Weights and Plates Podcast - #71 - Programming After Novice: Making the Weight, and Your Technique, Go Up

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

The novice linear progression (NLP, or LP for short) is a fun time in the training career of a lifter. Never will you make as much progress -- and as fast! -- as you will during LP. It's also brutally hard, especially toward the end. Nevertheless, it comes to an end for every lifter, and people often spin their wheels trying to figure out what to do once the simple A/B program stops working. In today's episode, Dr. Santana and Coach Trent discuss some basic principles of post-novice programming, and point out that at all stages of the game, the main goal is that the weight must go up.   Weights & Plates is now on YouTube! https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf-   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. What's going on, man? What up, man? See, I drawled that a little bit. You know, I'm disappointed. I was talking to somebody the other day. Oh, I know who it was. It was our buddy, Carl Raghavan. I was chatting with him on the interwebs, and I was like, man, I was trying to explain to him because he calls all of us yanks.

That's what British people do. You yanks, you yanks. Yeah, they call Americans yanks, and I get it. I get it. Look, I studied abroad in England. So I lived there for six months. But I was like, you got to be careful saying that to Southerners. Because people from the South hear yanks and they think you're calling them a Yankee.

And that's a bad word in the South. You don't want to be called Yankee. That's the worst thing you could be called. Or one of them. And I was like, you know, I was born and raised in Texas. I've lived in Texas almost 30 years of my life. And my folks are from the deep South. My dad's from Mississippi. My mom's from Missouri, but she doesn't call it Missouri. She calls it Missouri. Missouri. She's from the bumfuck nowhere in Missouri. So they're basically from the deep south. And somehow I didn't get a southern accent. How is this possible?

And Carl was like, yeah, you kind of sound like you're from California. And I was like, fuck that. I was like, oh man, I let it slide because he's foreign, he's European. He doesn't understand these things. So he went from Yankee, which is already offensive, to California. Yeah, he didn't understand how insulting that

was. And Carl, if you're listening, I forgive you. He's saying you should have stopped while you were ahead, but yeah, but you need to stop. You just, just cut it off, man. You're digging a hole, but yeah, I don't, I didn't get a Southern accent and, uh, you know, I'm around all these wonderful East Tennessee and Georgia accents all day now. And I don't know, maybe I still got, I guess still got time. Maybe I can, maybe I can work on one here.

Well, yeah, I don't have a good segue for you today. Sorry about that folks. But what we're gonna talk about today is, we're gonna talk a little bit about programming. We don't, we haven't talked a whole lot about the specifics of programming. You know, there's a lot of good shows out there that do that. And it's, I think that our focus is more on the novice because most people, the vast majority of people out there are novices. And that's a good thing, by the way. It's it's awesome. I love watching people go through the novice linear progression, because it's, it's like the most fun you're ever going to have with training in

terms of like putting numbers, you know, putting weight on the bar, you're never going to make progress like that again. So it's, it's a great thing to be a novice. Uh, but that also means that there's not really a lot of, there's not really a lot to talk about when it comes to programming as a novice, because it's pretty simple, uh, in starting strength, um, as it's spelled out in starting strength basic barbell training there's the vanilla i call it the vanilla a b program but it's a b program right so you have workout a which is squat press and deadlift you're gonna do three sets of five in the squat the press one set of five in the deadlift and then you alternate workout A with workout B, which is squat, three sets of five, again, bench press, three sets of five. So you're alternating press and bench press, and then you

deadlift one set of five. And the key thing that's different from a lot of exercise programs floating out there is that in the novice linear progression, the main variable is the weight on the bar. So there's just four exercises in this simple AB program, but you're adding weight to the bar every single time you perform them. And that is the main driver of progress. So there you go.

There's not really a lot of nuance to talk about there with programming. However, we also realized that the novice linear progression is not something that you can do forever. In fact, it's a fairly small amount of time in the course of your entire lifting career. It's going to last somewhere between three and six months for most people. You know, some people might be able to stretch it out longer if you're young and particularly gifted, but you know, nobody's going to run it for more than a year. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about programming beyond the novice phase. So what happens when you start to get to the end of that novice linear progression and what, how to think about programming right because it's it's no good i

don't think it's really any good to just throw out a bunch of random ideas um i think it's important to to understand principles and well that makes principles well yeah it makes money you know any jerk off can throw together a you know a program put a you know skull on it it, some sort of skull logo, and make it like, you know, Jones-Payne 8524 linear progression. Well, no, things have changed, Trent. The times are different. Now they put, like, protractors and beakers in the background. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, you're right. I'm behind the times. That was 20 years ago. Yeah, you've got to be evidence-based now. Oh, yeah. Now you're an exercise scientist. That's right. I'm behind the times. That was, yeah, that was 20 years ago. Yeah, you got to be evidence-based now. Oh, yeah. Now you're an exercise scientist. That's right. You got to cite your sources on the optimal rep ranges. Optimal. Optimal. Everything's about being optimal. Yeah, including the, you know, the very specific angles of how you move, you know? That's right. Yeah. You know, I heard a guy the other other day i just can't help but to shit on these guys uh they were making a video on a single joint exercise which you know immediately i like oh geez here we go it was an hour-long video and uh one part they're like well you know didn't

arnold and those guys you know do it this way and you're suggesting another way. Then he's like, Arnold didn't have all the answers. And I just started laughing. I'm like, oh, God. But he does. That's what that implies. Yeah, right. So Arnold didn't have all the answers, but so does that suggest that you have all the answers?

And then the other guy responded to him, but he's Arnold. So he did. I got a good laugh out of that part but yeah I know like the whole thing was you know talking about this highly specific exercise and a highly specific angle and then talking about all these instruments they use in the lab and blah blah blah blah blah at the end of the day it changes nothing because none of us need to do that shit at this point, right? We're talking about novices, which is back to our topic, right? Just some refreshers because, you know, we get new listeners all the time.

At least I hope we do. I think we do. Novice linear progression, the reason it's called that is because a linear progression progresses in a linear fashion. Just how it sounds, right? You're adding weight every time you work out, nothing else changes, same reps, same sets, same number of sets, same number of reps, and you add load, provided that you complete the sets and reps with the prescribed load, then you can add weight next time, assuming good technique as well. Is it always linear? You know, not necessarily. Sometimes you got to, you know, you got somebody who's a motor moron,

not very coordinated, and has to, you know, repeat a weight a few times just to get the technique down. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes people are busy and miss workouts. There's all these things that happen that make it not so linear. So that doesn't mean that you get to sit there and say, oh, I failed because I missed this time because I didn't eat yesterday because my kid kept me up all night and he was sick. No, no, you didn't fail.

You missed a rep because you're not recovered because you have a lifestyle, right? Lifestyle problem. I wouldn't call it a problem. You have, you know, lifestyle interferes. That's not a problem. It's something that happens, right? So let's be clear here. It's linear under ideal circumstances, you know, where nothing is interrupting. But in the long run, all programs that are followed most of the time with the intention of adding end up being linear over X timeline. It could be every other workout. It could be every month. It could be every year, et cetera. You're always trying to progress in a semi-linear fashion.

If you were to plot my data points from when I first started lifting, you'd see this nice little trend line up, and then I'm probably reaching an asymptote right now. So, yeah, you're squatting every workout you're adding every workout you're alternating the bench and the press and you're adding to every one of those workouts you're dead lifting every workout and you're adding to that workout trent calls it vanilla nothing vanilla about it when it gets hard but you know no no but it's you know all of the you know when he says vanilla he means simple simple does not mean easy let's let me know, all of the, you know, when he says vanilla, he means simple. Simple does not mean easy. We say that all the time. Simple does not mean easy. No.

So then, you know, later you get trash from squatting and deadlifting so much, and then you start throwing in a power clean, right? And then a chin-up along with it, right? If you can't do a power clean because you're old, you might do some other pulling variant to get that work in. So this is where we start everybody. We start everybody with three exercises that turns into five exercises. And the goal is to add weight to the bar. This is a simple introduction to periodization on a basic level. They would call this in academia, linear periodization, where nothing changes but the load. And basically, your entire training career, let's say that you go all the

way to advanced and reach ceiling effects, right, is based on some form of linear periodization. Right now I'm adding weight every year, you know, is that still linear? You know, I may not be doing it every other workout, but I'm doing it every year. So it's still linear, you know. There's other forms of periodization that come up that we're not going to discuss in this episode, maybe on a basic level because we're talking about post-novice. But all programs are linear, and then you're always trying to get somewhere. And this is the main thing that I want to hammer home here because somehow load has become an afterthought in modern days. I just had a consult with a guy before I did this episode, and he's asking me about this program he's following. He's like, yeah, the sets keep going up, the reps keep going

up, and I would like to add weight, but then I just keep adding reps and sets. And I'm like, let's flip the priorities here. Add weight at all costs, assuming good technique, of course. And if you can't add weight, then take weight off and complete the number of sets you set out to do. Or try to squeeze out another rep, maybe. I think with these barbell lifts, it's not productive. Maybe with something like a tricep extension, that would make sense. But really, we don't want to play around with reps on a compound lift like a squat or a deadlift. I think that when you try to eke out another rep on a set that's already really hard, you're asking for a higher risk of injury, you

know? So I think context matters. Absolutely. Yeah. I made a few videos about this. I've talked about it here. I think when you're talking about this high volume, high set, high rep stuff, what we're really talking about, they're single joint exercises, you know? And that's where the stuff starts to make sense more, right? We don't deal with that hardly at all. And if we do, you're at our level and you're just fucking around in the gym trying to entertain yourself because you've been lifting for so long, right? And you're also putting enough weight on those movements to get something out of it, right? Or you're rehabbing something, right?

But for the most part, we deal in barbells. When we deal in barbells, we're talking about five or less reps. So now I've kind of highlighted that. So you've added weight to the bar every workout, and you've done this for three to nine months, depending on your age. And for you 50-year-olds that want to be 30 again, the guy your age doesn't go to nine months. He's closer to the three to four-month range, right? The guy who's 70 is in like the one to two-month range, you know? right? The guy who's 70 is in like the, you know, one to two month range, you know, linear progress gets shorter with age. Absolutely. On that novice program.

Yeah. So I don't want to, you hit over this pretty quickly. So I just want to reiterate it in case, you know, in case you're new to this. So the, the unique thing about the squat and the deadlift in this program is you're doing them every day, right? So the squat and the deadlift are in the A workout and in the B workout. And the squat and the deadlift work pretty much the same muscles, right? They're working your posterior chain, your glutes, your hamstrings. They're working your quads, right? They're also working your back and your your hamstrings. They're working your quads, right? They're also working your back and your abs really hard. So all the muscles in your trunk have to work really hard because

in the squat, you have to bend over and your back needs to stay in extension, right? It needs to be flat and it needs to hold its position throughout the squat. Because if it starts to bend like your Gumby, that's a real big problem. You're either going to hurt yourself or you're going to miss the rep. But regardless, it's a real problem. So your back needs to hold this position. Well, the same is true in a deadlift, right? We work to get you to a flat extended back. And you have to hold that back position as you use your posterior chain to lift that bar off the ground.

as you use your posterior chain to lift that bar off the ground. So the muscles of the trunk get hammered every workout. You're doing three sets of five in the squat, you're doing a set of five in the deadlift. The squat is pretty heavy, the deadlift is very heavy. That's why we only do one set of five on the deadlift is because that's we found that if you're deadlifting every workout one set of five is enough because again it's heavy it's for most people the heaviest lift that they will do and it's enough to drive progress for a good long while but you run into this problem where the the fatigue that you generate as the weight goes up and up and up and up and up you've generate so much fatigue especially in your lower back and your abs and your you know we'll just call them the trunk muscles just to

be to be general you generate so much fatigue in those muscles that you just can't hold your position your back position anymore in the squat the dead lift and your in your form starts breaking down and eventually you might miss a rep. So what we do when you start running into that territory, and I prefer, because I, I mainly work with older folks who, like you said, have a shorter runway on this program. I tend to look for these signs of, of fatigue building up and form starting to get a little bit shaky. Now I don't ever let it get a lot shaky starting to get a little bit shaky, I don't ever let it get a lot shaky, but maybe a little bit shaky. I tend to look for those signs and then go ahead and make a little programming adjustment. I don't like to let people run themselves in the

ground. If you're 20 years old, though, you should push it. You can. It's okay. You're going to be fine. If you're 55, you probably shouldn't. But when that happens, we make that adjustment like you talked about. We go from deadlifting heavy every workout to deadlifting heavy every other workout. So you go heavy deadlift on one day, and the next day you're going to do a lighter pull. like you said uh if someone can perform the power clean that's a great time to put it in because a power clean is naturally going to be a lot lighter than your deadlift so it serves it's it's a good movement for training power but it also serves as kind of a break for your lower back if you can't do a power clean then we usually do some something like a light deadlift like 70 to 80 percent then we usually do something like a light deadlift, like 70 to 80%, somewhere in that range. Yeah, just to reinforce that hinging motion. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So you're still getting the practice there, but again,

your lower back gets a little bit of a break because the weight's lighter. Okay, so now you're making progress every other workout on the deadlift. And guess what? The same thing happens on the squat later on, right? Usually we make the move first with the deadlift because it's the heaviest, but then the squat is usually for most people, not everybody, but most people, it's the second heaviest lift that you do. to go heavy every single workout. So in the middle of the week, if you're training three days a week, we make the middle week workout a light squat. So you go three sets of five heavy on Monday. Wednesday rolls around, you do three sets of five light.

Again, probably about 80% of that heavy day. And then Friday, you're gonna go heavy again, adding five pounds from what you did on Monday. That's right. So the reason I want to, I want to talk principles here, basic principles, because that's the important thing to understand. Not the, not the actual adjust the, like the mic, not the details of the adjustments that we're making here. The important thing is the principles. Number one is that fatigue builds up as the weight goes up on the bar, right? We call it systemic fatigue a lot of times

because it's just whole body fatigue. These are whole body movements. And systemic fatigue builds up and it gets to a point eventually where you just can't recover from it. Everybody has limits. Most people's limits are their lifestyle, like you mentioned. They can't eat and sleep enough

To recover they could eat and sleep better or more But some life does not allow them to spend all of their attention and resources on recovery So they do the best they can and eventually they run into a problem where they can't recover anymore so that's why we make the adjustment to allow for more recovery in the most taxing lifts notice we didn't touch the press the bench press right we're just making changes to the heaviest most fatiguing lifts and the other important part that i don't want to skip i I don't want to lose sight of, is that the goal of making that change to do a light day is so that you can continue having heavy days where you're adding weight. So any change that we're making is in service of continuing to add weight. We just have

to slow down the rate of gain a little bit. What this effectively is, is an introduction to lifting weights for the purpose of adding weight to the bar. You know, that's, that's introduces you to this idea of adding weight, which again has become an afterthought in mainstream fitness, quote unquote, right? And it shouldn't be, you know, you're lifting weight after all. Right. So the idea that you're not going to lift more weight is one I can't understand, right? Like, why wouldn't you lift more unless you don't want to lift more, right? But if your goal is to get bigger, stronger muscles, denser bones, you want to lift more weight, you know? So how are you going to lift more weight, right? Well, you know, the argument is, well, you can't add weight every time forever.

Well, you can't add sets every time forever either. You know what that's called? That's called cardio, right? Right, yeah. You add sets and reps every time forever, you're doing cardio at this point. So why don't we just go run and grow big, strong legs, you know? Yeah. If that worked.

What, do you do 1,000 squat reps in a workout? Yeah, exactly. It's just, you know, there's a lot of spin on this shit because at the end of the day, we have a broad behavioral problem when it comes to exercise and diet. You know, people that have these goals that require long-term training and lifestyle habits, and they can't achieve these goals because they can't change those habits. You know, that includes many of you listening. You know, a lot of the time lifestyle is a bottleneck.

Check that before you check anything else. So as a result, you know, you'll get people say, oh, I tried this program. It didn't work. I tried that program. It didn't work. So then so many car salesmen out there have decided that, well, you know, we've got to repackage the same shit in a million different ways and make it confusing because people are bored. You know, people are bored.

Well, you know, if you're bored, you probably didn't do the program. You know, there's never a dull moment when you're trying to add weight to the bar. Right. So if you're bored with your program, you probably didn't do the fucking program. Now, if you are trashed by your program, you probably didn't do the fucking program. Now, if you are trashed by your program, that's a different story. And I define trashed as, well, fuck, I fucking achieved this goal and I'm just wrecked. I need something mindless, you know? And I've had people do that, especially after Texas Method. I told somebody earlier today, Texas Method is

the program that makes people quit. I've witnessed it. I reserve that for young men that have nothing better to do. Yep, I did it. Been there and I was trashed. Yeah, you're wrecked from working so hard. Right. And like I said before, it's not wrecked like,

oh, I'm burning up and breathing heavy and I'm tired. It's like you feel like you got hit by a fucking bus. You're falling asleep throughout the day, and you just want this to end. And not many of you don't need to go to that extent, by the way. No, I would not recommend it. I'm just explaining what this looks like when you're a serious trainee and push it to the limits versus exercise.

You just go in there and sweat, have one moment of the day where you, you know, kind of feel like you've done something, you know, you're tired, you're physically tired, you know, but then you're back to normal in like an hour. In fact, you might even get a little bit of endorphin rush that kind of gets your day going. You know, it's one of the benefits to aerobic type exercise. But, you know, if you're going to try to get much stronger than you are, you're going to be more towards that wrecked feeling, right? And it's cumulative, right? You know, showing up is incredibly important and holding yourself accountable to doing more than you did last time. Even if you lose sleep over it and it

scares you, you know, that's a challenge and skill in and of its own, you know, and a lot of people don't like that, you know, it's just much easier to go in and sweat, you know, but that's the name of the game, right? Do you want to be weak or do you want to be strong? Do you want to be muscular or do you want to be, you know, skinny, you know, and there's no right or wrong answer. You only, you can decide that, you know, I know what I wanted to do. Trent knows what he wanted to do, you know, and I think a lot of you listening want to do something similar. Otherwise you wouldn't be listening unless you just like wasting your time on bullshit podcasts you don't like you know and you know there's never a shortage of people like that but i think most people listening are a captive audience they

want to get strong for one reason or another so if you want to get strong you are signing up for some period of time where you know you're going to feel a little bit wrecked. It's going to interfere with your life a little bit and you're going to have to work pretty hard, you know, and it doesn't have to be permanent, but you're gonna have to do it, you know? And, uh, I'm thinking of a guy we're probably going to bring on the next episode or the episode after that, you know, this is an extreme case, but, uh, my, our, um, our mutual friend, Harry, he gained like what, like a hundred pounds, close to a hundred pounds, right? Something like that. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't know him at his smallest. I think I, I think I met him, I met him at the SSCA, the Starting Strength Coaches Association Conference. Yes. And he was

a skinny dude when I met him. Okay. Yeah. I met him sort of probably at least a few years into training, probably several years into training. So he was already pretty filled out. Yeah. The very first time I met him, I think he was a buck 55. And according to his recent Instagram post, he had gotten up as high as 111 kilos, which for the Americans listening, fellow Americans, I should say, that's 244 pounds. And he's 5'7", right? 5'6", 5' five seven is that right yeah

uh maybe a little taller than that i remember being about my height is he our height five eight you're about me and you and about the same height right yeah yeah so i think five okay so five eight five nine he was 244 but i knew he pulled 600 at the meet because i remember rip made him go in the warm-up room after he lost it on his grip on the platform for his third attempt. Rip took him in the warm-up room, and he pulled 600 right after. Oh, man. Yeah. And he said he freaking pressed 308, 140 kilos. And I'm like, whoa.

And now I don't know what he weighs. I just messaged him. He says he wants to come on. I haven't asked him any specific questions, so we'll save that for next time. But it looks like he probably weighs under 200 pounds now, and he looks like a freaking sculpted Greek god. He's actually Greek, too. That's funny. Yeah.

No, he's got a great mustache, too. He has a great mustache, yeah. That was a good call. The mustache was a good move. Yeah, he had a beard when he was heavy. Now he's down to just the mustache. It works. Yeah.

But the beard lost weight, too. Yeah, the beard lost weight. That accounts for like 10 pounds. But that's an example of somebody. I think in his post he wrote that he did it for three years. So for three years he knew he was going to be a fat guy. And we're not saying that you need to do this. We're just using an example of somebody who was very forward thinking with this.

He committed three years. He's going to be heavy and he's going to lift as much as he possibly can. And he did it. And he's going to tell us all about what that was like. And then now, you know, he's back down, you know, he's heavier than he was when he started. He's leaner than he was when he started, I'd imagine. And he's stronger, right? Like it worked out, but that took three years of sacrifice. And, you know, he was in his twenties, you know, when he did it, right? Does that sound right to you, Trent? I think he's early thirties, right? Probably. Yeah. So I'm guessing late twenties

when he started doing that. So he was at a good age to do it. So, you know, 50-year-old dude, you're not going backwards, man. Don't gain 100 pounds. It's probably not a good idea, you know? Rip's trying to get me to gain another 60, but, you know, with the caveat, he's like, you're getting to that point now, you know, I'm 39. It's like, you're not going to be able to do this anymore.

It's your last fucking chance. So, you know, I'm not going to say what he said on here, but you can imagine he's like, you need to fucking do it. You know, I don't know about 242, but, you know, I'm just training and eating right now. And if I keep going up, I keep going up. But, you know, it's been fun. I want that bench. But, yeah, like you're going to have to accept a level of discomfort that's going to exceed a few weeks or a few months. I mean, realistically, unless you've out the gate are strong, you know, you have a 405 baseline dead

lift or, you know, 300 baseline squat, you know, you're probably going to put some work in for a couple of years minimum, you know? Yeah. And it's going to suck. You know, your lifestyle is going to require some tweaking and it's just going to suck. But, you know, I've been doing this a long time now and it becomes more manageable because when it's heavy, life becomes more efficient. You know, you do a lift, it's done in an hour, lift or two are done in an hour. You do that three, four times a week. And, you know, these long, grueling workouts aren't there anymore. But in the beginning, you're looking at, you know, blocking out some serious time to do this. This whole three months to abs or a growth six inches on your arms in three months,

it's all bullshit. That only exists on the internet and fitness magazines, right? Yeah. And if you're on steroids, of course. But, you know know for the rest of us that don't live in the marvel or dc universe you know we're gonna have to put in some time you know and we're putting some time and you know it's gonna suck for a while but if this is something you like it's quite rewarding you never leave a heavy squat workout and regret it even if you went in not wanting to do it kind of like the one you have to do in a little bit here i don't want to fucking do it but i'm going to be glad when i did yeah i want to i want to say something about that okay yeah so you know we like to say things like embrace the suck

you know it's like it's gonna be fucking hard it sucks but i mean okay so hard is different than sucking i think i know it i know what we mean when we say that but i think we need to be clear that i think one of the things that a lot of people fall in love with with the starting strength linear progression the novice linear progression is the fact that every time you do a workout there's a new little goal that pops up that you get to conquer and you get tangible like reward every time you do that. You're going to add five pounds. And it's not going to be long in this program.

You're going to start, and it's going to be pretty easy and light the first couple weeks. Because you're really starting to learn technique, and you've got to start somewhere reasonable. So you have some runway. But it's not going to be very long before you're hitting weights that you've never hit before. Ever. And from that point onward, every time you work out, you got to add five pounds or two and a half pounds or whatever it is. And it's a new PR. So literally every time you go in the gym, you get to hit a new PR. If you just do the work, you know, you're three sets of five away from a new all time life PR.

And that's pretty fucking cool. And a lot of people really love that. I did. It's very tangible. It's not 12 weeks to see if I hit a PR. No, it's one workout. If you just do it, it's right there. You can see the prize on the other side of those three sets of five. You just got to do them. And I think that's something that's really rewarding. And it's also I think it changes your mindset over time, too. I talked about this in the last episode, where we were talking about the experience of lifting heavy, that the slow, gradual exposure to more and more fearful activity. It that conditions you to be able to handle it, right? It trains your brain to be able to, to focus and perform under the pressure of like the scariness of something heavy. Well, it's kind of the same thing with like, you know, reward you, you, you start to

learn this, like, okay, if I just put in the work here, my rewards on the other side. So in that sense, I think it's novice lifting is really fun. It's really fun. It's very hard, but it's also a lot of fun. It's very rewarding. You'll get to a point if you keep doing this for several years where you're like, man, if I have a good run for the next three or four months, I might hit a PR here. And that's that's a lot of ifs, like, if I have a good run in three or four months here, I might hit a PR, there's a lot of ifs there. And it's a lot of work to see if it even happens, right? You don't know, when you're in the novice linear progression, like you

have a very, very good idea. That's like, if I just do this work, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna get it, it's just five more pounds. Well, it's pretty interesting, because you raise a good point. This is probably, for a lot of people, their first exposure to honest, no bullshit, delayed gratification. And that's what this teaches you, right? You squat Monday, and then you've got to wait until Wednesday before you can add. And then it gets hard, and then you don't know if you're going to add Wednesday. And then it gets to a point where like, you want to add and then

you're kind of hoping you miss because then you know, you got to add a Friday too, right? So later on, you get to intermediate, and it's more of the same, right? But now you have to wait a whole week. So if you get four reps in the squat, you know, you know, if you try it in two days, you're going to probably get one or zero, you know, maybe. Right. So you have to wait that week, and that's discipline, you know, because you're pissed off that you missed that rep. And then you've got to repeat it, but you want to add more, right?

So then you have to work through that. So that's what happens after novice, right? Like, things become less predictable. You know, when you're a novice, you know that you're going to be able to add weight to the bar the next workout, right? Most likely. Until the end, it becomes a little bit sketchy. You're like, am I at the end?

Am I at the end of the end? I want to get it. I don't want to get it, right? But then when you're intermediate, when you're post-novice, that's where it's like, okay, I got a set of five. I'm going to add next week, and then you get three. And then you have to figure out why. And then you got to try it again the next week, and then you might get two or four, you know? You might not get five the next week, right? And then you troubleshoot that, and then you're having to evaluate your lifestyle,

having to evaluate your programming. You're thinking about all these variables. And that's where people tend to get weeded out for like in terms of long-term progress is you have to deal with that frustration of, hey, I'm doing something that is, you know, a long-term play and the gratification is delayed and I have to sit there and figure all this stuff out, right? So then it becomes more like a roller coaster, right? And by the end of it, it's very rewarding, you know, but to get there, it's just a lot of this up and down shit, right? You got to figure out like, okay, did I miss because I didn't eat? Did I miss because I didn't sleep? Did I miss because, you know, my technique was wrong? Like you have to rule all these things

out, right? Or like I was really stressed out yesterday and was, you know, ruminating over some bullshit. And then today I lifted like, shit, is it really that, you know, am I that sensitive to stress? Because truth be told, it's different for all of us. Some people don't need to eat very much to get it done. Some people don't need to sleep as much to get it done. Some people can be very high strung and still get it done, you know? And figuring out which one of those you are is what exactly I'm talking about here. It's a trial and error thing. And the trial and error means the error part, you have to learn how to let roll off, just like you have to let the trial part roll off. You know, you're trying something new and exciting, but then it doesn't work, right?

You can't get wrapped up in that, right? You have to look long-term, right? How do I get more weight on the bar? Not, oh, how do I get more weight on the bar now? You know, so it goes back to that delayed gratification. That's true. That's very true. And, you know, there's a lot to be said about the value of that. There's a lot of good things in life that require long-term thinking.

You know, I'm, I'm the father of a seven, 17 month old boy. And, uh, there are some really fun days for sure. There are some really fun moments, but, uh, man, it's a long-term project. It's a lifetime project, frankly, of raising a kid. But definitely the next 18 years, 20 years of influence that I have, it's going to be a long time to see him grow into a person, a fully-fledged person. And yeah, to do that requires some long-term thinking. You start, you start thinking about what's this, what's next year going to look like? What's five years from now going to look like? Well, you know, that that's not, that's something that our society, at least in the West does not really encourage right now. Modern life is all about convenience

and all about having things now, you you know think about how many financial incentives there are to buy something right now there's there's a lot of ways to do it credit cards are super easy to get you can get you can you can pay for stuff with these like buy now pay later programs right have you seen that like oh yeah every item every item you can get anything on credit now it's crazy buy a 50 blender on Buy now, pay it later. You know, three installments. Dude, I think I bought something for like eight bucks with my Apple card. And it's like, divide into like six payments or something.

There's like this option, this pay later option. I'm like, what? It's like $6. How do they even give you that option? It's wild, right? So, you know, so much of our world has moved towards convenience and instant gratification. There's not a lot of places where you can voluntarily work on delayed gratification.

This is one of them. Lifting is one of them and there's no shortcuts. There's no shortcuts. And so it will teach you the value of delayed gratification. And that's really useful. That was really, it was especially useful to me in my twenties because, um, you know, there's, there's, there weren't many other influences in my life that were giving me a message of like, Hey, you know, listen, put in the work now, you're not going to see the full result of what you want until a while later, but you put in this work now and, uh, and it will pay off and you're going in the right direction. But lifting was, it was that influence for me. And like I said, I don't, I think as a novice, it's really fun because you do get some satisfaction. You do actually get some

instant gratification when you set PRS. At least I did, you know, I thought setting PRS was really fun. And I got addicted to that. I got addicted to like, okay, 260. Wow, that was crazy. I never thought I would squat that 265. And then you look forward and you're like, maybe next week, I'll be squatting like 285. You're like, what? So that actually was pretty fun. You know, it's the intermediate, like you just described, the intermediate phase of training was harder in that way. It's so demanding psychologically. And I'm, it's with anything, right? Like if you try to learn new skill, there's that honeymoon phase and i'm it's with anything right like if you try to learn new skill there's that honeymoon phase they call it right or you know we call it the novice effect and lifting you know uh where you make rapid progress early on because you're doing

something new and uh at a very at a pretty low level you know but because it's new you're making these rapid improvements right but then once that's new, you're making these rapid improvements, right? But then, once that's done, and you have to get down to work, then it turns into that roller coaster, right? I think of DJing, and I'm sure you could probably relate this with some of the instruments you played. You know, I picked up the basics of beat matching stuff right away. But then, I'd listen to guys that have been doing it for a long time. This was before computers can do it for you too, by the way. And they sounded like mixtapes, you know? And I'd hear myself, and I'd like see these.

So for those of you who don't know, with DJing, you want to get two songs to line up and go at the same beat like it sounds like one song. And then there's timing involved and all that. But I would be off by like a fraction of a beat and i could hear it and i'm like man these guys are never off by a fraction of a beat why and then like you know by year like three or four i stopped being off by a fraction of a beat you know and i don't know how i got there it was just lots of repetitions working at clubs three times a week you know and uh eventually it just was something i didn't think about and it just it would click it would sync a week, you know, and eventually it just was something I didn't think about, and it just, it would click, it would sync a lot easier, you know, but it was that kind of thing, right, I remember that first year, like, I made that rapid progress, I'm like, oh, I can beat

match, awesome, but then I was always, I was off in the beginning, you know, I was like a little bit off, not like, we used to call it a train wreck, where you'd hear the songs jumbling up, you know, or some, I've heard other people call it a galloping horse, you know, if you're at a bar and you hear that, you know, you probably don't hear that anymore because i think they have so many automation tools now where they don't have to actually manually beat match which is sad yeah but i had to manually beat match right so like i pick why can i sound like the mixtape guy you know i can why am i and then later you know i got better and i'm like it's off by like a fraction you know and i could hear it you know and it would drive me nuts and then at some point like i just hit it and it just reminded me of

something i'd read about other skills earlier i'm like well there you go after about a few years well you know just becomes consistent and you know you hear somebody who's really good and it's that's you know mixing on vinyl you know that not either where they're manually beat matching which is what i did yeah that's and the thing is like so a computer can get you you know it can get you perfectly synced to where you're just like absolutely locked in time but somebody who's really good that's manually beat matching can find the cool in between sort of like it's not quite lined up but in its but but in a very cool way yeah there's a lot of taste there. You can tell. That's the thing, right? So part of it is like the beat matching is one skill.

You got to get that right to DJ, but then there's like the taste of like, what do you put together? Like what's cool, right? You can't just throw any two records together. That's not happening. There's a lot of taste that you build over time of like this kind of thing. You could flip this beat

in an interesting way with this or these two things would add up to something that's that's cool and unique and yeah it takes time i think there's an analog with lifting here we've kind of drifted off from the original programming talk right but but actually we haven't because alongside as the programming evolves, in terms of the weight, you know, the weight, and how it fluctuates, right, we're going heavy, but you have light days and stuff. There's a technique aspect of this that evolves to, right. So and that's an important part of the post novice phase of training. When you're a rank novice, when you're first starting

out, you're just trying to get the basics right. You know, when you squat, you're trying to lean over enough, you're trying to shove your knees out, you're trying to drive your hips out of the bottom. That's hard. It's hard to coordinate everything and stay in balance. Same thing with the press. You're just trying to like shove the bar overhead, try to keep it reasonably straight line, and then get a big shrug at the top. As you go further and the weight gets heavier, the technique becomes more demanding. You have to be more on when you're first starting out. If you got it 80% right, it's going to go. When you start to get, you know, towards the end of LP and the weight's very heavy, you can't do, you can't do a squat 80% right and expect to get all the reps. You're

going to miss because of a technical problem. Your technique has to be 90% right or 95% right. You know, never going to be a hundred percent, but we try to get there and it has to evolve. Well, that, that's one of the things that happens too, as you, as you become more advanced, as you start to fine tune your technique, right? You start to hone in and you start to make things a little like 1% better. Like, you know, little small details start to really matter with your technique. And, um, and that's the, that's like the, the DJ analogy, right? You know, you learn how to beat match cool, but then you learn how to beat match better.

And then you learn how to do it in a different way. Then you learn how to do it with more taste, you know, with, with, you know, learning to combine cool stuff. Well, it's kind of like your technique and lifting your technique starts to get a little bit more individualized, start to really dial it in. This is something that most people are probably not going to be able to do without a coach. Almost nobody will. This is stuff that a coach really can help you dial in. And those light days that you start to introduce, I've just been talking about that with some people. I just have put a light day into their program. I always tell people the light days, yes, they serve as a As a break as a way to dissipate some fatigue But that's not the only reason they're there

You don't just go through the motions and just whip around because they're light like oh cool and just you know Bang these out real quick. No, those are your days to perfect your technique Because the weight's light You can focus it's not distractingly heavy You can fix the little niggles and little small problems have been cropping up on your heavy days right so if your balance is a little forward in the squat and you're getting a little bit in your toes on your heavy days well when light day rolls around that's the time to make every single rep absolutely perfect because you're doing them at 80

you can do it you can pull it off and you you know, that's the time to work out little problems. So yeah, that that's, that's an important aspect of programming as well is that there's room for skill development in the progression. Yeah. And that's, you know, we've talked about it in several episodes, and it's probably a whole nother episode or none of its own, but there's a skill component here. And technique is the limiting factor to progress, the more novice you are, you know, and the further down the strength recovery adaptation curve, you go and become more advanced, the less that becomes an issue. And it's kind of like with my analogy

with instruments, right? Like, comes a point where the, the you know all the basic technical stuff that you've had ups and downs with because you will have ups and downs you know just because you hire one of us doesn't mean that you're gonna perfect technique every workout you know right in person it will be more perfect than online for sure you know no question about that you'll have more locked in sessions in an actual gym than over the internet. So I just want to put that caveat out there because I do both. I train people here at the gym. I train people online and I will say the technical progression is a little bit slower on the internet for obvious reasons. But you're not going to have a perfect technical progression just because you have a coach.

We're just going to stop you from being stupid and progressing something that's technically incorrect, that's going to hurt you, right? Right. And we're going to fine tune the technical inefficiencies as best we can. But ultimately, you don't really settle into your technique, you know, your comfortable, what becomes later your baseline technique, for at least a couple of years, you know, you're dicking with that the first two to four years. And then after that, now programming becomes the sole focus, right? People like to go the opposite. You know, technique is an afterthought. Like I said, load has become an afterthought. Technique's always been an afterthought because people didn't hire technique coaches. They hired steroid coaches and programming coaches

and programming coaches that were really steroid coaches. You know, that's what the status quo was for many decades, you know. We are primarily technique coaches, and we're also programming coaches. We don't deal in pharmaceuticals here, but the point is that getting that technical proficiency down is going to occupy a lot of your time in the first two to four years, and you're going to have problems that are due to form, and you're going to keep working through them. And it's going to happen more than once, and it's going to happen at different weight thresholds. Yeah. And you just got to be cool with that. It's like anything else. If you've ever learned something hard, remember those ups and downs where you know, where you had a good day,

you had a bad day, everything connected perfectly one day, not so perfectly the next day. That is a normal progression to learning a new skill that you're not naturally gifted at, right? Absolutely. And lifting weights with barbells is no different. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, that's, you know, frankly, from a business standpoint, technique coaching is a pain in the ass. It's hard. It's complex. It's a lot easier to pull off in person. Like you said, it's a lot easier to work with somebody in person and fix things real time. Because you're there, you can put people into position, you can manipulate them

with your hands. You can't do that online. And a lot of the coaching world is online now. And it's easy to throw out programs, you know, write spreadsheets. Coaching technique is hard. It's a pain in the ass. It requires a lot of time and investment and thinking and thinking about how the other person is going to perceive what you say. So you need to like say it in a way that you hope, you know, you hope that the message gets across. And sometimes it doesn't. So you need to find a new way to say it, use different terms, approach it from a different angle. Yeah. So that's why, you know, you're not going to see a whole lot of coaches in the whole world of, of personal trainers that do that. But it's essential.

It's essential. I mean, that's, you know, I would say that, you know, how many people have come to you that were, let's say, had some experience lifting before? Mm-hmm. How many people have come to you that had, like, really rock solid, like, no problems with their technique at all? I mean, I can only think of one off the top of my head.

Right, right. There's probably more, but there's one that jumps out. It's like almost none, almost none. Like everybody needs something, right? And, you know, I've been lifting, I'm in my ninth year of serious training now. And I was coached for my first three years of lifting, at least. Yeah, it sounds about right my first three years of lifting, at least. Yeah, it sounds about right. First three years of lifting. And then I've also had the benefit of being around a lot of other great barbell coaches

that I could get feedback from after that, you know, every few months. Just say, can you watch this set? What's going on here? And it happens to all of us. Even now, you know, in my ninth year, i occasionally need to watch what i'm doing with my squat my squat's the one that tends to drift out of you know my form tends to drift the most on that lift and i have to really make sure it's in check or else that weight ain't going up yep so technique still is a limiting factor for me now it's a lot easier for me to dial it in

i just need to make one small adjustment and i'm right back where I was. I'm right back in the groove. So it's easier now to fix problems, but it's still the one that I have to keep an eye on. And if I stop keeping an eye on it, my technique will drift and then I'll start, I'll miss reps because of technique. And that sucks. You know, it's funny. It sucks to know that you were strong enough and you just, you misgrooved something. And then you frustrated. and then you've gassed yourself and you can't make it up that day and that's the that's right yeah and then yeah if you're on one of these you know if you're more advanced and you know i only squat heavy every other week now uh then then you gotta wait two more fucking weeks to redo the same weight that you should have gotten yep really frustrating

that just happened to me last week i experimented with squatting heavy and deadlifting heavy together. I'm like, well, it's lower volume, so maybe I can do both. Nope, not a set of five I can't. Maybe triple or single I can. Yeah, yeah. But I got two deadlifts, and that was it. Then I'm like, fuck, and I keep trying to talk myself out of trying again this week. But I have a feeling if I try again this week, I'm probably going to miss it again.

Right, yeah. You've got to let that fatigue dissipate. I don't want to do it again. Right, yeah, you got to let that fatigue dissipate. Yes, yeah. Yeah, so I understand it, but the takeaway is that lifting is a technical activity. It's not just something you just go and do and you'd be mindless about it, like running. Running is a pretty functional movement. There's no load on it, so you're just moving your body, something that you do all day, right?

Lifting is a lot more technical. You're moving with heavier and heavier weights. So the way you move changes as the intensity gets heavier. And anybody who neglects that or leaves it as an afterthought is somebody you need to fire. You need to learn how to move. That's your foundation, right? Then the programming secondary. This is why I've taken a dog training lately. It's the same thing. They're basically teaching me how

to move half the time, you know, like I've learned about dog psychology and various ways to motivate a dog and those things. But a lot of the practical skills I've learned working with dog trainers is how to move. And it's kind of similar. Like I move the wrong way, the dog moves the wrong way. You know what I mean? It's kind of funny. Yeah, sure. So yeah. And everybody wants to, you know, the, the common, the common thing is everybody wants a programming solution to a technique problem or recovery problem, right? It's, it's usually one of those two things that people will think like, Oh, I need to change my programs. Like, no, you need to fix your shitty technique or you need to eat some food or you need to get more than five hours of sleep. It's the simple stuff that usually needs addressing first.

And you're usually not as good at that as you think you are. We will all bullshit ourselves when given the opportunity. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, I think what I wanted to impart in this episode is some principles. And I wanted to sort of get back to basic principles here of programming. So remember, when you are a novice, the most important thing is the weight on the bar going up. And when you're post-novice, guess what? The most important thing is the weight on the bar going up. That's always the focus. So every change that you make in your programming is in service

of making the weight continue to go up. Um, it just, we just, we have limitations. We all run into limitations, so we can't do it every workout forever. So we make changes as needed so that we continue to make the weight on the bar go up everything else is is um is secondary to that um we're never thinking like how do i get my how do i get my volume from three sets of five to five sets of five no that's not the goal you do five sets of five because that's the only way to make your your one set of five go up right that's the only reason you do it it's it's a it's a it's a consequence of of what you need to do to make the bar weight on the bar go up the heaviest weight you can lift has to go up if you want to get stronger if you want to get more muscular right and that's the proxy for all of it yep absolutely and even for you for you bodybuilding hypertrophy folks out there

you know our buddy Andy Baker has talked about this you know if you want to you know a body builder who's doing some crazy back routine where he's got a bunch of different movements and then he does let's say some deadlifts at 315 you know some pre-fatigued deadlifts uh well he still is going to need to see his deadlift go from 315 to 365 to see some back growth right it doesn't happen without weight in the bar going up um so it's just it's applicable to everything 100 because muscles grow in response to an increasing stress. And stressing them with endurance is not the stimulus to make them grow. So sorry, people.

It's always about strength. And you can spin that a million ways. I could if I wanted to. I'm not going to. But just get weight on the bar. Stop being afraid of it. Just, you know, suck it up. You want to get stronger?

You want more muscle? Put weight on the fucking bar and make that the center point. If you do that, you will see yourself grow just fine. Nobody got stronger and didn't get bigger, right? Yeah. Steroids make you do both without doing any or doing very little of it. I think it probably makes you do both without doing any of it, you know? Yeah. Steroids make you do both without doing any or doing very little of it. I think it probably makes you do both without doing any of it, you know? Yeah.

That's probably a fair statement to make because if you take drugs and you don't do anything, the moment you do something, you're going to be stronger than before you took drugs. It's how steroids work. That's why strength is important in sports, even though sport coaches don't think so. Different topic, but, you know, they get you stronger you know yeah yeah so again we are not pharmacists here we are strength coaches and I'm a diet coach we help you with strength and nutrition we don't advocate for pharmaceutical use you know and that's all I got to say on that fucking topic I think that's all I got to say on this podcast I think that is a good stopping point I know I think so too I think that's all I got to say on this podcast. I think that is a good stopping point. I know. I think so too.

I think so too. Well, you want to close this out? Sure. Thank you for tuning in to the weights and plates podcast. We appreciate your ongoing support. You can now find us on YouTube. I think I just changed the handle to weights underscore and underscore plates.

Yeah. No double underscore like Instagram. So they let me do that, but apparently there's some, some asshole has weights and plates. Yeah, no double underscore like Instagram. So they let me do that. But apparently there's some asshole has weights and plates. I was kind of pissed. But yeah, you can find us there. Please subscribe. It's a separate Google account from my one that's older

because I wanted to make one for the podcast and the content. But yeah, you can find us there. You can find me on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. That's where I post most of my content these days. I want to spread it to other places, but you can reliably find new stuff from me there. The gym has a handle as well,

weights double underscore and double underscore plates. And of course, you can find me at weightsandplates.com or here in Phoenix at Weights and Plates Gym. Man man i keep saying my fucking brand name so many times i feel like weights and plates yeah i feel like a fucking infomercial here man i hate doing that shit you know i read a long time ago on radio they have to spend a new song 11 times before they can before someone decides that they're they like it so i think you know 11 times but maybe that's the sweet spot for weights and plates, weights and plates, weights and plates. Yeah. I think that's probably close to 11 there.

Weights and plates, weights and plates. There you go. Well, come by the gym. If you're in Phoenix, come by the gym, check it out. You got to see him. He will get your technique whipped into shape and he'll make you put more weight on the bar too while you're at it. I sure will. Well, if you want to talk to me, I'm on Instagram sometimes at marmalade underscore cream. That's also the name of my media production company, my audio production company, marmalade cream media. Um, you can go check that out on marmalade cream.com. If you're interested in some of the podcasts that I produce, some of the music that I compose for podcasts, it's a little thing I do on the side when I'm not coaching. But if you have a coaching specific question, you can reach me at jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. All right, we'll talk to you again in a couple

weeks. Thank you.