Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Mark Rippetoe on Accessory Exercises You Should (and Shouldn’t) Be Doing

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

What’s the best way to get big and strong? Some people say that the only way to get big is to get strong, and the best way to get strong is to stick to the big lifts. Do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting, and you’ll naturally get bigger as you gain strength. In other words, anything that’s not the squat, bench press, overhead press, and deadlift is a more or less a waste of time and effort. On the flip side of the coin, some claim that if you want to get big, you need to blast your muscles with tons of reps on isolation exercises to really concretize the “mind-muscle connection” and gain size. In fact, they claim, you don’t have to do any compound lifts to get bigger and doing big lifts like deadlifts and squats cause more fatigue than necessary, limiting how much work you can do on accessory exercises. Who’s right? As is usually the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and in this episode, I speak with Mark Rippetoe on the best ways to incorporate assistance exercises in a strength training routine. I thought Mark would be a good guest because while we agree on many things, we don’t always see perfectly eye to eye when it comes to training for aesthetics (or wanting a six-pack). In fact, Mark didn’t agree with my approach to the programming in the latest edition of my book for intermediate and advanced weightlifters, Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger, and I thought this could make for an interesting discussion. In this episode, Mark and I discuss . . . Movement patterns versus assistance exercises Exercises that really move the needle when it comes to muscle growth The value of barbell curls and lying triceps extensions Why and how to incorporate rack pulls Halted and wide-grip deadlifts Overhead squats and good mornings The importance of trap and ab training And more . . . So, if you want to learn about effective assistance work you can incorporate into your routine, this is an episode you don’t want to miss. Hit play and let me know what you think! 7:19 - Should you put accessory exercises into your program? 38:36 - What about variations like rack pulls or Romanian deadlifts? 38:23 - How and why should someone put a rack pull into their program? 43:19 - What’s the point of the halted reps? 49:01 - What about overhead squats? 51:36 - Is the good morning a good assistance exercise? 52:25 - Do you recommend any direct trap training? 54:29 - Do you recommend any ab training or anything directly for the core muscles? --- Mentioned on The Show: Mark Rippetoe's Website: www.startingstrength.com Mark Rippetoe's Podcast: www.startingstrength.com/radio Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://legionathletics.com/coaching/ --- Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Hey there, I'm Mike Matthews. This is Muscle for Life. Welcome to another episode. Thank you for joining me today for an interview I did with the godfather of gains, the sovereign of strength, and the ripper of toes, Mark Ripoteau, my good friend and always entertaining guest to talk about, well, getting bigger and stronger, of course. But specifically, we talk about accessory exercises, exercises other than the big three or big four, if you will, you know, the squat, the deadlift, the bench, and the overhead press. And this interview came about because I asked Mark to check out and blurb, if he liked it, my newest book, the new second

edition of Beyond to Be Greener and Stronger. And he came back to me and he was like, Mac, I'm sorry, man, but I can't blurb the book because I don't agree with it. And that, by the way, was after Googling how to do a Texan accent. So that's the best I've got. I'm going to stick to my day job. And specifically though, what Mark objected to was the variety of exercises that are in the Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program. For example, you do the barbell back squat, but you also do the barbell front squat and the leg press and a couple of different lunges and some hamstring curls. And then there is the traditional barbell deadlift, the conventional deadlift in the program, as well as the trap bar deadlift and the sumo deadlift and the Romanian deadlift and so forth. And so I wanted to get Mark on the show to give his

opinions on what exercises are worthwhile in addition to the basic squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press, because we all know those are great exercises. At this point, I think it's fair to say if you are not doing those exercises regularly or a very similar variation of them regularly, you are not going to be gaining muscle and strength as quickly and efficiently as possible. You certainly can gain plenty of muscle and strength without deadlifting, squatting, benching, or overhead pressing. But if you can do those exercises, you are going to get to the finish line faster. So there's no real debate on that. However, are those the only exercises you need to get as big and strong as possible mark would say mostly yes that you don't need to do much else there are a couple of other exercises

that are worth doing like chins and barbell curls and a few others that he's going to talk about in this interview but for the most part just get a big squat get a big squat, get a big deadlift, get a big bench press and a big overhead press, and you're done. You are going to be jacked and you are going to be strong and you are probably not going to get much bigger or stronger no matter what you do, no matter how many exercise variations you employ or how you try to fiddle with your programming. Now, Mark is not wrong. The decades of results that people have gotten with his starting strength and practical programming books and programs speak for themselves. His approach works. However, if we are talking about the average guy or gal who wants to

go from normal or maybe even worse than normal to, let's say, super fit, I think it makes a lot of sense to include accessory exercises in the mix. I think it makes a lot of sense to squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, and do other exercises that Mark would dismiss as unproductive and unnecessary if he were to be nice about it. And so, such is the theme of today's episode, where Mark and I talk about several things. We talk about movement patterns and training movement patterns versus just doing accessory exercises. We talk about some of Mark's approved assistance or accessory exercises like barbell curls and lying triceps extensions and chin-ups. We talk a bit about rack pulls, halted and wide grip deadlifts. So some interesting variations of exercises that

you don't see many people doing in most gyms. If you do, there are probably Olympic lifters 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-N.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'll 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. Marky Mark is back. Marky Mark and the ferocious bunch.

The ferocious bunch. I bet Wahlberg really cringes every time he sees that. Maybe. 30 years ago. But, I mean, he was the shit back then. I think I listened to my Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch tape until, it was either that or Criss Cross, until it broke and I had to buy it again. I have to admit, I never bought one of his records, but he is a hell of a good actor.

Yeah. He shows up in shape. He's a good actor, technically a very good actor. I mean, fuck, it's hard to be pissed off at the guy. He's kind of like an Arnold. He worked hard. I mean, he came from nothing. That's right.

Well, let's see if we can get this podcast on track, which is- Yeah, let's get back on track today. Which is, let's talk about less common, but exercises that I would say are still effective and give people listening some context. We were speaking about a week or so ago about this new book that I have coming out. It's a second edition of a book that I have for experienced weightlifters, I guess you could say. And I asked if you could check it out and give me a blurb if you liked it. And you said you couldn't because you didn't agree with the training approach because it's very different than what you teach. And I totally

understand, but I thought it'd make for a good discussion because the big difference is really just the additional exercises, the bodybuilding stuff that I've added on top of the basic barbell movements. In the program, obviously people are barbell squatting and they're barbell deadlifting and they're barbell bench pressing and barbell overhead pressing, but they're also doing other, you could say accessory exercises or isolation exercises.

So I thought this would make for an interesting discussion and get your take on how necessary do you think that stuff is? And just to quickly summarize why I think it is useful is if you have someone, the book is written for, it's called Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. So it's obviously targeted toward men, although there's actually a lot of good information in there that women could benefit from as well. But it's written specifically to men who, let's say that they've gained 70, maybe 80% of their potential muscle and strength, which I think that to put a number to that in most guys, that's probably in terms of muscle,

25 pounds or so of lean muscle, not weight, but lean muscle tissue, maybe a little bit more. And that guy doesn't need probably more than what's in my book for beginners or novices, bigger, leaner, stronger, which is more in line with starting strength. It really just kind of revolves around the big heavy lifts. There is some accessory work, but as you know, there's not that much in addition to it. However, in beyond bigger, leaner, stronger, it's that's for the guy who he's been doing bigger, leaner, stronger stronger he's done well with it but now he's at a plateau and as i talk about in the book my understanding both of the scientific literature and and having now worked with many people and a lot of at least training experience myself as well

is the primary lever that you can pull to get the needle moving again is volume. Basically, you just got to start working harder in the gym. So whereas a newbie can get by with nine to maybe 12 hard sets per major muscle group per week, somebody more advanced is going to need more. They might need 15 or even as high as 20, depending on how they respond. And so when you need that much volume to get the training stimulus, get enough of a training stimulus to drive the last, let extra volume into your biceps and your triceps and your shoulders and even your chest. And I would say even probably some of your back, if we were talking only deadlifting. So yeah, I think that's a good little preamble for people to understand what you're now going to talk about and understand a basic summary of my position. Let me go ahead and state that there is a basic delineation here

between the way I think about these things and the way you think about these things. Yep. I think about movement distinctions as irrelevant in terms of movement patterns, because whatever muscles need to be incorporated into the movement pattern, the skeleton does that for you. Yes, you can't squat without your quads and your glutes and your hamstrings and your adductors and your calves and your low back muscles. So what we focus on is trying to tailor the movement pattern in a way that allows us to lift the heaviest amount of weight because that's what strength is. And then whatever happens to the muscle groups that are involved in that movement pattern happens. And we're not specifically concerned

with anything except maximizing the amount of weight on the bar. And in doing so, what we do is maximize the efficiency of the use of the most valuable pieces of the kinetic chain to moving the greatest amount of weight. So we don't ever talk about anything except the movement patterns. In our way of thinking about this, since we're only concerned about a movement pattern, like a squat or a deadlift or a press or a bench press, we are concerned about adding five pounds to the weight that you lifted next workout. And that's the only thing we're concerned about. And what we have found is that when this takes place, then you grow, you get bigger, your muscles get bigger because that's how they adapt to lifting heavier and heavier weights. different from ours in that it does take aesthetics into account is a recognition of the fact that the best way to get these big important muscles bigger is to lift heavier weights with them. Since our concern is strength, I don't see a role for assistance exercises, especially for more than one or two assistance exercises for the first six to nine

months of a guy's training i think that if you take your deadlift from 225 to 495 over the course of nine months or a year or a year and a half then everything involved in the deadlift gets bigger. Your traps, your shoulders, your lats, your hips, your neck, all of these things that are aesthetically important to the male physique all grow without needing any assistance exercise to help do it. Do you think that's the case with the lats in particular? Yes, I do. I mean, they in particular because yes i do i mean they're involved in the deadlift but they're probably oh god yes they're very involved in the deadlift they're much more engaged though in something like a pull-up right or even a lap sure but a pull-up is only with your body weight well you can weight it though you can weight it but if you think that the lats are not involved in a 495 deadlift, then you have never

tried to deadlift with a lat injury. But it's a different type of involvement, right? Because it's more isometric in nature. You're not getting it is isometric in nature and that's its role for stabilizing. It's a stabilizing muscle. Now it's also used in a pull-up, but how do you use it with heavier weight with a deadlift or can you weighted chin up for 95? Well, but you can target, you can target the lats though, with an appropriate weight for them. And you can do sets of five or six. Sure you can, but see here again, I don't care about the lats. I care about the deadlift. I care about the movement pattern, picking something real heavy up off the ground. Now the lats are involved in that. And what you're saying though, is you don't need extra developed lats to be able to do that. You just need them to be as

developed as they need to be to do it. No, I have never seen a big, strong deadlifter with small lats, or I've never seen, I've never known an accomplished power lifter. That's deadlifting 800 pounds that thought that weighted chins had anything whatsoever to do with his lat with his deadlift. Now, Larry Pacifico used to use a whole bunch of assistance exercise. He basically did a bunch of bodybuilding type stuff along with his power lifting, but he did a whole bunch of other stuff too. And it's hard to separate the effects of, of being strong enough to deadlift 800 from, uh,

you know, 300 pound lat pull now. Yeah. I mean, you're already dealing with a genetic freak to begin. You're dealing with a big, strong man. How did he get strong by the lat pulls or the deadlift?

Yeah. I would say the deadlifts were the tool. You look at big, strong power lifters that don't do any chin-ups, that don't do any direct lat work. All of them have big lats because the lats are extremely important in the deadlift. And we've analyzed. In fact, we're probably the only ones that ever have analyzed the actual mechanics of the use of the lats in a deadlift off the floor. They're terribly important. They stabilize the bar over the balance point, over the middle of the foot.

They're intimately involved. Yeah. Anybody listening, if you want to experience that, if you don't prepare at the bottom and engage your lats, like I like to think of squeezing, it could be tennis balls or oranges in between my armpits, right? Like kind of like I'm squishing them and having my shoulders down and in place. That position makes such a big difference when you're coming off the ground than if your lats, if your shoulders are kind of forward and your arms a little bit away from your body and your lats aren't engaged. The way we teach the deadlift, again, you know, it's popular to talk about the glutes all of a sudden for some bizarre reason. Everybody needs to think about their glutes when they squat, when they deadlift. You need to think about the squat when you squat. You need to think about

what you're going to do with the bar and the glutes will take care of themselves. Every single time the glutes will take care of themselves. And when we cue position for the deadlift, the squat, all this other stuff, we're talking about skeletal position. We don't talk about muscle groups because it's just not necessary. It's not only not necessary, it's inefficient. The movement pattern is what we're concerned about. So we cue the things. Because it's going to happen happen naturally the muscles are going to do what they need to do you get to the top of the squat your glutes are going to have done work they are going to have

extended the hip yeah yes stand up guess what happened with the glutes stand up guess what the quads did yep this sort of thing so you don't micro there's too many muscles involved in in fact that's why we use those exercises so much muscle mass and so many muscle groups involved in it you can't babysit them all anyway and if you focus on one of them it's going to be at the expense of some piece of the movement pattern that you did not concentrate on. And the movement pattern is the key because the movement pattern utilizes the skeleton, which is moved by the little motors that we call the muscles. The system of levers called the skeleton is moved by the system of motors called the muscles. And if you move the barbell correctly, using the skeletal positions correctly, then the muscles that do those jobs will have done them

correctly. It's just much more efficient to not think about muscle groups. And a person can get a very long way up into his potential strength without doing any assistance exercises whatsoever. And the experience of myself and lots and lots of very good coaches that thinking about muscle groups during the time that you should be thinking about the movement pattern is that reduces the efficiency with which you move the bar. Yeah. Well, people will talk about the mind muscle connection, right? Which. Right.

We're talking about the mind movement. Yeah. That's probably a better way to think about it. I'm not concerned about my biceps. Which I was going to use that as an example. If I'm doing biceps curls, I am going to focus on my biceps because that's what I'm doing. Sure. Sure. And don't get me wrong. I mean, I've got barbell curls in my book. I understand people need to do barbell curls. I understand that people, in fact, barbell curls,

this is interesting, have proven to be such a useful exercise for older trainees. And I'm talking about 75 year old people because a standing barbell curl for a person that old that can't do a lot of other stuff becomes a total body exercise. So I'm not shitting on barbell curls. I understand people are going to do them. I have a better way to do them, I think, than anybody else's described. What's your way? I use aspects of both elbow flexion and shoulder flexion. I want both movement patterns and I want you to lean back as you come up. I want to involve as much. So it sounds like something that somebody would say, oh, that's bad form. Yeah, it's not because you're not isolating your biceps.

Well, why the hell do you want to isolate your biceps? Because they got to get bigger. Well, they're going to get bigger anyway, because you know what you're going to do? You're going to get your curl up to 225 if you do it heavy. And guess what happens to the biceps when you're curling 225? They get a lot more work than they do if you're only doing 95. And you're throwing in a whole bunch of other muscle mass and making a heavy barbell, standing barbell curl into what is actually a very useful exercise. But for somebody just starting off in training, it's not necessary. And it takes time that is got to be spent in the gym doing other stuff that's more

productive for a person at that point in their training. So what this discussion basically boils down to is the things that you are telling people to do with your assistance exercises apply to everyone after they've been training a certain length of time. to everyone after they've been training a certain length of time, but they don't apply to anybody who's just starting off. And that would be our primary departure. I would say though, that take somebody year one, if they are doing just the big barbell movements, I agree.

They're going to do great. They're going to gain a lot of muscle and strength. There might be an appreciable difference if they also were doing some assistant work for certain muscle groups that like take the shoulders, for example, take not just the front deltoids, but the other two as well, or take lats might actually be another decent example. Biceps, probably a good example, where if you have the person doing their squatting and their deadlifting and their pressing and they're getting good volume in on those exercises

and you have them do a bit of extra volume for these muscle groups that get kind of indirect volume, not as direct as the pecs gets, for example, like the triceps and shoulders, of course, are involved. Even lats are a little bit involved in the bench press, but it's direct pec volume and it's kind of indirect volume on the other muscle groups. So if you give those other muscle groups direct volume, I would think that at the end of year one, that person is going to have a bit more in the way of just overall muscle development. And probably for many guys getting

into working out, I'd say maybe not with the primary goal of getting as strong as possible. They want to get strong, but they also want to look a certain way. So it has that bodybuilder element to it that they will probably be a little bit happier with the results with the bodybuilder stuff added in. Do you disagree? I think that if you will get aesthetic results more effectively by going up on your bench press than by doing dumbbell flies. Dumbbell flies can't be done heavy enough to benefit the bench press. But if you take your bench from 135 to 315, what's happened to your chest? No, I'd agree there. But what about the triceps though? That's the basic analysis I've got. What about the triceps though? So let's say you're doing the benching or the benching plus you're doing, you know, maybe some press downs or some. Press downs are useless. I

think that the best tricep exercise is the one that, and let's go back to Pacifico. Pacifico had an exercise and I've got this one in the book. It's the lying triceps extension. It's done on a bench. It's done with heavy weight. You start at the top, the skull crusher, right? But behind the head.

Yeah. So that is good exercise. So that the exercise, so that the bar path is longer and a bar path comes out of the bottom of the range of motion with a combination of triceps and lats. In other words, once again, we're trying to involve as much muscle mass into that assistance exercise as we possibly can in order that we can lift heavier weights with the muscles involved, because that's what makes muscles grow. And the lying triceps extension, the LTE, as it's referred to Pacifico used to call that the fourth power lift. And he had those guys handling way up over 300 pounds with those

things. And I have used it beneficially when I was competing in powerlifting. I think it's an important assistance exercise, but who can benefit from it? A guy benching 135 has no business doing anything except trying to get to 140 on his next workout and then 145 and then 150 and anything else is a distraction. A, B, anything hard enough to make something grow is going to have to be recovered from. And where is it beneficial, more beneficial to spend your recovery, recovering from the bench press or recovering from a bench press assistance exercise? And that's my argument. Now, if you get to the point where we're talking about what do guys like to do in the gym, I was just going to bring that point up as like, well, what about having fun? Okay. That's a different consideration entirely,

isn't it? You know, I understand that guys like to do stuff in the gym. I understand that I've done it myself. I was there once myself. I don't argue with the fact that there is a market for correctly building in a bunch of assistance exercises into a program. Okay. I just don't think that it's optimal. I understand that it's going to be done. I understand what people are going to do. I understand that people like to do barbell curl. I haven't told anybody to not do barbell curls. I've told people to do barbell curls after you get through with your squats, your presses, your bench presses, your deadlifts, and your power cleans. And if you want to do some curls after that, go ahead and do them, but do them right and do them heavy.

And don't do so many that you interfere with the rest of your training. We put chins into the program for novice trainees almost immediately. We chin the first month that everybody's training. I think you need some chin ups. Why? Because it's an important movement pattern. Being able to pull yourself up is an important movement pattern. In terms of the muscle mass, it works.

It's not just lats. It's arms, forearms, it's triceps. It's grip strength work. It's abs, for God's sakes. It's an important, it's the most important assistance exercise. The first one we use with everybody, chins, because it's the most important assistance exercise the first one we use with everybody chance because it's an important movement pattern pulling things toward you it's an important movement pattern right we don't do them for the muscle mass for the for biceps we understand that

biceps are positively affected but we do it because it's an important movement factor, you know, and overweight people can't do them, but very weak people can't do them either. You take a 55 year old lady and get her a chin up. That's important. That's some very useful strength that she now has that she can use in her daily existence. I don't care about her biceps. I could give a fuck about her biceps. We do chin-ups, not pull-ups. We do them with a supine grip. Specifically so, we're involving the biceps, which are not involved in a chin-up. I want a pull-up, right?

Chin-ups are supine, and we want as much, again, as much muscle mass as we can get in the movement pattern so that we're training more muscle mass. But in terms of what people want to do in the gym, I'll just go ahead and say right up front, your workout makes a hell of a lot more sense than mine because mine's boring. Although I will say, I'll say still, I mean, I joke with the marketing again. The program is meant for, and we're on the same page with people who they have already built a foundation of muscle and strength, and they're going to have to work really hard to gain whatever's left to them in terms of, and this is primarily muscles. That's again, you pointed this out early on that your focus is strength and performance.

My focus is more aesthetic. I don't neglect strength and performance, but it's at least as much aesthetic as it is strength and performance. And so you would expect the programming to differ. What I expect is that people have different expectations coming to the program, depending on what they're trying to get out of it. the program, depending on what they're trying to get out of it. If a person's motivations are primarily aesthetic, that person is going to expect more separate muscle mass work. I'm not going to try to pretend that I can educate everyone to understand that if you get your deadlift up to 405, all of the aesthetics that you're going to try to get with barbell curls

and a bunch of shoulder shrugs and dumbbell flies and forearm work are going to be there without your having done all those assistance exercises. It's too hard for people to understand that because they haven't had that experience. They'll learn it eventually anyway. If you get your deadlift big, then probably the deadlift is even more important than the squat in terms of aesthetic changes for the male body. Because all of the things that you look at in a male, in a muscular male, are the result of the deadlift. What you see, if I take a skinny kid at 155 and I get him up to 190 and I get his deadlift up to

405, 455, and I look at him in a shirt, these people will hang around with a shirt on. I look at him in a shirt. These people don't hang around with a shirt on. I look at him in a shirt. I'm going to see broader shoulders. I'm going to see traps. I'm going to see a bigger neck. I'm going to see muscular looking forearms and hands. And I'm going to see lats. That's what I see with the man standing there in a shirt. And that's deadlift. That means deadlift.

And if you try to do all of that stuff with assistance exercises, you'll get part of it, but it doesn't look the same. You don't have the same chest depth. And it's not as, I'd say it's not as efficient and it's not as fun. It's fun to get strong on the deadlift. It's not particularly fun to get strong in the lat pull down or seated cable row. You just do it. No, you're right. It's not as fun. It's fun to get strong on the deadlift. It's not particularly fun to get strong in the lat pull down or seated cable row. You just do it. No, you're right.

It's not. It's hard to get strong on assistance exercises because they just don't move up in a linear fashion for a long period of time. You can get your deadlift stronger for 15 years. How long can you improve your lat pull? Yeah. Six weeks, you know, six weeks, eight weeks, and then you plateau and then you go do something else. You cycle off to another exercise you've invented. This is the difference between assistance exercises and the basic movements. Basic movements can be trained for a very long time. They can be trained productively for years. And that's why, I mean, in this new book, those are what I'm terming the primary exercises

and saying these are the most important. These are the ones you have to get stronger on. Because they can be trained. You don't exercise them. You train them. You produce results on them for years and years. So our boy Chase Lindley here. Chase started training with us when he was 12.

He's a little fair-haired child with type 1 diabetes. Last month, Chase did a standing press out of the rack with 370 at a body weight of 245. No dumbbell flies were involved in that. He's never done an assistance5. No dumbbell flies. We're involved in that. He's never done an assistance exercise. He's pressed. He's benched. That's all he does because that's all that's necessary.

And Chase, God help me for saying this. Chase is a big, strong, impressive kid. He's a good kid. He's 22. He's a starting strength coach now. We're all very proud of Chase. We raised him at the gym and he's our son. Basically, he has proven better than anybody else.

The fact that if you just get under the bar and do the work that you get great, big and strong. He's got about a 38 inch waist, about a 60 inch chest, and he doesn't know where the dumbbell rack is. And it's just an interesting observation. If you stick with exercises that are trained, you know, you just don't need much of anything else. Now he does some curls every once in a while. He does, you know, he's weighted chins. He does a bunch of weight on weighted chins. He's up over a hundred pounds. So there are a few assistance exercises, but he's built that impressive male physique with just training the basic exercises and not much of anything else. And remember this kid's type one diabetic.

I've heard from many people over the years and worked with them virtually. And I'm trying to think if there's one who didn't one for one, they figured out a way to make it work. It was usually they had to, you know, they paid attention to their carbohydrate intake and. Yeah. He said to learn how to manipulate his food and stuff. He has problems gaining weight because if he eats a whole bunch of food, it fucks his insulin levels up. And so he's accomplished quite a bit with, uh, with just paying attention to the exercises he could train and not worrying about the stuff you have to just exercise for a little while.

Mike, I used to do all of this assistant stuff. I did back extensions and glute ham raises for years. Are you ashamed? Years and years. No, I did them for a year because this is before I had learned to think the way I do now about what is training and what is exercise. I would get on the glute ham machine for a while and say, you know, I'm going to move these things up. And I'd got up to the heaviest weighted glute ham all the way up in the air that I've ever done

was, I think I probably did 185 for a set of five one time. And the problem with assistance exercises that involve isolation like this is they always expose a joint to unsupported stress. Now, if you look at the way the knee is constructed, you've got the ACL and the PCL. And then you lay down on the glute ham bench. on the glute ham bench and the thigh is supported by the pad and the heels catch under the rollers in the back. You push on the plate and pushing on the plate, the plantar flexion allows you to convert what would stop on just a simple hyperextension bench into a glued ham where you can flex the hips and come up into a vertical position with your torso. Now it's obvious that you can do that without any weight, but if you really want to make the thing strong, you start holding plates or put a barbell behind,

you know, on top of your traps in the high bar squat position and use that for your resistance. And it's been my experience that you get that thing up to pretty strong weighted glute ham in six or eight weeks. And then it stops because going up anymore is going to bother your knees because now you're into your ACA. I've always had that problem with leg extensions. They just have never felt good to me. Same thing, opposite direction. You know, you just, you, the, the knee is designed to be supported by both hamstring tension and quadricep tension.

Hamstring tension and quadricep tension. And if you make the quads quiet, like you do, you take them out of the movement like you do on a glued ham raise, then the support for the knee becomes one-sided. And now you're into a ligament. And it's just, you just can't train them any heavier than that. But the deadlift, people put weight on their deadlift for years, years and years and years, because you can train the deadlift.

You can train the squat. You can train the press, the bench press. What about some variations then? What about something like rack pulls or Romanian deadlifts? Rack pulls are important. What about something like rack pulls or Romanian deadlift? Rack pulls are important. Like I said earlier, at some point, variations on these major lifts are going to become a staple of your training, but not at first. Right.

No, I don't pull off the floor myself. Now, I just rack pull. I do a low rack pull, which is about the middle of my shin. And, oh, I'm 64 years old. I did 455 the other day for a triple. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a limit set. But, you know, I get beat up easier now that I'm 64, so I just don't do as much work on any of this stuff as I used to.

But the basic strength is still there because I trained it for all those years. And for somebody wondering how they would work a rack pull into their programming or why, what do you have to tell them? Well, what I do is in our program that uses rack pulls is in the book, Practical Programming for Strength Training, third edition, which is available on Amazon or our website. We go into quite a bit of detail on the use of all of these assistance exercises in programs in that book. The blue book, Starting Strength, describes the correct way to perform the movements. And then practical programming shows you how to put those in to training programs when it is appropriate to do so.

programs when it is appropriate to do so. We don't rack pull novices because they don't need to rack pull. They need to do the full range of motion exercise, the deadlift, until they get to deadlift way up heavy. Then we start using the rack pull because it's a shorter range of motion and it's therefore easier to recover from. One bad thing about deadlifts is they beat the shit out of you. They're very, very hard. And that's why we don't use sets across heavy deadlifts. We use one set heavy deadlifts. Deadlifts are harder on you than the squat, even though the range of motion is shorter for various reasons we discuss in the books. And it's been our experience that rack pulls can be recovered from at heavier weights than deadlifts can. So the way I do this is I will put a deadlift off the floor into the work. And then the following week we'll do a rack pull with maybe

75 pounds heavier. It's an every two weeks thing. We deadlift off the floor one week, rack pull off the floor. We might even deadlift off the floor up to just above the knees and back down, which is what we call a halting deadlift and divide that range of motion into two pieces what we call a halting deadlift and divide that range of motion into two pieces with some overlap in the middle. Rack pulls start below the knee and halting deadlifts end above the knee. So there's about four or five inches of overlap in the middle of the range of motion. But if you shorten the range of motion, even with heavier weights, the thing's easier to recover from. And we have found those to be useful for people who are in the intermediate and advanced stages of training for strength. But I have never found lat pulls to be useful for anything.

What about wide grip deadlifts? That's essentially the same thing. A snatch grip deadlift serves the same basic purpose as a deficit deadlift. And that is? It lengthens the range of motion of the pull. Because people will say it helps with ensuring the low back stays neutral. Some people say it's better for improving your grip strength. Well, it's harder to get set up in a position where your back angle is more horizontal. Yeah, it's harder to get set up in a position where your back angle

is more horizontal. Yeah, it's harder to get set up. It's harder to keep the back set in extension in a position like that. Absolutely, it is. I tend to not ever use deficit deadlifts. I've never used them myself, and I don't use them in programming. I administer for anybody, myself and i don't use them in programming i administer for anybody but i understand people do use them snatch grip deadlifts require straps because of the angle with which the the hand approaches the bar so you have to strap those because they're real hard to hold on to. But variations on the main lifts, I call assistance exercises. Exercises that are not variations on the main lifts like chin-ups, back extensions, lying triceps extensions. Those things I refer to as ancillary exercises. Just throw some vocabulary around. So we know what we're talking about. If it's a piece of a normal movement, like a pin press, a partial range of motion press in the rack,

or a partial bench press, those are what I call assistance exercises. Pieces of the deadlift, pieces of the squat, those things are very useful. And I regard them as more useful than ancillary exercises, but sometimes you need to do a barbell curl. Sometimes the spirits just, they just move you, you know, you got to do it. That's right. That's absolutely true. It's just what you have to do. 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. What's the point of the halted reps? It's the bottom of the range of motion of the deadlift. Training that specific part of it. Yes. In other words, you're going to break the deadlift into two pieces. The rack pull is the top piece, the halting where you halt above your knee. You can hold them there for a second. Some guys used to do them like that. That's still a thing. I mean, squats too, like pause squats. That's a thing with some- Pause squats, same thing. But specifically, a halting deadlift is the bottom part of the range of motion of a deadlift.

The rack pull is the top part. And there's some overlap in the middle. And the point in the case of the deadlift that you just said was that it allows you to recover better essentially is what you're going for. What about in the case of the squat or the bench press? Do you think there's any use in pause reps or halted reps? Yeah, I do. Of course I do. I've, in fact, I've got a, uh, I have a video. We have a video about pausing on the box for box squats. Briefly what I, I probably do 95% of my squatting at this point, since I've been injured my knees so many times over the years from doing shit wrong. Amazing how you figure out how to do things right. As a result of hurting yourself. That's kind of like the human condition. That's not just burning your hand on the stove.

Right. Same kind of deal. Those of us that are slow, you know, learn this way, the hard way. So we finally learned that you have to squat with your hips, not your knees. So we finally learned you have to sit back and bend over. So to put most of the stress on the hips so that you don't hurt your knees. Now, I have some form problems, and when I get real heavy on the squat, like a lot of people, I tend to have my back too vertical. This brings my knees forward, and my knees are shitty anymore.

And as a result, I have found the knees won't need the knees are, are delicate at this point. So I have to use a box squat. I use a box squat and I reach back and I pause on the box. And then I concentrate on the hip drive up. And when you do that, you take the rebound out of the movement pattern. That's the reason for the pause. Take the rebound out of the movement pattern, but you also take the rebound off of the knees. And for an old masters guy like me, I think these are quite a

bit safer, especially if you've been training 40 years. Like I have now, when I start a new 65 year old guy showing up squat, correct. But if at any point it becomes his knees get tender, I'll put him on box squats with a pause. And in fact, when I use box squats, I'm about a half inch above parallel. And the reason I'm half inch above parallel is because I've injured my pelvis a couple of times. I've separated my pubic symphysis back about 20 years ago a couple of times. This is the horse wrecks that I've had. I've separated my pubic symphysis.

And if I go down all the way below parallel on these box squats, it irritates my pelvis. So I've had to cut the thing off about a half inch. I've given myself permission to do that because of the injury. I don't give you permission to do that. Those of you listening. Rules are for thee, not for me. Right, right. Rules are for thinking through too.

You know, in a situation where a person's got a bad knee, you've got bony arthritis in your knee. What if though somebody, they don't have any limitations? They don't have any limitations. You need squat below parallel. Is there any value in squat below parallel, pause, stand up? Yeah. Good light day squat work. It's a variation on the lift.

There's value in that. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Good light day squat work. It's a variation on the lift. There's value in that. Yes, absolutely. So that would be one of your accessory exercises. I guess it's an assistance exercise. It's all of the, I got a whole chapter in the book about assistance exercises. In fact, it's the longest chapter in the book. Isn't it fascinating that Ripito understands that assistance exercises are useful, but they have to be applied correctly in the correct situation. And novices don't need any assistance exercise and advanced and intermediate people depend on them.

Kind of like periodization, the same thing. kind of like periodization, the same thing. You periodize a novice, then you are wasting his time and you don't know what you're doing. But if you don't periodize an advanced lifter, you're also wasting his time and you don't know what you're doing. You could say though that starting strength is, I mean, just uses linear periodization, right? Where you just add weight based on the simple system. That's what the novice program is. So you could still say it's periodized, but now I understand what you're saying. Periodization typically refers to some kind of undulating-

Daily, weekly, something like that. Daily percentages based on the ravings of some Russian. I'm not concerned with that. I understand all of that. We're so far past that now that I don't care about Russian periodization. They're idiots. They don't know what they're talking about. We know what we're talking about because we've trained hundreds of thousands of people and it works better our way. America. Then this Smolov or whatever, you know, all this other shit.

What about overhead squats? Overhead squats are for Olympic lifters. Overhead squats with the bar and the snatch grip over your head. That's how you get out of the bottom of a squat snatch. Olympic weightlifters have to front squat also, but nobody else needs to do those. Nobody else needs to do overhead squats. For many people, they find it easier on their knees

and on their back i mean i've experienced it myself for what it's worth no no not overhead front sorry overhead squats for me yeah i mean i don't particularly have knee problems but in the past if my knees have gotten a little bit irritated on the back squat same thing with my back which is not surprising because you're more upright, but. Well, we'll, uh, we'll have to sort that out later. I, the only time I've ever actually injured my knees where they were later, a problem is front squatting because all of the moment arms on the knee and none of it's on the hip, you know, you're loading the knees. I'd rather let my hips help because they're a little bit better designed for that sort of loading. Overhead squats are a shoulder strength exercise.

They don't challenge the squat strength at all. So they're not a squat assistance. They're how you get out of the bottom of a snatch. And front squats the same way. If you're front squatting two and a quarter and back squatting 315, what happens if you get your back squat up to 495? What happened to your front squat? Well, it went up too, but there are special aspects of that position that you encounter when an Olympic lifter catches a clean in the bottom. And the front squat for an Olympic lifter must

be trained just like the back squat must be trained, but it is a mistake that a lot of Olympic lifters make to think that they don't need to train the squat. In other words, put five pounds on it. Every time you, you squat, go up,

make it stronger too. They get so focused on the snatch and clean and jerk that they think that's the only thing that you have to try to challenge without understanding that the ability to do a snatch and a clean and jerk is the ability to display strength. And where is strength most efficiently developed? Well, not in the snatch and the clean and jerk. It's most efficiently developed in the squat, the deadlift, the press, and the bench press. And then you practice the snatch and the clean and jerk and learn how to do those with heavier weights. Because of the technical aspect, because of how much technique is involved, right?

That's right. One more for you. What about the good morning? Good mornings are a valuable assistance exercise. They're actually an ancillary exercise, but yeah, I've used those for years. Used them for lots and lots of people. Once you get your deadlift up over 500, they're valuable. Yeah. But Pizarenko used to do heavy good mornings, but the Russian guys back in the 80s, they were quite adamant about the fact that you really don't need to good

morning more than a hundred kilos. It's an exercise. It's not a, we don't train those. We just do a little back work with them. Yeah. I mean, shit,

I've probably gotten close to that. Cause they won't go up. Yeah. You only get so far, of course. That's right. But they are fairly easy to recover from. They are.

In fact, you know what I mean? There's no range of motion around the knees. Yeah. Not much, anyway. Any direct trap training? I have found that traps, and this is, again, for advanced lifters, once again, once the traps are…

In starting strength, talk about barbell shrug, right? Yeah. Yeah, we use barbell shrugs as a pulling assistance. It's the top part of the deadlift, and's a dynamic movement it's very useful it makes the traps grow too yeah and this is why beginner lifters uh sometimes fall in love with the barbell shrug the barbell shrug the way we do it is a dynamic movement it's like a power clean that you can't rack. And that's the best way I teach it. The power clean that you can't rack. It's heavy enough that you can't rack it. It's a movement pattern that once again is not useful if you're not deadlifting way up over 500 pounds.

But for people like that, for example, barbell shrugs should be performed with weights that are 100 pounds in excess of your deadlift. Some heavy shrugging. Heavy. Heavy. Because doing them light doesn't make any sense. They're a little tiny short range of motion. And they're a fabulous exercise for the stabilizing muscles of the trunk. Because the weight is so heavy. And they start on the pins in the, of the trunk cause the weight is so heavy.

And they start on the pins in the middle of the thigh and they, they finish with a dynamic shrug at the top. Then you set them back down on the pins. Yeah. But to go over to the dumbbell rack and take the 90 pound dumbbells out of the rack and shrug them in that little circle. You see people do it's a, This is what we call masturbation. Masturbation.

A little bit more productive than masturbation, at least you burn some calories. I don't know how you masturbate. Not very vigorously. I burn calories. I'm serious about my masturbation. For me, there's not much romance. It's just a transaction. Yeah.

It's just a quick transaction. Okay. Last one. Last one. Any ab training, anything directly for the core muscles? You know, I don't use the word core unless I put it in scare quotes, because I think it is every fitness guru has got an opinion about the core. And what I have found to be incontrovertible, this is always the case. If you get your squat from 135 up to 315, your core got stronger. If you get your deadlift from two and a quarter up to four Oh five,

your core got stronger. Now people think you have to strengthen the core before you can do all this other stuff. How about if you just squat and deadlift, which is obviously dependent on spinal stability. And if you go up five pounds on your squat and your deadlift, what's happening to your core? Why it's getting strong along with everything else. I don't think that direct ab training is necessary at all.

At all. I don't think back extensions. There was a time when I would probably, I wouldn't completely disagree. I would say that, oh, with some guys that, and this is mostly with guys where their rectus abdominis is just, it's almost underdeveloped and they could develop it maybe a little bit faster with maybe some cable crunches, which maybe they're still, maybe that's not entirely inaccurate actually, but I think it's similar to the fact that some people just like to do some core stuff. It just makes their workout more enjoyable, but I would tend to agree with you more about that.

Well, you know, and I understand now we're back to what would people prefer to do in the gym? I don't know if you notice, but in the new book, there's no direct ab training. I talk about why, because I already anticipate, I think it's in the FAQ. I have one of the questions in there. Why is there no core training? There's a lot of core training. You're squatting, you're deadlifting, you're doing a lot of this stuff. Right, exactly. No, I noticed that. And you and I have spoken about this before, direct core training, sit-ups, crunches, this sort of shit is not necessary because all of those muscles are working very, very hard if you are properly keeping your back in extension. They are counterproductive for a large number of people because, and this is something that's very seldom unappreciated,

the first time a guy tweaks his back, and all humans tweak their backs, everybody tweaks their back. One of the most common human experience. Some people are socialists, some people are capitalists, some people are black, some people are Asian, some people are short, some people are tall, some people are male, some are female. Some people are Asian. Some people are short. Some people are tall. Some people are male. Some are female. There's all kinds of different people, all kinds of different opinions about everything. But the one thing we all have in common is our back is going to hurt.

Our back is going to hurt. Some people's back hurts more than other people's backs. And the best way to keep your back aggravated is to wiggle it around. As your back ages, your discs, your intervertebral discs will desiccate, dry out, thin, and do things and begin to look in a way that it doesn't look like when you're 25. All right. This is just a part of growing old. It is unavoidable. All people over the age of 35, when MRI study is performed on the low back, all people without exception, all people will show degenerative changes in the spine.

This is normal. It's normal to have a bad back. And if the intervertebral discs are thin and desiccated, like they will eventually be for everybody, does it make sense to work the spine in extension and flexion, to wiggle the spine around and expose the intervertebral discs to a bunch of movement that they're no longer capable of dealing with? Or does it make better sense to hold the spine in normal anatomical position and load it in moment so that the muscles that hold it still get the work. I'm telling you, I used to tweak my back all the time. Now my back hurts most of the time. Now it just aches. You know, it's something you get used to. Most of the time now just aches, you know, something you get used to. I'm 64.

I've done a lot of stupid things, but I haven't had a back tweak since I quit doing sit-ups and back extensions. And the conventional wisdom is you have to do that to keep your back from hurting. In my experience and the experience of the people I've advised about this, that if you wiggle your back around, your back won't like it. this, that if you wiggle your back around, your back won't like it. If you load the back isometrically and make the muscles that hold it still stronger, then you're far less likely to hurt your back. Or at least to experience the pain, right?

I actively discourage. Yeah, I actively discourage. I think you're going to expose yourself to far more problems if you do sit-ups and back extensions than if you just deadlift and squat and press. You know how much work Chase is doing with his abs when he presses 370? Think about this. You know, that's just, that's a lot. I mean, it's difficult to understand how much trunk musculature is required to stabilize a 370 overhead press. Yep. Strong boy. No, I don't think you do.

Okay, good. I understand people are going to do them, though, so go ahead and have fun. Maybe some leg raises or something. Maybe some planks. Yeah, something. Whatever you want. Well, that was all my questions for you this Maybe some planks. Yeah, something. Whatever you want. Well, that was all my questions for you this time around.

This was great, though. This was something that we found a discussion that hasn't been beaten to death by either one of us, at least not on our podcast, not on my end, at least. Well, Mike, you're welcome out here anytime. I'm going to make it to one of the seminars. We're just working out. I don't think this September because the final day is my son's birthday, and that weekend is going to be his birthday thing. But October should work just fine. Yeah, we're back here in, I think we're in Denver in October,

and we're back here in December. And for people listening, so let's see, right, schedule. This is going to go up probably in the middle of August. So what do you have coming for seminars over the next, let's say, you know, like what do you have? Do you have something later in August? And then what does September look like? No, we've got, I think we've got camps scheduled more frequently now. scheduled more frequently now. The deadly coronavirus pandemic that has decimated the population of the world has curtailed everybody's travel and has curtailed everybody's ability to

participate in normal daily living like we have been accustomed to doing. So we've cut our schedule way back. We're not traveling much. We're going to Denver in October for a seminar. And all these specific dates are on the website, startingstrength.com under events. We've got camps scheduled for Wichita Falls, but we're not going anywhere except December, the rest of the year to do an actual seminar. September is the next seminar here in Wichita Falls.

Then we're in Denver in October, and then we're back here in December. Probably one, a camp is a shorter event. One of those a month. Okay, and you have coaching camps and you have training camps, right? We have coaching camps. We have camps for the self-sufficient lifter.

How to squat, press, and deadlift by yourself. Things to think about, things to watch for on the video you're going to take you yourself when you're training we teach you how to basically coach yourself to the greatest extent possible and those are one-day camps they're quite affordable and uh we're doing those here in wichita falls. And in our full weekend seminar, that's a big affair. It's a 25-contact-hour event. They're long, and they're grueling, and they're a whole bunch of information. And you've got to kind of have your head ready for that.

And what about the gyms? What about the starting strength gyms? Our starting strength gym program, our franchise program continues to expand. We have four gyms open right now. All of them have recovered back to pre-COVID levels of membership. They're surprising me. I thought we were dead. But people appreciate the fact that when you come in a Starting Strength Gym, everything is normal.

Everything is normal. Everything is normal. And you are handed a way to get stronger that works every single time for every single person that comes in the gym. It's more affordable than personal training, and it's far, far more effective than personal training. We're in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Denver right now and a long, long list of gyms that are about to open up. Our affiliate program is active.

We've lost several gyms due to local governments not understanding about their own tax base, you know, but lots of gyms remain open. We're all struggling. Everybody's struggling with the death of common sense that we have encountered recently. And our gyms are no exception. But I think you'll find that all of our gyms are full of very, very good people. If you want to learn how to do this correctly, that's the place to go.

And that's where people can get coached very affordably, right? That's why you go there. It's not just a gym to go work out at. It's for the coaching. No, no, it's a, it's a gym that uses our methods and our type of equipment. Of course, people can learn about that over at the website to learn about the different locations. about that over at the website to learn about the different locations. You have gyms in, let's see, Texas, obviously. You have, let's see, Connecticut here. You have Maryland. You have Arizona, California. All of those are affiliate gyms and they're all run by good people that we know very well. Any other book projects that you... No,'t got a, another book in me right now. I think that every time we publish, every time we, uh, reprint the book,

there'll be a few changes in it. The third revision of the blue book is as current as probably it needs to be, but all that material has been constantly updated since the thing was first published in 2011. Yeah, I've done the same thing. And it's our final statement on most of this stuff. Cool, man. Your book's doing well, though.

When's the new one come out? Yeah, it's going to be. So it's a bit odd because I have to get the material up in the next couple of days because of an agreement, a deal that I'm doing with Simon & Schuster, and they want a full year in between the signing of the contract and the, well, they want a full year of me not publishing anything before they publish the book that I wrote for them, which is Fitness for the 40-plus Crowd,

Men and Women for People Who Are Brand New to All of This, essentially. And so I have to kind of rush to get this second edition of Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger up, just so I can show them. I got it up by the end of the month. And I have another book that I coauthored with a guy named James Krieger, who you may or may not know, but called Fitness Science Explained. And that also is kind of on the same deadline. So what I'm going to be doing is getting these books up and they're going up in the next couple of days. And then I'm putting together all of the launch related stuff. I'm not going to go

over the top, but I want to at least put some work into it and make it fun and do a giveaway and stuff. So I'm thinking that the Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger launch will probably be ready to begin at the end of August. That's my thinking. Or maybe the beginning of September. And so we'll do that for a couple of weeks. And then I'll probably wait a month or so and do that for the fitness science book. So it's a bit odd to do it that way, but it's okay. Like, I understand why I'm doing it, you know? You know, it's, uh, if you've gotten in with Simon and Schuster, you're going to be on New

York times here pretty soon, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's part of the reason why I did the deal. This is the first traditionally published book for me. And I mean, I don't have to tell you, you know, we're in the same business, you know. Yeah, you know the advantages of self-publishing. Let's start with you make four to five times the amount of money per book sold. You can start there. But if you're self-published, New York Times bestseller list doesn't give a shit about you. They're not going to look at it because they are in deals with the big houses. If you're not with the big house, you're not on New York Times.

We've sold three quarters of a million not on New York Times. We've sold three quarters of a million books and New York Times doesn't even know who it is, which is fine with me. Wonderful group of people like that. True patriots. Yes, true patriots. But yes, there's that element of it. Although I'm not sure how much of that is just kind of vanity versus practical value in terms of building a business and me accomplishing my bigger strategic goals. What is definitely valuable though is publicity,

is media attention. So I'm hoping that this book gets me on the morning shows and just gets me out there in a way that is very hard to accomplish if you're just a hermit sitting in your cave writing books. I mean, it's kind of ironic. I mean, a self-published author like yourself who has sold three quarters of a million books, that's actually much harder to do and much rarer than someone who gets a good book deal with a big publisher, but it's all about the optics. There's obviously still a stigma of sorts in the industry with self-publishing, which I understand. It's because most self-published stuff is awful. I understand that.

Oh, yeah. Most self-published, the vast, vast majority of like 98 yeah and a half 99 percent of books sell less than 500 yes and there's a there's a reason for that because most of them because most of them are not worth yes are very bad and they're very poorly marketed they have bad titles bad covers bad everything so everything about them is bad and so you know the market sorts that out that's just fine but occasionally there comes along something that's worth reading, like our stuff. And we are denied a broad audience because of the way we publish the thing. And I don't care. I make enough money.

But it would be nice if our ideas, which we consider to be correct, were more broadly available as a result of the exposure that could be provided by New York Times bestseller list. But, you know. That's why I'm doing this book with Simon & Schuster. And it's been a great experience so far. They've been great to work with. No complaints. Yeah. If you would like an introduction, I can make one. Tell them I said hello. Yeah. I had somebody contact me several months ago about wanting me to do a book for them about what I've learned about accomplishment or some kind of shit like that. And this is a East coast publishing house. And I said, you know,

this sounds like a wonderful deal and I'd love it. And it's major house made the offer. And I'd love it. And it's made your house, made the offer. And I said, but before you get all happy with me, maybe you'd better read my website. Because I have a lot of stuff in print and a lot of opinions out there that do not comport with your East Coast conventional wisdom. Are you saying that you're not very woke? Is that the problem? Yes. Okay. That's a, I'm not sufficiently woke.

And I, you know, they said, Oh, you know, we know what you do. We think it's all valuable. And I said,

well, nonetheless, why don't you guys investigate that? And I haven't heard back from him. Cool, man. Well, uh,

thanks again for taking the time and I look forward to the next one. We will figure out what to talk about next. Yeah. Yeah, we will. Always enjoyed it. Same. You're welcome out here anytime, man. Thank you, brother. All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don't mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from in whichever app you're listening to me in, because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases search visibility. And thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter,

and thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com,

just muscle, F-O-R, life.com, and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, even if it is criticism. I'm open to it. And of course, you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with, definitely send me an email. That is the best way to get a hold of me, mikeatmusclefullife.com. And that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.