Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Kyle Hunt on Getting Started With Powerlifting

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

In this podcast, Kyle Hunt and I discuss powerlifting. While I’ve written a bit about powerlifting in the past and done some powerlifting-style training myself, I wanted to get a true expert in the field onto the podcast to chat about it in a bit more detail. In case you’re not familiar with Kyle, he’s a competitive powerlifter, coach, author, and owner of Hunt Fitness, who’s worked with hundreds of powerlifters and bodybuilders alike. He’s also the host of The Absolute Strength Podcast, which I’ve been a guest on a couple of times, and he’s appeared on Muscle For Life twice before to discuss powerbuilding and bodybuilding for beginners. Even if you don’t aspire to be the world’s strongest lifter and have no intention of competing at a meet, powerlifting still has something to offer. At the very least, a powerlifting training block can help add some spice to your training life and keep things interesting. In this interview, Kyle Hunt addresses common misconceptions about powerlifting, technique tweaks, what a powerlifting routine might look like, equipment recommendations, why you should consider participating in a powerlifting meet, meet strategies, and a lot more. So, if you’re at all interested in trying powerlifting or just want to know more about what it is, this is a podcast you don’t want to miss! Timestamps: 8:07 - Who should do powerlifting? 15:00 - Why you shouldn't always be grinding out your sets. 17:27 - What are some common misconceptions about powerlifting 24:00 - How much of a difference does technique improvement make? Should you increase frequency? 29:41 - Why are heavy singles beneficial? 33:58 - What role does confidence play in your strength and performance? 35:56 - Attempt selection strategy. 37:15 - Should you go for the heaviest lift on your third attempt? 40:31 - How can someone get started with powerlifting? 43:12 - Why should you consider doing a powerlifting meet? 45:22 - Weight class discussion. 49:12 - Should you do cardio during a powerlifting program? 57:06 - What's a good program to get started with powerlifting? 59:41 - How do you assess one powerlifting program versus another? 1:04:40 - What type of weightlifting belt do you recommend? 1:06:10 - What shoes do you recommend? 1:15:53 - Where can people find you and your work? Mentioned on the Show: Kyle’s Absolute Strength podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-absolute-strength-podcast/id1146086687 Kyle’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/huntfitness/ Kyle’s book Bodybuilding For Beginners: https://www.amazon.com/Bodybuilding-Beginners-12-Week-Program-Muscle/dp/1641523611/?tag=mflweb-20 Beginner’s Guide to Weight Lifting: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082MSZ2XM/?tag=mflweb-20 Strength Training For Beginners: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BW24GQ8/?tag=mflweb-20 Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://buylegion.com/vip

Hello, hello. I am Mike Matthews. This is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe to the show in whatever app you are listening to me in for two reasons. One, it'll make sure that you don't miss any new episodes. And two, it'll help me by boosting the rankings of the show. All right. In this episode, I talk with my buddy, Kyle Hunt, about powerlifting, which is something that I've written a little bit about. I've spoken a little bit about. I've done a bit of, but it is not my beat, so to speak. It is not my bailiwick. I, from the beginning, from the first edition of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, all the way back in 2012, I've advocated for, I guess you would call it power building, right? It's a mashup of power

lifting. So you have some strength training in there. You have your heavy squatting and your heavy deadlifting, bench pressing, overhead pressing, and some bodybuilding, some more hypertrophy focused work. And that is still how I train today. And that is still how Bigger Leaner Stronger works. I'm releasing a new fourth edition later this year, and I've tweaked the program a bit, but it hasn't changed that much from the beginning, at least in its core principles. The big moving parts have not changed. Beyond Big, leaner, stronger, which is the sequel to bigger, leaner, stronger. The book and program for intermediate and advanced weightlifters is similar to bigger, leaner, stronger, just a bit harder, a bit more volume, a bit heavier weights.

So it's even more power building ish because the weights get even heavier. You're doing twos. For example, you're doing some AMRAPs as many reps as possible. And it's even more bodybuilding ish because you are doing more volume for your smaller muscle groups. You're doing more volume for your isolation exercises, and you're working in higher rep ranges up to 10 to 12 reps per set, for example. And so I thought I would bring somebody else on the show to talk about power lifting. Somebody who not only understands the theory of it, which I understand fairly well, but somebody who has done a lot of it and coached a lot of it. And so that is Kyle.

And in case you are not familiar with him, he is a competitive powerlifter. He's a coach. He's an author. And he has worked with hundreds and hundreds of powerlifters and bodybuilders. So he understands both sides of the training spectrum, so to speak. And Kyle also has his own podcast called the Absolute Strength Podcast. And he has had me on a couple of times. And he has also been on Muscle for Life a couple of times before to talk about powerbuilding

and bodybuilding for beginners. So in this episode, we complete the trifecta of topics that he likes the most, power building, bodybuilding, and power lifting. And in case you are thinking that this episode might not be for you because you don't really care to get super fat and super strong, because you don't really care to get super fat and super strong, and you don't really care to go compete at a meet, I think you will be pleasantly surprised because you don't have to get super fat to get super strong. You can stay lean, you can have your abs, and you might like the change in routine.

Sometimes it is just fun to do something different. And as Kyle talks about in this interview, many people he has worked with have been pleasantly surprised at how much fun they had at a powerlifting meet. And that wasn't necessarily because they did really well. Some people did well, some people didn't do so well, but even the people who didn't do so well still had fun. They still were really happy that they did it. And in some cases they wanted to continue doing it. And so in this interview, Kyle is going to be talking about common misconceptions about powerlifting, technique tweaks, what a powerlifting routine

might look like. He is going to give some equipment recommendations, and he's going to pitch you on why you should consider doing a meet and talk a little bit about meet strategies and more. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my VIP one-on-one coaching service. Because my team and I have helped people of all ages and all circumstances lose fat, build muscle, and get into the best shape of their life faster than they ever thought possible. And we can do the same for you. We make getting fitter, leaner, and stronger paint by numbers simple by carefully managing every aspect of your training and your diet for you. Basically, we take out all of the guesswork. So all you have to do is follow the plan and watch your body change day after day, week after week and month after month. What's more, we've found

that people are often missing just one or two crucial pieces of the puzzle. And I'd bet a shiny shekel it's the same with you. You're probably doing a lot of things right, but dollars to donuts, there's something you're not doing correctly or at all that's giving you the most grief. Maybe it's your calories or your macros. Maybe it's your exercise selection. Maybe it's your food choices. Maybe you're not progressively overloading your muscles or maybe it's something else. And whatever it is, here's what's important. Once you identify those one or two things you're missing, once you figure it out, that's when everything finally clicks. That's when you start

making serious progress. And that's exactly what we do for our clients. To learn more, head over to www.buylegion.com. That's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O- Legion dot com slash VIP and schedule your free consultation call, which, by the way, is not a high pressure sales call. It's really just a discovery call where we get to know you better and see if you're a good fit for the service. And if you're not for any reason, we will be able to share resources that will point you in the right direction. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, and if you also want to finally stop spinning your wheels and make more progress in the next few months than you did in the last few years, check out my VIP coaching service at www.buylegion.com slash VIP. Hey Kyle, it's been a bit. Yeah, man. It's been, what, probably at least a year.

Probably, yeah. Yeah. Occasionally, I go back through episodes over the last year or so and see, it's mostly like, I mean, some of it is who do I like talking to, but then the other part of it is, well, what episodes tend to do well? And a couple that we've done have done well. I like talking with you. So here we are. Yeah. It's always fun. I get mixed up because it's like, all right, so I've been on your podcast at least two or three times. And I know you've been on my podcast two or three times and they all kind of blend together. Yeah. Yeah. I know. When did we talk about what and where was that? Yeah. So anyways, thanks for taking the time to come back and to

share your wisdom regarding powerlifting. That's what I thought we should talk about because this is something that I've written a little bit about, I've spoken a little bit about, I've done a little bit of over the years, but not like you have. I've stuck to my, I guess it's just kind of what I prefer. I like the power building more, like what we talked about last time. I like more of a hybrid between strength training and then bodybuilding work, just because I guess I just tend to like those workouts and it aligns more with my goals in terms of my physique, I guess. And, uh, there's not, there's not much left that is going to change one way or another, but for example, over the years, um, if I were, if I were going

to be doing a very powerlifting centric, uh, type of type of training, then my lower body probably would be more developed, uh, probably more than, than my upper body, um, which is, which is typical if, if you just do a lot of pure strength work. Um, but anyways, I wanted to get you on the show to talk about this because you understand not just the theory and the science of it, but you've done a lot of it. And so for people who, um, would like to give powerlifting a go or who maybe have not thought about it, but who have been training a certain way for a long time. And especially people listening, if you are an intermediate or an advanced weightlifter, and you've done a lot of training, like what I've done, for example, and you're at that point where

you've accepted, this is about it in terms of muscle for sure. And you've probably gained most of your strength. And now just enjoying your workouts becomes more important than when you were newer, because when you were newer, it was fun just to make progress. Even if the workouts themselves were not very interesting, it was interesting to add weight to the bar every week and then every other week and then even every month. But when that's no longer happening, I think it makes more sense to give a bit more weight to enjoying your training simply for its own sake. And so if you are currently doing the same thing you've been doing for a long time,

maybe powerlifting, at least for a training block or two, could be a fun way to mix it up. No, absolutely. Actually, I see a lot of clients that are, they kind of fit that mold exactly. They've been doing kind of more just like general strength training or more geared towards like bodybuilding style training for a long time. They're natural. So they've kind of reached their point where they're not going to see a ton more progress. And training just, I don't know, it got a little stale, maybe not quite as fun. And then we jump them over into a powerlifting specific program. You know, not, it's not like it's black and white. Like once you say, Oh, I'm, I'm joining the dark side. Now I can only do powerlifting. It's like, Hey, we'll just start drinking that gallon of milk day.

It's not, it's not black and white. Like, Oh, I'm a powerlifter now. It's just, where's the donuts? It's you know, you, you run a couplelifter now. It's just, where's the donuts? You run a couple of powerlifting blocks. And what's interesting is I actually find some clients, actually quite a few, actually see some physique improvements as well. And I think a lot of it's just the enjoyment factor. It's like for the first time in years, they're like, oh man, I'm like looking forward to like really looking forward to getting into the gym. They're kind of looking up. Not wanting to leave. All my workouts, I guess I have to leave now. Yeah. So they're really enjoying the change of pace. And because

of that, hey, you're enjoying it. You're putting a little bit more effort into it. Even outside of the gym, you're probably like, oh, hey, I have these numbers I want to get to. Maybe I should be a little bit stricter on my nutrition or maybe I should get a bit more sleep. Yeah. Get to bed an hour earlier or, you know, whatever. And then you see a little bit of physique improvement without even trying. I mean, it's like, Hey, we're shooting for numbers, but you're looking better too. Yeah. Yeah. I've experienced a little bit of that. Um, for, for the last two years or so now I've, my training has been, um, it's basically the program is in a book of mine called beyond bigger, leaner, stronger, um, which is the sequel to bigger, leaner, stronger. And it's similar in that you're still lifting heavy weights, doing a lot of, uh, compound movements, but it's a bit

more volume. So it's a bit more of a challenge as opposed to, um, 10 to 12 hard sets per major muscle group per week. Uh, it's up to probably 16, 15, 16 or so. And then the periodization is a little bit different. It's double progression on the secondary and then it's linear on the primary. And that switch over to linear has been fun just because it's something that's new. And I do find that I, and this is the case for many people now, I've heard from many people who have read the book and done the program, that for an intermediate and advanced weightlifter, it does seem that linearly periodizing the primary exercises tends to work better than trying to only use double progression with them. And I talk about that in the book, but simply changing my workouts, making them a bit more challenging, periodizing them in a way that

I feel like I could make a little bit better progress has just made them more fun. And so there's value just in that factor. Yeah. And plus with the big lifts, the big compound lifts, it's easier to linear progress them. You know what I mean? If you're doing a dumbbell side raise, you're not going to be able to just add five pounds to that weekly. So a double progression really works great for most accessory movements just for that nature alone. But with squats, deadlifts, bench presses, the main powerlifting or main compound movements, since you're using more absolute load, you know, five pound increase is a smaller percentage. So you can see those linear progressions,

you know, relatively easier. Yeah. Yeah. I also, I also found that, um, paying closer attention to reps and reserve and tracking that has helped a lot. And I suppose if you were to combine that with double progression, uh, it double progression, it still could work with the big lifts, but there is more room for error. And I find that with the right linear progression, I can ensure that I am achieving progressive overload. And I don't have to, I just have to think about getting my four or getting my six or getting my eight and paying attention to how many good reps I have left so I can note it down as opposed to when you get deeper into a set and then you're making that judgment call. Do I go for that next rep? Because if I'm

squatting, I'm sure the same way. And this is something I'd recommend to everyone listening with my big movements. I'm looking for two-h. I would, I would rather see two to three good reps left in my first set than one to two. If it's one to two, that probably means the weight is too heavy. And by my third or fourth set, it's like a zero where I'm kind of grinding out my final rep. And, uh, I, I am okay doing that once every few months when I'm seeing how strong I am. I'm doing an AMRAP. That's fine. I'm willing to push close to failure.

But for my regular training, I like to see one to two, at least one, but one to two good reps left in my, let's say, my fourth and final set. And so with double progression, it's just a bit trickier because you're now on the fly having to make a judgment call. How many good reps do I have left? And should I go for another one or should I rack it? And not to say that that's difficult and you can't do it, but it's certainly more difficult when the weights are heavy and you're deep into a set, your legs are on fire. weights are heavy and you're deep into a set, your legs are on fire. It is, I'd say, less cognitively demanding, so to speak, to just, okay, I'm going for my four or my six or my eight, and I'm going to get it. And unless, of course, I get to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm supposed to get eight, I'm at seven, and maybe, maybe I could get one more. Well,

the weight's a little bit too heavy. So I think there's something to be said for that as well. Yeah. And plus with the bigger lifts, you're playing a little bit with fire when you're constantly pushing close to failure. With unnecessary movements, you're not. So there's just more room for error with accessory movements. For a squat, for example, or a deadlift, you don't really want to mess up much you know like actually i had a conversation with a kid the other day at the gym and i was trying to explain it in a way because he you know he was like hey can you hey bro can you come spot me bench and and i was spotting him on bench and literally like every rep was like

everything he had and he's going for three. And of course, the second and the third, I'd help him. I'm like, listen, look, what you're doing is you're testing your strength. You want to build your strength. Your reps, when you're training a bench or squat or a deadlift, for the most part, your reps should look clean. You shouldn't be grinding out a ton of reps. And like you said, yeah, occasionally when you're doing an AMREP set or a little bit of testing or something, or maybe it's the last week before a deload or something, yeah, it's okay to have a set on a squat bench or deadlift or something where you're pushing it. Sometimes it happens to me. It's my final set and I'm like, all right,

that's a little bit harder than I would like it to be, but it wasn't my first set. I'm like, all right, that's a little bit harder than I would like it to be, but it wasn't my first set. Yeah. But if you're grinding out all your sets for the main compound movements, you're probably just doing more damage than good. You're testing your strength and not really building it. Because there's a technique component to lifting too, especially with the big compound lifts. And when we get into powerlifting, we'll probably talk about that. compound lifts. And when we get into powerlifting, we'll probably talk about that. But the idea that each set has to be your absolute limit is probably the one thing that held me back early on when I started doing powerlifting. Because I came from the bodybuilding world too, where it's like,

hey, every set, you got to take it right to failure. And it's like, whether it's squatting, benching, whatever, every set's go hard or go home. And then when I, you know, whether it's squatting, benching, whatever, like every, every sets go hard or go home. And then when I started powerlifting and really understanding, okay, well, what's good programming or what's, how many reps and reserves should I have on these movements and kind of scaling it back a touch, my technique improved. And then I was able to make those linear progressions a lot easier. That's a good segue into talking about powerlifting because one of the little notes I had that I wanted to hear your thoughts on are common misconceptions about powerlifting. And I think that's one is that it is an extremely intense form of training.

Not that it's not, but that powerlifters are, you know, they're the ones who they squat every time until their nose bleeds. I was going to say the smelling salts and stuff. Yeah, the smelling salts and freaking out and, you know, racking the bar and wobbling around and stuff. And smart powerlifting, at least for everyday powerlifters, is not anything like that, right? Yeah, well, I think a lot of the misconceptions about powerlifting, and this is, it's actually probably a great way to start to dig in is just kind of defining that powerlifting is actually almost like two sports because you have equipped powerlifting. So powerlifting that wears squat suits and bench press shirts, and then you have raw powerlifting, which is what's more popular now. But back in the day, it was actually the opposite. Like

equipped powerlifting was powerlifting. So, I mean, when But back in the day, it was actually the opposite. Equipped powerlifting was powerlifting. So when I was in high school, when I first started lifting weights, when I thought of powerlifting, I thought of a 300-pound, big, fat, super heavyweight dude who was training at Westside Barbell. But mind you, that was all the information that was really available. I was like, okay, well, that's powerlifting. Huge guys in these weird suits and squatting all these crazy weights and headbutting the bar and shit. And that's what I thought powerlifting was. But really, for one, powerlifting is a weight class sport, which I would have never assumed. I grew up wrestling. And I remember actually being in high school and the wrestling team was in the

gym. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm like, man, because we're all training pretty hard. I'm like, it would be cool if there was a sport that was kind of set up like wrestling. You had weight classes and you just weighed in and then did some type of competition to see who was the strongest for the weight class. I'm like, oh, that would be really cool. Well, I mean, really, that's what powerlifting is. I mean, powerlifting is a weight class sport. You weigh in and then you max out squat, bench, and deadlift, and then the total comes together. So kind of bringing it back to why I brought up equipped lifting is I think a lot of the misconceptions around like, oh, powerlifting is about gaining a bunch of weight and just trying to be as big as possible.

Well, part of that was from equipped lifting. One, because they were big guys anyway. So once you get past super heavyweight, pretty much there's no weight classes. Just try to get as big as possible. Then plus, once you get into a squat suit or a bench press shirt, you want to try to fill it out. So actually getting bigger helps you. You know what I mean? But with raw powerlifting, with weight class, especially guys under 220, go look at the best powerlifters under 220. They look like they could do a diet and probably compete in a bodybuilding show or at least a men's physique show or something. They have good physique. So I think if you're having your head like, oh, I'm going to do powerlifting. And it's like we said in the beginning, it's like, oh, time to get out the donuts and gallon of milk. Well, that's not what it needs to be. It's really, and especially even when you're training

in the off-season, your training isn't going to be drastically different. Your training in the off-season, it would probably look more like power building than anything, kind of like how we talked about with the last episode, last time I was on. I mean, really in your off season, when you don't have a meet scheduled, that's probably what you're doing. You're probably going in, doing maybe a heavy single or semi-heavy single on a squat bench deadlift, doing a couple back offsets. And then for the rest of it, it's more just hypertrophy accessory work.

Now, when you get ready for a meet, that's when you say, okay, well now I got a meet in eight weeks. Let me start to focus a little bit more on the main movements. Let me throw a little bit more volume towards those and put a little bit more kind of like train for the test, so to speak. Yeah. Specificity. Yeah. Specificity. That's when it becomes more important. And so the idea, what I'm gathering is the idea is in the off season, you need to keep training with heavy weights. I mean, that, that, that is a specificity point. Uh, but then you also are working to hopefully gain a little bit of muscle in the off season as well, because that of course is what drives strength, uh, particularly in experienced weightlifters. And so if you can gain a little

bit of muscle by doing enough volume and training, uh, building type of way, then the idea is hopefully you can calibrate that new muscle to the heavy weights and get a little bit more performance out of it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really when we're talking about getting stronger, how are we going to get stronger? Well, building muscle creates a greater potential to be stronger. That's why there is weight classes. That's why the more muscle you have, generally, the stronger you're going to be. Then there's also the technique element. That's why specificity is important. You get better at the movements, so you don't necessarily have to build any more muscle. You get better at the movements, you can also increase how much you can lift as well.

How much do you think that matters with experienced weightlifters? Like take someone like me who, let's see, currently I'm benching twice a week, flat bench on one session, four sets, and then incline on the other four sets and doing some dumbbell stuff. I've never deadlifted more than once a week. And I've done a lot of deadlifting over the years. And my one RM is currently in the high four hundreds, like maybe four 80 or so. So, so decent. I mean, I weigh one 93 to one 95. Um, I've always done about three to four sets of deadlifting per week, but just in one session. And I have squatted more than once a week in the past when I was doing, I believe it was 5-3-1. Although actually the way that was set up, it may have been once a week.

I don't remember, but for a long time, I've squatted once a week simply because with the amount of deadlifting that I've done, instead of, you know, you'll see in some strength programs, it's just one set of deadlifts per week to allow you to squat. Maybe it's two times or even three times per week. It's a bit harder to do that with three or four sets of deadlifts in one session. And I just have always wanted to train my lower body twice a week and have one specific lower body session. And then the deadlifting serves as maybe um it serves as

additional lower body volume and that has worked well for me again for my goals but let's say I were to um get into power lifting which I think the next uh once you answer this question next thing we should talk about is how to do that and how would you recommend people get into it um do you think that by increasing the frequency and it may, it would increase probably the volume as well on the key exercises. Do you think that the technique improvements that would come with that would make a significant difference in my totals just given where I'm at? Well, you're, you're a unique case. Well, actually you're probably the, a very similar case to a lot of people listening. Like you, you've been're probably a very similar case to a lot of people listening.

You've been training for a long time, probably a little bit longer than most people listening, but you've been training a long time, built a lot of muscle. So for you, you've been doing a lot of power building style training too. So you kind of have the muscle. So we would say, okay, this is where kind of training for the test is where I think you'd get a lot out of it. Now, specifically to the lifts, bench press we see tends to respond pretty well to frequency. So two to three times a week, just the actual competition specific. Squat, usually two to three times a week as well. And then deadlift is kind of like the wild card. You sometimes see people deadlifting quite frequently, but there's a lot of successful powerlifters that only deadlift once a week.

So we probably wouldn't see a ton from increasing frequency there. And part of increasing frequency is the technique is... Because there are kind of two different techniques too. So when we talk about technique, we talk about kind of like black and white. Okay. Is technique, is it safe technique? Is it proper technique? Like for the bench press, for example, you see someone in the gym, if their goal is just general strength or building muscle, all right. Are they keeping their butt on the bench? Are they using a full range of motion? Things like that. And then there's powerlifting technique. So I'd say, okay, let's take your bench, Mike. And let's say, now you're going to do a powerlifting competition. I'd say, okay, well, maybe let's change your grip a little bit.

Let's try getting you a little bit wider. Let's try to get you up on your traps a little bit. Let's use your feet to drive your traps into the bench, which is going to drive your sternum up and create a little bit of an arch. So now we can lower the range of motion a little bit. up and create a little bit of an arch. So now we can lower the range of motion a little bit. So we're going to kind of tweak your technique for the test for maxing out on the bench. And then we're going to throw a little bit more frequency on it. And I think more frequency is really just more practice and more volume. I mean, we kind of see the same thing when we're talking about frequency in terms of building muscle too. I mean, initially, I think a lot

of people thought, and I think the research even probably showed like, okay, frequency is related to building more muscle, but now we're kind of saying, okay, well, maybe the frequency is just a better avenue to get more volume in for building muscle. It just becomes necessary at some point. Yeah. The more volume you do, it kind of becomes necessary to do more frequency. Well, I think the same can almost be said from a powerlifting standpoint. You're going to do more volume, not for building muscle, but more volume geared towards strength on the power lifts. You almost have to do more frequency. You know what I mean? So if I'm saying, hey, Mike, I want you to do 12 hard sets of bench this week. I mean, you're not doing that in one session. You're probably not even doing that in two sessions. You probably have to do three sessions.

So that's kind of where the frequency comes into play in regards to powerlifting. It's like, how much hard training do we need on the main lifts? And then how can we maneuver that throughout the week so you're able to get successful sets in? Yeah, yeah. And that's a good point on the technique. A good example with the bench press that, uh, it, it wouldn't, I would say it's, it probably doesn't even make sense for someone. I would say even like me, a lifestyle bodybuilder to train the bench press, like a power lifter. Yeah. Unless, unless they were going to go

do something with it related to powerlifting, right? Because if we're just trying to continue to build muscle, hopefully continue to gain strength, then you could probably say, well, you actually want the larger range of motion, for example. And then there's something also to be said, I suppose, um, there, there would be, there would be some, some low hanging fruit for people like me, but by incorporating the heavier stuff, like I haven't done, I do, I do some fairly heavy work, so it wouldn't be foreign to me. Um, but, but I do twos, the heaviest that, that I go is, uh, twos with, well, I guess the heaviest actually is the AMRAP. But so this is after four months

of training. I'm using 95% of what was my one rep max four months prior at the beginning of the cycle. Exactly. And that number may have moved up a little bit actually, because what I find, and this is something I've made a note if I make an update to that book, it's a minor point, but I think it's useful is, um, what I've, what I've noticed after doing this for a couple of years is if I have, let's say four sets of, um, it could be six or eight or whatever on a, on a big lift. And my first set feels really easy, like three or four good reps left. And I'm ending with two or three good reps left, then I think it's appropriate to add, I'll add five pounds to that. Just because you could make an argument that doing sub max, there is a place for that, but given how the program is set up, I think it makes more sense to just make it a bit

more difficult. But regardless, I haven't done a true, well, I haven't put 100% or 105% on the bar and really gone for it in a long time. And so that's also something that requires skill, right? No matter how big and strong you are, how good you are at an exercise, if you haven't done that before or in a long time, that takes practice. that takes practice. Yeah. That's actually a really good point. I'm glad you brought that up because just incorporating singles, just singles alone, submaximal singles. So we're not even talking like maxing out, but just submaximal singles is actually probably the biggest benefit that you would get someone like you specifically, because you don't train signals and you don't have any reason to, you know, you don't, that's one thing that your average kind of like lifestyle bodybuilder probably wouldn't need to do at all. Cause even increasing your one rep max isn't necessarily going to make your physique any

better. But I mean, if you're going to get into powerlifting, well, hey, it's a sport on one rep maxes. So every time we do a relatively heavy single, we're kind of practicing for the test. And when we talk about specificity, we talk about specificity per the exercise, obviously. So we're like, okay, well, we want to be specific for the bench press. We got to do bench press. We want to be specific for the squat. We got to do the squat. But then another layer of specificity in regards to powerlifting is being specific close to what you're going to do in powerlifting. So that's heavy singles. So if you're doing sets of 10 on bench, yes, it's more specific than a cable crossover,

but what's even more specific than sets of 10 on bench, a heavy single. So, and when I say heavy single, I guess I- It's going to be very hard to know. If you're just training in, I would say even sixes, eights, tens, twelves, and then you're like, all right, I'm going to go do a, I'm going to go do a heavy single. Like I want it to be maybe one, maybe I could do one more or even a zero, like almost a grinder. And you go to a one rep max calculator.

It's probably going to be inaccurate. It's going to be wrong one way or another. Either you're just not going to get it. You're going to miss the set, or it's going to be a two or three good reps left kind of deal. Yeah, yeah. So doing, I guess I should define heavy singles. So really when I say that, kind of the sweet spot tends to be like an 8RPE.

So something you could do for three reps probably. So like 90% roughly, that's a good spot. Maybe a little bit less occasionally. So dropping down to like a six and a half or seven. So I'd be probably, well, like 87% if we had to put a percent to one RM. And then occasionally going up to like a nine, so like a 95%. So kind of living in that range, right around 90% plus or minus and doing singles with that. And some people will hear that and say, and doing singles with that. And some people will hear that and say, oh, well, doing a single with 90%, that's not too hard. And it's not really meant to be super, super difficult, but that's still pretty challenging and that's close enough to really all you need

to get that practice in. So then if you're used to doing that and you're still doing heavy triples, fours, fives, sixes, so then when we have to build up to a test, you're like, well, I've been doing 90%. I've done that every week or every other week for months. What's 10 more percent? You're going to know too. You're going to say, well, I know where I'm at. And if you haven't done that, like you said, you're probably not going to know. But then you're also not going to have that practice with the pretty...

And there's a psychological component to this too. That's what I was going to ask. It sounds like there is. There's definitely a psychological component to this to where... And I look at with a lot of my clients with powerlifting specifically is if we get them confident with 90%, and we can almost sneak that weight up too in almost like a step fashion where it's like, you know, let's say 90% is three 15 on the bench for you. And you just go in and you hit a single with three 15. And in my,

this isn't maxing out. This is like 90%. So it's like, I could wake you up in the middle of the night and say, Mike, you got five minutes to warm up. You should be able to get it. Like it's probably hard.

Yeah. You know, it'd probably be hard for you, but you could, you could get it. You're not going to be like, Oh shit. Like there's no way in hell I'm going to do this.

That'd be probably 98% or 99%. So hitting singles with 90%, you get very, very comfortable with that. I could just, we could make it 320, then 325. And pretty soon, you're just kind of hitting that for singles. Then we get you set up to where you're going to like peak for a meet or something. hitting that for singles. Then we get you set up to where you're going to peak for a meet or something. You're like, well, dang, I've already been doing 90% to 95% for singles for a while. My old max was 335. I've been doing 325 for singles and it's easy. What's a little bit more? Does your confidence and your ability to do that, does that factor into your performance?

I'm thinking of golf, right? This is something I don't put very much time into, but maybe in my next life, I'll play more golf. But there's a psychological component to it in that what I've noticed is if I don't feel comfortable hitting a shot, there's a fair chance it's just not going to go well. And if I do feel comfortable, if I feel like I understand what my body needs to do, I've done this before, I'm just more likely to hit a good shot. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you walk up to the bar and you don't think you're going to get it, well, I mean, very rarely are you going to be surprised, like in a good way. You know what I mean? You're not going to be like, hey, I didn't think I was... I mean, occasionally that happens. But for the most part, you want to

walk in thinking, oh shit, I'm very, very confident in this weight that's on the bar because I've done close to it or the same. And that kind of goes into attempt selection too. Sometimes when I'm talking to clients before we get ready for a meet, I just want to make sure whatever we have for our planned third attempt for the platform is something that they are very, very confident in. Because I can go by what their numbers are saying in the program and what I think should be their third, and I'll tell that to them. I'll explain that. But I want them to be so confident in that number that maybe, and for some people, they have to have hit it before, which may sound interesting to some people thinking powerlifting, oh, you're going to max out and test. Well, sometimes you're going to go onto the competition

floor and then hit something you never hit before. But sometimes you're going to hit something you've hit before because at the end of the day, it's not always the strongest lifter who wins. It's who makes the most attempts. So you have three attempts for the squat, three attempts for the bench, and three attempts for the deadlift. And the strategy to attempt selection is you can never go down. So whatever you put in for your opener, whether you hit it or you don't, your second attempt has to either be the same weight or heavier. And this is a stupid question, but is that a rule or is that a strategic thing? Yeah, that's a rule. Yeah, that's a rule. So let's say you open on a squat at 405,

you miss it. You'll say, oh, well, you can't go, oh, well, let me try 365. They're like, no, it's 405 again, or you can go up. And it kind of works for me. It just makes the meets go smoother, so you don't have people bumping all around. But then it does throw a little bit of strategy in there as well. So a lot of times people, you're for your third lift. So that's your opener, second attempt, third, third attempt. That's going to be your heaviest lift.

Obviously, you have to go up each time, but if you miss your third or you can stay the same, yeah, you can stay the same. Yeah. You can stay the same if you miss. So let's say you miss your third, then you're the lift that counts as your second. Yeah. So you might be stronger than somebody, but if you miss all your thirds and they hit all their thirds, all your thirds might've been heavier attempts than theirs, but you missed them.

So there is some strategy to actually, you want to make your lifts. Do you find it makes more sense to go for your heaviest lift on your third or on your second? I would assume the first is get something up, feel good, like, okay, and then go heavier. But why, out of curiosity, why heaviest on the third rather than the second? So really, we kind of set it up partly because, like I said, you can never go down. So if you go your heaviest on your second and you miss it, you don't really have, on your second and you miss it, you don't really have a, or you can't really maneuver. So your opener, you want to, and really this kind of ties into what we were talking about.

Generally speaking, your opener is going to be roughly about 90% of what your goal is for the day or something you can do for about three reps, because you just want to get something on the board. You don't want to miss that because then it's going to screw up your whole day. So you want to get something on the board. And then really with your second is you're looking at something roughly around 95%, but really don't really necessarily think about it in terms of percentages. Just think of what do I need to get up to my goal third? So it's kind of like a stepping stone. But it's heavy enough to where a lot of times your second attempt, the way it falls, it's something you've done in the gym before. But it's approach, I mean, it's probably pretty close to the best you've ever done. So it's kind of like, hey, we're going to put something on the board that is very, very close to your best ever.

So it's a decent fallback option, but it also is a stepping stone for you to hit your third. Because you always want to go into it. This is how I explain it to clients. That's a really good question because it's something that people bring up all the time. Why don't I just go for- They may be thinking with fatigue, right? Thinking like, well, I've already done two, but in practice, that may not be enough to really impair the third.

Yeah. Again, you want to set it up to where you're banking impair the third. Yeah. Yeah. Again, you kind of want to set it up to where you're kind of banking on your third. You're going into it with, hey, my planned third is what I'm going to hit. You know what I mean? You're not thinking, well, if I miss it, again, it kind of goes back to the confidence. If you're setting it up like having a fallback option, really, the third's probably just too heavy. You want to look at the numbers and be like, well, the third, I'll hit it. And kind of getting into the weeds a little bit, but I think it kind of helps add to the conversation is a lot of times when we're doing a temp selection,

the way I like to do it is you set your openers pretty strict. It's like, hey, it's roughly 90%, pretty set in stone. Whatever your opener is, that's what we're going with. And then based on how the opener feels, we can kind of have a range for the second. So we might have our planned second, but then if your opener felt amazing, then we might have a little bit more of an aggressive option for you. But then if your opener kind of felt like shit, like, damn, that was heavier than I thought, we'll have a little bit more of a conservative option for you for your second and the same for your third.

So then you hit your second and you're like, okay, well, that felt easy. Well then, okay, we have an aggressive option for you. Kind of like a YOLO option. Everything's going well. Go with a big number. Or you hit your second and you're like, damn, that was like all I had. Okay. We'll just add a little bit more to it. We'll just try to tack a little bit extra on. Makes sense. And for people wanting to get started in powerlifting, where should they go? Do you have, it could be programs where you're like, hey, I know you have programs and feel free to tell people about them. that they should think with, again, speaking to people who have probably done a fair amount of squatting, deadlifting, and bench pressing over the years, but not in a powerlifting context. Yeah. So I think the first thing, if you're interested in powerlifting, I would try to find a meet that's close just to go check it out. And you don't have to spend all

day. Don't even plan on spending very long. Just go and check it out. Go and spend an hour or two, hour, and just kind of see, kind of check the landscape and see what you're getting yourself into. And a lot of times when you do that, you realize, okay, this is a little bit different than what I thought. These are a lot of, it's just going to seem like a lot of people who you probably see in the gym, like similar people who are just interested in lifting weights. Yeah. We're wearing singlets,

but they're out there on the platform, just trying to squat benching down. And what else you're going to see, and this is probably the biggest benefit of it, is you're going to see people that you can relate to. You'll say, oh, that guy's about my size or that girl's about my size. Oh, and she's lifting about the same amount of weight as i can lift you know i think sometimes people build it up in their head like like they're not going to belong yeah like you're going to go and like everyone's like the world jacked and then yeah just like you know like oh how am i going to compete you know someone's they're going to bench three times more than me it's like no the the world champion might but he's not going to bench three times more than me. It's like, no, the world champion might,

but he's not going to be there. It's going to be, you're going to go against people who- Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say, you're going to be going against people who are probably in the same stage of lifting as you're at. There'll be some a little bit better, some a little bit less. And would you urge people who were not thinking with competing, they were just thinking, maybe I'll just do a training block of powerlifting. Would you urge them to consider competing again? Go to a meet, check it out. And I'm guessing that you would, but why? Generally, if people have, of course, for some people, it's like, hey, I have absolutely zero interest in competing. I just want to do a little bit of strength work. For them, like, okay, cool. Yeah, we'll just do a little bit of powerlifting.

But it's really who I'm talking about or talking to here are the people who are like, I might want to do a power off to me. I might. And for people who are, let's say they're on the fence or they're leaning toward no, why should they consider doing it? Yeah. So the biggest reason that I think is I like to put dates on the calendar for people. I think whether that's why like transformation contests are so cool or just, hey, you have a vacation. Here's a date you want to get ready for because it's an endpoint. It's like, hey, I'm going to do this. And then there's a definitive endpoint. That's the date that's on the calendar. That's what I'm training for. And then the benefit, you have two benefits here. One is you can push hard right up until the date,

but then the date's over too. So at that point, you can change your mind. You're like, well, I did the competition. It wasn't for me or, hey, it was for me. And I think having that singular focus too is just, it's probably the best way to take the next level in your training is just, you put a date on the calendar, you committed to it, you're going to do a powerlifting meet. And the cool thing about powerlifting, different than bodybuilding, is you don't have to change your training all that much. You don't have to change your diet all that much.

And it's not going to negatively affect you. If you do a bodybuilding show, it's like you have to diet for an extended period of time, get yourself super lean, deprive yourself. It's going to change your social life quite a bit. You're already in the gym. Your social life won't have to change much for powerlifting. You have to give up a Saturday, which as long as you have that Saturday free, you should be good to go. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my VIP one-on-one coaching service, because

my team and I have helped people of all ages and circumstances lose fat, build muscle, and get into the best shape of their life faster than they ever thought possible. And we can do the same for you. And it's a good point with the diet too. You can do what you're doing right now, so long as you want to. And so long as your body weight, if that class makes sense to you. If I think about myself, maybe I'm a bit leaner than you'd want to be just because I'm not super lean, but- What's your body weight right now? 193. It's 193 to 195. And body fat, it's hard to really know, you know, cause, cause every form of measuring is going to be inaccurate, but, but I'm, but I'm fairly lean, probably somewhere

around 10% body fat. I'm lean enough to where it gets in the, if I were willing to get a bit fatter, I would be a bit stronger. I will. You're, you're at the point where actually where you'd be perfect. If like the weight class was exactly what you weigh. Like, you know what I mean? Like where you're walking. Cause really that's what I try to do a lot of times with, with, um, with clients is we try to find a weight class where they can sit comfortably, but be relatively lean, but sit comfortably at the weight class, especially, especially for the lighter people.

I'm pretty much anybody under 220 or something. It's like, where can we find a good set point for you where you're pretty close to the weight class, maybe a couple pounds over, and you can eat good, maintain relatively good body composition, just kind of hang out there. So if you're like 193 or something, 195, then like if there was a weight class, which was 190, that'd be like perfect for you, you know, but there's not. So in your case, I would say, well, like depending on the organization, there's like either 181 or 183. We probably wouldn't want to cut you there. So you'd probably be very lean.

There's no, I i mean you could do this is kind of holding up the discussion you could do some some water cutting which is like i kind of but even that i don't think we're gonna get 10 pounds yeah especially on your first meet like you would never want to do that like that's you know i i never recommend cutting weight for for like a first meet or even like your first couple meets. Like it just, it doesn't make sense. And it never really works out well. It's something you want to do when you're experienced. So for someone like you, I'd probably just say, Hey, you know,

depending on the organization, the weight class would be like 198 or 205. Not ideal, but just kind of, I probably just don't even worry about it. Just like you're, you're, you're underweight. Just eat exactly how you normally are. Like, don't even worry about the weight class. And the cool thing is, is you won't have to worry about the weight class at all. So the weighing in factor will be zero stress. You're under.

You can eat normal and just weigh in and cool and just lift. So it wouldn't be optimized. Your body composition wouldn't be optimized for the weight class, but for your first meat or two, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah. Close enough to where I could probably do okay. And we're also speaking to anybody listening who's in a similar boat where if you're pretty lean and you like where you're at, you like how you look, you still have good workouts. And if the prospect of gaining, let's say 10 pounds to compete in a meet is not very palatable.

Then it sounds like what you're saying is that's okay. Just know that, yeah, you're not optimized for the meet, but it doesn't mean you're going to go out there and make a fool of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you, you, you won't, you, you know, it's in a lot of times, it's when you, when you see the weight class, it's like, okay, well, you're going to be a little undersized, but it's not like everybody is like cutting weight to make that weight class. It's not like it's a UFC fight where everyone's,, okay, well, you're going to be a little undersized, but it's not like everybody is cutting weight to make that weight class. It's not like it's a UFC fight where everyone's coming in exactly at.

You watch the weigh-ins for the UFC. They're not getting paid millions of dollars to do this. Yeah. So they're just... And the other thing too is sometimes, and I think this is a mistake too, is people will say, oh, I'm like five or six pounds under the weight class. I'll just eat whatever I want and just actually try to force themselves to gain the weight. You're probably not going to see

much of a benefit just from force feeding yourself to gain a few pounds. Maybe a little bit. If you were in a deficit or something, then maybe you would. But for the most part, if you're in a good weight, comfortable, like your body composition, but you happen to be a little bit under, don't stress about it. Don't worry about it. Just go lift. What about cardio? Which is going back to the misconceptions about powerlifting. The extreme misconception would be that powerlifters, they wheelchair themselves around as much as they can to avoid cardio, right? Yeah. So what's interesting about cardio is, so like how I said, a lot of the information

early on for powerlifting was coming on like Westside Barbell is they were actually pretty big on like GPP, which is interesting. They were always big on like doing like the sleds and the prowlers and stuff. And the acronym just for people who don't know. Yeah. So general physical preparedness. Right. So just kind of like doing anything.

Physical capacity, like work capacity, right? Yeah. Yeah. Just any type of work capacity, really going for a walk, which is kind of like, I know we've talked about this before, which I like, like, Hey, just especially for, for people who like, like us who work from home or work in an office, just we're not doing a lot of labor day to day. Just tracking your steps and trying to get 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. So just literally just going for walks, I think is great for powerlifting.

Just stay active. Because again, when you're doing powerlifting style training, especially when you're in a meat prep where your training is focused on heavier weights, but lower reps, your training is really not going to be a ton of overall work. Not a lot of volume in your four or five days in the gym. So just doing a general GPP, general physical preparedness, but just doing like walking, things like that would be beneficial. But there is an argument for actually improving your conditioning, depending on where you're at. I think there could be like, if you're, and here I will kind of explain it, is there's two different things. One, just from like a recovery standpoint to get like your training volume in throughout the week. But then there's actually per session.

And this is probably more important is powerlifting training because you're going to need a little bit longer rest periods when you're squatting, benching, and deadlifting really heavy. The workouts can take longer. And actually, it's not a bad thing. We want you to take longer rests when you're lifting heavier. So when you're powerlifting style training, you don't want to do minute rest, 30 seconds or minute rest. You want to take three to five

minutes. You want to make sure you're resting a good amount. But one thing you'll find is because you're spending more time squatting or benching or deadlifting, that sometimes you just kind of fatigue yourself. Sometimes it could be a little bit mental too, but just, you know, we'll say you fatigue yourself. So then the end of your workouts end up pretty shitty. So a lot of times when that happens, I'll look at the clients and be like, well, are we doing any type of conditioning at all? And generally, oh no, I'm not doing any type of conditioning. Okay. Well, let's get your conditioning a little bit better. Just low hanging fruit, just like literally adding anything in. So then we can get a little bit higher quality workouts in, especially for the workouts that are longer than 60 minutes.

And that's good advice for bodybuilding as well or power building. I've noticed that. I've mentioned that a few times on the podcast here over the last, I guess, year and a half because at the beginning of COVID, I wasn't driving to the gym. I was working at a home or driving to the office. And so at that time I was doing two 30 minute sessions of moderate intensity cardio per week. And because I had this extra time, I was like, I'll just hop on my little upright bike and I'll just start doing more cardio. And, um, I lost, I see the, I see the Instagram pictures when you post. Yeah. I have the proof. Uh, so I lost eight

pounds, which was cause I didn't change my diet. I was like, I'm I'll just cut to why not. Um, and, and over the course of like six months, you know, just slow weight loss because I wasn't, I didn't see any reason to be aggressive about it. Um, but what I noticed is, especially when I got back in the gym, because at home I had a very limited setup, just some adjustable dumbbells, some bands, enough to just maintain muscle, maintain a fair amount of strength. I was surprised actually, because I was doing that for like six months longer than I needed to. I just got into the routine of it and I liked the convenience. And then once- Kind of the same thing happened with me. You had mentioned before we were recording that you got to a point though, where you're like,

actually kind of want to go back to a gym. And that was the same thing for me. You had mentioned before we were recording that you got to a point though, where you're like, actually kind of want to go back to a gym. And that's, that was the same thing for me. I just waited until I was wanting to go back to the gym and it had nothing to do with COVID. It was just, all right, now the convenience, that's cool. And I understand I can still look good and have the physique I want at this point. Maintenance volume is very simple, even though I was doing more than, than is needed for maintenance volume. But there was a point where I was like, I actually miss a gym. I miss a barbell and doing the stuff I like to do. So I got back in the gym and after six months or so of no barbell work, my squat was pathetic.

I remember 185 for sets of eight to 10 was hard. Um, so that, that was pretty pathetic. And my bench was pretty pathetic. That one RM was down a fair amount, even though I was doing a fair amount of dumbbell pressing, but my, my deadlift had only dropped for a member by like the one RM by 20, 25 pounds, which was a bit surprising to me actually. Um, but anyway, what I noticed is once I got back into the groove and got my form back and, um, got over the squat hump, the, I kept the cardio in and I still, to this day now I do. So I do six or seven days a week, 30 minutes of moderate intensity. And by moderate intensity, uh, I mean, I actually, what I do is I normally have at least one or two or three calls that I have to do work related stuff every day.

And so I do those in the afternoon. I scheduled them in the afternoon and then I just go on my bike and I can have a conversation, uh, but I'm going to be breathing a little bit heavier. So I just tell whoever, like, uh, I'm on a bike. So that's why I'm huffing and puffing if you're wondering, right. But I can still have a conversation. So it works out. And what I noticed is that that did, it was in between sets is where I would notice it, that my heart rate would come down faster. I would feel ready to do my next set sooner. Or I would feel, I mean, I was always fairly conscientious about my rest times, right? So like on my accessories, it was two to two and a half minutes. On my primaries, it was three to three and a half usually. And so because I was fairly rigid about that,

and a half usually. And so, because I was fairly rigid about that, I was able to, in my mind, just subjectively compare after significantly improving my cardio, which I did by just increasing the resistance on the bike as it got. So basically it was just once it got too easy and I wasn't feeling much of a, I wasn't feeling that, that four to five out of 10 difficulty, I would just increase the resistance a little bit or, you know, try to pedal a little bit faster. So I did slowly improve my conditioning. And then when I got back in the gym and training, uh, I noticed again that with my two to two and a half or three to three and a half max, four minutes of rest, I was feeling more rested and, and that seemed to contribute to better performance in my training.

Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I've noticed that with myself as well. Actually, it's funny. I have a treadmill at my house and I do the same thing in the afternoons when I have calls, like business calls. It's just like, hey, I'm going to be on, you're going to hear a treadmill in the background. I'm just walking. But yeah, I mean, that's what I've noticed with myself and with clients too. It's like, hey, I'm going to be on, you're going to hear a treadmill in the background. I'm just walking. But yeah, I mean, that's what I've noticed with myself and with clients too. It's like, hey, just kind of getting your heart rate down a little bit quicker, just feeling more recovered set to set. So then towards the end of your workouts are just a little bit more productive.

Yep. And so then for people who are still listening and who would like to do, let's say they're like, all right, I'm going to do at least a training block of this. This sounds interesting. And again, feel free to just plug your own stuff here, but probably the best place, I mean, what I would recommend is find a good program as opposed to trying to create your own. Would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can even, I mean, I'll definitely plug my own, but you can just Google like free powerlifting programs, you know, just. Are there some in particular that you like though? Because a lot of stuff is going to come up.

I mean, there's one, it's called Absolute Strength, but that's written by me, but. That's the number one. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So, I mean, that's what my podcast is called, Absolute Strength. But originally it actually stemmed from a powerlifting program I put together, which is called absolute strength program, which is, has a bunch of different options for different days per week. And it's essentially like a, I kind of wrote it for people who are intermediate lifters

who have been lifting for a long time and they kind of want a intro into powerlifting style training, but then it's not like a powerlifting program where it's like, hey, we're going all in on powerlifting and skip everything you've ever done before. It's powerlifting, but we're still going to do a lot of accessory work too, because I understand you're probably coming from a bodybuilding or general strength program. So you want to do that too. And that's kind of what I like to do. So it fits well. or general strength program. So you want to do that too.

And that's kind of what I like to do. So it fits well. But I mean, really, you just want to try to find some type of program, whether it's mine or somebody else's, that's like, you have some structure. You just want to have some structure, something laid out for you

so you can follow it and kind of just say, hey, here's my program. This is what I'm doing. Kind of hands off. Kind of one of a lot of reasons why people get benefits from coaching. It's just, hey, here's what I'm going to do do i'm just going to follow the program yeah because if you create it

yourself one if you don't really understand what you're you're trying to do like what the goal is you may end up training a little bit too hard or too heavy or you might not be training hard or heavy enough and then this is something that a lot of people do is you'll end up tweaking it halfway in and you might end up, you might've been on a good track, but then you tweaked it and then you went off track and then it's like, well, what are you doing at that point? Yeah. Or if you're in the middle of it and you've now improved it, that's great, but it would be better if you would have started that way. Yeah. Yep. you would have started that way. Yeah. Yep. And, and are there, are there any maybe general principles or green flags, red flags that you could share for people who are just trying to

like, okay, they have a few options here for whatever reason, they're not following yours, which they probably should just do that, but they're not, let's say, or, or they're just curious. Like how can, how, how can they assess the, the validity of one program versus another? Yeah. So you'll, you'll probably, the one thing with powerlifting is you'll probably want to find a program that has you, especially if you're first getting into powerlifting, something that has you doing the lifts a little bit more frequently. So if you find a, if you come across a powerlifting program and it's, you know, you're squatting, benching and deadliftlift one time a week, which, hey, some programs are set up that way. And I'm not saying that they can't work, but that would probably work better for someone who's already been powerlifting a long time.

Probably someone bigger, too, because generally the bigger you are, you're using heavier weights. So then you get a little bit less benefit from training more frequently. bit less benefit from training more frequently. But if you're just getting into it, like all the things we said, you're probably going to want something that has you squatting twice a week, benching two or three times a week, and then deadlifting one to two times a week. That's probably just a good general compass to look at. Like, hey, this is what we're looking for there. And then in terms of a couple other things outside of the programming to look at is just technique. You probably should spend some time on YouTube just looking up, hey, what are some cues I should be looking for on squatting, benching, deadlifting, and just kind of play around

with it. Just watch some videos and record yourself lifting. You don't have to do it for the gram. Just record yourself lifting to kind of get an idea of what your squat bench and deadlift looks like. I think most people see a good benefit of just watching themselves lift, especially if they've never done that before. If you've never recorded yourself for social media or whatever, you may actually, what

your technique looks like may be different than what's in your head. So that's a good idea to kind of get an idea of what your lifts actually look like. And then watch some tutorials, kind of play around with it, kind of geek out on technique. Because I mean, that's something that you'll probably, if you're just lifting kind of like we talked about with the bench example, if you're just benching for general hypertrophy, which you should be probably looking for a longer range of motion, you're not really trying to create an arch or anything like that. You'll see a lot of benefit just from tweaking your technique to cut the range of motion a little bit.

Or for squatting, maybe you're someone who doesn't wear a belt. You'll probably see a benefit from wearing a belt, creating some more intraabdominal pressure, maybe throwing on some neoprene knee sleeves too. abdominal pressure, maybe throwing on some neoprene knee sleeves too. They're not going to, that's not going to be like night or day, but you might see a little bit of benefit from, from knee sleeves as well. So I do a little thing like that. Yeah. I, especially with higher rep, um, if I'm doing twos or fours, I may or may not put them on. Um, but when I'm doing sixes, eights, tens, if nothing else, they just keep my joints warm in between sets.

It just feels a little bit better. Yeah, it just feels better. It's hard to explain because people always ask me, what's the benefits? Well, I feel like there's a few different benefits. One, just the joint warmth. I think that's beneficial. They just feel better. And I also think they create more surface area.

So it's like when you're squatting, it's almost like you get like a couple of millimeters added onto your calves and hamstrings. Like you ever watch, you ever look at like the old bodybuilding magazines where you'd see like, you know, like Ronnie Coleman or somebody squatting and they'd like take like a side picture and you'd be like, holy shit, like his hamstrings and calves, like they're all connect. Like it's just one hunk of muscle like you know what i mean like a wall it's just like a wall of muscles like it'd be so easy to squat when you're you squat down six inches and your hamstring touches your calves well it to a lesser degree that's kind of what we get from like knee sleeves you know they kind of like fold over so you get a little bit of extra

surface area there but i think mostly it's probably just like the warmth, maybe, um, like a proprioception thing. Like maybe like you, you kind of like feel, feel a little bit more, but, um, yeah, I, I see, I see quite a bit of benefit. You know, when I say quite a bit, I'm talking maybe 10 pounds added on or something like that, or a few more reps, um, than a belt too. I think I've tried to say how much I noticed that, but I think, I think another misconception is probably some people would say, oh, I don't want to wear a belt because I want to make sure my core is still activated. Well, there's actually been research to show that when you do wear a belt, as long as you're bracing against the belt,

like you don't lose any core activation for using a belt correctly. So you just kind of, you don't use the belt't you should gain at least intra-abdominal pressure yeah you should yeah you should gain intra-abdominal pressure because you're bracing against the belt so you kind of like create like that 360 tension against the belt to kind of create your your core to be super tight and strong because you don't want any leaks you don't want to be you know a lot of times with bracing, it's tough because you want to breathe in, you want to create the pressure, and you're thinking of a bunch of different things. But then you throw that belt on, again, it just gives you something to brace against. So it's a little bit easier to create

that intra-abdominal pressure. What type of belt do you like, or would you recommend? So really? When we're lifting heavy, I want really anything that's a 10 or 13 millimeter thickness. So really the belts we probably get the most benefit from are really any type of powerlifting belt that's a little bit thicker. Because the bodybuilding belts, so if you think of like the ones that are like a harbinger belt or something yeah like a general belt like that it's better than nothing but it's probably not going to give you as much as like a because those are i don't even know how thick they are they probably don't even tell you doesn't even say i mean the one the one i'm thinking of somebody uh just the other day somebody was wearing i think it was it just

looked like fabric actually yeah like yeah it wasn even, you didn't even have a rigid structure, you know? Yeah. Some of them are just fabric. Almost like a dip belt that you just cinch up. It's like, what are you, what are you doing? It's like a bandaid. Um, but, uh, yeah. So, so something that actually has some thickness to it, 10 or 13 millimeters. Like I like Inzer, they're kind of like the, the old school, uh, lever belts. Like that's what I use, but you could do, uh, like a single prong is fine as old school lever belts. That's what I use. But you could do a single prong is fine as well. So the one with the one metal, that's fine. That works good. I like the single prong better than the ones that have two or three prongs because I can kind of be a pain in the ass. Yeah, it's just annoying. And you're not getting more...

There's no added benefit. Yeah. It's just more fiddling. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah yeah you want to you want to find a belt that has a little bit of thickness to it and then uh either like a single prong or a lever and what about shoes yeah so so shoes are another interesting conversation so when we're squatting we generally want something that's a hard flat surface and a few years back uh olympic lifting shoes got really, really popular. And they're still popular and for good reason, because they are a hard flat surface and they have an elevated heel, which helps you get to depth. And a lot of people see, I mean,

I wear them for my squats and especially if you're a high bar squatter. So if you have a high bar, almost everybody who has a high bar will see a lot of benefit from Olympic lifting shoes with elevated heel. Now, a low bar squatter, it's kind of like 50-50. Some people will see a benefit with Olympic lifting shoes and some people won't and they'll just be fine with a flat sole. So something like a Vans or a Chuck Taylors or something like that, squatting. What you want to avoid squatting is anything that's like a soft sole, like a running shoe, things like that. I mean, a lot of people talk about that, but really it's just when you're standing on it

and you put the weight on your back and you kind of feel yourself moving, that's not good. And then for benching, really anything works well for benching. You don't really need anything specific. Now, when we get into the nitty gritty with bench technique and we talk about creating pressure on the floor, I find shoes that have a little bit of grip to them help. And some people like just Olympic lifting shoes for that, or some people just like whatever they squatted in. I mean, I'll literally wear anything. I'll wear any shoe when I'm benching. So it doesn't matter to me, but some people like a, I mean, I'll literally wear anything. Like I'll wear any shoe when I'm benching.

So it doesn't matter to me, but some people like a little bit more grip. And then with deadlifts, you want something as close to the floor as possible. So like if you're just training in the gym, like you can deadlift barefoot and that's fine. Now in competitions, in powerlifting meets, you do have to wear something. Even if it's like a, they make like deadlift slippers, which I mean, they're exactly what they sound like. They're just like little slippers that are barely anything. And then there's some companies that make like deadlift specific shoes that are very thin to the ground, that are a little bit grippy that work.

Or like a wrestling shoe works very well because it's close to the ground. Or again, like almost like the same thing you would wear squatting. Now you don't want to wear an elevated heel deadlifting, but like a Vans or a Chuck Taylor would work too. Simply because now you're increasing range of motion there. You're making it harder on your. Yeah. Yeah.

You don't want anything with any type of elevated heel or any type of elevation at all. It's just adding. And I know it seems like a very small difference, but. Hey, that extra, what do they say? Every inch counts. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. For what it's worth. Uh, so obviously I, I'm not, um, I'm not training for powerlifting, but, um, I'm, I'm doing my squats and my benches and my data. So for my squatting, and this has, I guess, evolved over the years. Now I use a belt, I use knee sleeves and I use squat shoes, Olympic shoes. I agree

with you. They don't have to be Olympic shoes. I just like that. They feel very stable. Yeah. The stability factor is huge because I mean, they're made for lifting. They're made for squatting, made for Olympic lifting movement. So they're very stable, like rotationally and side to side. And I mean, they're super hard. So you, I mean, they're just, they're, they create a good platform to lift on. Yep. Yep. And I've noticed that those three things make a pretty significant difference. I haven't, I haven't tried to, uh, like one set with all of that, then take it all off and see what I could do. But I would guess that if I were to do that, if the shoes, I mean, I obviously I wouldn't, I wouldn't go to running shoes.

Let's just say I went to something that, um, is flat, but doesn't have any structure to it. Doesn't feel, it doesn't provide that added stability it maybe just kind of makes me feel like i'm barefoot and then take the belt off take the sleeves off i would guess that that's a couple of reps difference uh with with the same weight particularly the belt really being able to and and uh people probably have gathered this from what you're saying but the key is that you have to use it properly. And that really is, okay, you're taking your deep breath and you're holding it in your stomach. But when this is, this is what I do is to really activate the belt, so to speak, push my stomach out. Like I'm not, I have a lot of tension, but I'm not sucking my abs in. Like

I'm trying to look good on Instagram. Yeah. You're not up on the bodybuilding stage. Yes. I am pushing my stomach. I want to feel, and the belt is very tight as well. And, and it's not painful, but it's very tight. So I can press my abs out. They're tensed and they're pressed out against it. And that alone is probably good for at least one additional, maybe two reps right there, actually. Yeah. I believe it too. Yeah. I would feel the same way. Yeah. Like, but yeah, using the belt correctly, like bracing out against the belt. So like pushing your belly out against the belt and then bracing hard for like a punch. So it's like extended, but then hard. Now, one question for you, like when you're warming up at what point do you put the stuff on? At what point do you put the stuff on?

Oh, that's a good question. So let's see. I put it on for my hard sets when I'm warming up. Although I have a pretty abbreviated warmup these days. I used to do more warmup sets in the past, and I thought that that was maybe not necessary per se, but I thought that it was beneficial enough to do it. So I would do like four warmup sets. And over the years I've trimmed that down to now where I'm doing two or three, it depends how heavy I'm going. So, you know, if I'm doing sets of eight, you probably could argue that I don't even need to warm up. I could just go and do it because the weight is not that heavy,

but I still like to do, um, one or two. So it's going to be like, you know, 50% of one RM. I'm going to do just, just eight to 10, get the blood moving. And then I'll probably put a little bit more weight on the bar and do four to six and then get into it. And if I'm going heavier, if I'm doing let's say fours or heavier, I'll probably do one additional. So I'll do three warmups sets. And that final is going to be a bit closer to what I'm about to do. And it'll just be one. But I put the belt on. And for people, listen, I wear it when I squat and when I deadlift. I don't wear it when I bench. I know some people like to do that. Some people, I don't. I don't like it. Yeah, I don't. Oh,

if I'm overhead pressing, if I'm standing overhead pressing, I'll wear it. It really helps there as well. It helps there. Yeah. Yeah. How about you? Well, yeah. So the reason I asked is because, so I kind of, it's probably more psychological than anything, but I do, I kind of warm up with like a step fashion. So it's like, I do like my first warmup set, which is really just with the bar, just nothing. And then like the first thing I'll put on is the knee sleeve. So it really depends how many warm-up sets I'm doing with how heavy I'm going. But the point I'm trying to make is I'll do nothing, just whatever shoes I walk in the gym with, which is usually just a normal flat sole shoe, training shoe, whatever, do a set or two

with the bar. And then the first thing I do is i slide the knee sleeves on when i add weight and then the next thing i would change my shoes so i put on my Olympic lifting shoes for like the next jump and weight and then right so by that point either like the last set before i'd get to my working weight is when i'll put the belt on and do that as my last warm-up and then my working sets and it really depends on how heavy I'm going. Because sometimes that last warmup set, I won't use the belt. But if I'm going really heavy, if I'm working up to like a 450 pounds or something, with 405, I'll put the belt on or something. But so yeah, it's like I just use like a step fashion.

So it's like the first thing I do is nothing and then I slowly add stuff. So it's almost like as the weight gets heavier, I add a piece of equipment to kind of help transition to the weight. So then right at the last second, then I throw the belt on. It's like, okay, now I'm ready to go. You're probably psychological. Practicing the way that you train. You get up to that final heavy warmup set or heavier warmup set. Yeah. I'm not that methodical about it. I put, if I'm squatting, I don't use the sleeves on, on deadlifting because I found they don't, they don't seem, they don't seem to make a difference. It's, it's in the squat where I noticed. So I'm going to put the shoes on well, sleeves, uh, first, hopefully.

And then, and then, or, or the shoe has to come off, which is a pain in the ass. It's so annoying. Um, so sleeve shoe and then, and then I'll, I'll go through my warmup and yeah, if I were, if I, if I'm going to be working up to, to a heavy weight and I am going to do a heavy ish single, then I may or may not put the belt on, but it definitely, definitely helps. Oh, and also something to mention, I think that we should mention with, with a belt is that it doesn't reduce your risk of injury. It doesn't make the exercise more safe, which is what many people think belts are for. And if you didn't know how to use a belt correctly, and if you thought that it reduced the risk of injury, it may even increase the risk of injury because now you might be more inclined to use bad form because you think of now, you know, you're on the deadlift and you want to go for the

big number and your back starts to round a little bit, your lower back, but you think, oh, you have your belt on, you can just power through it. So something that just, just occurred to me that I think people should know. Yeah. That's a good point. The belt is not a injury prevention tool. It's a performance tool. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. The belt is not a injury prevention tool. It's a performance tool. Yep.

Yep. Awesome, man. Well, this was fun as always, informative as always. I really appreciate you taking the time. And why don't we wrap up with where people can find you, find your work, anything new and exciting that you have coming that you want people to know about? Yeah, yeah. So you can find me on my podcast,

the absolute strength podcast. Mike's been on there a lot of times. If you, if you guys like, enjoy this podcast and I'm like, that's a great job. You'll probably enjoy mine. We talk about a lot of the same, same style of stuff. Don't, don't we all just try to find our own, our own niche. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, so we've got the podcast. You can follow me on social media, just at Hunt Fitness. And then I also have written a few books you can find on Amazon or anywhere where books are sold. Got Bodybuilding for Beginners, which was the first one. And then Beginner's Guide to Weightlifting and then Strength Training for Beginners, all kind of similar, but with their own unique niches.

And are you working on another one? Yeah. So I'm working on something right now that's kind of a niche topic. I just announced it, but it's a book on strength and conditioning for wrestling. Because I grew up wrestling. So it was something I always kind of wanted to do and then, you know, just determine when to put it into practice. So that's what I'm working on now. Still have, as I'm sure you do too, a bunch of things lined up. Ideas, I guess, things you're working on probably want to get to writing eventually. But it's like, I got to finish this one up and then I have a couple more, you know, more like bodybuilding, powerlifting style stuff to put out. Yeah.

It's like, you know, a lot of people have their TBR, their to be read piles. We have also our TBW to be written piles. And, uh, we're probably going to die with, uh, with things still left in certainly the TBR, but, but the TBW as well. Yep. Oh, I have both of those. They're both a long list. I know. I know. Do you, does a, does a part of you wish that that's all you had to do?

Oh yeah. I mean, that's certainly the case for me. That's still the work that I enjoy the most is I like to learn stuff and I like to write. I like to teach things. That's just what I like to do. If that's all I had,

if I could just read and write all day, that's what I'd probably do. Yep. Yep. Above everything else. Yeah. I wouldn't even pay attention to my kids. No, I'm just kidding.

What do you mean? That's what a wife is for. The wife takes care of the kids. I read and I write. Yep. Yeah. But anyway, thanks again for doing this. And I look forward to the next one.

Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Well, I hope you liked this. And I look forward to the next one. Yeah, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.