you have to train smart and intelligently.

And you have to factor too is that, like I kind of look at it like it's like a your body or your your muscle that kind of like a muscle account like a bank account so every rep you're dealing it's like one penny deposited and I think that's that's the mentality I take and try to teach to other other people is that you know just you know each rep counts whether you're having a great workout or an average one or even a shitty workout you're still moving weight it's still going to go towards your physique. It's going into your account. And I think a lot of times people, they get like, if they're having a bad workout, or like you said, they get impatient and they want to throw the weight on or do more than maybe they should be doing that. It really isn't going to make you grow probably that much faster. If anything, you're just more at risk.

Right. I liken it to speeding you know where like you don't really get anywhere that much faster by by speeding but you just increase no no you hit the red light man and then what happens at the red light the guy the guy who's uh you know going 25 and the 25 zone catches up exactly but all you do is increase the likelihood that you're going to get a ticket that's all that's all you're really accomplishing. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, yeah, because you get to the red light, you see the guy. The light turns red, and they're frustrated.

They're banging on the steering wheel. They're, you know, like this. And then the guy that comes next to him drives up with a little cup of coffee, and he's like, yeah, like that. I'll see you at the next light. So patience, have some poise. See you at the next light. So patience, have some poise. And not only you're going to progress just fine, but you're probably going to progress a lot longer than the guy that's feeding. And you'll enjoy it more because you're more in control and in command of yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a good point. Random question that I just, this is something I've been meaning to ask someone that would have some good insight on it. This is something I've been meaning to ask someone that would have some good insight on it. So is there something to be said for muscle density changing over time? You know, where, you know what I mean? Is there anything to, this is something I've actually like tried to read about. I've tried to educate myself on, and I have never really been able to come up with anything.

We're talking about muscle maturity? Yep. to come up with anything we're talking about muscle maturity yeah yeah i don't i think i think this question has been posed even like eric um you know the science guy and it's yeah i mean we do know that the skin thins a little bit as we age i think that probably has a maybe a little bit to do with it but a lot of it's too it's just training age like i've been training 30 years so yeah you know the muscle is just going to be more developed let's just say for example there's a 25 year old who's trained five years they're six percent body fat they have the same amount of muscles i do and i've been training 30 years and we're the same level we're six percent i'm probably

going to look leaner even though I'm not on paper, just because of that training age, that density. And it's like you said, it's hard to explain. I can't really give you a scientific answer of why that is. But I can tell. I can look at older guys, especially in my field, in natural bodybuilding, the elite level guys are usually guys in their 30s and 40s and even into their 50s you know you don't there are a few there's some exceptions where there's some 20 year olds that

are like a really high level at the top of the sport but the majority like like ryan whitaker he's he's 40 years old he's the world champion um you know doug miller he's in his his i think mid-30s somewhere in there marshall johnson is another one who's 55 56 years old one of the best natural viabilities on the planet and these guys just look denser and harder than than the younger guys and i just think it's just because there's just more time under tension more more training time yeah yeah that's basically i chalk it up to just i mean because something that seems to be an actual phenomenon. I just never had a good explanation for it because that's one of the things

people ask about. I'm like, I wish I had a good answer, but it seems like I can just tell you that when you have 10 years of training under your belt, you're going to look better than when you have two. I just, that's. And what's kind of, what's kind of interesting to throw out there, maybe help cure some insecurities is that I could look back at, like, when I was in my early to mid-30s, compare it to what I'm looking like now. And the stage weight, body weight, it hasn't changed that drastically besides the 2009 to 2011. But each season I've done, it's like I'm right around 170 pounds, but I look a little bit bigger, a little bit leaner and denser.

And really the body weight staying kind of the same. So it's like sometimes you can't, you can't quantify progress with numbers. Right. And I think a lot of people are number chasers. Right. And if you're going to be in the sport for, for, if you plan to have a lot of longevity, whether it's actually in sport or just trying to change your physique um in general you know sometimes it's just you got to go by the visual you know measurements um the scale i mean that's that i mean you can use it as tools but sometimes they just don't quantify things yeah ultimately i what you see in the mirror is matters more than what the scale says.

You could say, my goal is to get 10% body fat at this. I want to be this weight, 10% body fat. You get there, and then you look in the mirror and go, well, I still don't like the way I look. Those numbers mean absolutely nothing. Absolutely. I totally agree. Especially when you're talking body fat percentage, because no matter how you measure it, you have individual error rates that are, you know, it can be anywhere from two to five percent. Even DEXA can be off. I mean, every the only way you could ever really know would be to like get dissected. So exactly.

So, yeah, that the mirror never lies. Yeah. All right. So one last point I want to touch on something you had mentioned, which is periodizing training so how do you uh i mean obviously this is can be a pretty complex subject but just keep you know summarizing how how what what is working well for you now versus maybe where maybe previously maybe 15 years ago you never really bothered with it and you just kind of went you know balls the wall all the time or whatever yeah basically i was going balls all the time like back in the day um that was just no no deloads or no light training uh weeks or anything like that now it's hard to game plan

my training because i have to work around little aches and pains quite often but see the difference with me is like i have a lot of experience so i can definitely manage myself day to day easier now than obviously when i had less experience so it's more so like the athletes i work with it just depends on kind of what the goal is like if we were getting ready for a show then basically it's like okay i'm gonna have set up blocks of training where we're deloading maybe every fourth week, every eighth week, seventh week, sixth week, just depends. And basically kind of paying closer attention to volume and the recovery. Because obviously, when you're dieting for a show or dieting, your calories are lower. So your recovery isn't going

to be as good as it was probably when your calories are higher obviously right so so that's that's one way you kind of have to periodize if there's periodization for like obviously a contest prepper but someone in general where you're not really trying to lean them down like the calories are there to support the training then you might be setting up blocks to train like an intensity block where you're going pretty hard and okay we're gonna we're gonna tone that down i have a recovery block maybe we'll have another block where we go towards volume um so instead of focusing more so on loads now we're going to try to increase volume versus you know reps and sets um there's just different ways to do it like i said we can we could probably break this down for a good couple hours sure sense but. But in a nutshell, it's like you're just kind of game planning

when you're pushing and when you're kind of backing off. Because if you're just like you said, you're just going pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, eventually there's going to be a breaking point. And I think as far as long-term progress and long-term longevity, I think periodization is definitely the way to go. Yeah, absolutely. And so just for, I guess, to throw a rule of thumb out there, I guess it kind of comes back to what you were saying earlier in the interview, which is listening to your body in a sense and knowing when it's time to dial it back.

And like, for example, what does a deload look like for you? what does a deload look like for you a deload for me would basically it would be like okay let me like personally the way i like to do for myself i just lower some of the volume down like i'll try to keep the load loads up i just lower the volume down because what i've experienced with myself is if i lower the loads down let's say for a week the following week when i try to go back to you know push the loads up it's like everything feels really heavy it feels like a ton of bricks and it usually takes me two or three weeks to get myself back whereas i've just told them the volume down i get the recovery i need but i still i'm still capable of maintaining my loads the following week yeah that's funny i'm the same way but you've probably worked with people that are they have no same i've heard i've seen i've heard from many people that because i talk

about some people like depending on how you're feeling so every once in a while i just did this last week actually i just do no exercise for a week i'll do it once every six months or so and yeah it just feels good and but i'll email with people that will do that every couple months and they'll come back stronger i'm like yeah well whatever good for you yeah that's that's another part of the periodization like you could throw in like transitional blocks you know whether it's a week long or a month long where you just swap out exercises to give yourself that break like if you know if you've been deadlifting regularly for for months you know going away from the deadlift and

doing like maybe an rdl or something different could kind of help. Yeah. So yeah, that's definitely one way of deloading. Yeah. But I think, yeah, what's common though is like you said, like most people, majority, I don't say most or majority, but quite a few that I've worked with that lowering the loads down, it's usually like the wrong move. But like just lowering some volume down tends to do the trick. Yeah. And a deload could even be days off too let's not forget

that like a d-load could be like okay you take a take a few days off the gym or even a week you know every every six months you might okay let's take a week off from the gym you know there's nothing wrong with that either because if you think about it if you're going to be in this we're talking longevity so if we're going to be you're going to be in this for the for the long haul 30 years let's say you take the week off once a year or twice a year. I mean, that's like a drop in the bucket. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so people freak out when they take time off of the week from the gym.

It's like, oh, gosh, I'm going to shrink. I'm going to lose weight. Maybe, but it's not like it's not going to come back. Yeah. I mean, especially you can't lose any muscle in a week. I mean, unless you like. No, that's where it takes longer than that. Yeah, absolutely.

I think just off the det a week. I mean, it takes longer than that. Yeah, absolutely. I think, and I'm just off the detraining research. I read, I think it's like at about three weeks of no exercise, maybe you can start seeing some drop off, but yeah, we have to eat like nothing. You have to like start like,

yeah. Maybe if you fasted for seven days and did no exercise, that's very unlikely. Yeah. But yeah, that's what free takes a little bit longer than people think. Yeah. You might see flatness, like there's a difference between flatness and actually real muscle loss. You'll probably see flatness, but muscle loss, maybe some strength loss, maybe. But like a week or two later,

you're like, okay, I'm fine. Yeah, exactly. Awesome well i think i think that's uh again the periodization is i don't want to want to try to dive too heavily into that but i just wanted to touch on it so people can you know they can also find a lot of good information on the internet on that i don't know if you have stuff on your channel that they can check out but i've written a little bit about it yeah i think about the youtube uh team 3dmj they look at the muscle and strength pyramids that eric helms did right um he did one on training it's an awesome series so there's i mean right there it's like it gives you kind of the the outline formula to weight training perfect all right well i think we have touched on everything is there anything else you that

is sticking out that you don't think that you know that we should that we should talk about before wrapping up no i think i think we did a pretty good job of covering quite a few subjects in a short amount of time i definitely don't want to go catabolic so you know yeah i need to get a protein shake that's been like 30 minutes. Right. No, that's great. So then where can people find you? And, you know, in terms of your, as a coach, if they wanted to talk to you about that, you know, let them know. How can they get in touch with you? Yeah, 3dmusclejourney.com.

We have coaching services there. You can go to Instagram, 3dmjgodfather, and then Jeff Alberts on Facebook. And then I also have a series on our YouTube channel, which kind of just follows up right now. I'm prepping, so it just kind of just follows the journey. Awesome. And I'll put all the links in the, you know, in the blog post and in the description so everybody can find it easily. Cool. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time, Jeff. This was great. I think people are going to like it. I think they're going to find it very helpful because, again, these are all just things that I've been asked many times. So it was nice to just give you the questions and let you explain. Perfect. All right, man. Hopefully it helps. Yeah, absolutely. and let you explain. Perfect. All right, man. Hopefully it helps. Yeah, absolutely. 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.