Weights and Plates Podcast - #28 - Stop Weighing Yourself, and Embrace the Tape (and the Iron)

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Coach Santana and Trent discuss the many reasons the scale is a poor tool for measuring and tracking body composition changes, and can even lead to psychological issues: obsessing over a target body weight number, minor fluctuations in weight day to day. The better tools are measuring tapes, skinfold calipers if you have them, and, most importantly, the weight on the bar! So stop weighing yourself every day, and put your energy and focus into improving your performance in the gym.   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream https://www.jonesbarbellclub.com [e-mail]

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. Hey, what's going on, man? How's it going, dude? It's going. It's going. This is the time of planting here in the Jones household, at the Jones homestead. So we've been busting ass out in the garden and getting all of our crops going. Now over here, this is a time where all that dies. What little we have. Have you hit triple digits yet? Oh, yeah. Last couple days.

That's game. Summer is here. Oh, last couple days it's that's game summer is here oh my gosh it's all good though i don't mind it so you're like 100 degrees you're like oh that's not bad that's just early summer it's a nice cool day you know it's a nice cool day nice breezy day you know i grew up in chicago and i would much rather deal with extreme heat over extreme cold any day. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Have you seen that video of the guy? I think I'm pretty sure he was in Chicago. This was just like a couple of years ago.

There was some cold snap and there's a guy that walked. He put like a pan of water. He filled up a pan with water and he walked outside and he threw it up in the air and it freezes. Oh, yeah. It basically freezes instantly as soon as he throws it in the air. That was a polar vortex, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah, that'll happen.

Yeah. Here you can fry an egg. I'm good. You can fry an egg on the sidewalk when it's, you know, buck 20 out. I believe it. People have made videos of that. I believe it. I've seen both extremes, man.

So yeah, today we're going to talk about how to measure your progress when you are, you know, wanting to change your body composition, whether, you know, you're trying to lose some weight or build some muscle mass. Yeah, I want to talk about how to do that without, you know, going completely batshit crazy because that seems to be a problem. my gosh yeah yes i'm excited to talk about why i hate the scale yeah it's it's the it's the crappiest tool i think for body composition i mean it's often used incorrectly and uh yeah that's fair that's you know it's not the tool's fault yeah it's not the tool's fault you know i mean let's start with the user let's i guess since we're bringing up the scale let's start with weight loss right so okay yeah the common issue that i run into is that

people get on the scale they get a weight right then they at point, and this often happens early, they develop this expectation that every time they step on the scale, their weight's supposed to go down. Every single time. So then they end up weighing themselves every day. And if it goes any direction except down, they lose their shit. You know, like, what the hell? Why did it shoot up 0.3? the hell? Why did it shoot up 0.3? It's like, well, first of all, I don't know that 0.3 pounds is shooting up, quote unquote, but okay, it increased from where it was yesterday. So why did that happen? Well, there's a lot of reasons that can happen. You know, you drank a bit of

water before you went to bed, you know, hempedia. You ate a little bit more carbohydrates. You ate a little bit more salt, you shifted more of your calories into the evening hours, you're having a menstrual cycle if you're a female, or, you know, maybe you did eat a lot of calories. So what do you expect there? You know, you can't get upset when you did something that's predictably going to lead to that result. But the point is, you're not gaining body fat in 24 hours. So even if you wanted an all out binge, the amount is negligible. Right. Um, so, you know, I've had a guy gain 12 pounds in a day and lose it the next day, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that, that right there is my main

problem with the scale is that people get really tied up in these micro movements of their body weight. And that assumes right there that they're weighing themselves all the time. And that's, that I think is one of my, my primary problems with using body weight as a metric for tracking progress is that I don't know many people that can honestly, that are, that are wanting to lose weight. They can honestly get on the scale on their, whatever their day that they were planning to measure is. Let's say it's Wednesday. They're going to get on the scale Wednesday at the same time and then not check it until the next Wednesday

or whenever they've, however often they've decided to measure. It's going to be like every day, maybe multiple times per day. And then you get tied up in these tiny little swings. You're like, oh, it's 0.3 ups. Oh, I'm like two pounds heavier. Oh my God, it's all going wrong. It's shot up. It's just ridiculous.

I don't even know how accurate the damn scale is. Like how much of an error bar is there every single time you get on there? I don't know. I don't know. My position is this, you know, once or twice a week is probably fine. If you're weighing yourself in the same day

under the same conditions every single week and you fine. If you're weighing yourself in the same day under the same conditions every single week and you're eating consistently and training consistently, you should see a predictable result. So if you're in a calorie deficit for seven days and you weigh yourself at the first day and the seventh day or the eighth day, you should see the weight go down. It should go down. If you're a novice, that might not happen because your total body water is changing. You're putting on some muscle mass too. So you have different compartments going in different directions.

If you're a novice, you just started training, you're putting on more muscle glycogen, you're adding more water weight. That happens almost immediately. And then at some point, you start adding more muscle mass. So you might not have linear weight loss even though you may in fact be losing body fat every week right right yeah because because muscles are a big sink for uh for glycogen and so if you build a large amount of muscle mass over the course of like let's say a year then um yeah you're going to have a bigger tank, if you will, for absorbing carbohydrates into your muscles. Absolutely, which means more body weight, right?

Yeah, and water, right? You said it before in the show, what's the ratio of water to glycogen that's stored in the muscle? Yeah, for every gram of glycogen that you deposit in your muscles, you're depositing three grams or mLs of water. So it's a three-to-one ratio. So you're going to see that compartment increase while the fat compartment decreases, and you might have a net stability in your body weight, even though your waist circumference is shrinking.

That's one reason for that. Yeah, yeah. And water's heavy. Water's very dense and heavy. Yeah. And if you have a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. And water's heavy. Water's very dense and heavy. Yeah. And if you have a lot of weight to lose, yes, in general, your weight should move in the negative direction. That should happen, you know? Yeah.

And if you're taking multiple anthropometric measurements, so you're taking weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, thigh circumference, whatever you're measuring, and skin folds and nothing's moving, you're probably eating too much. So there's something to be said in general. In the aggregate, if you have large amounts of body weight to lose, what number on the scale should go down week to week. But day-to-day fluctuations are completely irrelevant. It just tells you how much your body water can swing. It doesn't say anything about

your rate of fat loss because that takes about a week to come off. Sure. Yeah. And I've noticed too, especially with the larger the person, the bigger the swings and water weight that you're going to see. I'm training a guy right now who's, I think he's 6'6", and he weighs about 315, give take so he's a big dude not fat at all he's just a really big jacked dude and so i wouldn't be surprised if his weight you know i don't know for for fact you know we don't track his body weight currently but um i wouldn't be surprised if it's plus or minus five six seven pounds on an on a given day just from water weight he's a big fucking dude he weighs you know more than 50 percent than than i do absolutely and i know my body weight will swing

a few pounds plus minus and if you're you know if you're cutting body weight very low and uh your carbohydrate intake is very low you're going to be subject to larger swings as well even if you're a smaller person because you're partially or in some cases these even if you're a smaller person, because you're partially, or in some cases, these keto people, you might be depleted of glycogen, you know, or at least definitely partially at the very least, which means if you have a little bit more carb or a little bit more sodium, you're going to see a bigger swing than you would if you were eating maintenance-level carbs, you know? Right, right. Yeah, good point. You know, if you go out in the sun and you sweat all day, you're going to see a big weight loss, which means the day after you're going to

see a big weight gain. So you're going to celebrate one day and kill yourself the next. I mean, come on, you know? Right. You can't expect the scale to move just because you stood on it. I mean, if that was the case, you know, there wouldn't be a need for me or people that do my job, you know, you just get on the scale and lose weight, you know, that's almost what you're expecting. So it just creates this weird psychological thing where they're literally, I mean, I can't say it enough as the expectation is I step on the scale, the scale goes down, anything else is a failure. And then they take it as a personal failure, which becomes a psychological problem. And that's when I say you need to call somebody that deals with mental health, which is not me, you know? Right, right. I'm a diet guy. So, yeah, that, so, you know, that's the thing about the

scale, right? It's, it's not the tool's fault. It's just a tool. It's the thing is it's misunderstanding what it's for. So when the scale tells you your body weight, that's all it's telling you. What you really want to know when you step on the scale is what changed. And we have to go back to what's the goal here, right? We got to go back to what is the whole reason that you're trying to change your body composition? Most people that are trying to lose weight are trying to lose body fat. Absolutely. So they're trying to get leaner.

So what they ultimately want is not to lose body weight. That is just a symptom of getting leaner. They want to lose body fat. It's just that body fat tends to be harder to measure. Body weight is very easy to measure. But the thing is, what actually moves the scale can be a lot of things, which we just described, right? There are many, many things which can change your body weight. Many of them have nothing to do necessarily with losing body fat, which is the ultimate goal here, right?

So the way that if the goal is to lose body fat, we have to measure it, I think, in multiple ways to know that we're getting closer to the goal or not. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we've come up with one good strategy. So for one, you want to measure infrequently, not frequently. You're going to drive yourself crazy if you measure it every day. Take it every week, maybe twice a week, beginning of the week, end of the week. Sure. Try not to take it on Monday because you probably ate differently on the weekend. That's going to alter your body weight. Yeah, right, right. Especially if you went out to a restaurant, right? Yeah. Make sure that you're measuring it at the same time every time you measure it, same time, same clothing or lack thereof. I typically don't wear anything when

I weigh myself and I do it first thing in the morning okay yeah i was gonna ask you because that's yeah i always think that's pretty good right so you wake up you pee and then you step on the scale that's that's got to be pretty you know consistent from week to week yeah i mean there's not there's no more standard condition than weighing yourself butt naked first thing in the morning yeah so do it you know so you do it that time, but then the following week, you weigh yourself at the gym after you've worked out. You say, oh, I lost four pounds.

That was cool. Okay, you can game the system for psychological satisfaction, but it doesn't mean something happened. Right. So no, don't do that. Same conditions every week, same days. And if you see a weird blip, then sure, weigh yourself one more time in a couple days.

But you don't want to make it a habit to get on the scale all the time, because you're going to develop that expectation that something is supposed to happen every time you get on the scale. The scale is not what causes you to lose weight. It's the food you eat. It's the work, the activity you perform, you know? Right. So everything, you don't want everything becoming about the scale. So that's one thing. The next thing, you could measure yourself. So if you store body fat in your midsection, that's one good place to measure. If you, you know, want to measure skin folds, you know,

I mean, you're not going to get a super accurate measure of body fat, but you'll get a super accurate measure of that skin fold if the same person is doing it the same way every time. Right, yeah. It's a consistent measurement i should say a reliable measurement even if it's not 100 accurate you can measure different limbs you know if you tend to store fat in your arms you can measure your arms your arm circumference so that's another way to do it and then you know you could do, you know, DEXAs and, you know, more, I guess, more precise instruments, supposedly. Right, right. If you want to go do BODPOD or DEXA, but I find that they're not the greatest for big, giant trends.

But, you know, it's worth doing once in a while if you're into that. But what are we really trying to accomplish? Do we want to look different or do we want a number that a machine's spitting out to change? Right. I mean, the same goes for the scale, right? Do you want the scale to move, or do you want to look better? Yeah. Well, I think that's actually, I want to hold off on this point,

but I think people actually do want the scale to move. They want to look better, too, but they want the scale to say a certain number. That's very important to them. But let's hold on to move. Yeah. They want to look better too, but they want the scale to say a certain number. That's very important to them, but I want to, let's hold on that point. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, measurement, I, I think that's really good because it works both from a, you know, losing body fat standpoint. And it also works in the other direction. If you're, let's say a novice and you're underweight or maybe you're under-muscled, right, maybe you fall into that skinny fat category we've talked about and you know you need to gain muscle mass, well, you know, measuring your body at various points can be a great way to see that you're actually putting that muscle mass on. You know, if you're a skinny, very underweight novice, then it's, you know, you do want to see the scale going up on a regular basis, yes.

weight novice, then it's, you know, you do want to see the scale going up on a regular basis. Yes. But especially if you're in that skinny fat category, you know, it's really good to measure your waist, like you said. And then also I think like a couple of reasonable places are measure the chest underneath the armpits, measure the, uh, maybe the quads, or you can do your hips too, basically on the biggest part around of your butt all the way across. And you can do your hips too, basically on the biggest part around of your butt all the way across. And you can measure your biceps as well, because especially for that skinny fat person, that's the areas where, you know, that you probably don't have any muscle mass and that you want to see those go up while your waist is saying roughly the same, roughly the same. Although you will put on a little bit,'ll just say this i've seen this happen a

bunch expect to if you're going through the novice program and you get your deadlift and squat up to some some good numbers expect your waist to go up an inch or two because you're adding muscle to your your you know your abdominal wall and your spinal erectors are getting bigger your obliques are getting bigger and thicker so that will push out your you know whatever you've got around your stomach a little bit yeah and you're going to gain some body fat that's just going to happen with weight gain yeah sure sure so on that topic with weight gain the problem i run into is these guys expect the scale to go up x amount of pounds to determine whether they're, quote-unquote, massing or building muscle correctly. And, you know, there's guys, you know, if you're 6 foot, 130 pounds, you need to gain weight pretty fast probably.

But, you know, a lot of the time you get these modest-sized guys that are skinny fat, a little chubby maybe. fat, a little chubby maybe. And what I find is just eating just to, again, eating to move the scale is a problem, whether you're losing weight or gaining weight. When you're gaining weight, it's very easy to get fat because let's say you're squatting five inches high and your squat's going nowhere, but you're just shoveling food down because you're like, I need 5,000 calories to weigh 200. Meanwhile, you're squatting 165,, you know. Right. So the metric of success when you are gaining weight is not the scale. Once again, it is the weight on the bar. The weight on the bar needs to go up. Yeah. And if the weight on the bar is not going up because you're not recovered, then you need to eat more food and the scale will take care of itself. You will weigh

more, you will get bigger, et cetera. But I wouldn't make your scale weight the metric unless you're very underweight. Right. Yeah. I think it's probably more of a short-term tool if I had to guess. Right. So like if you're, if you're, um, where I was when I first started my linear progression, I was, you know, I'm five, eight, five, nine, you know, right in between those two numbers. And I think I weighed 155 pounds when I started. So yeah, you know, I'm five, eight, five, nine, you know, right in between those two numbers. And I think I weighed 155 pounds when I started. So yeah, you know, when you want to get the, if you're trying to understand how much food is enough, cause I'm, I wasn't very good at tracking things, especially then. I don't think I tracked my food until I had trained for a couple of years. Right. But, um, but I, you know, I remember there was a challenge in understanding how much is enough and how full Right. in order to get enough calories in. So yeah, it was useful to have the scale to know that I was moving up, you know, until I got to like 165, 170, 175 range. And then from then on, I, yeah,

I don't remember weighing myself a whole lot after that. I just noticed that, you know, over the weeks, it's like, all of a sudden it was like, my squat was going up, my deadlift was going up. And all of a sudden it was like, oh, I weigh 18 weigh 183 now no and now i'm 188 and now i'm you know 203 yeah i don't but that happened over a long period of time yeah yeah i don't really weigh myself when i'm trying to build i just pay attention am i recovering am i getting my lifts i'm sleeping enough everything else is lined up i say okay well let's try to shovel some more food down see what happens it doesn't have the same effect now as it used to because I've become more advanced and the improvements happen over a longer timeline. But when you're a novice, things are happening quickly.

So if you're eating enough food and you're making your lifts, you're probably going to gain some muscle. But the metric to building muscle is the weight on the bar. And you shouldn't really look at this endeavor as as moving the scale you know you the scale will move as a result of you lifting heavier and eating more to lift heavier so that's what you want to look at am i lifting heavier yes or no no i'm not recovering okay more food well more food's going to move the scale don't worry about what you weigh worry Worry about what you lift, you know? And use food and sleep and any other recovery tool you have in your toolbox to facilitate that and let the scale do what it does, just kind of like how Trent just explained. Yeah, right, right. And, you know, this is going back to the measurement thing, measuring your body parts, like measuring your chest, measuring your hips, your quads.

That can be really useful to track progress, too, for the more advanced lifter, let's say like an intermediate. So when you've gotten past the novice stage, all of a sudden, you know, you got to do a lot more work to get to set weekly PRs. And very quickly, those weekly PRs become bi-weekly PRs. And then not long after that, monthly. And so during that time period, you start, you know, most people are going to have to go through a phase where they're doing a lot more volume on their upper body in particular, in order to get the lifts to move. And, you know, at that point, lifts like the press, they may not move very much. So it's, it's hard to get excited about, you know, doing five sets of five or, you know, eights or whatever you're doing to get your volume in, in that point. But it's fun if you measure your chest and your biceps, and it's kind of

hard to measure the deltoids, but you'll know it when you just, when you put on a t-shirt, you notice all of a sudden after doing that for a few months, you're like, oh man, my, my t-shirts are fitting tighter. My chest is getting bigger. So that can be a nice way to track your progress there because there is a phase as an intermediate lifter if you get to that point where your lifts, especially in the upper body, just aren't going to move very much until you put on a significant amount of muscle mass in your upper body. And we see this all the time with people who are coming out of the novice period, the novice phase in doing the starting strength model, because it is so squat and

deadlift dominant. It's very posterior chain dominant. So you get the Tauntaun effect, right? The guys, and usually it's the guys who have neglected their chins along the way too. Oh yeah. They skip their chins. They sandbagged the deadlift. Right. And they try to go up by five to 10 pounds on the bench. Yeah, exactly. So,

you know, there's going to be a period of time that like that bench is not going to move. That press is not going to move until you put on the muscle mass. Um, so, you know, if,

if you're not, if you get motivated by PRs, it's, it's fun to watch the tape go up on your chest, um, over the, over the several months that you're just accumulating volume.

Yeah, I would agree with that. So I want to go back to the point that I put on the table earlier. I think some people actually do want to see a certain number on the scale. And this one kind of baffles me, I have to be honest. Oh, yeah. I run into a lot of

people who have this idea and it tends to be people like, especially people in their thirties and, and, and up, they'll have this target weight in their head. They're like, I just have to weigh 175. Yeah. And, and it, you know, it's just sort of like, man, like, where did you, where'd you come up with that? Right. Like, where did the 175 come from? You know, it was, is that what you weighed in high school? Is that what you weighed in college? You know, is that what you weighed when you played, you know, football or whatever it is? Maybe that's what it is sometimes. Uh, but sometimes it's not any of those things even. It's not, it's not like it's some number that they used to be. It's just some number that they think they should be right for whatever reason yeah for whatever

reason and that oftentimes it's guys who were like i'll meet guys who are like 5 11 6 foot and they're like yeah man i just gotta weigh 175 and they're like well what do you weigh right now oh i'm 235 you're like how did you think that was a reasonable body weight yeah where does 60 pounds of weight loss come from yeah right yeah you know maybe they just looked up their favorite crossfitter and they're like well this guy weighs 175 well you know we've talked about this in other episodes the 155 to 175 pound fitness model has become the sin quon on in the fitness community so everybody thinks they need to be light and lean long and lean blah blah blah blah blah so bullshit i want those long muscles i want those long muscles yeah how do you train for that yeah and it's like dude you don't

need to do that you know like i get down to about that size pretty easy, but I'm built pretty small, you know? Yeah, yeah. A lot of guys, you know, like when I'm quote unquote heavier, right, 190 to 195, I'm still wearing 32-inch pants comfortably, you know? Yeah, right. Like I'm just not a big dude, you know? So there you have it. But when I'm working with clients, I see a lot of guys that will weigh what I weigh, you know, let's say 190-pound guy. I see a lot of 38 39 37 you know

right sometimes 40 you know at that body weight for for height you know and uh you know to get down to you know 30 inch waist nine inches of waist you know like i don't know if we need to do that you know what i mean right yeah um and know, the 235-pound guy with a 42-inch waist or 43-inch waist, sure, if he wants to, like, have abs or whatever, he might have to be very light. I mean, in quote-unquote natural bodybuilding, which we should just say as natural as can be, right? It means they're not taking some stuff, I guess. That's like jumbo shrimp well natural bodybuilding we know they're on less shit because they weigh less you know oh sure yeah yeah and uh the largest division at least this was years ago when i read up on it this may have changed because

maybe they got better they got better at hiding the shit they're on but the largest division in terms of numbers uh was the 165ers you know so it's not a lot of there are not a lot of 200 plus guys that are naturally jacked or you know have gotten jacked to that point through lifting that are competing in that sport i think they obviously exist we've seen them you know carl's a big fucking guy you know right um but uh a lot of the guys you know they think that shit's silly they're not going to do that. You know, guys that can probably be competitive in that are probably just not going to do that,

you know, but I think also to 200 plus pound jack guys are out genetic outliers, you know? So if you got, if you got, you know, a big sample of men and had everybody get down to 5% body fat, which is what these guys do.

I think you'd have very few that are, you know, 200 plus and probably very few that are 130, you know what these guys do. I think you'd have very few that are, you know, 200 plus and probably very few that are 130, you know? Yeah, right. So, you know, I think the big pool would be somewhere in the middle, which is, you know, that 165, 155 to 175 pound ripped guy. Now, again, we deal in strength here. We're not bodybuilding coaches. We're just kind of articulating that, you know, these body weights are kind of arbitrary and unreasonable for a lot of people. Like, you know, if I just, it's not very hard for me to get under 180, you know, but again,

I'm not a big person. Most people that I deal with, it's hard to get down there, you know, to get below 180. It's skinny for a lot of guys, you know? Right, right. Yeah, you have like a, you just have a smaller skeleton. Yeah. And these guys that are 155 to 175 and bodybuilding, they're also shorter than I am. I'm five nine, you know? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like it's interesting, like you and I, I mean, you're definitely leaner than I am, but I'd naturally hang around the kind of low one nineties and heavy for me as being 200 to two 10 and two 10. I have been heavier than that,

but that, that was quite heavy for me, but yeah, 200 to a five, that would be pretty heavy for me. Um, so, but we're,

we're pretty similar in size, but I think it just have a, you know, a slightly denser build and a bigger skeleton. You can really see this when you, you mentioned our friend Carl, who's, uh,

he's, he's five 11, I think he's not quite six foot and he's probably, bigger skeleton. You can really see this when you mentioned our friend Carl. Yeah. He's 5'11", I think. He's not quite six foot. And he's probably, what is he normally, 240, 250? Yeah, so 240 at last I talked to him. When I got him very lean at 13% body fat, which is pretty lean, people. You have visible abs under 15% if you're a lifter. That's something I've also learned. This 10% body fat or less means you're not training. If you're a trained man and you actually take your body fat down, you get visible abs and some vascularity and muscle definition when you get below 15%. That's's what i've noticed assuming a normal distribution

some people might have all their body fat in their stomach so you know there's outliers but you know assuming your body fat's fairly evenly distributed or you know your gut starts to get really small under yeah 20 you know like in my experience you break 15 you're seeing some definition right right this 10 shit is nonsense it. It's based off of either guys weren't really training and aren't that strong, or they're using skin folds and getting an underestimation. Right, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I digress. So when Carl was 13% body fat or close to 12, he was 215, you know? Okay, yeah, right.. He's an outlier.

That's a pretty big dude. That means that if I got him into single digits, bodybuilder territory, he'd be around 200 pounds at 5'11", you know? And I believe it. So, so, you know, when you see Carl, his joints are huge. Like his elbow joint is the size of my knee joint yeah you know this is also the reason you know part of the reason that carl benches like 450 plus you know in his late 40s right so yeah he got 470 man when i was with him 475 i think right yeah oh yeah he's he's still benching in the you know sort of like the 430 450 kind of range yeah but yeah he's he's still benching in the, you know, sort of like the 430, 450 kind of range. Yeah, but yeah, he's PR'd even higher than that. But yeah, so the guy's got huge joints. He's just got a big, giant skeleton, and he's heavily muscled.

He's got a big old Neanderthal forehead, too. Sorry about that, Carl. He's not listening, I don't think. I don't think he listens to me anymore. He's not a fan. He's not a fan. But yeah but he he illustrates the point right that a guy like carl is always going to be a heavy dense guy even if he didn't train he would be like that because that's just his genetic predisposition and then he trains and he's he's a guy that puts on muscle

mass very easily um so you know it that his his end of the scale is going to be much higher, um, versus someone like you, that's just, it's not built as, um, as densely. So I, I, I find that like, usually guys can come around to this once they start to understand the idea of like muscle mass and, and, and body fat percentage being really a function of muscle mass. and body fat percentage being really a function of muscle mass. I find that it's a harder conversation with women and in particular, larger women, and I'm talking about larger as in like over five, seven, you know, taller women. A lot of times, you know, I know a lot of women who are, and not even 5'7", they might even be like 5'4", 5'5", 5'6", that are very muscular and strong lifters that weigh over 200 pounds.

Oh, yeah. They weigh 200 plus. And you know what? They're not fat. They look great. Yeah. They're just strong, developed lifters, and they weigh more than 200 pounds. But that's huge deal i think for a lot of women this the fact that the scale says 200 is just absolutely just unforgivable i had a girl and you know i sent her to carl and she was 220 at 5 9 and uh yeah yeah she looked for i mean i did i

didn't think she was 220 no way and i you I had a colleague, my girlfriend, she's also a dietician, and look at the progress photos. And I'm like, what do you think this person weighs? And they all guessed like 165 to 185. She was 220. Yeah. Yeah. And she's 5'9", and she was a lifter. Sure.

Yeah. That density moves the number. Exactly. But yeah, no, the taller you get, the higher the number is going to be, and sometimes that messes with people psychologically. Right, right. I had a girl once, real strong. She was five feet, and I met her.

She was about 112, but she was normally around 120. But I met her around 112. So five foot flat. Yeah, five foot flat. Okay. But I met her around 112. So five foot flat. Yeah, five foot flat.

Okay. And, you know, she had, you know, just moved here, was a little more active and not eating as much, and was 112th. And then we pushed her body weight up, not intentionally. She just started training. The training drove the hunger, and the need to recover drove the need for food, and she didn't have body image issues, you know. Yeah. So she didn't really think about it. She just ate more, you know? And she pushed her weight up to I think about 120 to 125 and, you know, squatted 250, pulled

close to 300. That's fantastic. And pressed 110 and benched 140, I want to say. That's really good at five foot. Yeah. Did like 16 or 17 chin-ups in a row. So, you know, you couldn't tell she weighed that much. You could tell she was dense, so she'd get questions about whether she was a CrossFitter, you know? Right. But, you know,

I had another girl, she was 5'8", 145 pounds and vascular and ripped. I think she was under eating at the time, but yeah. Um, she was squatting three, pulling over four and, uh, pressed, I think body weight, you know? Yeah. That's ridiculous. I think I know who you're talking about. I think I competed with her at a, at a strength lifting meet years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Oakland. I don't remember seeing you there, but yeah. Yeah. That was her. Yeah. She was strong, man. Yeah. Man.

She's so strong. Yeah. She was built to deadlift too. Real long arms. her there, but yeah. Yeah, that was her. Yeah, she was strong, man. Yeah, man, she's so strong. Yeah. She was built to deadlift, too. Real long arms. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. She pulled 405 in the gym, and man, she had 420 one day. Wow.

Yeah, that's amazing. I had a nail polish incident. She had slick nail polish, and it kept missing her opener. Then her now husband carved some lines in her thumbnail and then she was able to get the third attempt oh for the hook grip yeah yeah okay yeah she got third attempt fine you know just you know like cut up her uh thumbnail i should have taken her to the warm-up room and had her keep going up so we can see where the hell she was at because i'm pretty sure she had like 420 in her that day yeah yeah but yeah i know like you know she was i think she's gained some weight

since but even at like 155 you know 5 8 you're not going to be able to tell that she was pretty lean yeah very lean very lean it was about 144 to 148 and you know she looked pretty lean so these numbers don't really mean anything that's the whole point you know um and uh you can't you know you you can't out train your genetics you cannot starve your genetics either i have other people that you know have another lady five two about 115 ish you know and uh lifter and tends to store body fat in the midsection right yeah you know complains about it and i've dealt with this with another lady. She was 5'8", 140, small frame, kind of built like me but female. And got her strong, everything filled out, but focused on the damn muffin top. It's like, I can't fix that.

And then calories get low. Nobody likes that. And she was old enough to know it's not sustainable. So I'm like, so what do you want me to do? There's nothing I can do about that. I could starve you out and make it go down. It will go down if you starve enough, but how are you going to sustain that? So you have two options.

You either forget about it and get over it, or you get liposuction, or whatever surgeries they have for that shit. I believe it's liposuction is the most popular one that people use to remove fat from a region. You can't spot reduce through diet and exercise. Right. And for those of you not familiar with that term, because it's a dated term, I don't hear it so much anymore, spot reduction means that you can target a certain area of your body and lose body fat from that area alone. You can't do that with diet and exercise.

It doesn't happen. You can train and fill out muscle in that area, which spreads out fat and makes you look different, but you don't lose the body fat off that area doing that. And, you know, most of the time it's abs that people are talking about. So your abs don't grow that much. So like, you know, my problem was I used to think I had fat arms and really I just wasn't pressing, right? Right. I started pressing, my delts got bigger and I had deltoid definition without any loss of body fat so you know that happens typically doesn't happen in the midsection because we tend to store more fat there especially men but uh yeah no i had these women you know muffin top i'm like well you know you got a few options you know stage competitors in these women's

divisions some of them do you know go and get plastic surgery either liposuction or breast breast implants you know to throw off the ratios you know yeah go and get plastic surgery, either liposuction or breast implants, you know, to throw off the ratios, you know. Yeah, to give the visual effect of, you know, looking trimmer. You know, typically, I mean, I'm sure some women want big pecs, but that's not, it doesn't tend to be popular with females, you know, as it is with men. You know, our pecs get bigger and we can offset the abdominal fat with bigger pecs because your pecs, as John Musser said, your pecs lead you in the room that you're probably not fat, you know, as a guy.

I'd say that's largely true, you know. If your pecs are ahead of your gut, provided, you know, they're not sagging down, you know, you're probably in pretty good shape. So some women go and get surgery. You know, that's an option. That's not one that I tend to recommend. I'm not a surgeon. You know, I'm not a, you know, Hollywood plastic surgeon. That's not what we do here.

You know, I try to improve your body composition through diet and exercise. But I'm just highlighting that you can't do anything about a muffin top with diet and exercise. You can make it less of a muffin top by training. top with diet and exercise. You can make it less of a muffin top by training, but if you store fat there and it tends to stay there, even with calorie restriction, the only way out of that is surgery. Right, right. Or starvation, which is very short-lived. I see this a lot too with some women who complain about the chicken wings, you know, and basically a little bit of body fat

like where their uh their triceps are oh yeah i heard one girl called it math teacher arms math teacher they're writing on the chalkboard apparently right you see the little the jiggle yeah and you're like well oh fuck now we just made a bunch of math teachers insecure no i'm sorry i'm sorry math teachers but'm not sorry. I hated math class in public school. Female client said it. You can blame her. But yeah, you know, and the thing there too is like a lot of times, like the women that I've heard complain about this, like they don't have much body fat there. It's not that they have that much body fat. They just don't have any triceps. body fats. They just don't have any triceps. It's like, well, if you actually, you know, if you lifted weights and you got some triceps, then that area would look great.

When it jiggled, it would jiggle with muscle, not with a, you know, loose skin. And nobody would notice, nobody noticed the fat when you're, when you're lifting. No. Yeah. Nobody, nobody. So yeah. I mean, you know, I just want to point that out because that's, that's a tough one, man, is that there, people get, get stuck on these numbers on the scale that are completely arbitrary and they don't mean anything because they have nothing to do really with your body composition. I mean, they have something to do with it. It's related, but there's so many other factors that go into it that we just laid out that it's not really relevant, right? Like if I was to, if I was to listen to your podcast and be like, oh man, well, Santana said he gets lean at 173,

so I need to weigh 173. It doesn't work. We're not the same people. No. We don't have the same genetics, even though we're about the same height. We're pretty close. Yeah.

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't work. At 173, I would just be a skinny, weak dude. Yeah, and it's interesting. We're comparable in strength weak dude. Yeah, it's interesting. We're comparable in strength too. Yeah, right. So yeah, especially if you are taller, if you're at the tall end of the scale,

especially for your sex, then just understand that your numbers are not going to look like the average person, right? Like if you're female and you're six foot tall, like you're, you're an outlier in terms of height. So that means that your body weight is going to be an outlier too. Um, and the same thing, if you're a dude and you're six, five, you're, you're an outlier in terms of height. So you cannot expect to have the same waist and body weight as, um, as a bunch of other guys who are more average around 5'8", 5'10". Yeah, there's so much variability with this stuff,

and I just don't think it gets enough appreciation. But, you know, we're just sharing information. A lot of this stuff is emotional and behavioral and sociological. You know, people are, if you're in an environment where everybody wants to be skinny, like you live in Los Angeles, I can't help that. You know, I lived there too, I lived there at one point, you know, and I weighed less at the time, you know, because I wasn't really training that hard, and I started to at the end, and, you know, I felt pretty big around a bunch of skinny people, and I'm not a big guy, you know, and this is when I put on the weight, you know, when I did go mad

and push my weight up, etc. So, you know, I noticed that too, you know, and this is when I put on the weight, you know, when I did go mad and push my weight up, et cetera. So, you know, I noticed that too, you know, when people live in an environment where others look a certain way, you know, and they don't look that way, they start to develop, you know, these ideas about how they look, you know, like if you live around a bunch of skinny people and you're a jacked person, then you start to think, oh, I look like a dumb meathead, you know? Right. Or if you live around a bunch of fat people, you know, then you start to think, oh, I look like a dumb meathead, you know? Right, yeah. Or if you live around a bunch of fat people, you know, like live around larger people and you tend to be a smaller person, you feel too skinny, you know?

So there's a lot of that to factor in. We're not ignoring that. That exists, you know? And, you know, it's a whole other can of worms to deal with. How do you think Hafthorjornson's wife feels oh fuck have you ever seen her exactly so if you don't know half thor bjornson he's uh you know he's a multiple time world's strongest man uh he's retired from strongman at the moment but he he would generally he was like what 6 10 i think 6 9 6 10 yeah as close as set yeah six nine it was 450 or something 450 yeah competition weight and and

he was like he wouldn't have abs at 450 but like in his off season he would get a little leaner let's say like down to you know 420 yeah he would lean up and then he would have like he would have abs and his wife is like i don't even She's, she's like five foot one, maybe. Hilarious. Uh, that's funny. So, yeah, no. So, you know, there's all, there's all this other shit you got to work through, obviously, you know, like if, if, if a lot of this is existing, uh, in your brain, then, you know, you got to work on that, you know, again, that's not what we do here. Right. Yeah. You know, one thing I have noticed though, is that it really helps when you find, like, this is where I think training in an environment with a bunch of other

people that do what you do, like, you know, training with a bunch of other lifters, especially ones that have some experience, like they get it, right? Like lifters understand, right? We all realize like very quickly, the iron teaches us our, our, our genetic limits pretty quickly. And so we get it, you know, we understand that guy over there that's trying to push his deadlift up, you know, trying to put on a little bit of extra body weight to see if he can squeeze out some more numbers. Like we get what that guy's doing. We don't look over there at that dude and be like, Oh, look at the big fat guy. Right. Um, you know you know so that that can help to have if you've got your crew that that gets what you're doing and understands uh you know body types and

and weights and sort of the you know is orienting their life around the results that they're getting in the gym you know and on the bar and not around their their body composition it can help a lot if you're around people that sit around at lunch and every single day they're talking about the new diet that they're on and how many, you know, oh, I lost two pounds yesterday. Yeah, that's not a good environment

for healthy attitudes. Yeah, no, that cannot be overstated. You know, I was training around a bunch of big, strong dudes that were competing in powerlifting, and that was all they cared about. And that really wasn't what I was doing. You know, like I wanted to get stronger. I wanted to hit certain PRs. And I wasn't willing to, you know, I wasn't willing to kill myself for it.

I mean, in one sense, I was. I put in the work, obviously. Yeah. I worked hard, showed up. I mean, I've been training work, obviously. Yeah. Worked hard, showed up. I mean, I've been training for nine years. Sure. I never really took a break, you know. Do what I can.

I try to add and I try to progress. So, some people would argue that, yeah, you know, you're killing yourself. But, you know, I wasn't willing to get on drugs is what I'm really trying to say, you know. Right. Yeah. I'm not going to put a bunch of shit in my body just to. Or risk injuries even, you know. Or that, yeah. i'm not gonna put a bunch of shit in my body just to or risk injuries even you know or that yeah like yeah there's there's a line that you could that you could easily you could dial it up and

you know and maybe push your numbers a little faster than you do now but then you know maybe you're you're risking some some uh muscle belly tears or something yeah no i was just around a bunch of guys that would do a bunch of volume did not care about their form move the weight at all costs and we're probably on a bunch of shit. I don't know exactly what people were on, so I can't really comment on anybody's drug use, but I know that there was a lot of that going on. Sure.

And I have nothing against it. I just didn't see the purpose for someone in my position. I'm a diet coach. I'm lifting for general health and to get as strong as I can get, you know. And, you know, I just, I don't see the value for somebody in my shoes. You know, if you're a competitor that wants to lift as much as you possibly ever can and are actually trying to be competitive in a federation, then, you know, in a powerlifting federation, then you might have to do some things that aren't necessarily safe, just like a baseball player, basketball player, football player. And I'm not just talking about drug use because, you know, you're not supposed to do it in those sports, but we all know they do. But, you know, you're pushing your body to its limits and you're taking risk and you're compromising things, you know. Right, right. And you're organizing your whole life around that training block that you're on, you know?

Yeah. And, you know, I do that to some extent, but, you know, my workouts, other than Monday, God, I fucking hate the four lift workout. Most of the time my workouts are done in an hour. Monday is about two hours because I don't want to go a fourth day. Yeah, sure, sure. But, you know, like these guys will work out four or five days a week for two hours, you know, sometimes three, you know, sometimes two a day, you know. And that's not what I was doing. So, you know, the environment wasn't the greatest, you know. And, you know, my gym now, because I own it, it's a lot better. I get a lot of people that are going in there because, yes, they want to add. And a lot of them do show up consistently. But, you know, they're not chasing the extremes.

And, you know, I think I like that. You know, I like training around my, but you know, they're not chasing the extremes. And, you know, I think I like that, you know, I like training around my members, you know, they're, they're fun people, good people, but you know, they're not chasing the extremes, you know, and I wasn't chasing the extremes, you know, I wanted to put on as much muscle as I could, but I wasn't willing to take steroids for that. Cause I wasn't doing it for bodybuilding. I just wanted to get bigger, you know, desire to get bigger. I'm a small dude, you know, common thing, you know. And I wanted to figure out how that was done. And what I learned is it takes a very long time.

And the longer you do it, the smaller the return on investment. You put in a whole bunch of time for a little bit of result. And that's kind of where I'm at now. But the point is that the lifting aspect to it is I'm surrounded by people that, you know, they want their backs to stop hurting. They want to not have a gut. Right. And they want to lift correctly so they don't get hurt. And they want to add weight to the bar, obviously, but it's not add weight to the bar at all costs.

It's not really my priority, you know. So the reason I'm bringing this up is because, yeah, the environment's huge. You know, if you're in a globo gym where, let's face it, a bunch of people are sauced up, want to look at themselves in the mirror and pick up a mate. Yep. And a lot of the time, it's not a social environment. If somebody's talking to you, they're probably asking you out or asking to work in or something like that. It's not a very social environment. It's very vain.

They take the earbuds out just to say, like, man, how many, are you going to be there? You're going to be there. A few more minutes? Or they go up to the young girl and say, hey, can you be my Instagram video for my website? You know? Is that how they do it nowadays? Apparently, yeah.

I just heard that from, you know, I have an intern now at the gym and she was telling me that she hates Globo gyms and she tells me stories here and there because she still has to go to one. And that was one that she told me that the guy just random dudes will walk up and say, Hey,

can I get a video of you for my website or for my Instagram page? And I'm like, yeah, it's no surprise, but for the most part, you're going to these gyms. Nobody talks to each other. They're wearing headphones.

They're all looking at themselves in the mirror, have no idea what's going on with anybody else. Form is not, it is non-existent. Nobody cares about technique because it's all about feeling a certain way and looking a certain way right so you know if that's what you're about you know might be the right environment you know a lot of people a lot a lot there's a lot of people that go to these places other then there's guys that just go in there because it's convenient they want to

do their little circuit hop on the treadmill for 20 to 30 minutes and then go to work you know right and not be bothered you know so again, there's a market for this. But then you go to a powerlifting gym and everybody wants to lift as heavy as possible. They all have their own ideas about what good technique is, you know, and they're not open to other people's ideas about that unless you're stronger than them, you know, you have to be stronger than them to be entitled to an opinion. And then, you know, there's bodybuilding gyms, which is, you know, basically the globo gym, know upgraded you know times two right right yeah everybody's just you know there to play place where you work out for three hours yeah it's all about you know it's all about chasing the pump looking a certain way and you know you're probably willing to take a bunch of drugs to do

that you know yeah sure sure my gym is none of, you know, like we're there to get stronger, move better, feel better, and, you know, look better within. Nobody's there to chase the extremes, you know? Right. Yep. And, you know, there's another element of that, too. And I'll say this as my last point. You know, training can be fun, too. And that's actually an important element of training.

It gets lost sometimes. Absolutely, yeah. Especially when you've been doing this for a while, you know, like when, when you're novice, yeah, it's training is not that fun. It's not even that fun as an, as an early intermediate lifter, but at some point, you know, if you're two, three, four years into this or more, nine years into this, like, you know, training should be fun. Right. So, so yeah, you can, you, you don't necessarily have to, unless chasing the extreme is fun for you. Some people are like that. Some people just, they get a kick out of like chasing the numbers. That's cool. Whatever. That's fine. But if you're not that way, then yeah, it's okay to like not do that and do some fun stuff too, along with the productive training. That's fine.

That's fine. So yeah fine. So, yeah. So, anyway, I think that's just to say that, you know, change your environment. If you're struggling with this, then, you know, maybe you just need to get some new friends. Yeah. Yeah, that's essentially what we're saying. Right. Get a different gym. Get some new friends.

Yeah. No, I mean, that's kind of what I was getting at. If you are chasing the extremes, you know, and Rips talked about this, and this was one of the reasons that I did train at a training gym was I was at a seminar and Steph was saying, oh, compete in a meet, it gives you something to work for, you know. But I thought, I watched a podcast or a video, you know, I watched a YouTube video Rip made with Marty Gallagher a while back, and they were talking about how, you know, Rip's just like, where did I go wrong? You know, I only squatted 630, and these other guys were squatting, you know, 700, 800-pound squats, like it's no big deal, and blah, blah, blah. And then Marty's like, well, you know, you didn't do too bad training in a vacuum, you know. Right. And he's like, you know, when you're squatting 600 and everybody else is squatting 315, that's a whole lot less incentive than you can't go on the big man platform unless you have at least an eight squat.

Right. It's baseline, you know? Yeah. And, you know, I watched that. It was very motivating at the time. You know, I just got into this type of lifting. And there were numbers I wanted. I wanted to squat or I wanted to deadlift 500 pounds. I wanted to squat 405, but I picked up the squat

easier than most. I wasn't perfect at it by any means. I did hurt myself my first year, two times on two separate occasions. So learning to squat correctly was a bit of a challenge. So I figured that out. But I came in with a below parallel squat of 315, just me fucking around and making sure I squatted in all my leg workouts, you know? Yeah. And that's not terrible compared to a lot of what we see, right? But I mean, obviously by powerlifting standards, you know, these, you know, what was that? 165 at the time, these buck 65 pound guys, they'll squat five, 600 pounds sometimes the top guys, you know? So, you know, 315, yeah, it pound guys, they'll squat five, 600 pounds sometimes, the top guys, you know. So, you know, 315, yeah, it's not impressive by powerlifting standards, but by personal training client standards, people that hire us, you know, it's pretty good, you know,

out the gate. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it was clean. It was below parallel. It's on Facebook, buried there somewhere, 2013. And the thing was, it was incorrect. So, you know, when I kept squatting that way, I eventually tore an adductor. Then I learned how to do it correctly. And then I got form creep when it got heavy. And then I tore the other one. And then eventually I figured it out. And I haven't been, knock on wood, hurt like that since. But my point was that I did start training in a powerlifting gym because I immersed myself in that environment.

Because I was around guys that were, you know, repping out, you know, 405 on the squat. You know, they were squatting over five at meets, some over six. You know, I saw 600 plus pound squats at these gyms I went to. And occasionally you'd have a guy that came in and did seven. You know, that was very rare. But I witnessed a 700 pound squat in person, which was pretty cool. And most of the guys were repping out, you know, deadlifts in the 400s, which for me was heavy at the time and some in the 500s. There was a lot of 600, 700 deadlifters at these lifting gyms, you know, that's, that's

actually more common than a 600 plus squatter, you know? And, uh, you know, the benches didn't really, I didn't care about the bench that much and nobody pressed. So that was kind of on my own in the press. I've probably had one of the strongest presses there to be honest. There were guys that benched like 365 and I was pressing more than them. Yeah, right. You know, but it was mainly the squat and the deadlift. So just being around guys that were repping out my max, you know, made me less scared of it, you know. Yeah, yeah.

And like, you know, the phrase that was used in that video that I watched was it drags your game up, you know, when you're around people that are doing more than you're doing and you have goals in mind, like measurable goals, like you care about wanting to get from point A to point B, then you want to be around people that are outperforming you. That will drag your game up. I've had this experience in, you know, in music and it's, yeah, a hundred percent applicable to the gym too, that the times that I've played the best and I've improved in my musicianship the best is when I've been in bands or been in situations where I'm the worst guy in the room. Yep. Because pretty quickly, you're going to figure out a way to be able to hang at least with everyone else and not be the weakest link, you know? Yep. um, you know, and, and that's, you know,

that's playing in an ensemble, right. Where everyone's working together. It's a little bit more of a solo pursuit when you're in a gym, but the same effect happens for sure. Yeah, for sure. Power lifting is one of those sports too, where everybody, there's a lot of camaraderie, you know, people are encouraging you to do better, you know, for sure. For sure. Um, and nobody makes fun of the person who's, you know, squatting 135. Nobody does that. That's just not how it is. Different environment than a commercial gym. But if you are chasing a result that is extreme, even for you, like for me, I wanted a 500 deadlift. That's not an extreme deadlift.

And I weighed at my lowest end, I was 165. My highest end, I was 195. So guys in those weight classes like you know 500 is not even baseline you know like the top guys you know if you start going to lifting meets you know you got 165 pound guys that are pulling six you know over six you know it's not it's not these guys don't grow off trees you don't see them in every gym you don't necessarily see them in every meet but you go pull up meet results from usa power lifting and you're going to see 600 pound deadlifts in the one 65 pound class. You know, I'm going to have to send you a video of, um, I, I don't know this guy's name. I'm going to have

to look it up, but there's a video of a guy who he's like a clone of Lamar Gant. Okay. And he's pulling 60. He's probably not quite. He's creeping up on, on that number60. He's probably, not quite. He's creeping up on that number, though. He's a 60-kilo lifter, so he's 132 pounds. And he just pulled 629, I think, which is insane. That's like a five. That's almost a five times body weight. Yeah, so Lamar Gant is a power lifter in the 1980s. He's still alive. I don't think he trains anymore.

At least not like that. You know, the interviews I've seen, he doesn't, I didn't get the impression that he's still, you know, hitting it hard, but he's probably in his sixties now, if I had to guess. And he was, you know, 132, but his arms are so long that his deadlift would lock out at his kneecaps. Yeah. Right. Yeah. 132, he pulled like in the mid sixes. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. I think, I think, I think you're right. Somewhere around 660 was his, uh, was his all time PR, which is just crazy. Yeah. I mean, he might arguably be the greatest power lifter of all time. Oh, certainly. Five times body weight deadlift. I mean, that's 60 kilos pulling 300 kilos. Five times body weight deadlift. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I digress, but, um, but yeah yeah but anyway so i digress but um

but yeah anyway so there's there's another guy out there that's built very similar it's basically no torso probably some severe scoliosis and very very long arms for a short body you know for for short height yeah you know just being in an environment where people are doing what you're trying to do and outperforming you in some sense can be helpful, can be productive, you know? But I think that's really what we're trying to get at is, you know, you want to be in a gym where, you know, everybody's kind of got the same goal

and, you know, you kind of fit in, I guess. You know, get in where you fit in. You know, a whole too short album. Yeah, use the right tool for the job. Yeah. That means, you know, use the scale like it's meant to be used. Use the job. Yeah. That means, you know, use the scale like it's meant to be used, use the measuring tape more, look for long-term progress, not short-term ups and downs,

because that's, you know, everything's ups and downs in the short term, but look for long-term trends. And then, you know, use the tool, use the gym for what it's meant to be used for. A Globo gym is a tool too, just like the scale. Oh yeah. Use it what it's meant to be used for. A global, a global gym is a tool too, just like the scale. Oh yeah. Use, use what it's meant for, um, you know, and,

and, and by, and vice versa, the powerlifting gym too. So, all right, well, let's,

uh, let's sign off for today. Take us away. All right. Yeah, that's a good stopping point. So thank you for tuning in to the weights and plates podcast. You can find me at weights and plates.com or on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana.

You can find my gym at weights double underscore and double underscore plates where I'm now finally updating that damn thing. Nice, excellent. Yeah, you can find me at marmalade underscore cream on Instagram. And you can also find me jonesbarbellclub.com. I have a new website out that's just kind of has a little bit about my coaching services. I train people in person.

If you are in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area, I actually had a couple of guys come down from Knoxville or up around that area the other day. So if you're anywhere in the East Tennessee area, you can come and see me at my, uh, my home gym here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, or I offer online coaching too. So you can reach me through jonesbarbellclub.com. All right. We will talk to you in a couple of weeks. Thank you.