Weights and Plates Podcast - #70 - No Fear, No Gain

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

For a variety of reasons, the predominant form of exercise in popular culture is endurance training. Endurance is valorized in the media, with sports like swimming and running receiving prime position in Olympic broadcasts. Military films often depict the hero enduring through miles and miles of trackless jungle and urban wastelands. The overarching experience of endurance training is pain, and pain is relatable. Everyone suffers, or will suffer, from pain in their life. It's even in the popular saying: "no pain, no gain."   Strength training, however, does not elicit the same pain response that endurance training does. Strength training does not burn or ache, it is an entirely different experience. Squatting a heavy set of five with a barbell feels like being crushed by a Mack truck; you must overcome an intense amount of pressure in your whole body, while pushing as hard as you can against the weight. Your body dumps adrenaline, increasing your heart rate and blood pressure. The set begins long before you step on the platform too. Hours or even days before the event, the anticipation of a heavy, all-out set of squats gives you butterflies. Strength training is, essentially, engaging with and conquering a fear response.   For this reason, strength training is a harder sell in the fitness community. It is socially acceptable to pound a trainee into the ground with endurance training. People will pay dearly for it, in fact! Just look at Crossfit, where they frequently claim "your workout is our warmup." Yet, if you want to build a strong, resilient, muscular body, learning to face your fears and lift heavy barbells is a must. It's a useful skill in the gym, and in life.   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream Email: [e-mail]  

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. Good evening. We record these in the evenings, or at least it's the evening for me um you'll have to forgive me today i'm not drinking whiskey i'm drinking uh an herbal tea because i'm i'm since we last attempted to record i i've contracted a cold and i actually don't feel bad like physically you know i'm a little tired than normal but i just like my sinuses are just like balloons, like just so many expanded balloons inside my head.

And so forgive me, my normal mellifluous voice is not with me today. You'll just have to deal with my nasal croaking over here. We attempted to record. It was almost. This is number two. So it took 70 episodes for me, not Trent. He would never make such a mistake to forget to press the record button on our recording software.

So we filmed it. We did it. And then at the end, I was like, oh, wow, dude, I didn't record any of that. Hey, you know, I'd like to say that I've never done that before, but I totally have. So it's all right. It's everybody gets like everybody gets one. right. It's like everybody gets one. Yeah. It's like a family guy.

That was mine. 69 in a row. That's right. Yeah. You just wanted to hang on that number 69 a little bit longer. Yeah. Maybe I botched it on purpose subconsciously so I can say, I got 69 in a row. If we don't release another podcast, we'll just end on 69.

Nice. Well, so the topic that we wanted to, that we discussed at great length in the episode that we will not be releasing because it didn't record. We were talking about something we realized, you know, we haven't gotten into the psychology as much of lifting heavy. we haven't gotten into the psychology as much of lifting heavy and realized as we talked about this that there's actually, there's, there's some meat on the bone here that let's say that, you know, hopefully you have listened to us and you have bought into the fact that if you want to build a muscular physique that quote unquote looks like you train, you're going to have to lift heavy weights. And the best way to do that is to focus on the big compound lifts, right? We've covered that ad nauseum, right? You need to squat, you need to press, you need to

bench press, you need a deadlift, and you need to add weight to the bar on a regular basis, drive those numbers up. That's right. But you know, one of the things like if you're new to this though, one of the things that most people don't have experience with is training in this high intensity manner. And when I say high intensity, I mean something very specific by that. By high intensity, I mean lifting heavy weights. When the weight gets very heavy, we would consider this high intensity exercise as opposed to let's say endurance exercise which is low intensity it doesn't mean it's easy it can be very hard running a marathon is very hard or at least it is for me i've only run a half marathon i've never run a full marathon a half marathon was hard enough. So it has nothing to do with being hard in a subjective

sense, but it's low intensity. On the other hand, doing a heavy set of five on the squat, that is a very, very high intensity event. And it's a completely different feeling than doing a marathon or a half marathon or even a 5k. most people just based on the the level of physical education that we have in the modern western world have very little if no experience with doing true high intensity work in the gym so we wanted to talk about that today yeah that concisely summed it up because you know we went on a few tangents to get there. So I kind of like how Trent just did that because now I know where I want to go. So, yeah, I think that a lot of people, when they're thinking of things that are physically hard, they're thinking of enduring something, right?

You know, it's kind of goes to the name, endurance exercise, right? But not just, you know, lifting, like you think about like, you know, the thing that jumps in my mind is not even physical. It's a, you know, when I did a PhD, you know, when I finished it, everybody was saying the guy who finishes is the guy with the most endurance, right? So I had to endure shitty conditions of sorts for several years, you know, and deal with that. And that's hard, you know, it's definitely hard. And it's the same thing if you're running, you know, 26 miles or even a mile, right? Like one mile. You know, it's short distance, relatively speaking, but it's not a sprint, right?

And, you know, running one mile, you're enduring it. You know, like when I was in high school, I remember that third or fourth lap around the track, you know, my quads were burning up pretty bad, you know? Right, yeah. And my lungs were on fire, you know? It's several minutes. You know, the average person is going to, that's going to take, you know, seven to 10 minutes to run that mile. It's a long, it's a long duration. Yeah. Or as a swimmer, I did a 500 freestyle. That was long.

Oh yeah. Long, long swims are just, oh, those are awful. I'd rather run a half marathon than do a long swim. So for those of you unfamiliar with swimming, uh, and my high school pool is 25 yards. So that would say that's quote unquote, the shorter pool. If you've seen a lap pool, right? The meter pool is the longer pool. That's what you see the Olympics, right? So we had a 25 yard pool. So a 500 yard freestyle was 20 laps. Right. And I lost count once I thought I was done, but I was actually getting lapped by the guys that were super fast. Then I stopped and I'm like, oh shit. They're like, no, you got two more. Everybody's cracking up, right?

It's that damn ADHD. But it was hard. I actually didn't mind the 500 so much. It was the 200 that drove me nuts because that was eight laps, middle distance, kind of like running. Middle distance is the fucking worst. It's like an 800-meter. It's like, is it a sprint? Yes.

Is it long distance? Yes. Yeah. I preferred the 50s at the end, like the 100 for a while because, you know, it's like, is it a sprint? Yes. Is it long distance? Yes. I prefer the fifties at the end, you know, like the hundred for a while, because like, you know, You're like a drag, a drag racing car in the water. Pretty much. Yeah. Uh, it's kind of like, you know, in lifting, you know, you, people pay attention to, let's say they're deadlift, right? 500 deadlift. You know, if you were a swimmer, a high high school swimmer especially if you didn't have a history of swimming you know before high school like some of these guys have been doing this they were four i was not you know i started when i was 15. and uh you know you get fixated on the hundred because first you want to break a minute you know

you're like 14 you know you're mediocre you know some of these guys break a minute their first year of course you know but i'm talking about your mediocre swimmers that are kind of new to it you know not super fast like i want to get under a minute. Then you get under a minute, then it's like, oh, I want to get more, more, more. Then I guess these really fast guys will get under 50 seconds, you know. I think the, I don't know what the world record is, the mid to low 40s, you know. And that's four laps of the pool, right? So that's when it starts to, like, you know, it's kind of a sprint,

but it's kind of not, you know, because the first two laps are the sprint, then you've got two more. So that's where you start to have to pace yourself, right? But my point is that I think when you talk to the average person, they can come up with a lot of examples of things they've had to endure where it's like, I know I held out and just sucked this up for, you know, however long, you know, like the 26-mile marathon, a 500-meter swim, a PhD program, whatever. They're thinking of long periods of time of enduring sustainable pain, right? Yeah. But that is very different than when you have to do an all-out exertion all at once.

It's a different experience. So the analogy I like to give, and what kind of inspired the podcast is, it's a different experience. So the analogy I like to give and what kind of inspired the podcast is, you know, it's become quite fashionable to train in a way that simulates some sort of endurance activity. Like CrossFit, if you really think about what CrossFit is, it's endurance. You know, you're endurance with weights, you know, but it's endurance. You're doing things, if you're doing things continuously for time, it's endurance. It's an endurance component. With a little strength thrown in, but not the other way around. Yeah.

Yeah. If the focus is time, it's endurance. If the focus is load, it's going to be more strength, right? You know? And that's kind of how I like to explain it. I remember once in an exercise physiology class or a muscle physiology class, there was a question about, okay, well, 1RM is the strength measure. You know, what's a good measure of endurance?

And I'm like, I don't know, maybe a 20RM squat. You know, we're talking about muscular endurance, right? And he's like, well, an AMRAP would probably be better because, you know, if you put a cap on it, then it becomes more about the weight. And I saw his point, you know, so I kind of have always kind of kept that analogy in the back of my mind.

But whatchamacallit, yeah, if the load is the focus and it's about lifting as much load as possible, yeah, it's a strength stimulus, right? And if the time is the variable, then it's an endurance focus, right? Or number of reps, you know, like you can make that argument too, you know, if you're trying to accumulate more reps and you're trying to increase your endurance, right? And it's just easier to experience endurance in life. Often you're lifting something so heavy that you only do it once for a few seconds, You know, it just doesn't happen, you know? Yeah. So, you know, I mean, it does, but you know what I mean?

You're talking about the endurance thing. I was trying to think about like, you know, what was my earliest experience with endurance events? I wouldn't say training because I wasn't training then, but I remember in PE. So, you know, I grew up in the, the nineties, PE. So, you know, I grew up in the 90s, primary educational system. And the PE classes, they start, I think this was like the introduction of standardized testing everywhere, right? In Texas, we had the TOSS test or TACS test. I can't remember what it was at the time. They changed the acronyms 10 times. But we had that in our academic classes, but then they eventually introduced some standardized testing in PE as well. And I remember, I don't know, fourth grade, fifth grade, something like that. They started making us do these tests where

we had to do timed runs. And one of them was we had to run from one end of the gym to the other end of the gym. And there was a test tone that would play on the PA. Oh, I remember this. Did you do this? The beep? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you got to run to the other side of the gym and it would beep. And the first beep is like 20 seconds. I mean, it gives you forever, right? So you're just sitting there, you know, checking your watch, beep, and then you got to run to the other side. And then as you do more laps, the beeps get progressively shorter until, you know, like, I think I got like 70 something laps or something. I was one of the top 10, you know, kids, just because I was into that stuff. You know, I just like to push myself and just see what I could do. Not because I was particularly good at it, but that was probably one of the earliest experiences I had is in PE, they started introducing standardized testing and it was endurance based. they started introducing standardized testing and it was endurance based.

And then, um, as I got into, uh, middle school and high school, junior high and high school, uh, we actually had, we had track and field and, uh, you know, I played football. That was my main sport and baseball, which, you know, not really very endurance based, but they encouraged us to go out for the track and field stuff. And so, yeah, we'd start running. I'd have to run cross country. I never competed in it, but I had to train with it. And I think that's most sports, even football to some extent, even football would have, well, they would train in that way, right?

Where they'd be like, all right, you know, it's January. We're in the off-season conditioning program. We're running three miles today. And it's just like some big ass laps around the entire school complex. And yeah, so there you go. On the flip side, you know, what kind of experience did I have early on of moving very heavy weights? And I can't think of much. I can't think of much. I think if you're a city dweller like I was, that's probably true of your experience. You know, if you don't have implements

or you just have very basic stuff, you know, we'd have like balls we could throw and, you know, stuff like that, but that was it. You're pretty much running on some sort of course is like the most basic exercise you can get a bunch of kids to do in public school. If we roll the clock back, you know, what, 100 years, 150 years, 200 years, for sure. When most of us would be living in a more agrarian society, I think you

have a lot of kids who would understand strength training much more intuitively, because think about what a kid does on a farm since they're little, you know, they're picking up heavy sacks of seed. You know, you got, you got an 80 know, they're picking up heavy sacks of seed. You know, you got, you got an 80 pound little kid picking up 50 pound sacks of seed and hauling around. Yeah. Bailing hay, throat pitching vegetables and fruits up into, uh, you know, a truck or a cart. Um, you know, there's a lot more physical or even dealing with animals, you know, when you got to work around very heavy, powerful animals, animals, you got to use some force. So it's funny.

I think that's probably flipped in the last hundred years where public education has become the norm for most people. So I don't think it was always this way, but it certainly is now. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, now people look at strength as like, and I think some of this is changing, but as like a circus sideshow, you know? Right. And I think we talked about this Friday. You know, it's like you take a guy who, you know, can do all this endurance stuff like, you know, what's his name? Froning, the CrossFitter, right? Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's just a perfect, you you know he's the quintessential quote unquote modern athlete right that people think of right like super lean can run around jump around yeah got abs can run around jump around lift stuff up and can do all this stuff right and you know there's certainly value there i'm not saying that you should be deconditioned and be a big strong power lifter but there's just this heavy emphasis on cardio. The focus is, oh, he can just keep going.

You know, he can just move. He can jump. He's so light on his feet, like all this fucking bullshit, right? And it's like, okay, well, you know, what if, you know, a 450 pound guy falls on him? You know? Yeah, right.

You know, I don't know what his PRs are. Maybe he can get out of that. You know, he might be strong enough to do that. But, you know, I'm just giving a broad example, right? I'm not talking about that guy specifically. But there's a lot of people that aspire for that they want to like do all these things at once. But we got to understand is a guy like that is born that way, right? And he's, he's responsive to various types of training, you know, he improves at all of it. That's why he's good at CrossFit. You know,

there's certain people that can do that, you know, I got a friend who's, you know, our colleague, Brian Fox, he's in the Army Special Forces, right? The guy was fast, he was explosive. And then when he had to do endurance, he, you know, white knuckled it, got it done. You know, he's running 20 miles and squatting over 500 for reps, you know? Right. Yeah. And he has a 38 inch vertical jump. What were you gonna say? I was gonna say, yeah, that makes me think of, you know, when we think of popular, like popular culture, you know, what are the physical feats that are celebrated, you know? And again, I, most people nowadays are not participating in, you know, intense physical culture, but they're, they're watching it and need popular media and dude, it's military, right? You think about the military, everybody knows

about the Navy SEAL, you know, buds course,. Every dude has watched the, there was a documentary 20 years ago about the Navy SEALs going through, or the SEAL preparatory course. So if you want to even try to become a SEAL, before you even do SEAL training, you have to go through BUDS. Yep. I watched that video from 2000, I think.

Yeah, somewhere around there. It's a great documentary if you haven't seen it. It's on YouTube. You can go find it. It's really, it's really entertaining, but yeah. I mean, what did they have those guys doing? It's just like hundreds and hundreds of pushups, you know, it's like, they got to roll around in the sand on the surf for hours and hours. They got to run for just miles and miles. They got to go get on a boat and like haul it over the heads and run for it for more miles. It's all endurance based. And you know, we see it in the movies too, right? You know, you think about the military guy, like just enduring through, you know,

miles of trackless jungle. And it's important, you know, I want to say that's important because survival is an endurance game, if you really think about it, you know? Yes. Torture is an endurance game. You know, they got to make sure these guys can handle pain for long periods of time. I understand that. Absolutely. Yes. But you also got to realize too, and you know, Rip is going to shoot me for saying this, for guys at that level, strength is not the limiting factor. No, no, no. They should get stronger. That's not me saying they shouldn't get stronger and they shouldn't learn how to move the way we teach people to move and they shouldn't do these lifts. They should definitely do these things. The analogy rip gave once he's like you know tom brady should squat 500 you know and then i

think the person he was talking to chuckled but he's like do you realize that that is an nfl quarterback that 500 is not heavy for an nfl quarterback you know that's just a baseline you know do you remember uh vinnie testaverti who who by the way played played until in his mid-40s. He was a 5'600 squatter. He was a 500 squatter in his 40s. He was actually very serious about strength training. So that's the greater point, right? Yeah. That's a greater point.

That segues to where I'm going with this. It's like these guys in special forces and professional sports, they're going to get injured. It's a matter of when, not if, right? But if they trained in this way and kept themselves strong through these ergonomic, efficient movements, and we're not saying they should max out their strength gains because that's going to cause injuries too. These guys are very explosive and capable of doing a lot more than we are, you know? But just maintaining some level of strength, which for them is much higher than ours,

could probably prevent some of those injuries, you know, or they can tolerate them better. You know, there's a lot of benefits to that. So I don't want to sit here and go on the record and say they shouldn't train. What I'm saying is for them, and I think that the, you know, I don't want to give them too much credit

because these government guys can be dumbasses, but I think intuitively the approach is, you know, they might, I think they communicate it very shitty, but what I think they're trying to say is that strength is not the limiting factor. These guys are already strong, right? But it doesn't mean that, yeah. I think, I think that's a hundred percent, because when you look at the high levels, like we're not talking about basic infantry here, you know, when you look at the Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers and stuff, the course, the sort of introductory courses that they have to go through to qualify, to just get their foot in the door. That doesn't mean they're

going to get a contract, you know, but to even get their foot in the door, it's basically, it's a selection process. They're going to, they're finding the athletes and then they're finding the athletes who have the specific mental capacities that they're looking for. Because there's a lot of guys that are hosses in the gym, physical specimens that can't, that don't make it because they just don't have the right mindset for, for what they need to do. So, but they're, so, but they're selecting, that's what it is. That's really what that's about. It's not a get you in shape for being a Navy SEAL. No, no, no, no. They're finding the guys who are already can handle it. And, uh, for the, for those guys, you know, that's, they're, they're pretty damn strong. We know some of them that, uh, and, and, you know, I think about our, our buddy,

uh, uh, Navy SEAL. Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank on his name. You know who I'm talking about? Who's, uh, he's in his seventies now. Oh, uh, Frank Sanders. Frank Sanders. Thank you. Yeah. So Frank, um, yeah, he's a really cool guy, but you know, so, so Frank was a seal back in the day and he's now in his early seventies and he's, he's been through, he's accumulated quite a few injuries that he's had to have surgeries and stuff, but Frank is still pulling in the four hundreds and he has pulled over 500 before in his sixties, you know? And so, so the dude's an athlete. He's a strong motherfucker, yeah. Absolutely. He's an athlete. You look at the CrossFit guys, and, you know,

those guys across the board, if they're in the games, most of those guys have a 500 to 600 deadlift. Even though that's not, there's nowhere near their specialty, so they're pretty fucking strong. Exactly. So, like, you know, I think they can benefit from technique, because a lot of the time, you know, these guys can learn technique very easily, but it doesn't mean

they're just doing it right. You know what I mean? Or doing it in the best way. There's a lot of reasons. We're not going to do a whole episode on why athletes should train. That's a different episode. But the reason I kind of went down that rabbit hole is because I'm simply acknowledging strength is not the limiting factor for them, but it is for you, for you watching, you listening, it is the limiting factor for you more than endurances, right? And you need to let that sink in. Because at the end of the day, strength is the most basic fundamental physical attribute that drives everything else. Obviously, your muscles have to

be able to produce force for you to move and do things right. And right now, you know, if you take somebody that's not very athletic, you know, sits around all the time, and they're watching YouTube videos of Navy SEALs or Rich Froning, and they're like, I want to be like that guy, and they start doing CrossFit WODs, nine times out of ten, they either get no results or get hurt. And it's because for them, that's not the problem. A lot of the time, they're under-muscled and they're deconditioned. Some basic level of conditioning and some targeted strength training is gonna get them what they really want you know yes but the emphasis is on this endurance stuff I mean you know people

are more than willing to walk a marathon right but to get on a powerlifting platform and squat you know 95 pounds that seems like oh no I can't do that I need to get stronger before I can do that you know right 95 pounds, that seems like, oh no, I can't do that. I need to get stronger before I can do that. You know, like there's just like this certain level of intimidation with performing a real heavy lift. And then on the other hand of it, you get people who have experience with endurance competitions, whether they, you know, went hard or walked it or whatever. And they'll sit there and say, oh, well, there's only, it's only three reps, you know, and that just further communicates and highlights that they don't really have any experience, you know, and that just further communicates and highlights that they don't really have any experience, you know, pushing themselves heavy. So, you know, what does that feel like, right?

And endurance activity, if you're really pushing it, it can make you want to puke, you know, bodybuilding workout, especially a leg workout can make you want to puke, right? And that's celebrated for some reason to the point where, you know, if I marketed my gym or an exercise program that was guaranteed to make you puke, I think I'd probably sell more memberships. You know, there's, there's a big market for this shit and I don't know why. It's true. It's true. You know, however, on the flip side of it, if I told somebody you're going to come in here, I'm going to put a big weight on your back and you're going to lift it and you're going to feel like you're going to explode and you might even shit your pants,

you know, run, going the other way, you know, but if i say yeah but if i say i'll make you puke with a leg workout but hold on yeah you're trying to make this guy's intense trying to make me if i say i'm going to make you shit your pants they might challenge that but if i tell them how and i say oh you're just going to lift a big heavy weight and put fucking 400 pounds on your back and squat it oh fuck that i wouldn't do that to anybody by the way but i'm just giving a comparable example right apple's example you know right but like you if I told somebody, I want to give you a workout that will make you shit your pants first, you know, they might say they don't believe it. But if I explain to them, you're gonna

lift the heaviest fucking weight you can lift, and it's gonna make you feel like you're gonna explode. And you're gonna see stars at the end. That tends to shy people away more than I'm gonna make you puke with leg workout. Yeah, right. It's funny. And, and, you know, again, back to my earlier point, I think if we, I just have a feeling, I mean, there's no way to test this, but I have a feeling if we went back in time and we grabbed a bunch of teenagers who grew up in the fields doing farm work, they probably would

intuitively understand this stuff. So let's, let's talk about that a little bit more like the experience of lifting heavy so one of the things that you have to develop if you want to lift barbells is you have to learn how to brace for each lift and the the fancy term we use for this is the vest the valsalva technique valsalva um i hope the guy i have no idea, what the first name of the guy Val Salva that they named this after, but in my mind, he's got to be Antonio. Antonio Val Salva. That sounds pretty cool. Let me look it up. that you do naturally, you know, every day, uh, when you take a shit, right? You, you, you, you basically take a breath and you bear down and you squeeze your abs. And what this, what this does is this creates, dude, you were right. Is it Antonio? Antonio Maria Valsalva. Oh my God. Yeah. I completely pulled that out of my ass. I just, in my head, he's got to be Antonio.

That's so fucking funny. See, I, you know. He's a northern Italian. Antonio Maria Valsalva. That's even better with the Maria in there. Yeah, exactly. Well, bless you, Antonio, for your contributions to modern exercise science. But yeah, so the thing is, you have to learn how to brace.

And we do this all the time. We do this on the toilet. We do this if you ever have to push something heavy. Like, you know, you got to move the couch across the room. You're going to push it across the room. Or you break down in an intersection. And you got to get your truck out of the damn middle of the intersection, um, so that you're not going to get hit by oncoming traffic. Well, you're going to get behind that. You're

going to throw it in neutral, get behind that truck and you go, you're going to bear down and push. Right. So it's something we do naturally, but the, the thing about strength training is that it's, we, we are progressively loading the body with a barbell. So when we start somebody and they squat on day one, and we show them the technique, we teach them how to move correctly, and we work them up to a reasonably challenging weight for day one. Say it's 135 pounds for this guy. for this guy. Right. Well, we're going to add some weight to that bar every time he squats. And so what that means is that, you know, in a month, he's going to be squatting, you know, 200 maybe. In two months, he's going to be squatting 275 maybe, you know, somewhere around those. He's going to double his squat strength in two to three months. And so as the weight starts to climb, this guy has to learn how to brace against that heavy weight more and more and more and more. And every time you reach

a new heavier weight, you have to learn how to just dial in that tension that you're creating in your body with the Valsalva, one more notch. And I still, I still have this, you know, I've been lifting for years and I still have to find another notch when I'm getting to certain poundages. You know, when I squat four plates, I'm like, I have to find it in me to get one notch tighter than I'm used to when I'm squatting in the 300s for reps. It's, it's, it's a different, it's a thing that that's, and that's a very, very important skill is learning how to generate that, that tension in your body. And, um, that, that is part of, that is something I feel like is very unique to strength training that you're never going to develop from endurance training. You're never going to develop that from sport

training, except maybe in like a couple of instances. i've noticed wrestlers tend to tend to be really good at that but you know that's not many other sports where you really have to do that kind of work you can probably speak to this and this is gonna well let me segue to my topic i'll come back to it because this is relevant to your experiences but uh you know the other thing too is when you're training for strength and you're lifting heavy and, you know, I'm going to say five or less reps, right? Yeah, it's only five. Well, do them, you know, put enough weight on it to make it a hard set of five. It's not the same as a hard set of 15.

I don't give a shit what the EMG says. EMG doesn't measure force production. Anyhow, let's say you're doing five or less reps, right? It's anxiety provoking, too, you know, especially's anxiety-provoking too, especially in a squat. Especially in a squat. Put a bar on your back and then it feels, it's to double your body weight. It can get up to that point if you're a man. It can get up to that point if you're a woman too.

But definitely with men under 40 can get up to that if they train and eat and do what they're supposed to do. You can have double your body weight on there. I think I've gotten up to two and a half. But let's even say one and a half. I mean, it's over your body weight on your back plus your body weight on there. I think I've gotten up to two and a half. But let's even say one and a half. I mean, it's over your body weight on your back plus your body weight, right? It's anxiety provoking. People will sleep over it.

They have people fucking basically lose sleep because they knew they had to squat heavier in two days. Yes. And you just don't get that when you have to casually run 10 miles. Or if you're doing a hypertrophy workout, quote unquote, hypertrophy, and you're doing like, you know, eight to 15 reps, right? It's not the same thing. You're not gonna lose sleep over that. You might dread it and be like, oh, fuck, this is gonna burn. I'm gonna want to vomit at the end. This sucks, you know. But, you know, you probably won't lose sleep over it. But when you know you have to do a set of five, and it's hard, and you've done hard sets of five leading up to it. I'm not talking about your first day in the gym. I'm saying that you hit 355 for five as a man or 185 for five as a woman, and you know you got to do, you know, 360 the week after or 190. Or, you know, you can go up even higher with those numbers when you start getting into outliers, right? Yes. But, you know,

you have to do more, and then you lose sleep over it because you barely got it the last time and you have to add now, right? But, you know, if you went for 12 and you got 11, you're like, eh, you know, try it again, you know, maybe get it next time, you know, or you gotta just drop down to 10s, you know, or God, that sucked, do I really have to repeat this, it fucking burned and I wanted to vomit, you know, it's not the same as, well, fuck, I want to get it and I don't want to get it because if I get it, that means I have to do five more pounds, you know? Right. And it's because of that experience of this crushing weight. You take the bar out of the rack, it's on your back,

you feel like your whole body is going to crush. And then when you're going down, the eccentric is worse than the concentric because it feels way heavier. You have no idea what it's going to feel like coming up. So the anxiety continues on the descent. And then you come up, it feels like it's not moving. You watch the video, it's coming right up like a warmup, you know, and then you get four more and you get your set of five and then you're like, fuck, I got it. I got to add weight next week, you know? Right, right. And you know, that can apply to any lift.

For me, it's the squat is what I think of when I think of that sequence of events, you know, most people can relate to that. You know, you get some weird motherfuckers that like squatting, but a lot of us have had that, you know, or deadlift weird motherfuckers that like squatting, but a lot of us have had that, you know, or deadlift, right? You're picking it up and it doesn't even feel like it's moving. And then all of a sudden it's off the floor and then it feels like it's moving slow. And then all of a sudden you've locked it out and you did five more, you know, you know, the joke that I have is, you know, people use perceived exertion. They say RPE 10 is failure, right? I feel like every deadlift rep is to failure after a certain point, know after 3 15 they're all quote unquote rpe 10 yeah there yeah there's the deadlift is is

particularly brutal because it's just a hard concentric drive off the floor there's no there's there's no rebound to speak of you know technically there's a little bit after that first rep you know when you put the bar down you generate a little stretch reflex in your hamstrings and glutes, but it's not like a squat, you know, like a squat, like I squatted heavy today. I squatted 340 for a set of five. I fucking smoked it too. Like I could have done sets across. I have to do sets across with that in a little bit. This sucks. Yeah. And it's, you know, and it's, it's not, not near my PR, but you know, it's, it's getting heavier for me based on my last few months of training. And, uh, yeah, you know, but the thing is like today I was just feeling good and my balance was

very good. I, last time I attempted this, uh, two weeks ago, I, uh, I was just, my balance was all off. I just, everything was off that day. It was just a horrible, uh, training day and only got three. I actually, I failed the fourth rep cause I just got off balance. I could, I had the strength there, but anyway, today it was, it flew, right? It was, it really was not that hard, but the thing is like, I got a little bit of a bounce out of it. I got a really, really good rebound out of the bottom. And, um, and you know, you can do that on a squat, on a deadlift, there's no rebound. Come on. It's just, everything's just heavy. And it just, it never that on a squat on a deadlift. There's no rebound come on It's just everything's just heavy it's and it just never gets like a squat you can groove it to where you're like 340 might feel like ass but then 345 you groove it better you get a better rebound out of the bottom you're like that wasn't

So bad you know what's with the deadlift like you said 405. Oh my god. This is like a million pounds for 10 It's a million pounds plus five you know it's just 450 it's a million and a half i mean fuck me you know yeah right exactly yeah they all start feeling the same yeah exactly um so you know but but this is part of the experience of lifting is learning how to manage your body in those conditions and i think that's a really useful skill you know that that's that's useful skill. You know, that's something that lifting teaches you that very few other things will. And I've found that if I can learn how to control my body and execute the lift like I know how to do it in a hard set of five,

then that carries over to the rest of life. Like anything else that I do that's more submaximal, I can handle it better. So like if I'm really tired and I'm climbing a hill in a hike and I'm just, I'm tired cause I'm at the top of the hill and maybe I've been hiking for like, you know, six, seven, eight,

10 miles and my legs are just, are burning and I'm kind of out of gas, I can control my body's position better because I have gotten used to handling squatting very, very heavy. Um, it's a, it's a, this is a, the mental skill of dealing with that. And I think that's really useful. And that's something that I don't really get from anything else besides strength training. You know, it forces you to become emotionally mature to make more progress. You have to be. Yeah, yeah.

Because that fear, I mean, it triggers a fight or flight response every time, you know, when it's heavy. Even when it's not heavy, but it feels heavy, right? And there's that whole thing, you know, you have to ignore it and go for it and ignore how it feels and keep going until you've reached the target number of reps or you your muscles have legitimately fallen short can't complete them right we're not gonna say failed we don't fail reps we miss reps right that's right um but um yeah like you have to control your emotions like you go in there like i don't want to squat 400 plus i hate it fucking hate it man when it gets that heavy. Right. Yeah.

But I go into it. Yeah. Yeah. The butterflies, man. Yeah. And you have to manage that. And I took a sports psychology class in my master's, and they called it somatic anxiety. That's the butterflies, right? And they said somatic anxiety can be productive for performance because you can leverage that

energy to perform at a high level, right? Or you can let it get out of control and then you end up missing reps or, you know, performing at a lower level in any type of sport, right? And that applies to anything, you know, like performing, you know, as a musician or anything, right? You get that, right? So you can leverage that and harness that to express your peak performance in that moment. And that's something that, like, I've always been kind of good at naturally. Like, I didn't have to learn that it was cool hearing that conceptually, because I looked back on it. And I'm like, yeah, when it's time to go, I just fucking go, you know,

like, that's kind of what I do, you know, and it's hard to coach that. And of course, you know, when you're just good at something, it's hard to explain it to somebody else, you haven't had to troubleshoot it, right. And fortunately, I've had to in a couple specific scenarios, you know, mostly outside of the weight room, but for the most part, you know, it's time to go, just go. And then I just kind of release that into what I'm doing, you know. So that's like a whole other layer of it, right? You're not going to get that with a set of 15 because when you do rep one, it's doable, right? You don't start feeling fucking emotional distress until the very end.

But by then you've done like, you know, 11 reps, you know, or eight reps if it's a set of 10 or 7 reps of set of 8 right right and uh you know there's no having to get yourself ready for it you're already pushing through you have momentum behind you right you know that whole getting started and attacking it you don't you don't get to experience that when you do a set of 15 because let's say you try to do that psych yourself up you go you're like oh shit that first rep was easy you know then by the time let's say you try to do that, psych yourself up. You go, you're like, oh shit, that first rep was easy. You know, then by the time it's stressful, you're, you know, deaf, dumb, and stupid. You're not even paying attention anymore. You're just trying to get done, you know?

So, you know, you lose out on that, you know, you lose out on that. And, uh, it scares a lot of people, you know, it scares a lot of people and it's just, it's just led to this business model of saying it doesn't matter now, you know, strength doesn't matter. Well, it does fucking matter because strength drives everything, you know, especially in the weight room. The idea that developing that neuromuscular efficiency is not necessary to build muscle is laughable too, because a lot of the guys that say that did that to build muscle, you know, especially in their earlier years, you know, but it just, that just doesn't make sales,

you know, you don't sell magazines or you don't sell social media subscriptions or app subscriptions or whatever the fuck people are trying to make money off of. It doesn't really sell when you tell people you have to lift something heavy and the risk of injury is higher when you lift something heavy. And the technical aspect of the lift is more demanding when you lift something heavy, right? You can't get away with as much. You actually have to have a lot of skin in the game to get good at lifting heavy. And it's skill-based too. So it doesn't really have to do with your muscles as much as it has to its skill. You know, I've heard all this stupid shit. I've heard all this dumb shit. And maybe it's true if, like we said earlier, if you're a Navy

SEAL, you're a rich froning or you're a professional athlete, that strength is not the limiting factor. Sure, that's true, you know, but you benefit from the technique work and you benefit from the lift still. You know, it's a whole other topic, like I said. But, you know, for you, the listener, the average person, right, it is the limiting factor. You're not that fucking strong, you know. Like the guy who's telling you that is repping out weights that you may never even max out. You may never even max them out. And the athlete that you're worshiping, his baseline is higher than what you'll do in two years, you know.

Yep, yep. So strength is the limiting factor just because it's not for them doesn't mean it's not for you right and you know let's you know some folks are are not as concerned about getting super jacked right right most and they're just not concerned about yeah super jacked that that's right yeah but they're like they're not even necessarily for the physique changes so much as it is like hey i just want to be healthy i want to be like functional i was never concerned about being super jacked yeah i just wanted to i just wanted to gain enough muscle for evidence you know yeah right about being super jacked i'd have a couple needles in my ass right now exactly yeah it's same here man that's yeah but you know, the thing is like this, this, uh, I like the way you said that early, the emotional maturity that you gained from,

from this, this is really underrated and people don't talk about this enough in about strength training because it's something that you really can't understand until you've done it. So you've been through a novice linear progression and you've been at the end of it when, like you said before, you're like, you hit whatever it is, maybe it's for you, maybe it's 255 and you're like, oh my God, that was really hard. I mean, it might be 225. 260, it might be 225. Yeah. I have a young guy right now struggling with 225. And he's gained the weight too. He's doing the program. It just varies people.

Yes, it does. And the beautiful thing though, is the experience does not vary. You know, there's a great story out there. Um, I've heard a bunch of different versions of it. I believe it's true. Uh, that at a, at a workshop, Ed Cohn, the greatest power lifter of all time, probably. Um, this is a guy that squatted a thousand pounds at a body weight of, um, This is a guy that squatted 1,000 pounds at a body weight of 220. He squatted 900-something at a body weight of 198. Just incredible power lifter. Deadlifted 902 with the hands between the legs, but 888.

He deadlifted 888, legitimate. Conventional, yeah. Incredibly strong. So he was fielding questions, and some him you know how what does it feel like to squat 900 pounds when he was like he thought about for a second and he asked him he's like well what's your what's your max and the kid says yeah 350 he's like feels like that and and you know so i i think he was that was that was he wasn't joking right that might be debatable but god you know but but i think that his point was that

for that kid a balls out 350 max squat it's the same experience as ed cone going for a balls out 950 squat or whatever right i mean yeah of, of course, of course, the adaptations that Ed Cohn has gone through to squat 950 are, there's a whole magnitude of difference between that and the kid squatting 350 in terms of the physical adaptations. But the experience of it, the subjective experience of it is the same. And that's kind of the beautiful thing about this is you can, it doesn't matter what you're lifting. As long as you're pushing your limits and lifting heavy for you, you can gain these benefits. So we try to get them on here. Oh, that'd be awesome. He, he seems like a cool dude. You know, there's a starting strength coach in, I think he's based out of Chicago that trains

at, at, uh, has trained. I think, I don't think he does anymore, but he used to train at Lance's gym. Is that right? Is that where Ed Cohn hangs out? Yep. Yeah. And he says like, he's talked to him a bunch of times. He said he's super cool. And, you know, he even like, like, like yelled a couple of cues at him, like during one of his squat sets, you know, it's, it's pretty bad-ass to have Ed Cohn coach you. Oh yeah. So I met Ed at the Olympia in 2022 and we connected because i'm from chicago we talked you know and uh he's like send me a video you know i've answered everything so he's helped me my bench a little bit on dms um but when i came home for christmas this year i messaged him i wanted to train and he was going to meet me then he got covid um but he hooked it up with lance and i

got in there and i trained with one of my clients that goes there and she knows him and she knows Lance and she's a member but kind of shows up once every so often, you know, because it's out of her way. But yeah, I'd like to go, if I go back home and talk to him in person,

I'll try to see if I can get him on here. I think it'd be cool. Oh, that'd be amazing. Yeah. You know, he's an interesting dude because he's gifted, you know, he's built for powerlifting and nothing else, you know? gifted for you know he's built for power lifting and nothing else you

know and uh you know he his programming approach kind of checks out with what a lot of us end up doing you know um the guy was known for running these like classical periodization models for those of you don't know what that means basically you start with higher reps lower weight and work towards heavyweight lower reps, right? So tens, eights, fives, triples, singles, right? I think he did singles, ripped at doubles, ripped at leg singles in the gym. But, you know, he was known for running those. And apparently, I don't think he's lying.

He doesn't come across as that kind of guy. He never missed a rep in training because he was very careful about his planning and he didn't really have ego in it. And he was known to hand off number selection to handlers because he didn't, he didn't want to, he didn't want to, uh, he didn't want to know what was on the bar. He didn't want to know what was on the bar. He's, and then he's just like, you know, I just lift what they put on there, you know? Right. Yeah. And, uh, and then he would say things like, you know, you lift the heavy ones, like they're light, the light ones, like they're heavy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I just lift what they put on there, you know? Right, yeah, sure. And then he would say things like, you know, you lift the heavy ones like they're light, the light ones like they're heavy, you know? Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, I've heard a lot of good solid pieces of gold come out of his mouth, and that's very rare for a gifted athlete, you know? You know, I've watched some of his videos. I'd say he's pretty decent at explaining some of the technique, not to the level that Rip is, you know? I hope he's not listening. But, you know, but the thing is, usually with a gifted athlete, you expect garbage. And, you know, and I've watched his stuff. I'm like, yeah, you know, hope he's not listening but you know but the thing is usually with a gifted athlete you expect garbage and you know and i've watched this stuff i'm like yeah you know this

stuff is spot like with me with the bench raise the sternum you know simple cute worked yeah right fix fix my back on the bench you know which is my limiting factor um so i like i like the way he teaches you know and uh you just don't get that from somebody that's been at the top as a performer you know right i think he just likes being around it. He likes lifting. He likes coaching. He likes reading about it. He's clearly thought a lot about the experience of lifting and through the eyes of other people.

Again, I'll never know what it's like to squat 900, but he's clearly thought about what it's like for the kid squatting 350 and then like, and trying to come up with ways to explain how to dial in his mindset. And, you know, and you can't, you can't underrate that, you know, like there's, the technique is important. Absolutely. You know, we are technique coaches. That's the, that is the basis of what we do with the starting strength model is getting people to move correctly. of what we do with the starting strength model is, is getting people to move correctly, but there's a mindset element too. And you have to learn how to attack the bar and, you know, be assertive. And, uh, and that only happens from, from doing it and running the program. And, uh, one thing I'll say on that, just cause I think, I think this is, um, something I've learned from, from our friend, Dr. Pewter, the psychiatrist, is, you know, really what it is, is a linear progression where you're adding weight to the bar, a small amounts of weight on a regular basis. It's exposure without danger, right? So, you know, that fear that you get from squatting 260 for the first time, it's scary as fuck for sure.

But, but you can go back through your logbook and remind yourself like yeah but you already squatted 255 and you squatted 250 and you squatted 245 before that and 240 and all the way down right so there's this long line of evidence that you can squat 260 right and i've even when when people get freaked out in the gym, I've even made people go to the weight tree and pick up a five pound plate and just hold that. And just be like, hey, five pounds, right? That's what it feels like, right?

It's not that much, right? They're like, yeah, it's light. That's all you gotta do. You've basically already done the weight before. You know you can do it. You just gotta add five little pounds. That's it. But that's, it's exposure without danger, right? We're not making huge increases here that we're not confident that you can make. We're confident here. And that's how you develop

this mindset. That's how you train yourself. And it's a skill just like anything else. You have to learn it through regular practice. You know, the more I listen to you, the more I talk about this in this episode, the more I think about how what we're really talking about is dealing with fear here, right? Yeah. You know, with endurance, I think you're dealing with pain, you know? Yes. Yeah. I would agree.

Endurance activities, especially hard ones, you know, not just walking the marathon, like trying to run it as fast as you can for the whole 26 miles, you know, to the extent that you can, obviously. Because, you know, people don't realize marathon runners that are really good at it, they are running just shy of a sprint for 26 miles, the really good ones. Yes, yeah. Think about that. They get so good at gaming it, they want to get their speed up to a point where they're just right next to a sprint, but not quite, because if they sprint, then they're done. Right. And I didn't realize that until I had to sit through an academic program that was more focused on exercise physiology.

So a lot of exercise physiology probably up until recently was focused on endurance and cardiopulmonary responses to exercise. And a lot of the instructors had an endurance background. So I usually zoned out on things. But that was one of those things that kind of like, jumped out, right. And by zone out, I mean, I wasn't interested, but I was interested in the physiology, obviously, but the, you know, endurance stuff, when they talk about sports, just not my thing, you know. But that one jumped out at me. It's like like these guys are running as fast as they can without sprinting for fucking 26 miles two to three hours you know i mean if you look at the paces of the like world record times it's like four minutes and a little bit of change that's like the four

minute mile not that long ago was the best one mile race. These guys run in four minutes and 20 seconds for 26 miles. It's fucking crazy, man. So, you know, to bring that point home, endurance training teaches you how to deal with pain. Strength training teaches you how to deal with fear, you know. And I think a lot of us, just by the nature of being a living organism on this planet, we're forced to deal with pain, obviously, throughout our lives, you know, some more than others. Women especially, especially if they haven't had children, you know. But you can go through life and avoid dealing with fear or dealing with a lot of it, right?

You know, confronting that is a whole other animal. And, you know, we've all had to at certain points. But it's not, you don't, I don't think we are forced to confront fear as much as we're forced to confront pain, right? Because you never know when you're going to get hurt, but you can live a cautious lifestyle and avoid things that are going to scare the shit out of you, right? When you're lifting a heavy weight, five reps or less, close to failure, right? Muscular failure. Remember, there's no failure if you show up. Five reps or less close to muscular failure, volitional failure as the academics call it,

whatever word you want to use, right? You're going to be dealing with fear. If you're doing a set of 15 to 20, you're going to be dealing with pain. If you're running a marathon, you're going to be dealing with pain, you know? And it's a good skill to have, right? You should be able to deal with pain. Endurance exercise is not a waste of time. You'll never hear me say that. It's useful and it teaches you things. But a lot of those things you're going to accidentally encounter, right? That doesn't mean don't do it. I'm just saying, you know, you're going to hurt yourself. You're going to trip, you know, you're going to get sick, you know, have a stomach ache, you know, things can happen, you know, you might fall off your bike, you know, you might eat shit on a trail, you know,

there's a lot of things that can happen that will make you feel physical pain. But fear is something you can hide from a little bit easier. And getting under a bar, and doing a set of five that you don't think you'll get and finishing it. And then knowing you have to add five pounds in a specific pre predetermined number of days, you know, two days from now, four days from now, seven days from now, you know that that's going to elicit some fear. So that makes sense when you look at the physiological responses to strength training, right? We're lifting weights at

high intensities, your blood pressure shoots through the roof. Number one, you dump more adrenaline acutely, you know, number two, yeah, your heart rate goes up for different reasons than it does when you run for long periods of time, right? So if you're running for long periods of time in a steady state, you know, your heart rate kind of goes up steadily, along with your oxygen consumption, right? And that's because your heart needs more oxygen to keep

pumping blood out to all the tissues that you can keep exercising, right? It's how endurance exercise works. Strength exercise, your heart rate goes up because you've dumped a bunch of adrenaline, you know, so it has nothing to do with the need for more oxygen. That's why it's silly to sit there and look at heart rate as a proxy for computing calories on a wearable. You know, you can't compute calories for strength training on a wearable. I ranted about that the first attempt at this episode, but I'm going to save that for a different episode. But my point is, think about those responses. What are the cardiovascular

responses to fear? High blood pressure acutely, which means it goes up pretty high. Heart rate goes up really high, right? You're dumping a bunch of adrenaline, right? So all these things happen, right? And it's not steady. It's just a sharp rise. Whereas with endurance, those things do happen, but it's over a more steady timeline and it doesn't get quite as high right blood pressure during a vo2 max test doesn't reach the same level as during you know a max leg press you know that's what they measured they haven't done it during it they may have done it during a max squat i don't know but the research papers on valsalva maneuver and blood pressure responses to lifting are usually leg

press which i can get it pretty high i mean look at the position you're in for one but uh even so like i'm sure in a squat it wouldn't't be much different. The point is, it gets much higher than it would during an endurance activity. And it happens faster, right? So all those things are the same responses to fear if a bear tries to kill you, if somebody puts a gun to your head, right? Same types of responses. So, you know, I may not have a way to measure this, Same types of responses. So, you know, I may not have a way to measure this, have a p-value for you, have a peer-reviewed citation for you. But it's pretty clear that if you're lifting heavy, you will be dealing with fear on a fairly regular basis.

And I think that's probably the reason it's off-putting to a lot of people, you know, why it's not as marketable. It's like, I really want to scare the shit out of myself every couple days, you know. That's what happens after month two, you know? You get through month two, the neuromuscular adaptations are done. You know how to move. You're getting used to weight. And all of a sudden, it's like, well, it feels heavy on my back. This must be the last one. And then you have to do that 16, 18, 20 more times, you know?

Right, yeah. With five more pounds each time, you know? Exactly. Yeah, and what happens, though though over the years is your work capacity increases and what that means in practical terms is that you can get under a bar and squat a heavy set of five and all those effects that you just described they they occur like you rack that set of five and you're like your heart's pounding you know you go sit down but then you know with with years of training

into your belt, four or five minutes go by and you're like, okay, I'm ready. And you've, you've returned to baseline again and you're, you're fine. Right. You're ready to go again. Yeah. Uh, the first time you do that, the first time you encounter a really heavy set of five, you know, it's getting close to your limit you're sitting there and your hearts pounding in five minutes go by and you're like man I'm just blasted right that adrenaline dump you're still feeling and that's yeah that's that's part of why the the end of the novice linear progression gets so hard is because you're just you you don't have the work capacity yet to handle those sets across and that's something you develop over time as you get into more

intermediate programming. And we don't need to go down that rabbit hole, but that's, but, but that, that just kind of shows you in like practical terms, like what this does for you over time is what strength training does for you over time is it builds your ability to handle a short, intense experience like that and return to baseline in a few minutes. And that has practical carryover too. You know, when you're out, I've done a lot of the last two years, I've done a lot of,

I don't want to call it like farm work because I don't have a farm or anything like that. But I have a small homestead, a little mini homestead around here. So we have, you know, chickens and gardens and stuff. But, you know, you got to haul like heavy ass equipment. Sometimes you got to haul like basically chainsaw a tree apart and, you know, haul a bunch of logs and stuff. And, you know, I actually encounter a lot of this type of work.

And I could pick up a big heavy log, walk, you know, walk it up a hill and like dump it into the area where we're trying to like put all the wood and then go back down and do it again and do it again. And you do like a couple hours of this work and you start getting tired because this, you know, you're moving some heavy stuff. And then when you get tired like that, that's where your chance of injury starts to go up because, you know, you might twist an ankle because you just lose your balance. And it's not the tired that's like, I'm out of breath. It's the tired of like, man, I'm just, I'm hitting some combination of muscular failure and cardiovascular failure here. But having lifted, I'm much more in control of my body in a state of fatigue than I used to be. And I'm much more stable out there moving stuff. Because even if I'm picking up a hundred pound log, that's nowhere near what I've picked up on a barbell. And so that

hundred pound log is very manageable. And I found that to be really practical. That's something that's come in handy quite a bit in this type of work. Absolutely. I mean, that's why we want people doing this because it's highly functional. You know, we're not training power lifters. You know, We're trying to get you strong so that when you have to do things, you know how to do things. Somebody says, hey, I need help moving a bunch of furniture off carpet because we need to clean the carpet. You're the first person they look at. No problem. volunteer, you know, and your back feels fine afterwards, you sleep at night, the next day, normal as can be, you know? Right. Yes. So that's what we're doing. You know, power lifters, their job is to move weight from point A to point B, you know, and that can be done a variety of different ways. And not all of those ways involve using the most muscle mass to the longest effective range of motion that allows you to lift the most weight, assuming those first two criteria are met, right? You can move a weight three inches and it's legal and power lifting, right?

I don't want you doing that though, because you're not going to build a lot of muscle doing that, right? So, you know, that's kind of, that's kind of what we do here, you know, and part of that is going to involve willingly facing your fear. In this case, your fear of the barbell. It's natural. You're going to feel it. Over a long enough timeline, you're going to feel it.

And guess what? When actual fears present themselves, I think you'll be better at managing them. I sure as hell have been. Yeah. I think that's unquestionable in my life. I've definitely felt, you know, I'll share this as a closing thought. Years ago, when I first started training, I was working in the corporate world and I worked in corporate finance, corporate finance, as we would say, pinkies up finance. Finance. And uh i was i was going through a really hard time

in my life um i i had lost a lot of self-confidence because i i'd gotten into this field where i did okay my first few years of working in finance and i changed jobs i moved to a new place and uh and i just i was in a very difficult job that looking back on was, it was a shitty job. Uh, but then also I handled it very shittily. I didn't have a lot of emotional experience and I, and I wasn't able to handle competing priorities and very, you know, uh, big personalities on the two bosses that I had. I had two bosses like in the office space. I had two bosses like in the office space. And I was really struggling. I got very depressed and I completely lost the self-confidence that I had. And at some point in this process, working that job, I hung in there.

I started strength training and I discovered all this stuff. And I will never forget, at the time I was taking public transportation to get to work because I worked downtown. And I was on the tram, you know, it was kind of light rail train. And it was busy. And one day I had my gym stuff with me and I was in my business clothes and I'm walking down.

And I'm just looking for a spot to sit down. And there's like people in the way and stuff. And like a couple of people just like turn and look at me and they like get out of the way. They like move out of the way for me as I'm walking down the aisle. And look, I'm a small guy. All you six foot four motherfuckers. It was like, yeah, everybody does that. Right? Like, no, it's not true. Uh, I'm five foot eight and I have a smallish frame. I'm not a big guy. I've never been a big guy. Trust me, this does not happen to five, eight people. This is not an experience we're used to. But these people like moved out of the way for me.

And I'm like, it was just a weird thing. I'd never experienced that before. And I realized afterwards, I was like, oh, I guess like, I guess I'm carrying myself differently than I used to. I'm like walking around with some confidence and uprightness and I've gained some physical size too. And, um, that's just kind of like, this is little moment that's really blew my mind. And then that led to over the course of the next year, slowly, I gained a lot more confidence. I gained a lot more assertiveness in my work life and learn how to set some boundaries and get that job to an acceptable position. And then I left and I started my own business and that's what I'm doing now. But that transformation, I have strength training to owe that transformation. That was a huge element of it. I couldn't have done any of what I did had I not

developed that confidence and assertiveness that I got from learning how to lift heavy weights. Right. So in my life, at least it's been, it's had a lot of effects outside of just, you know, muscles and athletic performance. Now the experience in and of its own, uh, it changes you, you know, and it has carry over to other situations, like I said, and when you're just exercising in the gym, chasing a pump, fucking around, you know, oh, toying around in front of mirrors. I can't believe how people do that shamelessly now in the locker room. I mean, I go to a commercial gym sometimes, you know, to use the machines. And these guys are all, if I wanted to do that, I'd have to wait in line for a mirror. I'm like, this is unbelievable.

You know, I used to do that on the DL where nobody was around, you know, like flex a little bit. But now they're all just sitting there and then dudes behind dudes doing it. I'm like, what is going on here? Yeah. Some guys hit the back double by and the other guys like,'m like, what is going on here? Yeah. Some guys in the back double by the other guys, like, you know, wait,

let me get in the other corner of the check. My triceps out, dude, I can't even sneak one in on the DL. I can't, I cannot enjoy the gym lighting anymore because I'm not going to do it in front of fucking a bunch of dudes that are half naked, you know?

Right. And it's amazing. Cause it's like, you know, all these like, you know, five foot 10, one 85 guys acting like they're fucking Jay Cutler, Cutler, checking out their lat spread in the mirror.

Have you been to a commercial gym lately? Oh, yeah. Where my folks live, there's a Globo gym down the road. So if I want to get a workout in when I'm visiting, I usually go there. So this is nationwide. It is. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 100%.

Dude, when we were that age, you had to hide that. Yeah. I remember the bodybuilders, and I'm saying bodybuilders, not necessarily the pro bodybuilders, although they did this too, but just your amateur, the big dudes at the gym. No, they would wear sweats when they worked out. That's what I remember. Yeah, they would wear sweats. You could not see their body. And I think the whole point was like, you know,

they wanted to hide that shit so they could just focus on the work. When they were getting, you know, prepped for competition shape or whatever they do, you know, then they would take those off and wear the stringer tanks.

But yeah, in the gym, it was usually sweats. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I remember I'd see pictures in the muscle mags and those guys would have like sweats on but then when i'd see them at the uh i mean they'd have stuff with the stringers too of course for the photo shoots but like they were i remember seeing pictures that where they

had a hoodie on and they were in the weight room and it looked like just an actual picture not a pose you know right right but i i wouldn't see too many of those guys in the normal commercial gyms but when i would they were wearing sweats. You're right. Yeah. They always wore sweats. And, yeah, that's how you knew that they were fucking serious because those guys probably had the real physiques. Yeah, dude. But now, like, yeah, and then I go in the locker room, and I didn't see that, you know?

Like, you'd sit there, and you'd wait until the coast was clear, try to get the good gym lighting, you know? And now you're waiting in line. It's like, take a ticket, you know and now you're waiting in line it's like take a ticket you know right oh my god but uh i don't know how i got on that but it just you know popped in my head but um yeah like oh i know i got on that yeah like you know if you're doing all that kind of stuff then it's recreation you know there's you know there's not a whole lot of developmental aspect to that you know if you're a competitor, obviously there is because, you know, you're dealing with pain as a bodybuilder for sure.

You're dealing with pain. And if you're one of the best ones, you've also dealt with fear. All the top guys have lifted heavy, you know. They've all went to low reps. A lot of them have competed in powerlifting. Arnold did. Ronnie did. Dorian did.

Franco did. You know, they all did. Jay Cutler benched 405 for 10, you know they all did uh jay cutler bench 405 for 10 you know yep deadlifted 600 something squatted seven yeah i mean they've all done this you know so we're not talking about them we're talking about these guys the gym that read their programs that they're not even following by the way uh and that the competitor probably doesn't even follow either. Yeah. But they're reading these programs either on social media or online or wherever.

I don't know where people get this stuff anymore. It used to be magazines in my day. But they're reading this stuff, and then they're doing a fraction of it, and they're not letting it get really hard. And you're losing out. There's a lot of value to experiencing fear and confronting it and getting through it and doing that repetitively. And guess what? When you go and do the reps later, if that's what you want to go spend your time doing, it's not as bad.

It's just not as bad. You can reproduce your reps better too. I do 10s. They're fairly reproducible. Squat's just not as bad. You can reproduce your reps better too. You know, like I do tens. They're fairly reproducible. Squats a little bit harder, you know. You know, they might get high at the end. I'm working on that, but I don't know. I don't think I'll ever do eights or tens again anyways.

But, you know, when they got really heavy, the depth got a little questionable. But, you know, I was able to hold my back for most of them. You know, I didn't have a problem holding my back. And that's because I've been lifting heavy all these years, you know. So, yeah, endurance becomes a limiting factor when it, you know, when you add reps to it. But if you've been lifting heavy for years and years and years, repping out a hard set of eight or ten, you're going to get most of those reps pretty much the same, you know. Yeah, yeah. But if that's all you're doing, eights and tens, and you haven't had that neuromuscular experience,

then you're going to lose out. You know, that's what I'm saying. You know, you're going to struggle with it. You're not going to get stronger. It's going to be harder to get bigger. And, yeah, I mean, that's my two cents on it. I mean, I think I've beaten this to hell. I'm getting to that point where my brain's mushing out, and I have nothing more to add on this except, you know.

Yeah, well, I squatted heavy earlier today, so, yeah, my brain's mushing out and I have nothing more to add on this except, you know. Yeah. Well, I squatted heavy earlier today, so, uh, yeah, my brain's. Yeah, I gotta do it now, but I'm doing that weight for sets across, brother. Yeah, I know. Well, well, you know, hopefully, hopefully that's helpful. You know, I, I, we realized that, um, there's a lot of folks listening who are pretty new to this and, uh, you know, maybe they've been in the gym, maybe you've been in the gym for a while, but you haven't actually gone through this, this strength training process that we're describing. And if you do it, this is this is an important part of the game. Unfortunately, I don't think I don't think there's enough resources about this about the mental aspect of lifting heavy, but it's an important part of the game. But it's an important part of the game. And if you want to, if you're serious about this good training partner who's there, your battle buddy, then

you don't want to bitch out on your heavy squats in front of your battle buddy. There's something to be said about that. If you don't have a good training partner, they're hard to find, but if you can find one, hang on to them. Or a good training environment. We talked about that a couple episodes ago.

That's right. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, let's close this one out. Yeah, let's do that. Thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. We appreciate all of our listeners and all of our new listeners. You can find me at weightsandplates.com.

Or if you are in Metro Phoenix, you can find me at Weights and Plates Gym. It shows up on Google, but it's just south of the airport near 32nd Street and Broadway. We offer private training and memberships, but if you want a membership, you have to do a private training session so that everybody's lifting the same and we don't have silly bullshit in here. You can find me online if you're interested in online coaching on the website or on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana or the gym has a page at weights double underscore and double underscore plates. Bam. There you go. Well, you can find me on Instagram at marmalade underscore cream.

That's where I post about both my lifting, my coaching and my audio production business that I run. If you have questions specifically about online coaching or training, you just want to ask me a question, you can send me an email at jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. All right, we'll talk to you again in a couple weeks. Thank you.