Weights and Plates Podcast - #43 - Setting Goals for Next Year: Process Over Results

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Coach Santana (now officially Dr. Santana!) and Coach Trent discuss their approach to setting goals for training, health, and life. It's easy to buy into the idea of resolutions and setting lofty results-oriented goals, and it feels good to do it! I'm going to squat 500 next year! I'm going to get down to 15% body fat next year! I'm going to lose 30lbs! These results or number oriented goals sound good, and setting them gets you thinking about what kind of person you'll be in the future, having achieved the goal. In fact, you often get a little dopamine hit just imagining yourself at the finish line, victorious.   Therein lies the trap. Focusing too much on the end result gives you a little piece of the satisfaction of obtaining the goal, without doing anything to help you toward that goal! Instead, Coach Robert and Trent like to focus on process-oriented goals, changes you can make to your daily habits and behaviors that will lead to progress in the right direction. Process oriented goals also acknowledge the fact that many of the variables that play into how much weight you can lose, how much muscle you can gain, or how much more you can lift -- whatever your goal is -- we don't have much control over. Life stuff happens, and often has a big effect on our ability to hit certain numbers and how long that process will take. However, by comitting to a process rather than a number, you can set yourself up for positive progress, and not feel guilty about falling short of some arbitrary target.   Thanks so much for listening this year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream https://www.jonesbarbellclub.com

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. Good evening, sir. Good evening. I'm sitting here. About an hour ago, here in Chattanooga tennessee it was 42 degrees and uh in a couple hours from now it's going to be three degrees and so i'm just really hoping i'm well i'm just saying this uh i am glad that the power is on right now and that i have uh central air and heating and uh pray that that stays the case for the next couple days. I pray for that too. But we have, don't worry too much,

we have backup generators and stuff, so we'll be okay even if it all goes south. I think you'll survive. We're, I don't know, I think it's going to be like 40 here in a little bit. So your top is our bottom. Right, right. Well, on that note, Christmas is almost upon us.

The end of the year is almost upon us. I can't believe it. And it's ridiculous, right? And so we thought we'd do a little episode today and talk about goals for next year. Yeah. We got a lot of stuff planned for January. It's going to be exciting. A lot of stuff we want to cover on the show that we have that we want to dive into in great detail. But today, I think we want to keep it pretty simple and just talk about our goals for next year. And, you know, just some thoughts about how you can set goals for next year. Yeah, I think that's a good way to end off the year. I think this is our last one of the year, right? Yeah, this will be our last one of the year. We'll see y'all again in January. Yeah. So, you know, I'll start with you. Do you got any goals for next year? Oh,

you know, to live another year. That's a good start. Do you set goals? Let me even ask that. Do you set goals? You know, general ones, I don't get super specific with it, or I might like pick one thing that I'm fixated on. Like, obviously, I wanted to finish my PhD. So, you know, my goal last year was to get that done this year. You know, I got it done in December instead of July. You know, July would have been nice, but, you know, it took me to December. Done. You did it. Yeah. By the way, congratulations. I can officially say it now, right? It's posted to the website?

No, no. It said, degrees do not post to your transcript for 10 to 14 days after the conferral date. But, you know, the president of the university conferred my degree a week ago Monday. Okay. So a week and a half ago. All right, that's pretty good. According to Christie, you know, that's a verbal contract. So yes, I guess I'm a doctor.

Do you have video evidence of this, of the conferral? Yeah, yeah, I do. Okay, all right. So that's pretty solid. So I don't know, today's day 10. So any day now it should post to my damn transcript. Okay, fantastic. Well, Dr. Sant yeah yeah as i shall

refer to you this episode and every episode hereafter um yeah do you set goals with your uh with your fitness is that something that you do nowadays did you you know did you used to do that and has that changed over the years i had numbers i used to chase you know and after i deadlifted 500 i kind of stopped giving a shit yeah sure and you know every year i want to do more than the previous year uh i guess right now my most measurable goal is i want to train upper body bodybuilding style training for at least a year ideally two years so you know, you know, it's measurable. You know, because I understand what training, you just got to show up, you know? Right. Yeah. I don't like setting numbers. Like I want to gain X pounds of lean mass or put X pounds on my squat or deadlift

because it's hard to predict. You know, there's so many things that go into that. But I do know how long it takes. So, you know, I kind of set goals for I'm going to commit to this process for this length of time. And the way I look at it is I want to, you know, get substantially bigger up top. And I've been in the weight room for, you know, 20 years, over 20 years now, 24 years. I've been training seriously with barbells for the last 10. So, you know, I'm pretty adapted to lifting weights, but I haven't really trained, I guess, more isolated movements or, you know. Right. Non-barbell lifts, I should say, because I'm not really doing pure isolation.

I'm not doing machines right now, you know. really doing pure isolation. I'm not doing machines right now, you know, so that's not the right word for it, but just more of the ancillary stuff, like, you know, benching with dumbbells versus a barbell, you know, training arm curls. I've never trained arm curls, you know, doing extension. So like just doing that stuff, I'd like to do that for at least a year, preferably two, because I think that's enough time to see it work. And, you know, I'm always trying to add and, you know, I've, you know, we've talked about this in other episodes, I microload everything. So I think if I kind of take that approach and make sure I'm trying to add and, you know, train that way for a couple of years, I should see some changes.

I've seen some rapid changes, as you would expect, some novice effect like changes in some areas. some rapid changes as you would expect some novice effect like changes in some areas uh and that's been cool uh then i guess lifting i want to squat 500 because i think i'm close to it you know i hit 365 for 10 this year which was a nice little bonus so i'm like well i'm probably in the upper fours for a max so right right okay i want to squat five but do i want to set that as a goal for next year not really because it's, because it's too difficult to predict. I'm not strong enough for it now based on what I've done. I'm close, but close is not strong enough for it. And I'm advanced at the squat, so it might take longer than that. But I'd like to squat 500. I have some financial goals I want to hit, but again,

our economy has been upside down for the last few years, so I don't even want to set those because, you know. Right. Like, you have to project off data you have, and you can't really do that in a lot of areas. Like, I guess just like lifting, right? Like, I can't predict how strong I'm going to be in six months or what injuries I might incur in that time or, you know, what sickness I might incur or what trip I might have to take, you know, a lot of shit happens, you know, but I guess I generally want to get stronger and I want to improve my economic situation, my financial situation a little bit more. Yeah, I'm not sure. And I'm not in poverty for anybody who's wondering, you know,

but we all have goals. We want to make more money. We want to have less debt, you know, some combination of that. So, you know, I have certain milestones that I want to hit and we don't want to hit them. I'll certainly talk about them on the show because I think it's of value, you know, and it'll be nice. You know, I don't like talking about big things that I'm chasing until they're done, which is why I never talked about the degree, you know? Right, yeah. I have a strange way of doing things. Like, yes, I have goals, but I feel like if I start putting it out there, I'm setting the expectations too high, building hype, and then when things don't go right, then you feel like shit for no reason. So, that's part of being an introvert, I think. Well, you know, I think, yeah, I think there's some wisdom in what you're saying there.

What I'm hearing you say is that, number one, when you think about goals, especially with fitness, you know, something that you've done for a long time, is that you're looking at the process. You're like, okay, I want to get bigger up top. But you know that there's a lot of factors that you really can't control that go into how big you're going to get. So instead of being like, oh, I want 20-inch biceps, you're just like, I want to commit to X amount of time of training in this new style for me,

something that's new for me, you know, something that's this new for me and see where I get right. And letting the process drive the goal setting rather than the result. And, uh, and, and along with that is the second thing, which is that, yeah, not putting, not putting it out there. I've, there's this like stupid advice on the internet that I see all the time. That's like, you know, you really like, if you, if you have a goal, like you should tell everyone about it. Cause it's going to make you accountable to that goal. And then, you know, if you don't do it, you're going to have to face the, um, you know, face the, the disappointment and, uh, of all these people that you told you were going to do this thing and you didn't do it.

Well, people do that all the time and nobody cares because people do that all the time. Like everybody's used to it. They're like, oh yeah, sure. Cool. And you know, it's so there's no accountability, um, in doing that. And the second thing is, yeah, I think what happens is when you set these big lofty, huge goals and especially result oriented goals, like I'm going to make this much money or or I want to make whatever, there's two problems with that. Number one, they're way too easy to set. I want to squat 600 next year. I can say whatever number I want to.

That's easy. I want to squat 750 next year. Okay, great. There's no effort involved in making the lofty goal. You can just throw whatever you want out there with no basis in reality, right? How achievable it is. Then the second thing is, the second problem is when you set these, when you, when you tell everyone about your goal, you kind of get this little dopamine rush because you're imagining yourself at the finish line, having achieved the thing that you're talking about.

And it makes you feel good. And you're like, yeah, I'm going to do this. But it's not actually doing anything to get you towards that goal. No, it's giving you the sad, a little piece of the satisfaction of reaching the goal without actually doing anything whatsoever to advance you towards the goal. No. It's a bad psychological trap. It is. And the more you're talking about this, I'm starting to get a clearer idea of why I think this way. And a lot of it relates to training. Training and my training and my experience in higher education. I started my freshman year in college in 2002,

fall of 02. I was a class of 02 in high school. So now you know my age, people. I think everybody knows my age, though. What if you graduated high school at like 21? That'd be cool. I knew a guy who was 20 on my football team senior year he had to get an exemption oh 21 years old i think i've been 2021 no no no i mean like 20 21 years old and graduating now i know a guy on my football team he uh he had to get an exemption to play because he turned 20 during the school year i think he was 20 yeah because you can't, he like exceeded the age, but anyway. Yeah, so no, I graduated high school in 2002. I started my freshman year that fall, and I got my first degree, my bachelor's in family and consumer sciences with a degree option in dietetics. I got that in 2008. And so it took me six academic school years to do that.

And, you know, back then there was pressure, you know, if you don't finish in four years, you're a loser or something like that, you know. And I didn't care very much because I, you know, I score well on standardized tests, but I just I hate school the way it's set up right now, you know. Yeah, it's awful. Memorization, regurgitation thing. I mean, it's a whole other topic, maybe for a different type of podcast, actually, but to kind of keep this focused on what we're talking about here. So, you know, it just, it was something that, you know, I had to really push myself to do this, you know? And fortunately, I have a good memory, so I can make it work that way. I just don't like making it work that way. It's not enjoyable. Let's just put it that way. Like, I have a good memory, so I can make it work that way. I just don't like making it work that way. It's not enjoyable. Let's just put it that way. I was a straight-A student

in my master's. Once I kind of figured out what was needed of me, I made my brain work that way, but it was just, I had to put effort there. So, okay, so it took me six academic years instead of four to graduate. Then I started a master's. And, you know, when you're doing an undergraduate degree, you know, there's elements of uncertainty there, right? If you know what you're going to do and, you know, you're a pretty good student in high school and you kind of don't mind the whole memorize, regurgitate, busy work, I should say homework, you know, in undergrad, you have a lot of homework. If you don't mind that stuff and that system that works for you, you know, in undergrad, you have a lot of homework. If you don't mind that stuff, and that's a system that works for you, you know, you can get done in four years, and pretty much you could predict where things are going. You're like, okay, I take these classes

this semester, I take these classes next semester, which I did, you know, but then, you know, you take a test every four weeks or so, pass the class, get an A or B, you know, or I guess an undergrad, you can get a C. You can even get a D at some schools, but you get a passing grade. Let's just say that, right? You do that for four years, then you get your degree, right? Now, I went and do a master's. And at that point, I was, you know, riding a nice wave. You know, I got straight A's at the end of my bachelor's. You know, like I said, I kind of cracked the code, figured out what to do. And I wanted to just keep doing that because I got that little dopamine rush of winning. I was actually winning at something for once.

Yeah, right. And I went to my master's, hit it hard, got all As. But then you have to pick a culminating project. In the school that I went to, you had the option to do a comprehensive exam. You had the option to do a special project. I forgot what they called that. No, you had a comprehensive exam. You had the option to do a special project. I forgot what they called that. No, you had a comprehensive exam, you had an internship, and then you had a thesis. Those were your three options at Western Illinois University for a kinesiology master's, master of science in kinesiology. I chose the thesis route because I drank the Kool-Aid and I thought

that if you went the research route, that that made you, you know, an upper class citizen or, you know, a first world citizen or whatever, you know, the elite. Yeah, sure. So, you know, I wanted to go the research route, you know, I thought I'd learn more that way. Right. And I did, I did. I learned how to read scientific papers. I got better at writing. But what it also taught me was how to manage uncertainty. And I didn't manage it well that time, I'll tell you that much. Because when you're doing a project that's graded subjectively, that means you can't predict when you're going to graduate. So, you know, I started coursework fall of 08, and then I applied to the master's program for spring of 09 as soon as my grades hit. And I took classes with a variety of faculty, so they all knew me within a semester.

I got straight A's, so, you know, I pretty much got admitted the following semester. So I started master's coursework that spring. I finished master's coursework in three semesters. So I took classes in the spring. I took classes in the fall. And then I think I might have even been part-time that spring of 2009. And in the spring of 2009, I was working on data collection for my thesis. And I was trying to write the thesis. I wrote my lit review of my thesis in the spring of 2009 when I was taking research methods. It was

recommended that we do that so we can save on work, you know, write it up for your research methods, final paper, then you build upon it with your advisor. Well, you know, as I learned in academia, things don't always run super efficiently, you know, like, I mean, it doesn't, not always the case in the private sector either, especially when you're dealing with corporations, anybody ever called customer service for a big company, you know, I mean, right, right. So it's like, you know, I used to just say, oh, you know, it's the government. No, it's, you know, it's large entities, you know, you got too many cooks in the kitchen. So at, you know, that last semester, I'm part-time pretty

much with classes and I'm taking these, I'm part-time pretty much with classes, and I'm doing this thesis, right? And I'm applying to a dietetic internship as well. I got that master's, better grades, worked at the nursing home in the kitchen. I was a diet aid and worked on a grant on campus with diabetics. So I did a lot of employee wellness and things like that. And I got, you know, again, I got better grades, good recommendations, and long story short, I got in. But that spring, I was applying to get in and I was trying to finish my thesis. And my goal, I was setting goals back then that were specific, right? My goal was I want to graduate from my master's and then go on to the internship. Well, however, my master's depended

on me training all these students. So, we've tried to make it somewhat efficient. We used a weightlifting class, you know, untrained college students. Don't you love it? Yeah. We used a weightlifting class for my cohort so I didn't have to go through recruitment. I didn't have to recruit random people from the community to do the study. I just used a class and the class had a program assigned to them. There were barbell lifts in there because the professor who was in charge of that, he's more like us. At the time he had a master's, now he has a doctorate. And he's great. And he works out a little dungeon gym that looks a lot like RIP's, you know, a lot of old powerlifting pictures up on the wall. Cool.

And, you know, they borrow a little room in the basement of a Salvation Army in town, and they teach people how to Olympic lift powerlift lift strongman. So, we had a good guy there that was putting all that stuff together. So, the class had a reasonable program in there. So, I was, you know, doing a study, you know, looking at, oh, you know, drinking protein shake versus eating food, you know, that's for another episode, but just so you know what I was doing. So, nine-week program, because it's about how many weeks there were where they were actually lifting in the class. And I had to collect all that data. Then I had to analyze all that data. Then I had to write up a discussion

interpreting it, right? So that's kind of what a thesis entails. At that point, you know, my lit review was done. I had all my background stuff done. My methods were done. I was carrying out the project. Well, think about the logistics of that, right? So I have to finish everybody out near the end of the semester. Then I got to do this whole write-up. So, you know, as time starts progressing and we get this thing started, I realized this is probably going to spill into the summer, right? So I'm like, okay, internship starts in June. So maybe I could graduate by July, right? Well, no, that didn't happen either, you know, because, happen either because you get revisions from your advisor. You don't really interact with the rest of your committee until the very end.

And I get revisions, but then I might revise it, send it back out, then not hear back for a couple months. Right, right. That's not uncharacteristic. That's pretty normal. These guys teach classes. They have meetings. They have other projects's pretty normal. These guys teach classes. They have meetings. They have, you know, other projects they're on. You know, they're busy people.

So, you know, going through, and, you know, this is my first time writing a scientific paper like this that's very detailed. You have to go through every last, it's not like a journal article that you read, a peer-reviewed journal article. It's that times 10. You know, you have to explain everything in extreme detail because there's no page limit. There's no word limit, you know? And they can ask you to explain anything in that document in detail. So that's why these things tend to be long. So, you know, the spring comes and goes.

Okay, I'm not finishing in the spring. All right, well, I'll finish in the summer maybe. You know, then my internship starts, and I'm in Iowa now, and I'm in a different state. I'm 45 minutes away from the university in terms of where they placed me. So that worked out. But, you know, I'd send out stuff. I wouldn't hear back for a while. Then I'd hear back, try to fix that, you know, and then, okay, well, now we're getting into the fall, right? And I'm like, okay, December. It's going to be December, right? And then I'm like, I want to finish my internship in November, and then in December, I'll finish my thesis, then I'll take the RD exam, and everything will be great, right?

in November, and then in December, I'll finish my thesis, then I'll take the RD exam, and everything will be great, right? So I finished my internship. I passed the RD exam as planned, and I was pretty proficient at studying. Like, I knew what I needed to do to get a decent grade. So I took three weeks, and that worked. I took three weeks, I passed it, right? Well, what about the thesis, right? End of the semester is coming. I go there, I drive four hours to Macomb, Illinois, and I get there to defend this thing. And my other committee members are like, oh, no, he's not ready. He did this last section wrong and needs to be redone. And, man, it was like, like you said earlier about you build up all this hype and get embarrassed.

That was like the highest level of that. You know, I'm like sitting there in the hallway, dressed up, ready to, you know, give this presentation. And the other professor on my committee, who's a very good friend of mine, and he was 100% correct. You know, he's like, this section is not written correctly. You know, you need to compare and contrast studies and this and that, you know, writing a discussion. I didn't know how to write a discussion, right? So, you know, basically, if he wants to do it, he can do it, but then he's gonna have to do this again, most likely, and we don't want to put him through that. So, you know, I ended up going home, and I had to do the whole thing all over again.

Well, not all over because I didn't do it, but I had to do the defense in May of that following spring of 2011. Now we're in 2010. So I finished my internship November 2010, and I tried to defend shortly after my thesis. Couldn't because of that. Got sent home, and then I ended up defending in April or May, and then I did the minor revisions I had, and, you know, I graduated in May of 2011. But the project had been done for a year. The data collection was done for a year, you know? I learned a lesson, a very valuable lesson about goal setting, and that's that,

you know, you can't, it's, I, you know, you can do whatever you want. I personally don't like setting outcome goals because there's so many things that can happen in the process that can delay the achievement of those goals. So that was the first time I experienced that. And that was in 2010, 2011, early 2011. So to kind of bring it back home, same thing with, let's bring it to lifting. We have a lifting audience. I wanted to pull 500, right?

And I was so fixated on it because Rip, I said it in many podcasts, I've read a thread of his that I wish I could find and I can't, where he said, there's not too many 400s and 500s in the gym anymore. And this was in 2013, I read this.

And I'm like, he's right. I can't do 400 pound anything. I'm like, I need to fix that. I want to, you know, I want to pull 400 or 500 and, you know, or I want to pull over four, squat over four, you know, something like that. Something along those lines. But then I read the other famous rip quote, fuck barbell rows. Seriously, fuck them. Get your deadlift up to 500 or stop worrying about barbell rows and get your deadlift up to 500. Then you can have your own opinion and you won't need mine. Right. And I read that and took that to heart.

And I kept reading various threads and things that he was saying about 500 is not an incredibly heavy deadlift. In fact, he had mentioned somebody who was 70 who pulled 700 at my second seminar, the one in L.A. in January of 2014. He's like, this guy pulled 70, 70, and he says it all casual, and I start giggling. Then he's like, what the fuck are you laughing at, Santana? You haven't been around this for very long, have you? And he's like, 500 is not a heavy deadlift. I can go pull it right now. And that number got in my head, man. So this was 2014. I didn't pull that until 2018. So it took me five years to do that from when I started running the linear progression the first time because I started spring of 13. So it took me five years. But looking back with the knowledge I have now about my body and training, that's something that could have been done in two to three years.

But I had to make some stupid fucking mistakes with my diet, gaining weight, losing weight, hiring the wrong coaches. There's just things that, there's just shit that just happens, you know, like there are things that are going to happen. And the more I fixated on that number, the more stressful that became. Yep, exactly. Right. And, um, yeah, that's about, that's about how long it took me to, uh, to pull 500. I think I pulled in like maybe four years, five years. Yeah. But that's the thing. That's reality. in just the right way so that we have a perfect, unbroken, maximized training program from zero, from rank novice to whatever that goal is, 500, 600, 400, right? Yeah.

It just doesn't happen, right? There's only one person I can think of personally that I know that has done that, and that's Chase Lindley. Chase Lindley started training at the WF't been many disruptions to his training. You know, whatever's going on in personal life has not affected his training, or at least didn't for a very long time. And so, you know, he's truly a guy who has been able to get as close as you can to maximizing progress in the gym and, you know, has also done it. It seems, you know, seems like he's done just about everything he needs to do to maximize his recovery and, uh, and eaten and gotten to a decent size. Right. But most of us aren't going to do that.

It's just not going to happen for most of us. You know, I trained pretty hard for a couple of years and then I completely changed the way that my business worked, right? Like I worked a W2 job. I completely left that and worked for myself after starting a side hustle for it ever was while working a full-time job in finance and doing a side hustle? No, it wasn't. Right. And what about the next year when I went freelance, you know, and my income dropped by like 60%. And on top of that, like, you know, I was like, am I going to make it? Am I going to make it next month?

Am I going to make it to the quarter? Am I going to get popped by the IRS? Cause I didn't pay taxes, you know, like, cause I can't afford to pay taxes. You know, am I going to have the money? There's all these little like stresses that you have when you're first starting a business and all that kind of stuff. Right? No, of course not. Of course my training wasn't the best. So I've had realistically, when I look over my like strength training career, not, not the time, not all the years I've been in the gym, but the time I've actually been like, no shit strength training for the last seven years. I, you know, I have like, like, I really have like a bunch of like three to six month runs that are good, but they don't happen back to back for the

most part. Um, I'll just get like a good run once a year maybe. And that's it. And the rest of the year, I'm always trying, I'm always in the process of trying to improve myself, but stuff comes up that knocks me back and I have to rebuild. Um, sometimes stuff comes up and it doesn't knock me back, but it's, it's sort of like, it's just sends me sideways from a training perspective. I don't, I don't really gain anything, but that's real life. And so that's, I agree. That's why I don't like setting numbers as goals. Now, I don't think it's a bad idea on its face. I think when you're newer to this training thing, I think it's okay to have a goal to like, hey, I want to deadlift three 15. I want to squat one 35. I want to squat two 25. I want to squat two 75. I don't think that's bad because what that does is it gives you a direction, right? When you're like, Hey, you know, you're sitting

at the beginning. You're like, Hey, I want to, I want to pull four Oh five or I'm going to pull 500. Well, it sets a direction for you at least, which is like, okay, well, if you're going to do that, you're going to need to get stronger, obviously, right? If you're going to do that, well, you're going to need to train for strength. Okay, well, if you need to train for strength, how do you do that? Well, you should do a strength, you know, you should do starting strength. You know, you should do the advanced novice, right? So it sets a direction for you. It tells you like where you're going to go on the path. And I think that's think that is useful in certain scenarios. But once you've been doing this for a little bit of time, once you get past that novice phase,

advanced novice phase, intermediate phase, those numbers very quickly become distractions from the process. And I found, as you found, if you focus on the process and you refine the process and you try to make incremental improvements to your process, then you will see results. And the other thing is if you set a number for yourself and you missed the number, but you improved, it kind of feels like a failure. Like, oh damn, I didn't hit 500 this year. I only got 485. Yeah. Okay. But were you squatting 450 before? Are you not happy with 35 pound PR? You know what I mean? That's the problem with it. Yeah. I was going out of my mind trying to get to 500, man. It was crazy. And, you know, physiologically,

you know, sure. You know, that could have been achieved in less time but you the thing is we're not in a lab with you know people uh prescribing us the perfect program and prescribing keeping all external conditions perfect and keeping your psychology perfect you know right right well that's let's say the psychology that's another big part of it too, right? Like, are you always absolutely psyched to go and chase a number? No, like, there's no way you're not. And if you are, if you're like, yeah, man, every day I'm fucking psyched to crush it in the gym. Okay, great. But, uh, you're not going to be five years from now. You're not going to be two years from now. Okay. But so, okay. What are you going to do then? two years from now. Okay. But so, okay. What are you going to do then? Here's what I will say.

After I hit that, that was March 31st, 2018, I pulled 500 for the first time. I'm like, okay, that's done. Uh, well, I guess I gotta, you know, reset and do some weight and some more next week. And my mentality has pretty much stayed there ever since. Cause I had no goals after that, you know,, I pressed over 200 at that point, which was plenty for me. I didn't think I'd get to 225, so I didn't care. But I pressed over 200. I was over body weight, so that was fine. I'd squatted 420. Rip claimed it was high. Okay, Rip says high is high, but I did squat 405 clean. And that's all I wanted there. I just wanted to squat 405. So that was there. And, uh, um, I didn't really care about the bench, you know, like I wanted a 300 bench, but I don't know. I didn't care that much, you know, and I thought it would eventually happen. I just didn't care. You know, the bench had been stuck

pretty bad to the point where I just accepted it. You know, I'm just like, okay, whatever, you know, I got two 90, you know, two5 was a little bit of a bridge, you know. But, you know, so from that point forward, I was like, okay, I got to build a business. I got to get this school thing figured out. You know, I was still in the first program at the time. I wanted to, you know, put my focus on that, and I did. And, you know, then I opened the gym and I did that. But through all that, my only goal was to show up and try to do a little bit more and try to do a little bit more.

And I just kept doing that. And something interesting happened. And, you know, in 20, I think at the end of 2019, I tripled 405 on the squat, which was kind of crazy because it was more than one rep. You know, I'm like, holy shit, I did four plays for more than one rep. And, you know, I'd forgotten about it till like a few months ago. I was looking through my phone and I was like oh yeah i did rep do multiple reps in 2019 i didn't remember that so that happened right i'm like oh i'm still getting stronger okay cool right that was in the midst of opening the gym and showing up less actually so what was happening

was i was recovering because i'd been free you know leading up to 500 i was over training volume for a big chunk of that time then later after after 500, because I was stronger, I now was overtraining intensity. I couldn't handle the intensity that I used to be able to handle because my capability was higher. So when I opened the gym, I was skipping workouts often. Right. I always got at least two a week, and I always got one squat and one deadlift in the same week. And the deadlift went up, the squat went up, you know, uh, you know, and it was pretty interesting. I'm like, okay, well, this, this is interesting. So I think

at the end of 2019, I'm thinking what I pulled 515 or something, or was that 2020? Maybe that was 2020. Either way, I squat, I tripled 405 on the squat. Then 2020 happened. Uh, and I'm pretty, I'm positive that year I pressed 220. I'm like, cool, I pressed 100 kilos. And I didn't expect that. Then I fast forward sometime that year or last year. I was on a roll, and I think I, you know, what did I, I tripled 205 or something or 200. And I'm like, oh, shit.

I'm like, I could probably get 225 on this damn thing if I, you know, get my programming right, you know, for these singles. Yeah. And I couldn't get, you know, I got 215. That went. Then I couldn't get past 215. And I'm like, what the fuck do I do here? Okay, something's up. I have to unlock this thing.

It's locked up somewhere, but it's there. The strength is there. You know, I was certain of this. And, you know, I have the knowledge, right? So I'm like, let's pin press instead of press for my intensity for a few weeks so three weeks i just ran that up till i got to an all-out max on the pin press and i did 255 and i'm like if i can lock 255 out from my forehead i could do 30 pounds left less from the start for sure yeah so then the following week because that 255 i barely got it

up right but i locked it out i'm like all right next week i'm gonna try to max out again threw it up got it 225 locked it out then i was like holy shit i'm like i did not expect to fucking press two plates i was 180 pounds at the time you know yeah i did not expect to do that but i'm like so that's fucking cool right so you know i took that and i'm like if i can get more i get more you know if not you know i'm just gonna keep showing up and then i kept showing up my weight kept creeping up you know as you know i cut i cut at the end of last year, finished that up early this year. And by the end of last year, before I had a mild tweak in my adductor, I tripled over 200 on the press again. And I set up five rep PR. I hit 192 or 195, 192 and a half for five. That was a PR for me, two and a half pound PR. And I was probably primed to get 230 or over 230, and then it didn't work out, and I just, I

forgot about it. I just didn't care because I'm like, oh, adductors tweaked, okay, that means weight comes off, work it back up. And by the way, people, when you get strong, when you get strong past a certain threshold, it all feels heavy, you know? It's not fun anymore, you know? I mean, it's fun, you enjoy it, but it's not fun in the sense of, oh my god,

I feel so great. It's fucking heavy and miserable, you know? No, no, no. Yeah, know yeah it gets you know somebody has to rip yeah somebody has to get to work day about what do you do for fun besides training he's like i don't train for fun training ain't fun right so you know when i tweaked my adductor it was very different than if i tweaked my adductor when i was chasing 500 i would have been so pissed because it's like, now I can't hit my goal. But this time I'm like, oh, cool. I get to go down to 275 now. Right. I know. I've gotten to that point where it's just like when I have to like LP because I get, you know, knocked off for, you know, three or four weeks at a time. I'm like, oh, yes, 275. So here's what's interesting. So I added, you know, I started 275. I'm like, I'm going to go up by five pounds this entire time while I'm cutting.

You know, I've told that story before, so I'm not going to go into that. Because I don't want it to get back up there anytime soon. So long story short, while on a calorie deficit, you know, my PR to the 10 was 340 before all this happened. So I hit that, and I'm like, all right, let's go 345. Shit, I hit that. Okay, let's go 350. I hit that. Then I'm texting Menengel, and he's 345. Shit, I hit that. Okay, let's go 350. I hit that. Then I'm texting Meningel and he's like, dude, you're probably good for 475 on that squat.

And I'm like thinking about it. I'm like, holy shit, he's right. My squat has probably went up. So next week, 355, then 360. Then I kept missing 365. I've talked about this. I reset. At this point, I'm eating more calories, by the way.

I reset the lift, worked back up over a couple months or a month and a half, and then I hit 365 for 10, I think, two months ago. But by that point, I'm like, okay, I'm probably – I'm close to 500. So now, like, again, I'm setting a goal, right? I haven't set any lifting goals in a long time. Not since I thought I could hit 225 two years ago. And I'm like, okay, I want to hit 225. I think it's there. So now the same thing happened. I'm like, I think 500 is possible for me. I'm 38. I just hit, I just squatted 365 for a clean set of 10. So I could probably hit 500 in like a couple

of years or so, maybe next year if I'm lucky, you know, but I think, I think 500 is in my future if I stay healthy. So now I have the goal for a 500 squat, which is still fucking insane to me. But it's just one of those things, right? I hit a milestone without really thinking about it. All I was doing was showing up and trying to add and doing that over time, right? Something goes wrong, I reset, I try that again, right? So now I'm seeing that it's within the realm of possibility. So it's now realistic. Before it felt unrealistic. So I didn't think about that. But now I'm like, okay, I want to squat 500 and then I want to train leg day.

Right. Yeah. It's my leg day until, yeah. It's my theory, by the way, that, um,

all, all lifters become bodybuilders eventually. You kind of have to, you kind of have to, you either retire or you become a bodybuilder. Let me put it that way. There's some guys who just straight up retire. But yeah, I think, I think the thing is there is that, see, that's, that's the proper use of a number goal, right? Which is that it's there to like the real, the real lesson from what you just told me is that it's, it's refining the

process over time. That's where the process goal is. It comes into play versus the number goal. Cause the number goal just came into play. And this is after, you know, years and years of squatting past, you know, 405, right. Um, the, the, the first time you hit 405. And so that's the thing, right? Um, the, the, the first time you hit 405. And so that's the thing, right? It's, it's not that, um, you know, I'm not saying like you just, you know, cause yes, absolutely keep showing up consistency. That is the number one thing that will drive progress for you. You

have to keep showing up. And if you just do that, even if your programming sucks, frankly, you're going to make some progress. But, but the thing is like, um, you know, if you can add on top of that little small changes to your program to make them a little bit better over time, little small habits, then that adds up to progress over the years. And it's little things like you're talking about, like you, you know, you figured out at some point, um, how to periodize and do that efficiently and then how to peak yourself, right? For heavier doubles, triples, singles. Okay. Well, that's going to be a little unique to everyone, especially for someone who's advanced, you know, how that process works. You know, I'm finding doing a bunch of, um, eights and fives. it's not translating very well for me into heavy singles, doubles, triples. Probably that's just the, that's probably more of a recovery thing for me, that's, that's, that's what I think about

when I think about goals is, um, small incremental things that you can do to your habits and your process. And they really are small, you know, like one of my goals for next year, this is a health goal. It's not a training goal. It's a health goal is to floss every day. Uh, I didn't floss every day this last year. Um, I've had some dental work done and, um, I'm like, I really, my, my teeth are in fairly good shape, but I'm at the age now where it's like, I can't ignore them. I can't be bad about this stuff. If I don't want, if I want to avoid, you know, serious dental work in the future. Um, I also broke a tooth this year. I didn't be bad about this stuff if I don't want, if I want to avoid, you know, serious dental work in the future. Um, I also broke a tooth this year. I didn't actually break a tooth. I thought it did. I, it was just a, a really shitty filling that popped out, but I thought I broke a tooth and

it freaked me out for a little bit until the dentist was like, Oh yeah, this is just a filling. We just fix that in no time. Um, but it kind of freaked me out and I was like, Oh no, this is like, are my teeth falling apart? Anyway, point being, I want to floss every day. That's a goal. That's it. That's it. Yeah. I started that this year. Just one tiny habit. And you know what? That's hard enough for most people to do. It's actually a pretty big, pretty lofty goal when you really think about it. But that's one of the things I want to do. And so, yeah, so that's the thing. I'm not aiming for any sort of like outcome with my teeth. I just, you know, I just want to add that little

habit. And I know that that will yield better health down the road. So anyway, I hope that's been helpful for y'all. So as you're thinking about your own goals next year, it's okay to set a number, right? That's okay. It's fun, you know, but like the number is the least important part here. Okay. Don't spend a lot of time about it. Don't tell everybody what you want to do. If you have to write it down somewhere, don't make a poster. Just write it down.

Make a little list. And then spend your time thinking about how you're going to do that, right? What are you going to do differently to get to that goal? What's one little habit that you're going to do that, right? What are you going to do differently to get to that goal? What's one little habit that you're going to change? So, um, you know, if you've been doing novice linear progression and you crush your squats, you crush your press, you crush your bench, but your deadlift is always kind of a little like, well, I don't know. You don't put a hundred percent effort into it, um, because it's at the end of the, the, the day. Well, this is, this is a process improvement you can make. What are you going to do to make that dead

lift better? Okay. Maybe put it at the start of the workout. I don't know, but that's where it's going to, to get you to your goal is the process. Yeah. It's showing up the foundation of all this shit yeah um you know you can have a you can have a goal you know number goal or whatever you want to call it you know let's just use number goal in mind but then you know anticipate a bunch of shit and uh think of a timeline and then add a buffer to that you know i commit to timelines now more than I do number goals. Like, you know, I have some financial goals in mind, right? And, you know, I probably have a timeline that I'm committed to, you know? But, yeah, like I'm going to put in this much effort and reassess.

That's what I mean by that because I can easily say I want to achieve. I want to make this much money or cut this much debt by, you know, X amount of months. That's not what I mean by that, because I can, whatever you want to call it. Right. I want to do that for one to two years, you know, and see what happens and see where that takes me. Right. I have an idea of, you know, I'd like to add a couple inches to my arms, you know, that'd be cool, but I don't know if I'll do that or not, but I know that if that were to happen,

it'd probably take a couple of years, you know, maybe longer. So, you know, two years seems like a good amount of time. I'm coming in on six months of this type of training. I'll probably hop in a deck so I get some data for you guys. But, you know, I hope that my examples have kind of highlighted why I think that way and highlighted why, you know, it's a valuable way to approach goals. You know, you have your goal, and then you have, you know, a theoretical timeline for a perfect world scenario, but then odds are you're not going to have anything close to a perfect world scenario. So you have to probably double that timeline, you know, so decide how long you want to commit, and then commit to that and see what outcome you get from that, right? So if you're willing to block off two years to train, block off two years to train, but don't get married to hitting a certain result in those two years.

Let the process deliver what the process delivers. And then evaluate from there if you want to keep training. So let's say that, okay, you want a big deadlift. You want 500 deadlifts. Let's say you're like me 10 years ago, right? Well, that'll take a few years probably, you know, maybe not for some people, you know, for those of you who can get there fast, great. But let's assume that, you know, you know, it's going to take you a few years.

You're not a big, huge dude. This is hard for you. You're not the most coordinated. You know, this is a challenging thing for you, right? So, you know, zoom out and say, okay, I'm a hard gainer. You know, I'm not athletic. You know, maybe two to four years. Let's give it two to four years and see how close I can get, right?

Yeah. That's probably a better way to approach the goal because now you've committed. You have a goal of training for two to four years. That's your goal now, right? And what comes out of that is less relevant. And if you might hit 500, you might hit 510, 515, 520, 550 maybe, you know, but that's irrelevant. You're going to train for two to four years to get as close as you can to that, right? And I think that's a more reasonable way to approach it because most things that aren't easy for you require years usually, you know.

Usually it's years, months and years, not weeks and months, you know. Right. Usually it's years, months and years, not weeks and months, you know? Right. And I think that's the theme of this podcast is I'm trying to really highlight that because we've been used to, you know, eight-minute abs, three months to 20 pounds of muscle, all these other silly shit things, you know? Right. And, you know, you got to think in terms of months and or years, you know, and commit to how much time you want to spend on it. That also helps you evaluate whether it's that important to you because we only have

so many years on this planet. You know, you want to spend them training. I did, you know. Yeah, right. I still do. So it makes sense for me. So, you know, that's the nugget of knowledge I leave and I hope my examples from my own experience kind of give you some perspective

on how to set your own goals. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I hope that gives you something to think about for 2023. I've got just a few days left this year. Thank you very much for listening this year. We really appreciate it. Thanks for letting us into your ear holes and taking up some of your valuable time in the day. And we hope you got something good from this year. We really appreciate it. You know, thanks for letting us into your ear holes and taking up some of your valuable time in the day. And we hope you got something good from this

podcast. We've got a lot of, I think some pretty interesting topics lined up for January. We're going to really kind of hammer down on some of the, you know, we get a lot of questions about the guy who's, or the girl who is skinny fat, it falls in the skinny fat category, right? And how do you navigate that challenge of gaining muscle, getting leaner, looking better when you're not coming from a standpoint of like being really skinny and needing to do go mad or being quite overweight and needing to lose a bunch of weight, right? So if you're not in those scenarios, like, what do you do? It's kind of a challenging thing, and there's not enough information out there.

So we want to really dive into that much deeper next year, and we'll see where else the podcast goes. But thank you so much for tuning in this year and letting us in your ear holes. And we will close out on that note. All right. Thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. We appreciate all your support this year and in the past. It is the end of the year, so Merry Christmas, Happy New Years,

and Happy Holidays to those of you who do not celebrate Christmas or New Years. You can find me at Instagram, the underscore Robert underscore Santana. You can find the gym at weights, double underscore and double underscore plates. Fuck the guy who still has a single underscore. And www, no,

I'll go all the way to Trent this time. HTTP colon slash slash www dot weights and plates.com. There we go. All right. Well, you know where to find me at marmalade underscore cream. And you can also if you're interested in training, you can email me Jones barbell club at gmail.com. I'm getting pretty full for the beginning of the year in 2023. I take very limited in person bookings. But if you're interested in some in person coaching or online

coaching, where I still have a couple slots available, you can go there, jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. All right, folks, we will see you on the other side of 2023. Thank you.