Weights and Plates Podcast - #78 - Are Your Goals Compatible With Your Lifestyle? Abs Don't Come Easy

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

While there are many good reasons to lift barbells and get strong, many people are motivated at least initially by the prospect of looking better. Improving their body composition, which means building muscle mass and losing body fat. For the average person, getting strong requires a lot of hard work and dedication, more than most people expect. Achieving above average body composition requires even more work, and ultimately begs the question: are your goals compatible with your lifestyle?   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. Hello, sir. How's it going, man? Good, man. How are you? Do I look tan? A little bit tanner? Jacked and tan? A little bit? Jacked and tan? I don't know about that.

I don't know if I count as jacked and tan, but yeah, hopefully I'm a little bit tanner. Just got back from the beach last week. Right. So,

you know, all those curls for the girls paid off. Nice. Did they all walk up and ask how big your arms are? They did, yeah.

You know, I had to, I had to just fend them off. I'm like, hey, I'm married. How about, sorry.

How about that meme where they're like, what you think will happen when you bench 225? And like, they show the chick like walking up to the guy, you know? Right. And then it's like what actually happens is she goes rocky at Apollo Creed, hugging each other on the beach. That's exactly, you know? Right.

It's for muscles or for dudes. It's true. Muscles are for other dudes. Yeah, you don't have to look very far to figure that one out. But yeah, it's still cool. No, I had a good time out there. I was coming back, you know, today. This is Tuesday when we're recording this.

Today is the first workout back for me. And so I was out all last week. And then I think my last workout was Thursday, the week prior. So it's like a week and a half since I've lifted anything. And I get this question a lot. What do you do when you have a layoff? Like, how do you handle your programming? And I guess the true answer is, it depends. But I'll tell you, like, this is my kind of standard approach here. So I basically, I either if it's, you know, it kind of depends on what happens in the layoff. Were you sick? Did you lose a bunch of weight? Did you eat like shit? Did you sleep like shit?

Sometimes that happens. That means you're probably going to have to take some weight off the bar when you come back. But in my case, I was relaxing. I got some good sleep. It was not stressful. You know, I drank more alcohol than I normally do, but nothing excessive. So I'm pretty well rested here. So basically what I do is I just redo the week before I left. I'm just going to redo that week. I did add some weight on the deadlift because I found that deadlift usually can tolerate a week off with basically no problems. At least for me, it's never been an issue. I can usually just deadlift exactly where I left off and keep going as if I had never missed. But yeah, the squat and everything, those usually

take a little bit of a hit when I've been off for a week. But yeah, I'm basically just going to repeat the week. And here's another trick that I have on squats. And I'm going to do this when I squat on, on Thursday this week, when I'm coming back from a, from a short layoff, a lot of times what I'll do is ramping sets. So if I'm, so I squatted three 20 for three sets of five the week before the, the trip. So what I'm going to do this week is I'm going to hit my first work set at 300 and just see how that goes. I expect that'll be not too bad. So then I'll make a jump to 310 and I'll squat that first set of five. And then if that's all good, then I'll make a jump to 320 and I'll hit that first set of five. So I'll end my progression, my little ramping progression there at 320, which is where I left off the week prior.

And then the following week, I'll either repeat 320 for three sets of five, or I'll do 325 for three sets of five. It just kind of depends on how things are moving. If it's moving really well, I'll probably just go ahead and add five pounds. But, um, but that's a little trick you can do specifically on squats. And I find that helps if you, if you're the kind of person where taking a week off of squatting really just throws you off. And if everything feels like a million pounds, you can sort of like get a running start into it where you don't have to like do sets across right off the bat, but you can just ramp up into it. And then the next time you squat, you'll be, you'll be fine. Yeah. You know, you just, so when we're talking to novices, we're always talking about how progress is fairly linear and, uh, yeah, same as kind of true with

intermediates, but that doesn't mean that it's linear every single workout or every single week. Like, you know, shit happens, you know, like you traveled, right? Yeah, right. There comes a point where you have to expect that, you know, shit's going to not be linear, you know, it's just on par for the course. Life is not linear, but if you're working towards something and you keep showing up, things are fairly linear, you know, in the beginning, workout to workout, week to week, month to month, year to year, you know, I get a little bit stronger one year from the previous year, you know, but that doesn't come with missed lifts, getting sick, traveling, skipping workouts, you know, like I don't do that very often, but sometimes, you know, I'll work out two days instead of three,

you know, and then I'll pick up, you know, it doesn't happen all the time, but it's known to happen. All of us will skip a workout at some point because some bullshit happens you know and uh all you gotta do is just you know start back up start adding weight to the bar you know and go from there um i recently had a guy with a seven-year layoff he just started back up and we're just running him through linear and you know he just like he asked me like are we gonna just keep running linear and i'm like no and he didn't want to he this, he's like, are we going to just keep running linear? And I'm like, no. And he didn't want to. This is the type of person who did not want to.

And I was like, no, but, you know, some of your movements, you know, got lost. You know, you get kind of stale with the technique if you're not practicing it. And, you know, I want the higher frequency right now so you can kind of reestablish that before we move on to something else. And which we will, you know. But, yeah know so was this person pretty strong were they pretty strong before the layoff oh this guy pulled 600 okay okay all right so yeah that's interesting interesting so he's been off for seven years but i would guess it's probably retained a fair amount of that strength even with that light

amount of layoff oh yeah absolutely um and uh the thing about that is you know and i remember rip talking about this with cyclists is when you've been strong before you know you go in your muscles are still strong and you just think you can just start heavy or make humongous jumps i've seen this many times before but your connective tissues and your joints are not ready for that shit yet yeah and what i find is you know, you know, a guy will start, you know, maybe 135, 185 on the squat. And then you might allow 205 the next one, maybe 225 the next one. But then, you know, you get these guys will go 225 to 275, right?

Right, 275, 315. To 315, yeah. And then it's like my hip hurts or my knee hurts or whatever, you know. And I'm not singling anybody out. I see this all the time, you know. You know, I see it with younger guys too that are doing the LP. They just want to keep going, going, going and have linear forever. So, you know, the reason we're talking about this is because in this line of work, you know, I'm usually helping people learn how to move, add weight to the bar, get stronger and eat better.

And there eventually comes a point where your lifestyle has to be compatible with your goals, right? If you want to achieve an extreme result, you're going to have to put in extreme effort. And that doesn't mean just pushing yourself in the weight room. You know, you're going to have to eat a certain way. You're going to have to make sure you sleep enough. You know, now if you go out on the weekends and eat crap and sleep five hours, no big deal. If you're doing that several times a week, you know, let's say you have a job, you're taking clients out, you're drinking like three, four nights a week, you're eating crap three, four nights a week, and you're sleeping six hours most nights, you know, you might get away with it as a novice, you know, you might even get away

with it post-novice for a period of time. But eventually there comes a point where you have to evaluate those trade-offs between lifestyle and your goals. You know, the worst thing you can do for yourself is set a goal that requires such a change in your lifestyle that you can't realistically do it, right? Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that's really what we're talking about, right? Is, you know, I talked about what do you do after a layoff? But, you know, what's embedded in that is that we, we're assuming that you're going to be showing up to train for the foreseeable future, right? Like in perpetuity,

you're not going to be doing the same thing in perpetuity, but like training is a very long-term project and we're never really done. You know, it's not like, uh uh i think i i think we never really talk about this or we rarely talk about we talk about it on this show but in in our world right in the world that we come from of starting strength coaches we don't really talk about this but training is it's forever really and it's and it's perishable that's what you're really and it's perishable training is that's right that's right and that's why it's forever, right? Is that the natural physical life of a human, it's a downward slope to the end, right? And that happens regardless of what you do, whether you train or you don't train. There's a slope down to the end.

And everyone's slope is a different length. You don't really know how long it's going to be. But what we do when we train is we try to make that slope as flat as we can so that we're functional and we can live full lives until the very end. But that decline comes whether we want to or not. So what we have chosen to do here and what you, dear listeners, have chosen to do is to train and, um, as to make this a part of your lifestyle. It's a forever thing. And I think that, you know, I think most people are on board with that. Like most people that want to train with, you know, with me, at least they want to be healthier. They want to be, um, they want to be more fit. They want to be more functional people.

And they understand that strength is an important part of that. But yeah, what you just pointed out is that there's a breakdown sometimes between that, you know, hey, I want to get strong because I know strength is important for quality of life and for function. And then there's some people who want to go beyond that and they want to achieve a physique result that's above average. And there's a breakdown sometimes in what the lifestyle looks like between lifting to get strong and healthy and lifting to get a good physique. Now, here's the real kicker, guys. Let's start with the strong part, you know, the same concept that I'm about to hit on can apply to the physique part. Let's say that, you know, you have modest strength goals, right? Like, you know, you're not trying to compete in powerlifting.

You're not interested in deadlifting 600, 700 pounds or squatting 500, right? Let's just throw some numbers out there. Let's just throw some numbers out there. But let's say that, you know, let's say you want the classic 4-3-2-1, 4-0-5 deadlift for a set of five, squat 3-15 for a set of five, bench 2-25 for a set of five, press 135 for a set of five, and maybe crank out 10 chin-ups. You know, that's not even remotely competitive in any weight class in powerlifting, right? Right, right. However, let's say that you have a very above average IQ and a very low vertical jump because we've worked with these people, right, Trent? Guess what, dude? If you have those goals and you fit that phenotype, you're going to be training like a powerlifter. You're just not going to get powerlifting results.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. I mean, there are guys that have been in it for i have a guy here at the gym part of it is i think he would have got it faster if he cleaned he's not a good example because there's the eating is his limiting factor and i've identified that but he still hasn't pulled five you know he's just deadlifted 410 for five he's a hard worker in the weight room he shows up but the the diet's a limiting factor. But, you know, mind you, I met this guy six years ago, I want to say. Yeah. And we got him, I think we got him to, I know he squatted 315 for five. He pulled that off. He's deadlifted 405 for five, but he wants a 500 pound deadlift. And to get a 500 pound deadlift, you know, you have to work, most people have to work a little bit harder. We're excluding

these guys that kind of get there in a year or two, you know, we're not talking about, yeah, no, but, uh, you know, I, I have guys more extreme than him though. Like, you know, I have a client right now who's actually doing quite well in the deadlift, decent on the press. He just pulled three 45 or three 50 for a set of five. And he was 135 pounds, skinny, fat guy. And he has a very high IQ. He's in a PhD program in his early twenties. If he's listening, you know who I'm talking about. You know, we have a call every month. He knows it's going to suck for a couple of years, you know, but he's not working hard to squat 500. You know, he's busting his ass to squat over 300 right now. He'd be

thrilled to squat three plates, but because the genetic makeup for that isn't there like he's struggling hard with the squat we got him to the mid twos you know which is great for him and he hasn't right i don't think we've even worked together for a full year yet but we got him to the mid twos he gained all the body weight necessary you know his friends are making fun of him a bit because he got budgie yeah but you know he was 130 540 pounds now he's 215 you know okay about five five eight five nine and he just said you know fuck it if i get fat that's fine you know as long as the weight on the bar justifies it we'll peel it off later you know he's in his early 20s people like he's not going to stay there you know

right right but here's where it's interesting like you know because these guys that are really strong and these lifting sports are so detached from what you typically see in the general population you know this guy's benching in the mid 140s and having a hard time. And if he misses a workout, his bench goes down, you know, like he's not, he can't get away. And he's asking me, he's like, does everybody go through this? Then I'm like, yeah, except some people just go through it with heavier weights, dude. You know, it's just, you're just having a hard time, you know, but he's pressing 115 for a set of five, which is decent. You see that more, that's more, that's more common, but his bench is abnormally low. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, to put another 90, 80, 90

pounds on this bench, you know, which is probably what he really wants long-term, a two-plate bench for, you know, a few reps. It's going to probably take, it'll probably take him like two to four years. And that's what I've told him, you know? So if you're listening, you know, it's the same thing I told you, nothing's changed, you know, two to four years just to do what some of these guys do in the first year, year and a half, you know? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, I was thinking about that the other day and because we're always blind to like our own abilities and where we stack up. And when I think about it, I'm like, yeah, you know, genetically, I'm pretty dang average as a lifter.

I'd say, you know, I'm a little above average, maybe in the overhead press I've pressed more than most people, especially at my body weight, but you know, I am nothing special. And for me, you know, I pulled 500, but it took me five years to get there. And, uh, that was pretty solid progress all the way through. You know, I had some, I had some, some, some I had some headwinds, so to speak. I had, you know, I started a business in that time and left a steady corporate job. So that was really stressful. And that threw a big wrench in my training for a long time. But I trained through it and I made more or less pretty steady progress.

And I was in my later 20s at the time. So, you know, I had that going for me. I wasn't 45 and doing this for the first time but yeah yeah that's true you know it's it's it takes uh it takes several years really to see these numbers manifest like when i met rip and you know mind you i think i bought into this in part because of where i was at with my own lifting like just me fucking around in the gym for 10 years or however long i was about 11 years i was just fucking around before i found his material yeah and i had a 315 squat i have video of that may of 2013 was before i started doing starting

strength 315 squat below parallel incorrect form so it's probably even stronger than that if i'd learn the technique better but i'd squat at 315 for a single power lifter to laugh at that and say women squat that yes they do you know i've trained some that can squat that. Squat more than that. But the point is that when you start working with people from the general public and try to teach them to do this and run up their lifts, a lot of them aren't squatting 315, dude. That's right. Yeah, exactly. They're certainly not getting themselves there fucking around either. So I'm not sitting there to toot my own horn. I don't think it's that strong when you factor in the extremes.

But when you remove the extremes and compare me to middle of the bell curve or to the left tail, I did pretty damn good. There's not a lot of people that do that. There's not a lot of people outside of lifting sports or just sports in general that require a lot of strength and explosiveness. You remove those people from the equation, there's just not a lot of guys going in there squatting 315 it's just not happening you know especially when you control for body weight and you look at like middleweight guys you know middle to lightweight guys it's not happening i was 167 pounds when i started doing starting strength i was squatting 315 i had a 215 for five bench i could not get to 220 because i didn't have fractionals once i I got fractional, I got 250.

It was pretty cool. But that's basically almost two plates for a set of five before doing starting strength. That's just me experimenting with bullshit on the internet. Right, right. And I had a 320 deadlift. I think I remember putting like a two and a half or a five on the three plates. Then I'm like, oh, I'm doing a little bit more than I squat. Great.

I didn't know that lift can get very strong if you. Great. You know, I didn't know that like that lift can get very strong. If you know what you're doing, you know, I didn't know that. So like, I look at that, then I look at people that hire me and I'm like, I did pretty damn good just fucking around. I didn't do great. You know, of course I wish I can do it. And you just, when it's me thinking about my own lifting personally, of course the standards are much higher and I get pissed off.

You know, I don't want this to come across as me trying to toot my own horn because I'm not. I'm not that strong. I never claim to be. But I've worked with hundreds if not thousands of clients at this point, and they're not coming in where I was when I came in and sought out coaching. And a lot of them don't have an athletic background. I think the official data on this, and we don't know what the actual number is. There's no way to measure that.

But the official statistics on muscle strengthening exercise, last time I looked at it, was that I think 23% of the U.S. population even does it. And that includes bands, dumbbells, circuit training, CrossFit's probably in there. TRX or whatever. Pretty much, yeah. fits probably in there you know it's not what so then when you trx or whatever pretty much yeah anything that makes your muscles contract that's not that's not traditional cardio is a muscle strengthening exercise so it could be it could be pink dumbbells every single time so once you start narrowing that down and get specific about the type of muscle strengthening exercise i bet the people training with a barbell is even smaller, and the people that are competing in barbell sports is even smaller, right?

Tiny, yeah. You're talking about probably a percent of the population that even touches a barbell and lifts, and then an even smaller percentage that does it seriously and incrementally loads it, you know? Yeah, so, you know, I don't know if those figures, when they say 23%, I've heard similar, right? You know, the different surveys that are done, they're all roughly in the same ballpark, 20%, 30%, somewhere in there. Maybe a third of the country does something. Yeah. So there's what, 400 million people in the US? So I mean, think about it. If we just do some rough math, I've inflated that. There's 330 million people in the US. I was rounding a little hard there. So, you know, we say 23% of them exercise with some resistance, that'd be 76 million people, but we have to exclude kids, right? Probably have to exclude children from that. uh i'm gonna google that really quick very quick it says 2020 there were 260 million adults round numbers right so 260 million adults if 23 of them train that's 60 million people

i can pretty confidently say there are not 60 million people lifting a barbell no it's not even close right fuck no so so so 230 million people, adults, right. Is what we said. Let's say, you know, so 1% of that, right. Would be 2.3 million people. Are there 2.3 million people lifting barbells in the U S right now? That even seems a little high to me, but I could, if I could believe it, I could believe it, but yeah, just like, just let that sink in for a second like if if you're into this and you watch strength sports uh you're in a very very rare you know you're breathing rarefied air i just got some stats here i looked up yeah how many people can bench 225 power lifting right okay yep and it says here's the official data. According to strength standards compiled from more than 70 years of records on lifters aged 18 to 39, here's the likelihood you can bench 225.

Untrained and novice male lifters of any weight will never bench 225. Intermediate male lifters who weigh 220 and above can bench 225. Advanced male lifters who weigh 148 and above can bench 225. Advanced male lifters who weigh 148 and above can bench 225. Elite male lifters who are 114 pounds and above should be able to bench 225. Only elite female lifters who are 199 pounds and above should be able to bench 225. This gives us the idea of the type of person that can bench 225, but there's more to it. Here are a few more facts to help us understand how many people can bench 225. Power lifters aim to bench 170% of their body weight. See, I give myself shit. I think I benched 170% of my body weight, and I was like, it's not that heavy. It's not double.

Right, right. Therefore, a good 140-pound power lifter and above would be able to bench 225. This is only a small percentage of people. In 2019, only one in americans belong to a gym or health club but only 82 percent of americans with a gym membership use it regularly the average american man weighs 197 pounds so most men couldn't bench 225 if they were intermediate lifters isn't that interesting 20 time increase in online sales of home gym equipment on ebay could mean non-gym goers can bench 225 but this would be difficult to track. Plus, globally, people live on less than, most people live on less than $10 a day, so they wouldn't have access to gym equipment and therefore wouldn't have a chance to bench 225.

Anyone interested in increasing their bench press won't want to miss out on the rest of this post. Bench pressing 225 is a big goal we often work towards with clients. If they can achieve it, this is no small feat that interesting yeah i i think i think those numbers ring pretty true right i would say so obviously you know all those those people aren't using the most effective training methods right probably a lot of those people could get better results if they ran a real linear progression like we talk about but you, you know, I think that rings pretty true. The point is, you know, that to get what some people think are pretty average or pedestrian results really takes a lot of hard work.

So let's kind of segue a little bit now. Why are we talking about these? We're talking about numbers and lifting, right? Well, we're talking about this because achieving these basic sort of milestones, um, which like I said, there might be basic milestones, but it doesn't mean they're easy and it might take you years to get to, but achieving these basic milestones in my experience correlates with achieving a muscular physique. Um, and there are a lot of people that train with us that not only want strength, but also want to improve their physique. So now I want to talk about, okay, let's say you get to these milestones, right? We already

established it might take a lot of work for you if you're average or below average. How much more work is it to then achieve this muscular physique from, from getting your numbers up, but then also with the, with a reasonable amount of leanness to reveal the muscle mass? Yeah, I think this I think this is even I think these numbers if you know, I don't have any data on this but I think that being both decently strong and decently lean and by decently lean i'm going to just say like under 20 body fat This is going to vary wildly between types of body types and and genetic with genetics and stuff But but i'm saying like somebody who's not just fat and lifting these numbers, but someone who is decently lean in achieving these basic milestones, I think it's

an even smaller number. Because I see a lot of lifters out there in the community who have got, who have, you know, 20 to 25% body fat ranges, maybe even a little higher that might be hitting some big numbers, but they're not, they're definitely not 15% body fat. You know what I mean? No. So what the guy said, they have to be 220 or above. And yeah, let's think about that, right? If your average guy is, if you're jacked at 220, you're benching more than 225, by the way. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're a 220 and you're benching just 225 and you're an average height, let's say between five foot eight and six foot, you're probably not particularly muscular

at that. You're probably a lot of that 220 is body fat. Yeah. So then what's the gap then? Because I think a lot of people get stuck here where they're like, okay, they get their numbers up. They do some hard lifting for a year or two, but then they don't look the way they want to look. They're still fatter than they want to be. And, you know, and they, you know, we're going to give them some credit here. These are people who have actually done the work and they've gotten their numbers up. They're not insane numbers, but they're decent, right? up. They're not insane numbers, but they're decent, right? So, so the strength is there, but the body composition isn't there. Where's the breakdown? Cause I, I, do you run into this? I run into this. It depends what kind of numbers we talking about, you know, because the absolute numbers do matter. They do matter. Right. So I'm saying, let's say a guy, we've got a guy here, a male who's, you know, under the age of 40, right? So somewhere between 18 and 40. So not an old guy, but they're pulling 405, they're squatting 315, they're benching, you know,

225, maybe they're benching 205 to 225, somewhere in that range. And they're pressing in the mid hundreds. So 135, 145, 150, something like that. Right. So somebody that's doing that, so they've reached a pretty decent milestone, but they but they kind of got they're still a little fatter than they want to be at that at that rate where's where's the breakdown in habits i'm leading the question a little bit there um well and i've experienced this myself when you start gaining weight to get strong and you have to eat more calories you start you just start liberalizing your diet. You know, like things that are high calorie become less of a big deal because you're in gain mode, you know? And then, you know, even with like myself, I have a pretty good diet, but I'm not likely to turn down an opportunity to eat out where I'm different.

You know, I'll draw the line. I won't just keep going. I've developed those habits over the years. But certainly, there's a chunk of weight gain that's taken place with me just because I'm a little bit more liberal with my diet. Now, I'm a diet coach. I've worked through all these problems. I have habits that are ingrained now that I've built on my own. So you take that and you apply it to somebody who's new to this, they're going to eat a lot worse. And I see that I see that a lot, you know? So they'll sit there, you know, they'll eat the protein, they'll eat the carbs, but then they'll like go out and they'll just, you know, eat everything, drink beer, you know, do stuff like that. And not like, you know, go out and

get smashed to the point where it hinders their progress. They still make progress, but there's extra fat gained. But at the same time, you know, you have to consider the fact that if you're someone who needs to gain body weight, we're not talking about the guy that's already overweight and obese. You know, that guy's going to lose body weight and recompose as a novice. We're talking about the guy who's either very skinny or skinny fat, which is most people, by the way. Most people are not super overweight. I think the official statistics on overweight and obesity, I think those two categories combined count for just under 40% of the country. So not even, you know, it's getting close to half, which is not good. But, you know, if you divide the two,

obese is probably the bigger problem. I think overweight is more of a health problem when it's overweight and inactive. I think overweight, you know, BMI of 25 to 29.9 and active is probably not a big deal, you know? So, you know, obese, probably less than a third of the country is obese. You know, some people say, oh, everybody's fat. It's like, no, you're seeing a lot of fat people out. There's a lot of heavy people out. A lot of people are out of shape. I'd say a lot of people are out of shape, but the majority of us, it's still not the majority, you know, like the official statistics say about 39%, you know, which is less than half. That's not the majority, you know, like the official statistics say about 39%, you know, which is less than half. That's not the majority, you know. And then when you remove overweight from that because there's questions there, you know, and just look at obese, that's even less.

That's less than 30%. So I'd say most people are skinny fat if you really are being honest about it. You look around. Most people aren't walking around naturally lean and skinny. And most people aren't walking around naturally lean and jacked or morbidly obese. Most people are somewhere in between, you know, the skinny fat phenotype that we talk about here represents probably the middle of the bell curve. You know, most people are neither jacked nor super fat, you know, they're just, you know, on the small to medium frame side with, you know, body fat covering everything, you know, not, you know,

super fat, but like, you know, you're not, they're just not defined and they're not smooth. Yeah. Just right in the middle, you know? So those guys and the skinny guys need to gain weight, you know? And when you gain that weight, yes, you have to push your weight. You saw what that guy said. I agree with that. You know, if you're over, if you get to 220 and you're of average height as a male, you're going to bench 225. If you try to do it, like the further under a hundred pounds, sorry, sorry, the further under 200 pounds that you are, the harder that's going to be. Now, why was I able to do it at 167? Because I'd gotten up to 197 205 before. So I lifted fluffy and heavier. There is no lean gains where all bulks are dirty

bulks. If you're gaining 30 pounds, most of that's fat. I'm sorry to say it. Most of it is fat. I mean, if there's a, maybe it's not, I'm sorry. You know, with the methods that we have out there, we can't really tell you the ratio of fat to muscle when you gain 30 pounds. But we can tell you that a lot of it is going to be fat. It just is. I would imagine, again, because we're talking about average people here.

I would imagine, again, because we're talking about average people here. We're not talking about the genetic top 10% where you metabolize. More of that weight gain is muscle than fat, right? There are people out there like that, but we're not talking about you. So, yeah, I would guess at least half of the weight gain is fat gain. So if you gain 30 pounds, at least 15 pounds of that is fat. And probably more. Might be more like 40, 60. Um, yeah, I agree. We, we don't know for sure. And I don't know how you would really measure that, um, with any sort of accuracy, but it doesn't really matter. The point is you're

going to put on a lot of fat, um, in the process of gaining weight. But yeah, I think, I think this is, I think you just pointed at one of the big breakdowns that I see, which is that, okay, so you've been lifting for a little while and you want to improve your body composition. Okay. So you've gained the weight, you've, you've driven your lifts up, but your body comp isn't where you want it to be. There's a lot of habits that happen along the way that, that have to be undone if you really want to get there. And again, this is, this is what we're talking about with training being a, if you want extreme results, you need to put in extreme amount of effort.

So yeah, I see a lot of people when they're hitting, they're trying to get their macros in for their 200 grams of protein and their calories in to drive their body weight up. There's a lot of ice cream. There's a lot of whole milk, which I love whole milk, but there's, you know, like quarts and maybe even gallons of it for some people for a period

of time. Um, there's a lot of steaks and other high fat cuts of meat, right? Uh, there's, and, and I, and then on top of that, like you said, there's a lot of alcohol, you know, it's two, three, four cocktails over a weekend, which, you know, doesn't sound like a lot in any one session, but, you know, four cocktails in a single weekend, that's, you know, what that can eat, that can be a thousand calories, pretty easy right there, extra thousand calories on top of the other thing. So yeah, I think that's where the breakdown is. It's just, it's in the habit, the accumulation of habits that you, that you have when you're gaining weight. And now you've gotten up to sort of a good cruising weight, let's say, but you, but you need to dial in your body composition. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, you're going to gain

weight and there's going to be body fat gain. And the bodybuilders will tell you that, you know, There's going to be body fat gain and the bodybuilders will tell you that, you know, speaking from 40 years ago and this all has been debunked and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, knock yourself out, you know, trying to get strong, lighter, you know, try it. I mean, it works for women pretty well, but just doesn't seem to work the same way for men. And there's a variety of reasons for that. We've talked about it on this show. You know, men tend to build more muscle mass. They tend to store body fat in different places. Abdominal fat, as unattractive as it may look, as risky as it may be for cardiometabolic disease, changes the leverage on some of these lifts.

It allows you to lift heavier. And you're going to get the argument that, well, then when you get rid of it, you're not going to be able to lift that heavy, but guess what? You're going to be lifting heavier than you were trying to get strong before you gained it. So something is retained there. Can you measure this in a university lab? Probably not. You just got to kind of look at what seems to be consistent. All these big guys that tell you to stay lean,

every single one of them got fat enough to have a gut when they were in their early stages of training. And you will see it and they will talk about it and they will call it a mistake, but they can't really prove that it's a mistake. What they can say is it doesn't work the way it used to, because I've noticed that, you know, when I gained too much weight, this does not work the way it used to. Right. Right. And I mean, you look at guys like Ed Cohen, right? He competed mostly at 220. And then when he had to get 242, he got his squat up, but he didn't PR the deadlift. I think, what was that? 1996, he squatted over a thousand, I think. But his best deadlift was in 1991 when he was 220. He pulled 902.

Probably for him being a short guy, and he's like, what, 5 five six he uh you know yeah i imagine his leverages probably were poorer on the deadlift you know that extra extra body you know extra body fat around the middle didn't help no i mean that's what he pulled 888 now the 902 was a modified sumo you know with him it was pretty narrow and then the 888 by 242 was conventional so they were about 14 pounds apart you know that's why i'll never give ed shit for pulling sumo you know i'll give other people shit not ed um but uh you know they're 14 pounds apart but you know okay let's say that he puts his hands outside his legs at that point at that level is it going to be that much different you know how much of a pr would he have gotten

that day if he had trained it uh if he trained at sumo you know a few pounds you know and 902 he's not gonna go to 950 you know right right like at that point it's negligible so the point is at some point if you lift long enough the body weight's not the limiting factor now i will say if you don't have big arms and big pecs naturally and you know who you are you know or you have short arms you're gonna have to offset that by gaining a lot of fucking weight if you go look at a bench press meet the big benchers have either big giant arms huge pecs or they're just fat you know they're fat yeah right like i hate to say they're very muscular and they're and they're on a bunch of steroids but

they're fucking fat too you know there's a reason for this yeah i mean uh gosh the the world record holder right now julius maddox you know he's done um he's he's benching 800 i think has he done 800 yet i remember he missed it because they fucking misloaded the bar on him and and he had to take another attempt and that was he kind of tweaked his shoulder on the on the misload but anyway he's he's gonna bench press 800 pretty soon if he's's very close. He's done like 795 or something like that. But yeah, the dude, the motherfucker's like six foot three and over 400 pounds. He's a big fat barrel chested guy. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's another thing, right? That's another sort of pitfall you run into with, with, uh, folks that have gone through the novice linear

progression and some intermediate training, they've gotten their body weight up, they've driven their lifts up. But the answer the first time was to, was to get their body weight up, right? And that, that worked, it translated into the lifts going up. Um, they built muscle mass. This is great. But then, you know, they might, uh, maybe they slim down a little bit. Maybe they, maybe they get up to, let's say 200 pounds and they, they slim down to one 90 or something and take a little, you know, their waist trims up a little bit. And then they try to go back up again. They're like, well, uh, my lifts are stalling out. I got to go to, let me go back up to 200, 205, maybe this time. And then the lifts don't go. They don't,

they don't really move very much with that extra weight gain. Um, I think here, you know, I think the, the, the breakdown I see at this stage in the game for a lot of people is, is nutrition, right? It's, they probably could be stronger at, you know, let's say 190, but they're still eating like they were 165 trying to get to 200 for the first time. Right. Which means that, you know, and what does that mean? That's, I think it's usually it's a lot of fat is the problem, right? They're eating a lot of protein, a lot of fat and they're under eating carbs. Yeah. Alcohol is always problem, right? Cause that's just, that's essentially junk calories for our purposes. Right. And, and to get to that level where you go from, let's say you go from 200 and you continue to get stronger while you go down to,

let's say one 90 or so, and you, and you starting to trim up, that's going to require you to really dial in your nutrition there, which means that you can't be overeating fat. You have to be eating enough carbs to fuel your training. And you've got to be able to make your lifts continue to go up while your body weight trickles down over time to recomp. Yeah, there's this phase. So basically, when you gain weight and you're not naturally, you know, big fat guy or, fat guy or a big guy in general. I'm not trying to single out fat guys. When I say that, it's very matter.

They're in a different episode for them. If you're offended by that fucking term, you don't understand us. The actual fat people I know aren't offended by that, by the way. No, fuck no. Somebody got mad, like, Eddie Hall is not fat. I'm like, I'm pretty sure Eddie Hall would admit that he was fat when he was competing yeah

i mean he has a fucking gut or he had a fucking gut you know i mean he was fat okay it's fine there's nothing wrong with being fat um but i'm saying people have to gain weight yeah there's usually skinny fat or skinny lean you know it's one of the two but the the theme there is they both have insufficient muscle mass and uh the initial waking the fat will outpace the muscle then you keep training and keep training and then that recomposition happens much like it happens to the fat guy you know um so it's kind of interesting they go from being skinny or skinny fat to getting you know chubby i'd say chubby is the right word for it because i don't think I've ever intentionally gotten somebody so fat they had a freaking barrel stomach. No, no, no.

I've never seen that happen. No, but we get them chubby, and then that chubbiness becomes more solid as the weight on the bar goes up because, remember, they are novices. So now the guy who started out skinny is now going through something similar as the overweight guy. He starts to lose body fat. The inches start to come off. He becomes more solid. His traps grow. His back grows. He becomes more solid. His traps grow. His back grows.

His arms grow. Right. And his thighs grow. Everything starts to grow over time. You're basically putting him into a situation where he's as anabolic as the fat guy because he has all these surplus calories and extra fat stores. And he can recompose. So first it's, you know, he gets chubby, then he recomposes. And we see this all the time.

Yeah. And it's not a permanent state of affairs, you know? Right. You just do it for a period of time. Then later on, when it comes to the management of weight, if these guys are concerned with their appearance, aesthetics, or health, you know, let's say they're on the older side doing this, you know, they don't necessarily want to stay that heavy for a lot of years, you know, we might dial them down, you know, make their weight go down 5% to 10% and then work it back up, you know, these modest weight loss, weight gain cycles, right? Right. And then if they get to a point where they're like, I'm strong enough, even though there's no such thing, but that's us talking, you know, if they get to a point where they're like,

I don't want any more fucking PRs, dude, I just want to look good, you know, then we might do like a big weight loss, you know, a greater than 10% weight loss, you know, we might drop them back down and, you know, they're better off than they were before they started. You know, we see this all the time. Well, we don't see that all the time. Most guys just want to keep getting stronger. But sometimes I get guys that are like, I'll sacrifice this for a few years, but at the

end of the day, I want to be lean and I don't care, you know, as long as I don't weigh 140 pounds, you know? Yeah, sure. You know, I had a guy who was six foot, you know, he acted and he was a producer, you know, in LA. And I trained him for years and I got him to a 315 for five squat. I don't know if I got him on a 405 on the deadlift. He definitely got past 365.

So he was in the upper threes. We may have hit that. We were very close if we didn't. I think he hit it. And he benched quite a bit too. I can't remember if he got two plates. Definitely pressed 135 for five. When he was trying to do this at 6'1", 185, 175, 185, skinny fat, you know, it just wasn't

happening. When I pushed him up to 195, he was able to do that, which is pretty good. Cause at six feet, like the motor morons, they have to get into the 220, 230, 240 range to do that. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. He was, he was able to pull this off without even breaking 200 pounds, which is pretty good. But at the time I was kind of a newer coach. I understood the programming. I'd been doing the lifts a long time, so I was competent enough to coach him. But I didn't realize, now after coaching more people, I'm like, dude, that was pretty fucking impressive.

The guy stayed under 200 at six feet and hit all those numbers. Then when he cut down, he was at 170. It was just a thin... I mean, he looks like he's supposed to look for his job you know he looks like every other dude in la just with muscles you know yeah i was about to say yeah you know probably for him getting to 220 although that would have been ideal for his progress probably would not have been good for his career or something i don't know oh no he said that like near the end of that last mass cycle like there are people at work that were like, hey, dude, they're, like, kind of, like, you know,

kind of looking over his belly, you know? Dial it in. Yeah. Even though in the rest of the fucking world, it's not a belly, you know? It's not a big belly, but in that industry, it is. And, you know, I think his wife, his wife, I don't know if they were married yet,

but his wife was like, when he got lean, she was like, you know, you could get casted for, like, superhero stuff, because, you you know the camera adds 20 pounds you know right right but it was pretty cool to watch i've noticed that a lot of the uh like a lot of the support people behind the camera even they're like you know have that look like even they look like they're sort of like could have been an actor like they're not they're not necessarily as handsome as the the people on the screen but they're but they kind of have that that certain're not, they're not necessarily as handsome as the people on the screen, but they're, but they kind of have that, that certain look, you know, they're lean, they're, you know, well coiffed hair, good jaw lines, like even the guy running sound or whatever.

They look like that too. It's weird, interesting industry. But, um, yeah. So I think what you outlined there about, you know, getting, getting chubby, right getting chubby, right? I like that term. That's good. That's probably the first year or two of progress for most people. I'd say first two years is probably realistic because it's going to take, most people are not going to be committed enough to gain or in a position to gain a lot of body weight very quickly, right? So we're not talking about your 17, 18 year old that's going to drink a gallon of milk every day. But these people are going to put the body weight on if they go from, let's say 165 to 200. That might happen over the period of six to 12 months. And then, then, you know, the next year, they're still going to be kind of chubby as this recomp process starts to happen. But let's talk about further down the road. Let's keep going, right? So let's say now we've got somebody who's lifted for, you know, somewhere between three and five years. And they're still like, they've made some good changes. They definitely look muscular,

but they're not as lean as they want to be. They don't have that definition that they want that they want yet. And I'm not talking about insane results, right? I'm talking about ripped here. I'm not talking about veins popping out everywhere. I'm just talking about like just a basic level of, of muscular definition. What does it look like for your clients who have done this? And you've done this too, because you've got down to be very lean. What is a day-to-day habit look like for these people? So you're talking about being competitive with it? Well, yeah, but for an average person, right? It's like we would talk about small B bodybuilding, right? Nobody's going to step on a stage or anything, but it's the people who have gone the extra mile to really dial in their

physique. What are they doing differently that people who are strong but don't have that physique are not doing? So I followed bodybuilders because I was, at the time, skinny fat. So all I noticed was the fat, like a lot of these skinny fat guys do, right? I did not understand how to change that. So back then the belief was, well, I just have to lose the fat and the muscle will show. But then I figured out quickly, well, the muscle is going to show when I'm 139 pounds based on these body fat types, you know? Right. And, you know, I mean, that's not an exact number, but it's probably not far off, you

know? Yeah, for you, right? No. And I'm like, but wait a minute, these guys that are jacked, you know, they weigh anywhere from 185 to 245 or sometimes heavier. Ronnie Coleman was 300. He was Mr. Limpy at the time, you know? So I'm like, well, I don't want to get as big as those guys.

I don't think I can anyway, but I never had any desire to be a 250 to 300 pound animal, you know, like, and it makes sense because I'm not built that way. You know, if you're built like that, you're going to probably want to push your limits, you know? But for me, I'm like, I just want a fraction of that, you know? And I look at kind of guys in the men's health, men's fitness, you know, they were like more medium sized guys that were lean. And I didn't understand that airbrush and camera made them look bigger than they were, but they were probably like 175 to 185-pound guys. And I'm like, that's like, for me to get that lean, I'm going to be like 135 to 140. I'm like, how the fuck do I gain 40 pounds of muscle? Right, right. Yeah. You know, like I was doing

this math calculation in my head, and a lot of guys don't think of it that way. They don't think of the body weight, but I did. I'm like, based on this body composition analysis, I'm going to have to weigh 135 to 140 pounds to be single-digit body fat, right? Which is what I believed. I thought 10% body fat means you're defined. That is bullshit. If you're weak, that might be true, you know? But as I've gotten stronger, a lot of areas of my body stay defined, even when I'm as high as 18 you know and that's what i think and i used to remember guys in like some of the bodybuilding forums they'd say mass allows you to get away with a lot more stuff and i like did not get it at first but i kind of got it you know

i just i i got it but i never saw it because i wasn't training correctly i wasn't pushing my deadlift i wasn't i wasn't deadlifting at all but when i did i did sometimes you know i wasn't pressing overhead and i didn't care about getting strong at lower reps, you know, and I would change the lifts a lot. I spent too much time on accessories. I did all the mistakes. Right. But, uh, I was like, okay, these guys that are like medium sized, you know, five, seven to five, 10, you know, 175 to 190 pounds, you know, and, you know, probably realistically nine to 12% body fat, you know, probably around more like 10 to 13% is what they probably were, you know. And what it takes to do that, because bodybuilders get on 5%, you know, there's a bunch of crazy shit they do, we don't need to talk about,

but the average guy that's chubby, that wants to have visible abs, and has trained and has gotten strong will probably get to where he wants to get, get that look, achieve that look once he gets under 15% body fat most of the time. You know, there's variability depending on how you, you know, some people will just lose belly fat at the very end and have to get to 10%. You know, they'll get really ripped everywhere else. I haven't seen that too often, but I believe that that does happen. So yeah, so most of the time, these guys are going to get down to like anywhere from 11 to 15% body fat and see visible abs to the extent that you'd see like, you know, I guess an underwear model or beach person, you know, that's, you know, when you think of these beach abs, you know, versus a bodybuilder that

looks like an anatomy chart, you know, like that's going to take an additional amount of restriction where you're not eating in a practical way anymore, you know, they're just, you're just consuming as little food as possible to get every ounce of fat and water off their body so they can get on stage. But for the rest of us, it depends, you know? If you're a hard loser and you're naturally, you know, on the heavier side, you're probably going to have to do what a bodybuilder does just to get below 15%, you know? So that comes back to variability, you know?

For some people, they're just not going to get that lean without an extreme effort, especially with women, because women have a harder time losing body fat than men. You know, you might get a woman that let's say is 30%, 28%, you know, you can get her down to 24, get her down to 20, and she has to work her ass off and it's crazy and she's barely eating and starving and it really messes up their hormones and stuff, you know? Yeah, right. So, right. You know, for a lot of guys, getting under 15% body fat is doable, I think, for a lot of men, but there are some men that's just not going to happen, you know? And if you really like food, it's definitely not going to happen. It's incompatible with your lifestyle. That's why, like, that 15 to 25% range with an active lifestyle and

being very strong, I don't think that's unhealthy. Can I prove that? No, I don't have evidence, but you know, from what I've seen, it's not that unhealthy. You're functional. You're a functional human being. You can eat a decent amount of food and enjoy life. You know, that's kind of where I'm at, you know? Yeah, exactly. I'm totally with you there. I mean, that's definitely the camp that I fall in. But yeah, you know, I think that's the thing, you know, people that get dissatisfied with that. I think people don't realize that, um, the ones who buy into the training, right. They're like, yeah, I bought in. I understand we have to, you know, have to be really strong to achieve those results, but they don't realize the sacrifice it takes on the, on the diet side of things. Right. Um, it's, it's like, I mean, pretty much everyone I've ever heard

talk about dieting down to a significant degree and getting super lean. Nobody drinks alcohol. I don't see any of those people drinking alcohol. I mean, most bodybuilders that I've ever heard talk about dieting never drink alcohol. Right. So think about like your social life and, you know, how often do you go out? Or how often do you have some whiskey or wine or whatever with some friends? Maybe it's once a week for you. Maybe it's once a month. But imagine doing none of that, right? So zero. That's probably the kind of thing you're going

to have to do. On the other hand, you know, and you can keep going from there. Think about eating out at restaurants. You know, probably for most of you, that's probably going to be very, very little of that because you can't get, you can't get the right, we've talked about this in other episodes, right? You can't get a reasonable macro balanced meal at a restaurant. It's just not going to happen. You know, do you like to cook with fats and, you know, both in your cooking oils and in your, you know, if you're preparing meals with added fats, you know, like maybe you like to have a salad with some avocado in it or you like to have, I don't know, you like to make a stew and add some extra chicken stock to it and you're a good person. So you use real chicken stock. So it's got a nice amount of fat. Well, probably can't do that. No. And on and on and on. Do you like 80, 20 ground beef? Sorry, not anymore.

Can't eat 80, 20 ground beef. It's too much fat. There's just a long laundry list of things that you have to, you have to dial in. And the more, and the more extreme result you want, the more things you're going to have to not compromise on, right? You can only, you only have so many misses available to you, right? When you want to get down to that point. And, and, and again, we're talking about average people getting above average results. We're not talking about extreme. We use the bodybuilders as an example because they have given us the most information about what extreme effort looks like. But we're talking about people trying to, like you said, get under 15%. We're not talking about going down to

5%. Yeah. Or women trying to get under 25%, you know? Right. Exactly. Exactly. And they may not look at it in those terms. Some women look at it in terms of body weight, but in general, when I work with women, what they're really chasing after is those low 20s a lot of the time, unless they're really into like the physique stuff, you know, and they want to go 10. But, you know, it's usually regional fat deposits they want to get rid of. And I have different conversations there because I'm like, well, you know, there's a lot of things you can do to change your appearance that have nothing to do with diet and exercise. You know, that's why these guys take drugs. That's why some people get surgery. You know, they just suck it out, you know. I was about to say, you know, and this is

the other thing too. Like, I'm not even really aware, like, you know, I suck it out you know i was about to say you know and and this is the other thing too like i i'm not even really aware like you know i'm more aware of of steroids than i used to be um but i don't even know about like all the kind of plastic surgery that people get i know it's very common if you look at models and you know people who are on camera right actors actresses um yeah i mean there's uh what do they call it? Like cool sculpting, whatever. That's like a trade name for it, but I forget what it's called, but it's like a, it's like a low invasiveness, like liposuction, I think. It supposedly works. Yeah. But I mean, so there's people doing that too. This is the other thing. It's not just a, if you want that result, you may not be able to get there with your genetics, but, but the people who are getting

there, they're having some help from a cosmetic surgery too. Of course, you know, like there's this idea that diet and exercise is the only way to change your body, you know? And that's not me promoting these other methods. I'm saying that there are other things people do to look different. That's right. Yeah. Well, how many guys, like, so I've even noticed this, right? this right like you know i pay almost zero attention to the entertainment industry uh but i've noticed that i don't know when this started maybe it's always been a thing but there's been this like trend of guys getting their face reshaped to like really enhance their jaw like are you kidding me oh no no no like there's you can look at all these pictures of like jaw enhancement it's like guys that will have like so it's comical. Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, no, no, no. Like, there's, you can look at all these pictures of, like, jaw enhancement. What the fuck?

It's, like, guys that will have, like, so, you know, guys that have kind of a naturally kind of, like, they're handsome people, right? But they're good-looking people. But they might have, like, a weak chin or, like, just kind of a very round face that's sort of, like, just kind of, it turns into, like, an oval at the bottom. And these guys will get, like, jaw reconstruction surgery or whatever. I don't even know how they do it. I don't know what the method is, but they like all of a sudden, a few years later, they have like their bottom jaw juts out and it's like the sharp defined, like line down to the chin.

It's ridiculous. And some of them, it doesn't all work out. Some of it's more natural than others. Some of it's just like comical. And, but again, right? Like what does that achieve? Like we're not talking about body, but it does change the way that your face looks. And it does, it changes the perceived like manliness, I guess, of a person, right?

Like if you want to play a superhero, you need a strong chin. I'm sorry. You just, you can't walk around looking like uh you know what's that what's who was the guy that was uh in reservoir dogs um mr pink mr pink right yeah who is that that's i can't think of his name steve buscemi steve buscemi yeah he's in a lot of stuff he's great but like yeah you can't look you can't be looking like steve buscemi and get action roles right right um yeah and even then his he's got he's got like the cheekbones though he doesn't have the chin but he's got the cheekbones oh yeah

high cheekbones whatever yeah yeah it's like he's norwegian yeah so the point is that putting all that aside if you're going to try and manipulate your appearance through diet and exercise you got to know your limits right if? If you just naturally, if you're like, let's say a woman, you sit at 185 pounds without a whole lot of effort, you know, we might be able to drop that, you know, a little bit, maybe 165, 155. You know, if you're 185 eating like a complete pile of shit, sure, you might be able to go down to 145, you know, but if you have just like mediocre habits, not eating that much, you got to be realistic because to get down, you're gonna to have to restrict from baseline, right?

Baseline is what you're normally doing. You're going to have to restrict from that, right? And that, you know, you're basically going to be working very hard for a mediocre result in some cases for some of these people, right? And for a man, it's the same thing. If you're that guy that's always been big, you know, visible abs, probably not going to happen. You know, I mean, if it does, you're going to be eating 1500 calories to do it when you

need 3000 for baseline, you know, so like, okay, maybe you'll do it once, but it's unlikely that you're going to get that lean. You know, you might be a lot healthier and have a lot healthier functional, have a better lifestyle, you know, at a higher fat percentage than that. It doesn't mean that it's bad, you know, but not everybody's going to achieve that, you know. I think that more men can get a pretty decent amount of leanness than females just because of the hormones and muscle mass and the faster metabolism, you know, you have more to play with. But some of us can't do it either, you know, they can't get that lean. But, you know, for the most part, if you put in effort, you can get under 15%. Can you stay there? Some people, yes. Some people

know, you know, if you're not, if you're not already naturally there, you're not going to stay there for me to stay. I can stay at like, you know, what was I last time I got down to nine. Wow. I got down to nine last time, fairly effortlessly for what it was. You know, my breakfast was still 160 carbs for breakfast. I was eating five servings of oatmeal with a Fairlife milk, vegetable, egg white omelet. And I think I had a banana with that. Yes, and one banana. So I think the total was 160 carbs for breakfast. So I was eating quite a bit of food. I didn't go keto, like they say, or carnivore. And I got down to 170. Then my body was just kind of like, yeah, fuck off. And I look at the pictures now and I'm like, well, it's 9% body fat. Of

course, it's going to say fuck off. to go from 170 to 165 would have been a massive undertaking for what so i can look like an anatomy chart like i just don't think that's cool you know yeah and as you know the great dom mazzetti says that's just for other dudes you know i'm not trying i'm not in this for other dudes you know yeah so i mean if you are that's on you you know there's no judgment there no judgment here here. But my point is that it's going to depend on your body, how lean you can get. But what we see every single time is a guy who gets strong or a woman who gets strong is always going to look more muscular and less fat. How much more muscular, how much less fat is going to depend on the person. But you're always better off strong versus lean. And now, if you want

an above average result, then most people want a slightly above average result, you know, when you compare it to the extremes. They don't want the extreme result.

But for some of you, especially you motor morons, you are going to bust your fucking ass to be mediocre, you know? You're looking at five years, man.

You're looking at five years to get a mediocre result. So you better love doing this. I sure did. You know, like it took me five years to pull 500. And at that time I was 175 and I was probably like 12% body fat, 13% body fat, you know, something like that. And it took me five years to be able to do that. And if I were to get lean at that time, because I was coming up from being lean, I'd be in the low 160s.

If I got lean now, I'd probably be in the mid 170s if I did it again. Yeah, right. And every time I do it, it gets a little bit higher. I suspect with a lifetime of training, I'm what, turning 40 next month? So I might be able to be a solid 180, 185 maybe in the next five to 10 years,

but am I ever going to be fucking lean at 190 to 200? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. We'll see. It also depends on what my body's going to let me do because look at what I have to do to get there. If I'm going to be lean at 190, I'm probably squatting over 500. Think about that for a second.

That's not that heavy for powerlifting, but for me to do it, that's like decades of fucking training, you know, and I'm going to do it at almost 50, you know? Like, it's a 500 squat. It's an unnecessary squat unless you're a competitor, you know? Right. Exactly. Well, and the other thing too that starts to come into play is, you know, being 190 and squatting over 500, that's a non-zero toll on your joints, right? Absolutely.

That's the thing. Getting strong is great for your joints until it's not. Right. And most people will never get to that point until it's not point. But there is a point, right, where when you're squatting you know that's that can be tough and you especially get older right you know it starts to be starts to be really hard on the joints to be loading that heavy all the time which what you're gonna have to do to get to 500 and above so i'm gonna i'm gonna have to squat five pull six and probably bench fucking 350 or something like that

to be somewhere between 185 and 190 and you know and that in that mid-teens, mid-teens for body fat, you know? Yeah. Which is fucking crazy. It's fucking crazy. And to do that, guess what, guys? I'm going to have to get to 220 to do that, you know? Maybe 230, you know? Yeah, right.

To do that, most likely, you know? And I'm having a hell of a time doing that because I don't want to eat that much fucking food. Believe it or not, it gets harder to eat more food as you get older, you know? Like, I can't do a dirty bulk like I did 10 or 15 years ago you know yeah it's just yeah the appetite's not there and the you don't metabolize the calories as well as you used to you know no and you're more sensitive to stress like i could be stressed out through the gills and as long as i got enough sleep i could eat enough and train enough you know now if i'm fucking stressed disrupts my sleep it disrupts my training my appetite goes down this is all new shit that's happened after you know say the last couple years late 30s you know yeah

yeah it's starting to happen to me you know I'm 35 it's starting to happen to me and it's uh yeah that's how you notice so maybe that's the that's the real takeaway from this episode it's not not it's not about the body comp stuff so much. We talked a lot about it. It's really about, don't expect things to go the same way every time you try it. Right. So, you know, gaining weight the first time works really well. Gaining weight the second time, the third time, the 10th time, not so good. And, um, you know, it's everything just like programming, right? Every, you know, every program works until it doesn't. Some programs work better than others, but every program eventually runs out of steam

and you're going to have to change your programming over time, right? That's just a given. Nothing is going to work forever. Well, it's kind of the same thing with your body composition. You know, none of these approaches is going to work for you forever.

So you're going to have to learn, you know, this is's why we talk about the basics we talk about kind of a lifestyle i'm sorry we talk about the fundamentals uh and then we talk about like what things look like over a life cycle because um i think that's important for people to understand you know so you don't just keep beating your head against the wall doing the same thing over and over and over it's not working for you so yeah there you go. There's an hour of that. Yeah. I think we hammered that to hell. Yeah.

So anyway, tell us where to find you. You can find me at weightsandplates.com. If you're in Metro Phoenix, I am at Weights and Plates Gym, just south of Sky Harbor Airport in the South Mountain Village. Most of my content pops up on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. And we are now posting the podcast on YouTube. Do you know the link, Trent? I still don't have it memorized. Well, it is the Weights and Plates. Yeah, YouTube's weird, right? Because it has like, technically every channel has a name for it, like Instagram does. But if you just type in

the Weights and Plates podcast, you'll find it. It's called Weights and Plates. There it is. YouTube.com slash at Weights underscore and underscore plates. And then on Instagram, we have the Jim's page that is kind of inactive, but follow it anyway. Weights double underscore and double underscore plates. Bam, there you go. Well, you can find me if you're interested in online coaching or if you happen to be in or around the Chattanooga or East Tennessee area,

you can reach me jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. Just send me an email and let's connect. I've talked to a couple of local lifters recently that are gonna come in and do some form checks with me and work with me online after that. So I'd love to do it. Send me a message if you're interested in that. All right. We'll talk to you all again in a couple of weeks. you