Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Layne Norton on How to Avoid and Overcome Weightlifting Injuries

Episode Date: June 11, 2017

In this episode, I interview Dr. Layne Norton, who you’ve probably heard of, but in case you haven’t, he’s a professional powerlifter, bodybuilding coach, and host of his own podcast, Physique Science Radio, and really is at the forefront of the “evidence-based fitness” movement. I’ve had Layne on the podcast before to talk about contest prep, maximizing fat loss, reverse dieting, and a few other topics, and people loved the interview so I wanted to get him back on to talk about the bane of every weightlifter: injuries. Now, contrary to common belief, weightlifting isn’t nearly as dangerous as many people think, and especially when you’re using good technique, progressing intelligently, and generally taking good care of your body. That said, if you lift weights for long enough, you’re going to experience at least a minor injury, even if it’s only a soft tissue problem stemming from repetitive use. And when it does happen, it’s going to frustrate the shit out of you, because as anyone that has gone through it knows, it quickly derails your plans and sometimes forces you to train suboptimally so you can recover.  I wanted to get Layne on the show to talk about this, because as a competitive bodybuilder and powerlifter, he has a lot of wisdom to share on the subjects of preventing and healing both minor and severe injuries. He himself has gotten hurt in ways that most of probably never will, and so he has had to go a lot further than most of us into rehab, recovery, and rebuilding his strength and performance. As you’ll see, Layne covers a lot of ground in this interview, ranging from common mistakes that people make that lead to injuries to simple indicators to watch for that precede injury, how to know if you’re fully recovering from your workouts, how to rehab and work around injuries, and more. Here’s the show… 12:51 - What is your history with personal injuries? 14:52 - What are some common mistakes that lead to injuries? 25:51 - What are some signs and symptoms that can help determine if someone is pushing themselves towards an injury? 29:56 - What are some preventative lessons you have learned with technique and form? 36:31 - How can someone tell if they are not recovering properly? 43:44 - After an injury, how can you continue to train properly? 50:07 - What are the advantages and disadvantages between conventional deadlift and sumo deadlift? 52:55 - What are some alternatives for dead lift if you are injured or recovering? 55:41 - What are some alternatives for bench press if you are injured or recovering? 57:02 - What are your tips for treatment options and getting through injurie 59:48 - What is Avatar Nutrition? 

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I hope you enjoy it, and let's get to the show. Hey everyone, this is Mike, and I want to welcome you to a new episode of the Muscleful Life Podcast. And in this episode, I am excited because I got to interview Dr. Lane Norton, who you've probably heard of, but just in case you haven't, he is a professional powerlifter, bodybuilding coach, and actually a host of his own podcast, which is called Physique Science Radio. And last but not least, he is someone that's really at the forefront of the whole evidence-based fitness movement and someone whose work I've been following for years now.

I've actually had Lane on the podcast before to talk about contest prep, maximizing fat loss, reverse dieting, and a few other topics. And people really liked the interview, so I wanted to get him back on to talk about something else, which is really the bane of weightlifters everywhere. And that is injuries. Now, contrary to common belief, weightlifting isn't nearly as dangerous as many people think it is. And especially when you're using good technique and progressing intelligently, and just kind of generally taking good care of your body. But if you lift weights for long enough,

you're eventually going to experience at least a minor injury, even if it's only a soft tissue problem stemming from repetitive use. And when something like this does happen, it's really going to frustrate the shit out of you because as anyone that has gone through it knows and could tell you, it quickly derails your plans and sometimes forces you to train suboptimally for quite some time so you can actually recover and get back to what you want to be doing. So I wanted to get Lane on the show to talk about this subject because as a competitive bodybuilder and powerlifter, he has a lot of experience and wisdom to share on the subject, specifically on preventing and healing both minor

and severe injuries. Now, he himself has gotten hurt in ways that most of us probably never will because we're not competitive strength athletes. And so he has also had to go a lot further than most of us ever will into rehab, recovery, and rebuilding his strength and performance, and has learned some pretty important lessons that we can benefit from. So as you'll see in the interview, Lane covers a lot of ground ranging from common mistakes that people make that lead to injuries, to simple indicators to watch for that precede injury, how to know if you're fully recovering from your workouts or not, how to rehab and work around injuries, and more. Here's the show.

Hey, Lane, it's great to have you back on the show. Thanks for taking the time. Hey, no problem. Thanks for having me, Mike. Yeah, I know. I appreciate it. We were talking about just schedule and how many things there are to do, so I appreciate it. And I really do understand it, so I appreciate fitting this in. Yeah, I know.

Well, we've been trying to do this for like three months or something. I know. I know the subject I want to talk to you about is something that, um, for all you listening, if you're not dealing with this right now, uh, there's a, there's a good chance you're going to deal with it to one degree or another in the future. And that's, and that's, um, injuries. Now by injuries, it can be ranging from slight, which is just repetitive use kind of stuff. Inflammation in areas doesn't just doesn't feel right to more severe stuff that, you know, can require medical treatment of some kind or, you know, dramatically changing your training and so forth. And the reason why I want to talk to you about that lane is because I know

over the last year and a half or so, you've gone through a bit of this yourself. And I think that you'll have some great insights to share with everybody, both from the perspective of preventative. So even if there were things that, even if, I mean, maybe you didn't even do anything necessarily wrong, but just in educating people at that point, because for everybody everybody listening when you're new to weightlifting and you're just on a barbell strength training program if you learn basic form and you're just not stupid and you pay attention you're not really moving around enough weight in the beginning usually to run much of a risk of anything serious happening but once you kind of become a more intermediate and then advanced weightlifter when you start pulling hundreds

and hundreds of pounds or squatting hundreds of hundreds of pounds, you know, pushing a lot, a lot of weight, it doesn't take very much in a moment, um, to, to, you know, either cause an injury that is acutely painful or to start something like that. Now there's a, there was something a little bit off and now, you know, uh, three months from now, if you keep going in the same way, you're really going to feel it. So that's what I thought would be for today's talk. Yeah, I mean people – well, not that they love the injury stuff, but everybody – if you lift weights long enough, you are going to deal with this. I mean it's not me being doom and gloom. It's just the facts.

I mean you can kind of say that about any sport, right? I mean, if you play any sport enough. Yeah. This is what, you know, I had people when I got injured say, oh, see, Lane doesn't know how to lift, you know. And it's like, well, Tiger Woods, all he does is swing a golf club and his back is jacked up. You know what I mean? And his knee and. Everything. club and his back's jacked up you know what i mean so and his knee and everything you can be a

recreational person and like kind of go easy at it not really push yourself and you can be in decent shape and that's fine but if you want to be competitive at like high levels i mean high level athletes get injured i mean i know people can point to people like, you know, Brett Favre or Cal Ripken or people who like played a long career and never, you know, had an injury break. But I mean, if you talk to Cal Ripken afterwards, like I think he even said in interviews, like there were days that he had no business playing, like he should not have been playing. And he probably actually hurt his team by playing. But at a certain point, the record became so important that but at a certain point the record became so important that they put them out there anyway you know and um but yeah it's just like there's a reason why like very few people make it through a season without any kind of one break or uh some kind of nagging injury getting them you know so

um if you i think it's a pretty unrealistic expectation for people to come into and say, well, I won't get injured. Like it's going to happen. Especially if your goal I think is to achieve any – like any respectable level of whole body strength and it's just the amount of work that it's going to take to get there. I mean maybe you can be an outlier and maybe you won't really run into anything. But if you're kind of in the middle of that curve, there's going to get there. I mean, maybe, maybe you can be an outlier and maybe you won't really run into anything, but if you're kind of in the middle of that curve, there's going to be something. I mean, I myself have run into little things, nothing, nothing major, but you know, some biceps tendonitis and, you know, a few things that I had to address. Like I saw a physical therapist and worked through and changed my training to, cause I didn't want it to turn into something worse, you know?

therapist and work through and change my training to, because I didn't want it to turn into something worse, you know? Yeah, well, you're going to kind of have this line of, you know, like your injury risk is going to be like kind of here or kind of, I can't do my hands with it, but it's going to be like kind of here. Yeah. Your strength is going to be going up and then at a certain point, they're going to go like this. Yeah.

Right? So, because once you get to a certain point of strength, your, and musculature, your ability to make progress is going to slow way down. And it's going to require a disproportionate amount that. Okay, work so hard that you can make some progress, but not so much that it causes you to be injured. Right. And that can be just one of those things of are you going to go for that PR today or not? Or are you going to, whether it be if you're doing heavy one or two rep stuff or even if it's higher rep. But, I mean, it's just that point where you're gonna have to push yourself outside it's it's if it's if you're if you're staying within your comfort zone that can work in the beginning but there's a point where now there's no more adaptation yeah exactly like and that's that's the point is

if you're going to want to progress past a certain point you have to push yourself past that point i mean it's it's i know there are people out there say oh you just do one set to failure you can just do low volume or it just the the plethora of scientific data we have as well as the anecdotal of what you see becoming elite very much argues with that you know like most people who you know build a lot of muscle or build a lot of strength they do a lot of work you know there's a lot of there's a lot of training involved in terms of just time invested you know and um it's not always the case but um especially with people who are drug free like if you're drug free you're just

not going to build you're not going to optimize your muscle mass by doing very low volume that's not it's not going to happen right and so you're going to you're going to run it like every time you get under the bar or low intensity right yeah so every time you get every time you get under the bar there's a there's a probability you can get injured and the more times you get under the bar, there's a probability you can get injured. And the more times you get under that bar, the chances it's going to happen go up. So, yeah, it's, you know, I would say I've had a pretty average career injury-wise in that, you know, I've lifted really hard for about 15 years. And I've had, I think, like four major injuries, I would say. and I've had, I think, like four major injuries, I would say.

And, yeah, so an injury like that every three to four years I think is pretty reasonable. But, you know, some people would say that's injury prone. I tend to think that it's pretty much average. A lot of them have occurred later in my career you know and part of that's probably two things i'm 35 now i probably don't recover quite as well as i did when i was younger and uh and two um just because i'm at that advanced level it takes so much work to get past that that whenever i start doing that much work like i have there's been no powerlifting meet i've gone into in the last five years where I didn't

have something that was bothering me, you know, like whether it was a tight hamstring or it was a, um, my lower back was acting up or, you know, my, um, my shoulder was giving me problems or whatever it is. Like there was always something. So people who, I think people have this false idea that like, they're going to go, lift crazy heavy, go to a powerlifting meet and feel amazing. And it's like, you talk to MMA fighters,

MMA fighters are like, yeah, funny thing, to get ready for a fight, you need to fight. But when you fight, you get hurt. So it's about... I think it's common among all sports.

Really, everybody, you know, and it's like one of those little sports cliches, you know, everyone plays hurt, like suck it up kind of thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's exactly right. And there's a difference between being hurt and being injured. Right.

You know, like I can handle pain or nagging, inflammation, that kind of stuff. That's all stuff you can work around, work through it. But, you know, when you're actually hurt, or when you're actually injured, that's when it really sucks. Right. So to that point, do you want to quickly – well, I think we should start with some preventatives, maybe common mistakes that you see people that are not as experienced as you are that lead to – so they move through the hurt phase. They're moving – and they don't address it correctly and then that leads to an injury as opposed to the freak injury that like why the – where did that come from? Yeah, I mean you can definitely – I've had both where it was like I had something on and off and I didn't really address it, and then it became a big deal.

And I also had something just out of left field. You know, I think the biggest thing is, honestly, I think one of the biggest things people can do themselves is go see a sports-specific physical therapist before they get hurt and have them just look at your movements. Because I learned so much going to uh my friend jamie alombra here in tampa like um i just there were so many things she just picked out from one session that i'd never even thought about you know and i i had a similar experience with a guy named rob collawine in, uh, he's in Clearwater.

You might find him interesting. He's 37 years. He was a professional soccer player before super smart guy, very sharp, same thing. Just actually, it was a couple of months ago where, um, he exactly, you're talking about, he showed, you know, a couple of structural things that were off that, you know, uh, we're, we're leading to, cause I tend to get tightness in the bicipital groove in my right side. And, and he was able to look at anyway. So there was what I found interesting about him is he also could demonstrate it to me. He wasn't just, he wasn't one just going to treat the inflammation. He was able to show me some underlying causes like, okay, look, your collarbone doesn't have

a full range of motion. It's supposed to be able to do this. It can't do this watch. So here, uh, if your collarbone put your arm in this position it's supposed to be here he'd press it down but it's not and so he would like say resist my arm and i couldn't and it's just weakness right and he said okay look if i if i depress your collarbone if i push it down into the position it's supposed to be in watch then now strong and so he was able to point out a few things and then address it with just some almost like ART basically. Just digging into it, uncomfortable, but it worked. I mean, it immediately helped.

So I think that's a great tip where I wish, you know, I would have done that really honestly probably in the beginning. And then because I grew up playing sports, playing ice hockey and stuff, I've had tightness up here. I can remember it at 15 years old. Yeah. So this is something that maybe it finally kind of hit me now, but it could have been addressed a long time ago. Yeah, for sure. I mean going into Jamie, Jamie worked more with me on like movement patterns.

She's like you activate your core't she's like you activate your core but you're just activating your abdominals you're not activating your obliques oh interesting activate your obliques when you squat you know because that's going to give you you know side to side control and we worked on that we worked on a lot of other things um you know in terms of hip stuff she just changed it like i always had hip shift on squat so i would shift to the left when i would squat and um you know she just had me like close off my stance a little bit like put my feet more forward and um and do some glute activation exercises and boom like within two weeks it was gone wow no and i was just like god like how how and i like at the

time i couldn't even squat 135 with my hip injury i couldn't squat 135 without without like an eight out of ten pain you know and i had two cortisone shots i had high dose like 2400 milligrams of ibuprofen a day like all kinds of stuff and nothing touched it you know and um just going to her for two weeks i was able to put 135 on the bar and not have pain wow which i thought was pretty incredible yeah it was just changing the way i moved you know like unfortunately people kind of want the like okay like give me the pill or give me the shot or you know and i was guilty that's a certain extent and even we were even like they thought i had bursitis which now i'm pretty sure i didn't have bursitis and they were talking about like oh yeah let's do a bursectomy and take your bursa

sack out and like yeah i started thinking i'm like all right well if it comes to that okay but i'm like maybe i should get a second opinion before i go pulling stuff out of me you know i mean like that if that's inflamed yeah i, I could make a difference, make me feel better. But, you know, that's also there for a reason. So I'd rather not take it out if I don't have to. And probably I think just avoiding surgeries, if at all possible, is smart because talking about probabilities, I mean, there's a non-zero chance when you get put under that you don't come back.

I mean, it's a real thing. Not to be morbid but that's one of those things. It happens. It happens every year. Well, not even that. Like if you look at like lower back surgeries, they have a horrible success rate, like absolutely horrible. Most people – this is – I'm regurgitating this from Dr. Stuart McGill but I read his book called The Back Mechanic. regurgitating this from Dr. Stuart McGill, but I read his book called The Back Mechanic.

And he said that the majority of people, if you just, they don't actually improve from back surgery. What happens is they're forced to take 12 weeks of not using their lower back. And then they have to do the rehabilitation work. And so they get better, but they think it was the surgery when in reality, if they'd just taken 12 weeks off and done the rehabilitation work, they would have gotten the same outcome, you know and uh you know there are some cases where you need back surgery like would be like if you've got like some kind of you know herniated disc where it's cutting off the nerve supply and you're risking permanent nerve damage right like that's a big deal you've got to fix that right you know um but yeah like most times when people get back or or like any kind of spinal surgery um you know it's kind of because i i herniated two discs in my neck

when i was younger playing rugby and um you know they're like oh we can do surgery confuse the disc together but the surgeon was like it's just gonna you're gonna have the same problem in a few years like in 10 20 years you have the same problem he's like try physical therapy first and did that within six months like I was I was back you know so yeah it's just you know I'm not trying to say like I told like for example some people are like are so against surgery that it's insane you know like right I remember I tore my pec. I tore my pec full thickness tear inside the muscle. And I had people saying, oh, just get ART or do electrical stim or whatever.

I'm like, no. The muscle's not going to pull itself back up to the tendon. No, that's not how it works. That needs to be fixed. Otherwise, there's always going to be deformity there you know yeah um but yeah like some other things you know like an acl tear like that's just not going to fix itself you know you have to get that fixed um but you know things that are inflammatory in nature or you know some kind of strain or pull or whatever you know a lot of times physical therapy can can can solve that and in the case of like you know discs in your back like i

said at least from my understanding of things when you get a disfusion you're not really solving the problem you're just kind of alleviating the symptoms for for a period of time and then they're going to come back anyway. So what's the point? Yeah, and most Americans, too, from the data I've seen, I think something like 60% of Americans have disc herniations. After the age of 35, 60% have disc herniations in their lower back. They're just asymptomatic, because if it's not pressing on a nerve, you won't feel it. Yeah, I remember reading about that, because I had written an article about lower back stuff and came across that. Yeah, so I definitely would tell people like try to get physical therapy first and find someone who works with athletes.

And if you can find somebody who works with specifically what you do, like Jamie, she's a weightlifter herself. So she does Olympic lifting and powerlifting so like it was nice to have somebody who was not going to be like oh we'll just stop lifting weights you know yeah um it was nice to have somebody who was um looking at from the perspective of he's going to lift weights whether i like it or not and so we need to get him in a place where he's lifting weights as safely as possible right and that was the same like the guy who did my pec tear surgery he was the same way like he was actually kind of meathead which was great yeah um and he was great surgeon um man huge if you're in the midwest and you need any kind of orthopedic surgery

dr michael corcoran at kk orthopedopedics in KKK Illinois cannot recommend him enough for anything in the shoulder area like amazing like I don't you can't even like my the judges two years later like when I was competing they were trying to pick out which pec I had torn they couldn't figure it out didn't know which one it was um i just got a little tiny score scar so you know when it comes to that stuff like if you got to get surgery find the best person i mean i realize insurance comes in and everything but don't just like necessarily take the first referral like find in your area like who who do the pro sports teams go to yes like who's their best guy you know what i mean like i consider going to dr james andrews because he does a lot of that stuff you know um yeah but you know you you got to find if this is really important to you

especially if your insurance covers it find the best person like get the best help you can you know because there's a reason that they're the leaders in their field there's a reason the pro sports teams who print money have chosen them to do it. Like this Michael Corcoran, he was the surgeon for the Chicago Bears. In fact, most of the pec tears he'd done previous to that were on NFL football players. You know, they get pec tears from, like, reaching out, trying to grab somebody and tackle. That makes sense. Actually, what you find out, most muscle tears aren't from, like, tension. Like, the amount of weight is from stretch, you know, like somebody just

stretches really quick and that's what causes it to tear. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. That's how I found, uh, I've worked with a couple of physical therapists and that was exactly what I did. So who do the, I want to find like, who are the professional athlete, who are the professional teams around here? Who do they go and see for stuff? Cause I figured, so I worked with one guy who he worked with professional baseball players and also with um olympic weightlifters actually yeah stuff like that where because I know this guy has to be able to get results or they just get someone else who can so that exactly yeah athletes aren't the most patient people in the world so exactly um sports teams I mean sports teams they're trotting people out there nfl teams who have no business being out

there in the field and somehow they still patch them together enough to perform yeah it's pretty sports teams, they're trotting people out there, NFL teams who have no business being out there in the field and somehow they're able to patch them together enough to perform. Yeah. It's pretty incredible. Totally. I agree. So, so back to the, and so let's, let's look at preventative here. So what are the, some of the signs and, you know, symptoms that people, cause you know, something I get asked about is what's the difference between just something that's uncomfortable, but you just keep pushing and it's that that's what you should do versus, okay, this is, this is pain that is indicating that something is wrong and you shouldn't try to push through that. Uh, it doesn't

mean you have to necessarily have to make any major changes, but it might just mean for this workout right now, there's something going on, uh, that it would be smarter to back off it, either less weight or just try to exercise or whatever. Yeah. At least from my conversation with physical therapists, and again, I'm not an expert on injuries. This is just what I'm talking about. If you have something that's more than a four out of ten pain that persists for more than

a couple of weeks, you need to get it looked at. It's not going to resolve itself on its own. Now, if you've got something that's nagging, like our bicep tendonitis, we both probably have a similar thing where mine feels like there's something wrong with my shoulder, but it's actually my bicep is inflamed. That bothers me, but it's like a 2 or 3 out of 10.

It's just very annoying you know yeah um and it's when i bench press so that's exactly how i do i need to stop training probably not but just trying to work around it yeah and then doing you know any kind of rehab exercises to try to to strengthen the area and make space in that groove. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I went through. So I, what I, what worked well for me was, um, sticking with dumbbells for a little bit, getting off the barbell and then doing, doing some ART. And then also I saw this other PT that, uh, helped him with some structural, it's like some interesting shit that basically was one part of my diaphragm wasn't contracting

the way that it should, which then causes core instability. And that actually funny enough, why that is, is when I was a teenager for like one year, I was on the computer a lot. Like I was in school, whatever, I'd play this video game at night. Right. And I would sit on my chair with my right leg up and I would, and I would just have my body resting against it. So the right side of my diaphragm would just always be in this, you know, compacted position and not able to actually, yep. And from that point on, I would sometimes get, you know, when I would be skating and shit playing hockey, I would get some discomfort in the right side of my diaphragm. And it's always been like that sense. And so I

wasn't surprised when he was like, Oh yeah, I mean, this is, this is this part of your, and he was able to demonstrate it to me in terms of balance so like he just put my feet in a position and i had just he's like don't let me push you over and from this side the side of my diaphragm just wasn't contracting correctly it would prevent my core from contracting correctly and then the other side you'd say see the difference here is okay other side and i was totally stable and so for that he like got a rubber wedge and dug into my diaphragm, which was pretty uncomfortable, but just like bringing it alive, like, come on work. Right. And then, uh, and that, and then that was it. And he was okay. Watch. And then now in the same

position, I could feel now my core contracting and stabilizing me. So he couldn't push me over. So it's pretty wild. I know. I know. Like that's the same thing with Jamie just showed me some just showed me some of these banded exercise where I'm thinking this isn't going to do anything. And then two weeks later, I can actually squat again. It's like, okay, well, I guess they have a doctorate in this for a reason. Yeah. And especially if you're not used to it because you're used to like pushing, pulling, squatting heavy weight. And then so now you're playing around with rubber bands what it feels like but yeah exactly well i did like that like she was having me do like some stiff or some romanian deadlifts single leg romanian deadlifts

and i went to grab the 10 pound delos and she's like what are you doing i'm like what do you mean she's like grab the 50s she's like that, that's not going to do anything for you. I was like, oh, okay, all right. So usually, you know, when I think of PTs, I'm thinking like pink dumbbells and weird exercises. No, she actually had me like lift weights, like actually lift weights, you know. That's good. That was good, but yeah. Anything else from a preventative perspective, even relating maybe to form and technique, progression, any lessons you've learned? Yeah, I mean mean technique is huge you know learning especially with major exercises learning how to engage your core properly like your core is what protects your spine you know people people you know for squat and deadlift they give the cue for you to arch your lower back well

you're arching your lower back doesn't do anything if you're not bracing your core. Your core is actually what protects your spine. It's your body's natural belt. So learning how to do that is a huge thing. Learning how to, you know, on pressing exercises like retracting your scapula, you know, those sorts of things. Not getting over protracted, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of different things. And then also mobility work like i neglected mobility work for years and now i now i now i do quite a bit of it you

know because i'm trying to make up for all those years of neglecting it yeah i have a little routine as well that now i do it twice a week yeah like doing some dynamic stretching and mobility work before you train and then if you need some static stretching, doing that after you train. Also being as far as when you train. Like some days I wish I could go back and be like, dude, you don't have it today. Take 5% off and just get your volume in and then get out. But unfortunately that –

but it is that mentality that makes you really good at something, the push, push, push, push, push. It also gets you in trouble. But if you don't have that mentality that makes you really good at something, the push, push, push, push, push, it also gets you in trouble. But if you don't have that mentality, maybe you never get to that level. So it's, it's, it's a tough, it is a really tough balancing act, you know, because you're wondering, is this, am I just, is this a psychological, am I tricking myself or am I actually, you know, in a sense, you know, understanding my body and just sensing there's, this is, this doesn't feel right and I should just back off? It can be hard to know. Yeah, absolutely.

It's a very, very fine line and there's usually not a defined year to tell you what to do so i do think in the future we're going to have um you know more metrics to where we can tell like if like a like bar velocity devices for example like you know you can tell oh that that's 80 of your max but that only moved at a 0.2 meters per second or usually it moves 0.28 like you don't have it today let's Let's back off a little bit. Some objective markers as opposed to just a perceptive RPE scale, those sorts of things. Although RPE can be really useful, I really like objective measurements because, for example, like me, I'm such a slow grinding squatter, for example. I will always perceive a high level of effort,

even on something that's relatively light, you know? So, um, using the RPE scale for me is very difficult because if I do like an eight RPE feels really heavy to me. Um, whereas other people are like, Oh yeah, eight RPE, no big deal. I'm like, man, that's eight RPE is really hard. You know? So I had, I had the same thing with squatting in particular. I mean, I'm not, I, that's eight RPE is really hard, you know? So I have the same thing with squatting in particular. I mean, I'm not, I've never been nearly as strong as you are. But I've, I've run into the same thing where even, even going through warmups and stuff where I, I just by RPE, I'm thinking like, this is going to suck when I start, I start

adding weight, but actually it, it, it, it plays out fine. I'm able to do exactly what I want it to do. It just felt like it was gonna it's way fucking harder than uh the rp seemed disproportionately high for what i was actually capable of doing that day oh absolutely yeah i'm like i said that's pretty much me every day like i was we actually had a bar the velocity device uh one day and i was like, compared to other lifters who were much lower than me in terms of, um, skill level or strength, um, all of them were squatting 135, 225, 315 faster than I was, you know, like, yeah, even up to like three 350, they were all still faster than me.

It wasn't until I got to like 405, 450, that sort of thing, like basically to where they couldn't do it anymore before I was faster than them. So yeah, I always perceived that high level of effort. You think that's just technique or you think it's just more anatomy for you, how biomechanics? I think biomechanics more so just because i'm so long my legs are so long that i have such a long squat stroke like if you look at how far the bar actually has to travel for me to get to parallel versus other people it's disgusting i know so i have the same long femurs is uh have fun fun have fun squatting

also i have long arms have fun pressing oh yeah good downlifter though probably yeah exactly that's been my best exactly that's all i got i always say powerlifting is pretty fair because if you got one thing usually you got you know something else is better like it's true but that's why the best powerlifters are you know relatively short femur, pretty long shin, long arms for deadlifting, but long proportionally in the forearm and very short in the upper arm because the upper arm is the part you have to clear for bench press. So like if you've ever seen Ed Cohn, who's one of the, if not the greatest powerlifter of all time, he looks like he has gorilla forearms i mean they look stupid they're so long like his hands hang down by his knees you know but his biceps end up up here yes yeah like his his upper arm

is very he actually looks really weird if you see me i love ed cohen he's super sweet guy yeah but he looks really weird if you see him in person you know like because he's got these super long arms but they're all from here down. He just built for weightlifting. Yeah, exactly. He did have a little bit longer femur than probably your optimal squatter, but his lower back was just so damn strong it didn't matter. So, yeah, it's definitely like it's interesting to see who the best lifters are. Like Christoph Wiesbeke, i may be saying his name wrong but

he's the the hundred the current uh 231 pound ipf uh world record holder like he i think he deadlifted something like 865 at 231 you know drug free and uh like if you look where his lockout is his lockout is barely above his knees you know like it barely has to clear his knees um and then he still but he still bench presses like in the the mid fours you know it's pretty insane that is insane uh what about what about related things related to recovery so because there's also there's a lot of talk and a lot of speculation on just over training and what what is at what point what is over training evenining even? Is it even real? Blah, blah, blah. We don't have to dive into that per se, but I think recovery is something that's a bit more, it's a bit easier to talk about. And there are definitely symptoms. I mean, and I know

this just from talking with people that symptoms of where they're not like they haven't, let's say they haven't deloaded in a while. There's a point where we all get there. If you push yourself, there are things you can objectively, well, it is subjective, but it's pretty obvious. You can go, cool. This is, this is what I'm, even if you're not looking at heart rate variability, if you're not getting fancy about it, um, point that point where you're like, I'm no longer, I need to, I need, I need to take, I need to, you know, take a week off or deload for a week, or, you know, I'm just not recovering. Maybe it's not sleeping enough. The reason why it could be something else, but anything to add on that in terms of just symptoms of under-recovering? I think if you're always having high RPEs, you know,

very high rate of perceived effort, um, even with weights that you should be relatively easy. I think if you're getting some, some decrements in strength in strength, you know, even though your training volume is high, if you're like soreness that just kind of rolls from one workout into another, you know, and doesn't seem to have any kind of catch up. If you're feeling worn down constantly, but all those are very subjective. constantly but it all those are very subjective you know like there was a somebody posted something the other day they were like do you feel like your physique looks better in the morning do you get tired in the mid-afternoon do you feel like you're dragging through the day you know this and that and then bob said good you're normal like like that like you should feel that way that's how most people feel right like it doesn't mean you have adrenal fatigue or all these other you know things that people make up yeah um so yeah like because at a certain point like i had somebody like oh yeah i've just been training really hard and i'm tired all the

time this and that i'm like well couldn't you just be tired all the time because you're training really hard yeah like has that ever crossed your mind you know um so it's you know people say oh, you know, people say, oh, you know, when you exercise, you have so much energy. And it's like, well, yeah, I think if you're like recreationally exercising. I think the key word there is exercise. Yeah, sure. Yeah. You're not like doing like a 12-week overreaching. Yeah, training.

There's a difference between exercise and training. Right. You know? Like, yeah, when you're doing like a 12 week overreaching powerlifting cycle like you are going to feel like garbage by the end like it's going to suck like i remember three weeks out from raw nationals in 2014 i was supposed to go in and do like deadlift singles with 660 and my best pull is 705 so really it's going to be difficult but it shouldn't be that bad and it was like the most awful experience i've ever had in the gym like it was taking me like five seconds for the bar to break the floor you know like it

was just yeah i was just it was taking me like 15 minutes in between each in between each single because i was just like having to be like come on you know it was just so terrible feeling you know but then i got to the meet i did great you know because you taper like when you when you I was just like having to be like, come on. It was just so terrible feeling. But then I got to the meet and I did great because you taper like when you – and that's the point. It's like overreaching is different than overtraining. Overtraining is a chronic condition. That's – as far as I know, it's hard to really do. I mean you have to – It's really hard.

Most of the people who lift weights are not going to get there because it's – people who do that are like triathletes and people who just train with enormous amounts of training volume. Us weightlifters like to think we're tough but at the end of the day like – That's a good point. You're in the gym like an hour, two hours, three hours. Yeah. Resting a few – resting – half the time is resting anyway. Yeah, more than half the time is resting. These guys are training like all day. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's just – I think – and the notion that you can overtrain to the point where you have like – where it causes you to lose muscle mass, that's just never been shown. Like it's just never been shown, never been demonstrated. I think you can start to see performance decrements where your strength goes down in the short term yeah but like i said if you i mean for powerlifting we we we like purposely do that you know we like purposely over train or overreach and then a week away from the meet we we taper and we super compensate and you get like a it's like a rubber band effect you know it's just understanding the differences between uh i bad, I feel a little bad versus just chronically being beaten down. Yeah, yeah. And to that point, just to everybody listening, I mean in terms of deloading and frequency and so forth, it kind of depends how you're kind of, you know, on a strength program of, or at least that may be a hybrid program. Me personally, I find that if I deload every six to eight weeks, I, that keeps me sometime.

And I, I find I probably could go longer, but that's what I do personally. And I never run into, I mean, sometimes by that sixth or eighth week, eighth week, I'm noticing like what you're talking about lane, where the, what I notice is that the weight that I normally would be, you know, what I'm trying to, what I'm working with starts to feel very heavy. That's one of the first things that I noticed and, uh, abnormally so. And so everybody listening, that's what I do personally, every 68 weeks, I kind of try to preempt it a little bit. I just find for my body that tends to work well and that keeps me progressing and I don't really fight I don't dig myself into a into a hole if I if I do that yeah I mean I'm I probably push it a little bit past

where I should but that's you know I'm looking I compete in powerlifting and whatnot like that's I'm just I'm just an Instagram model I'm not a real yeah if you're just looking to get stronger and and not do that then you probably you're probably better off preemptively doing it because it reduces your injury risk. So when you're sore and you're tight and you can't move as well because you're a little overreached, like that's when that's better or worst chance for an injury to occur. Right, yeah. Okay, good. So I think that's – I think those was a major point in terms of preventative. Is there anything else that I didn't think of or that you feel it should be touched on?

Not really. Just, you know, pay attention. Yeah. Okay, good. And don't try to say, oh, that probably won't matter. It's probably going to matter. I agree. say, oh, that probably won't matter. It's probably going to matter. I agree. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on

social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. Twitter at Muscle for Life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Okay, so now let's shift gears to, and this is where some of, I mean, what you've been dealing with in the last year and a half or so is going to be very relevant. So an injury has occurred, this isn't discomfort, this is an actual injury. How have you gone about working around it? injury. Um, how have you gone about working around it? Um, and even, I mean, I just know, again, from talking to people, even getting, just having it explained that it's one that it's not just because you got hurt. Doesn't again, like you were saying, if we look at it statistically, uh, if you do this for long enough, something is going to happen. Um, you don't have to go in the

gym every day thinking about it. But just, you know, don't. The point is, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are being stupid or doing anything particularly wrong. Sometimes shit just happens. Exactly. So there's the don't get down on yourself of like, oh, I fucked this up. And it's just because I'm bad at this or whatever. So there's that that is encouraging just to know, OK, so this happened.

And shouldn't be particularly surprised that this happened. Maybe even you could have done something to prevent it from happening. Okay, fine. But now going from here, you talked a bit about what has helped in terms of seeing a good sports doctor, which I think is great advice. But now in the gym, how have you kind of worked around some of the injuries that you've run into? And are there any kind of like general lessons that can be kind of – Yeah, I mean I try to look for exercises that I can substitute that are close that will allow me to maintain more of my adaptation, more of my strength, more of my muscle. And how has that played out specifically?

Because what – so you've had – you've run into some hip issues, some – Yep, lower back. Lower back and some – spine yeah okay so for me like um the squatting in particular like uh when i was getting ready for worlds in 2015 like 12 weeks out i really started having some lower back issues and i kept trying to work through them kept trying to work through them and just got to the point where i just couldn't work through them anymore i decided to take three weeks off of squats and I just did leg press, you know, because leg press did not aggravate my lower back injury. Was leg press as good as squats? No, but it was better than doing

nothing. So I did leg press for three weeks, you know, with the same or similar volume and intensity as I would on squatting. And, you know, when I went back to squatting, yes, I was weaker, but I hadn't lost that much. So by substituting that exercise, I was able to keep more of my adaptation. But my rule is like if there's any pain after like an actual acute injury, if I try to substitute something and there's any pain, I don't do it. Find it. You want something that just feels good. That's what you're looking for i tore my pec and i

repaired everything you better believe i wasn't in there like oh i can probably do some pec flies or whatever like no way i got a new you baby that thing you know but um yeah like the hip injury like i tried to keep squatting it was just any hip movement at all, leg press, whatever. It didn't matter. Like that just hurt. The only thing that didn't hurt was leg extensions and leg curls. So I did leg extensions and leg curls. I was going to ask on that for the squatting.

Did you also add some hamstring stuff in that didn't bother you? Yeah. So and then like glute ham raises, those sorts of things. I did a lot of good mornings because that's a little bit – well, if you talk to the internet that's why i do anyway for squats so um but you know that's that's because because you because you you're low bar yeah exactly same no i know that's just what's comfortable me i don't know so i've had people like oh what the fuck why are you why are you so hunched over like look at look at my shoulders and my hips they're rising at the same that's just how i squat yeah i mean i'm fucking tall and i have like the bar low what do you want from me

yeah well well like that's the thing like people say why don't you high bar squat because you can be more upright i always have to lean forward if i high bar squat because now my fulcrum is longer like i just fold over same i just completely fold that's exactly what happens to me yeah so if low bar squat, just by moving it down a few inches. Yeah. I start out more forward, but I'm able to maintain that position. You know, it's just much more comfortable for me. And, you know, people, I always say, you know, I'm unaware of any good morning where the hips go below the knees, but if you ever find one, let know you know so but yeah it's

it's you know that's another thing is finding the technique that works for you you know I injured my lower back much more often when I was high bar squatting you know it's a low bar it was much better I was able to lift more weight so yeah finding technique that works for you and you know understanding that you know you're an individual your body type in terms of your structure as an individual and you should try to find what is most comfortable you know and that goes right down to like the shoes you wear the belt you wear if you wear a belt you know whatever it is like find what you're most comfortable in yeah yeah that's a good point

i mean i found that squat shoes makes quite a difference for me huge difference it just it makes it yeah i mean i i can i'm immediately i don't know 10 stronger uh just because i feel so much more stable and i was surprised when i first made that switch i was like wow i would not have expected that actually yeah what kind of use uh adidas just uh adi powers yeah the adi powers yeah so a little bit more aggressive heel but yeah those like your feet feel like you're pouring the concrete you know like they're so stable and you can really torque and dig them into the ground i like it oh yeah and and if you if people are out there have never like squatted in an actual pair of shoes that's meant for squatting and you do it you just be absolutely blown away by the difference yeah you will never squat in anything else again yep exactly yeah first time i was sold i was like well i You'll never squat in anything else again. Exactly. First time I was sold, I was like,

well, I'm never squatting in anything else other than this. I had a really interesting debate with Joe Donnelly on Twitter. We actually usually get along, but he said, well, I'm an athlete. I squat in my sneakers or whatever. I said, okay, well, you played NFL football. Did you play NFL football in sneakers?

He didn't really have a comeback to that. No, you played in the shoes that are good for football right exactly you're gonna play in spikes because you've got more control and that's what makes sense for football you're not playing in sneakers right yeah well same thing for lifting weights like why would i not use the foot attire that is most uh i mean suitable to what you're doing i mean it's like, I wouldn't play basketball in my squat shoes, you know, I wouldn't do that. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, like, but I would squat in them. So totally. And regarding form also one thing just, or not form, but finding what

works best for you. I think if you want to just quickly talk about just as a quick aside, dead lifting, cause I guess, I don't know why sumo deadlifting has become like a thing. Like everybody, you know, it's like, you're cool if you're, if you're sumo deadlifting and you're somehow like – you're just not really – you're not up to speed if you're just – Well, it's funny because for a while everybody said sumo was cheating. Yeah. You do cheater sumo. I mean I think – I don't know. Maybe my guess is you have like some of these random like Instagram, YouTube people.

A few of them I think sumo and it became a thing that sumo is the way to go. Well, it does look cooler when you approach the bar and it kind of looks more badass. Yeah, and you're all like – Yeah, exactly. But no, I mean some people are going to be better conventional pullers and some people are going to be better sumo pullers. And that's – the people that say sumo is cheating because it's a shorter range of motion. pullers and that's you know the people that say sumo is cheating because it's a shorter range of motion if sumo was inherently easier every person at a powerlifting meet would pull sumo nobody is going to handicap themselves like that is just not going to happen you know like you know benedict

magnuson did not pull conventional and pull uh 1015 pounds because he was like oh i want to show how much even more badass i am by pulling conventional,015 pounds because he was like, oh, I want to show how much even more badass I am by pulling conventional. No, it's because he was stronger that way. And that kind of just comes down again to how your body is built, right? Yeah, yeah. And what muscles of yours are stronger? If you're more posterior chain dominant and you're longer arm, then probably conventional is going to be something that's good for you. If you're a little more quad dominant, you know, quad and hip and, uh, and a little bit shorter arms, you know, you're probably better at sumo. Well, I, like me personally, I'm about the same at both. Like I've pulled a 700 conventional and I, my best pull a sumo in the gym is 715. So, you know, I'm about the same.

What do you prefer? I prefer sumo. Just because it's, my lower back is a little more upright. And I tend to not have as many soft tissue injuries with sumo as I do with conventional. But, I mean, again, it's not that one's better than the other. Like, they both have advantages

and disadvantages. I mean, if you were going to do a standing high jump, you wouldn't spread your legs as wide as possible and then try to jump, right? You would put both feet under you and you would jump. So when you're in a conventional position with both feet under you, you have much more power you can generate. Well, but you have to pull the bar further. Sumo, it's a shorter range of motion, but you have much less power. So it just depends on like what is try both figure out what works better for you yeah yeah i mean that's been my advice people

is find what's most comfortable and what are you strongest that like if you do better at one or the other and it feels good then just do that exactly um okay so back to you mentioning you mentioned when you had the hip the hip issue So I assume that meant no deadlifting for some period of time as well, and you were working around that? I actually was able to deadlift. Oh, okay. Sumo was a little uncomfortable, but I was able to conventional deadlift with pretty much no pain. I did have one day where it acted up on me, but other than that, pretty much no pain for conventional. So I did a lot of actual conventional deadlifting during that time.

I see. And if you had to – if you would have had to drop pulling from your routine, how would you – and this is something I get asked fairly frequently because it's – there's not some simple like, sure, if you can go from a squat to a leg press and like you were saying, it will do a pretty good job maintaining things. But it's not as easy with deadlifting. It's not just like, oh, yeah, just go do this one. I would say probably like a barbell hip thrust and then some kind of direct low back work in terms of like – Like a good morning. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you're going to get pretty close.

So like with a hip injury, you can do a good morning and you can probably do a hip thrust. pretty close so like with a hip injury you can do a good morning and you could probably do a hip thrust so um yeah like those would be you'd be getting like activating quite a few of the same muscles because it's basically like the same movement cut in two you know yeah uh but uh but yeah obviously like the best thing is if you can deadlift, but that's not always possible. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so then you had run into some issues with pressing as well. Is that related to your neck or is that related more to the biceps tendonitis and so forth? Both, but like my neck – so I've had this injury for probably 15 years and it's mostly due to like it acts up when i sleep on it wrong you know like i'll wake up the next day and i'll feel my right trap just get really tight like

it's still you can see me like digging on this chair yeah yeah um we're we're uh it's like psychosomatic like we're kind of triggering all sometimes you talk about your shit, I'll get that to you sometimes, like, my neck feels kind of tight now. Yeah, exactly, so, but, yeah, so like,

two herniated discs, and just if I sleep on it wrong, get them a little bit out of position, they hit that nerve, yeah, my right trap gets crazy tight, and then I'll just lose strength on this side, like,

over the course of about six weeks, I'll usually lose like 25, 30% of my strength on this side, and then over the next six weeks, I'll usually lose 25-30% of my strength on this side. Wow. Then over the next six to 12 weeks, it'll all come back. It's been the trend before. I'm hoping I'm getting about four weeks into this current aggravation. I'm hoping it's going to start getting better at some point because right now, it sucks

because I was starting to look at meats again and now it's acting up. It is what it is. So if you're not able to bench press, I mean there's an obvious alternative of dumbbell pressing. What have you done to work around like, okay, I have to get off the bench for X period of time. Here's what I'm going to do as an alternative. Yeah, I still do a little bit of bench just because it doesn't – it seems to be the sleep that aggravates it, not the bench press. Yeah, I still do a little bit of bench just because it doesn't – it seems to be the sleep that aggravates it, not the bench press. But I'll do more dumbbells.

But I'll do a lot of flies actually because flies – so it's the C6, C7 disc, which is to your right tricep. And so it's my tricep that's actually weak. And so like if I take the tricep out of it like flies, there's almost no difference in strength. So I'll do a lot of flies. How do you like to do? Do you like dumbbell flies or do you like cable flies, low, high, mid? Mostly cable. And then where do you like in terms of position?

Do you like low? Do you like medium, high? Usually medium or high. Okay. And I'll just like – my gym is old school. It only has the high ones, so I just kind of bend over a little more. Oh, okay. Get the angle. Do it that way.

Yeah. Yeah, so – because that's going to be – it's not obviously a press, but it's something. You can maintain your hypertrophy, and then hopefully when you come back, it's more just a neural adaptation of getting to learn the movement again. Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Well, I think we've, we've covered a lot. Is there, are there any other, any other tips that you would, you would share for getting through injuries? Um, in terms of, I mean, it can be changing your training or even, even treatment options that have, that have helped for you. You know, I'd say, like I said, biggest thing I can say is find a

physical therapist and work with them before you get injured. You know, identify'd say, like I said, the biggest thing I can say is find a physical therapist and work with them before you get injured. Identify the movement patterns that are predisposing you to injury before you get injured. And like I'll say this, but nobody will do it because nobody wants to spend the money. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'll second that. I mean it's money well spent. I wish I would have worked with this guy. It sounds like you,

the lady that you worked with is also, is even a bit different, which is cool looking at movement patterns. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I'll second that. It's not,

I think I maybe spent a few hundred dollars max with this guy and it helped and I would still be going. I mean, he's in Florida. I'm in Virginia. I'd still be going. I'd see him every week until it wouldn't have to be forever, but you know, I was able, I was only able to get in a few sessions with him and it actually helped

markedly and he gave me a little mobility routine to do that I do now. So, and I agree that, I mean, I think this is, I would like to see this, just mobility becoming more popular, but because the problem right now is, okay, so if you want to, if you want to dive into it, you're probably going to end up with, you know, becoming a supple leopard. And if, but if you're like most people, you're going to jump into that book and you're going to get confused really quickly. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of jargon and it doesn't really, it's kind of just like an encyclopedia. So it doesn't have a prescriptive, okay, you know, uh, Mr. John or Jane Doe, you're starting weightlifting here. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's hard because it is, you know, it's very individual, but like, that's why I liked the back mechanic. Um, it

gives you, okay, well here's some diagnostic tests you can do on yourself to try and figure out what's going on yeah and then if you have x here's these exercises to do and if you have y here's these exercises yeah yeah seem to have made a pretty big difference for me yeah and i mean i'll throw out there i think for with mobility stuff too you'll know you've hit on something when you see you should see pretty rapid improvements i mean this is i'm just this is me just kind of regurgitating what the physical therapists I've worked with have said that, you know, within, within two or three weeks, you should notice a significant improvement if you hit on, if you've hit on the right thing. Absolutely. That's been my experience for sure. Yeah. So it's, it's not something that you should, you know, Oh, well you're just gonna

have to grind away for four months and then maybe it'll be a little bit better. Like, no, not at all. Yeah, exactly. Like that's, uh, within a few weeks, if you're not seeing some improvement, then they're looking in the wrong spot. Totally. Um, okay, great. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's a pretty comprehensive discussion. Let's end off with, tell us a bit about, so in your, what do you, what do you have? Your, your big push right now is Avatar Nutrition, right? Yep. Do you want to tell everybody what that is? Yeah.

So I've done coaching for years and years. I was an online coach before everybody on Instagram was an online coach. Literally everybody. Yeah, literally everybody. Did a show, got third. Here's my online coaching plans. Chicken, oatmeal, and maybe – and then if you want to get really shredded, tilapia and asparagus. Yeah.

So what you learn is when you coach one-on-one that there's only so many people you can get to per unit time. Sure. When I was just doing coaching, that was 100% of my business. The most people I could handle at any one time was around – it under a hundred you know it's a lot of people and it was a lot of people a lot of people and that was with spreading the updates out over seven days and all that kind of stuff and like i enjoyed it but it was all my time you know and it's like all right it's very hard to make a difference in the world if you're only working with 100 people at a time you know but i wrote articles and I put all this stuff out there.

But I had the opportunity to basically – this guy Mark Springer came to me with this idea. He said, why can't we automate your coaching? Why can't we basically take what you do and put it into a computer system that can predict things and make changes? And I'm like, I don't know how you do that without the human element. changes and I'm like I don't know how you do that without the human element but we basically like we have we have like now like the original logic was like two pages long and now we have something like 50 pages of equations and logic to basically like any scenario you can imagine that's come they can come up in coaching we've pretty much tried to account for it and can you tell us a bit more about that so this is specifically on the diet side of things right yeah so basically like if you if you went to avatar what would happen is

you you put in your information height weight sex you know kind of your body type even though that's a little bit uh your body fat more represents body composition i'm assuming yeah yeah you're exactly your body fat there's a lot of there's probably about a dozen different metrics you're putting in, and then it will generate custom macronutrient recommendations for you based on your goal. Now we have four different goals you can select from, fat loss, muscle gain, reverse dieting, and maintenance. Except for maintenance, the way maintenance works is there's a tolerable range right um so that's how maintenance works and it will lower or raise your calories depending on how you're fluctuating yeah um but you know like within reverse dieting muscle gain fat fat loss there's four different levels for every goal, right? So you have, you know, so slow fat loss, moderate, fast, extreme, you know, we try to steer people away from the extreme. But yeah, it can be it can be applicable. Someone's very overweight, probably, right? Like, so

we need to cut their body fat percentage in half just to even get in the gym. And we try to give like a tutorial in that, like it says this is this it's targeting this much weight loss per week and this is what we recommend you know like those sorts of things. But yeah like you know it's even gotten down to but like really where the true value is it's not with them it's it's a macro calculator yes but there's plenty of those out there. Exactly. But it's it's adaptive to you so if it found like let's say it prescribed you – like what are your maintenance calories, Mike, would you say? About 2,800 is my – So you're pretty average I would say, maybe a little bit above average for your weight.

But like let's say the system predicted that, oh, your maintenance calories are 2,200 based on the information you put in. Now, if you know your maintenance calories, there's an option to put them in and it will override some of the other data that you've entered, right? But if you didn't know, but it was 2,800, and the system predicted 2,200 for whatever reason, you'd probably lose a lot of weight your first week. And then it would be smart and be like, okay, that was not right, obviously. But what happened at first when we first came out with it was we would have two bigger fluctuations in numbers right because it'd be it would be like oh um the first week it was targeting 1.5 pounds of fat loss but they lost three pounds so obviously they're under eating by 750 calories per day well that pound and a half that could have been water that could have been a lot of stuff so we've put in so many constraints

on it that it kind of smoothed out a lot of the big fluctuate because like muscle gain for example like if you're on a slow muscle gain like a conservative muscle gain trying to limit body fat i mean you might be targeting like a one pound gain per month you know what i mean but within that month like each week it might be look something like went up two pounds went down a pound and a half went up another two pounds went down a pound and a half right and so if the system was responding so much like you just end up chasing your tail right so we had to put also do it make meal planning tough and yeah so you'd be constantly reworking and re-measuring food and stuff exactly so we we put a lot of constraints on the system especially in that first week where a lot of fluctuations can happen that, you know,

it kind of does that. But like, even like, for example, we, we spent three weeks coming up with a logic for the menstrual cycle for females, you know, because like we, we had to make it so that when women gained weight on fat loss, because the menstrual cycle that we could account for that, you know, there's a lot, a lot of different different things but it works really well um you know i'm using it right now and i document my progress on it and i'll even before i enter my update in the avatar i'll say okay as a coach i think i would do this in this situation and pretty much every time it's done exactly what i said it was going to do so it's pretty cool to see that and um you know at ten dollars a month it's a pretty pretty good steal you know it's a lot less than that. And, you know, at $10 a month, it's a pretty good steal.

Yeah, it's a lot less than a coach. Right, exactly. I mean, some people, I've seen people charging anywhere from, I don't know, $40 to $80 just to give someone macros, which I think is ridiculous. Like, you know what I mean? Just here, here are your macros. Like, well, there's this calculator. You can do that yourself. You don't need to pay $50 for one time.

Oh, here are macros. Well, we have some companies that kind of do what we do that are free apps and that sort of thing. But again, what I tell people is I'm like, okay, well, I didn't write the algorithm. You know what I mean? Not that – my partner is Katie Cole is one of my partners. She's a master's in nutrition and a registered dietitian. So you've got two people with a really heavy science background as well as a coaching background, you know, working on this thing and trying to optimize it. So it's a big difference, you know. That's what I'm saying. It's a lot more than just, hey, here are macros.

Right. Yeah. So one time as well, where you go from here is up to you. Totally. So like the adjustments make a big difference. We have a Facebook page that's, you know, huge for support. We have full-time customer support staff. We have four full-time member success people is what we call them. My marketing guy would get on my ass about calling them customer support if you found that out. Over here, it's customer experience. Member success, we call them. We're doing great. We have thousands and thousands of members.

Awesome. Like I said, there will always be a place for personalized coaching because some people just want that one-on-one experience and to have somebody who has that nuance and just the, the, the individual support, you know, but, um, And also you can obviously dive more into the nutritional side of things as well. If you're working one-on-one, um, in terms of optimizing, not just macro new, but micronutrition as well, like, you know, where, okay, that's great that the macros are where they need to be, but how are you getting these calories and could that be improved uh you know yeah so we we we have plans to do a lot of stuff with the system we're actually right now in the process of redesigning a lot of it and building it back up from the ground floor but yeah it's i think it's

something that you know like and our goal is to actually help good coaches like we want to build a coaching yeah makes sense platform as well um but we want to build a coaching platform as well, but we want to put the bad ones out of business. Like I said, at $10 a month, it's a really great option for people who don't have $100 to spend on a high-level coach every month. An app is probably a pretty obvious addition as well.

Yeah, we're definitely going to do apps. That's being worked on. It's a long story, but we had two companies screw us out of a lot of money, not do the work. For apps in particular? Yeah, yeah, and web development. I don't know what your experience with web development is, but my experience, most web developers are scammers. They're really bad. It can be bad.

I can share a few things when we're done that might help but i i've gone through some of that shit myself as well what we did was we just ended up hiring our own team you know and had them on staff and that's made a huge difference like we've had two guys that have gotten through way more because they're invested you know they're part of the company yeah it's not some it's not some like uh essentially it's your cto it's not just like some dude and you know it doesn't really give a fuck exactly and that's that's what it was people who just didn't give a fuck you know they they uh like they stole probably

god i don't want to say it but two hundred thousand dollars of our money if not more and uh you know they charged us for hours they They never even worked, you know. And then when we went, I don't mind saying their names either, Type 2 Designs in Tampa. Fuck you guys. And I can say that because they're getting sued by four companies currently. So the really bad sign is that we're not going to get our money back because, you know, even if we sued them, like, we're not going to get paid. You know, like, we're fifth in line. So, yeah, but we just kind of were like, well, Frank Sinatra quote, best revenge is massive success. So let's just succeed massively. So that's what we're trying

to do. Cool. And so I assume the URL is avatarnutrition.com. Yep. You got it. Okay, great way. I highly recommend everybody, everybody go check it out. Um, again, it's, uh, I like that. I like there's an ongoing element to it. It because, like you said, there are plenty of macro calculators out there, but they end right there. And then if you want to hire someone to do what Lane's software does, it's going to be a lot more than $10 a month. Exactly. Okay, awesome. Well, anything else, Lane, that you want to let everybody know? Any upcoming projects or is that pretty much – that's your –

Anything else, Lane, that you want to let everybody know? Any upcoming projects or is that pretty much that's your – I also have a member site as well on BioLane, which is more completely educational stuff. I do a webinar every month. It's like $15 a month and what you get for doing a webinar every month would be worth that in and of itself. But we also have articles. We have videos. be worth that in and of itself. But we also have articles, we have videos, we have video series of my comeback and my work. And yeah, it's a pretty cool deal. It's a nice compliment. It's not a coaching thing, but it's for people who are a little bit more advanced and really want that

next level of knowledge. Okay. And that's biolane.com, right? Biolane.com. But we do have free articles on there as well. Okay. And that's biolane.com, right? Biolane.com. But we do have free articles on there as well. Cool. Okay. All right. Great. Well, that's everything. Then again, I thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I think people are going to appreciate the discussion. It touches on a lot of things I get asked about a lot. So that's why I thought it'd be worth getting you on the podcast to go over it. Absolutely. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. 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.