Weights and Plates Podcast - #84 - Why You Need to Understand Advanced Programming
Episode Date: September 30, 2024One of the interesting consequences of the success of the Starting Strength methodology, and the growth in popularity of strength training in general,  is that genetically average people are lifting ...weights and sticking with their program for multiple years. No longer are only gym rats and serious athletes dedicating themselves to years of sustained progress in the weight room -- now there are 55 year old moms with 5+ years of barbell training experience under their belts. Most of these people are advanced lifters, even though they aren't competitive athletes. And advanced lifters have different programming needs than novices and early intermediates, especially when they aren't athletically gifted or possessed of a high training drive.  It's important, therefore, to understand what advanced training looks like, not just for very strong, competitive lifters, but for average folks with more pedestrian numbers but similar long recovery windows.   Online Diet Coaching and Strength Training with Dr. Robert Santana https://weightsandplates.com/online-coaching/   Weights & Plates 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: jonesbarbellclub@gmail.com Â
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Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along
with Trent Jones, my co-host. Good evening, sir. How you doing, man? Yo. Yeah, somebody
just walked into my gym, one of my members. So, you know, it's just a nice Tuesday night here at the gym.
And I was thinking about something today.
Actually thinking about it yesterday.
I had an apprentice from one of the gyms join my gym.
And we were talking about programming and all that.
From one of the starting strength gyms?
Yes, yes.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
And he wanted to prioritize his bench press.
Okay.
And I started, you know, talking to him about some of the things that I've learned this last year, you know, as I'm prioritizing mine.
My bench is, I'd say it's probably advanced.
You know, I'm trying to add every two weeks, but it looks like even that's getting hard.
So I'd say I'm solid intermediate best, but I'd say advanced based on the frequency of PRs.
My last PR was four years ago.
Granted, I didn't start focusing on it until a couple years ago.
And before that, I was probably pressing more, benching less.
So there's a lot of variables there, but I've been benching longer than any of the other lifts.
I did it since I was 15.
Right, right. less so there's a lot of variables there but i've been benching longer than any of the other lifts i did since i was 15 you know right right and that's one of those deals where technique made me better
at it but i wasn't you know as strong as i was going in because of technique that was so atrocious
like not touching my chest for instance right like you know my shoulders and elbows were going
through full range of motion since i was 15 you know i just learned how to get my back and legs into it through coaching, you know.
So I'd say it's probably an advanced lift, you know. And we started talking and the guy,
we were just talking about how people, you know, get to intermediate status as a trainee. They go through a novice phase. They get their newbie gains. For those of you unfamiliar with our lingo,
you know, a lot of people know what newbie gains are you know you gain strength and muscle mass very quickly in the first year of training and
then you know you get to that place where it's a little steadier and then you get to that place
where it seems like you've peaked out except you haven't right it's just gotten hard and that's
what we want to talk about today yeah um like we wanted to talk about the what people do when they get to what people do when
they get to that point and then why they're why it's usually wrong like how people normally go
go wrong you go off the rails when they yeah when they reach more advanced training status um because
oftentimes we've observed both in our own training and in working with other people. I think for me, I've learned this lesson. I've learned this lesson by working with other people more than working with myself.
Oftentimes when you hit a plateau and you seem to be really, really stuck, the temptation is to change, right? Is to change something and, you know, change the program, change the goal, whatever it is, so that you can you're about to throw in the towel and just
change the goal when you're about to break through. And, um, and you know, I think when
you're doing, when you're, when you're programming for yourself, this is the risk of that, right?
Where you're just like, Oh, I'm stuck. I got to change the program. No, probably not. Probably
not. Sometimes. Yes, but probably not. Especially if you are,
have been doing this for a while and you have pretty good technique. If you've been coached
before, if you've really, you know, if your technique is good and you've run through a
couple years of programming, the answer is probably not to switch. It's to, it's to problem
solve. But this is easier to see when you're working with other people because, you know,
from my perspective, programming for someone else
I don't I don't feel the frustration they feel
I mean I do if they've been stuck for a while
I get frustrated as a coach too because I really want them to improve. I want them to set prs
Sometimes I want these more than the person that i'm coaching does
but um, but you know
I don't feel the sort of day to day in the gym frustration that
they might feel being stuck at a certain weight. And so from my perspective, I might look at
something and be like, okay, well, the bar speed was better this time. You know, it was faster this
time at the same weight we got stuck at before. I bet they're about to break through. Let's,
let's, let's keep, just keep working this. Let's keep working this, keep working this.
Um, and so if you don't have the
advantage of that, when it's all just you looking at yourself and trying to self-evaluate, then
it's easy to give up on the problem and go do something else. Well, then you run into this
problem where some people just want it to be like the novice phase forever, you know,
where it's predictable, steady, and improving all the timeving all the time. And it's smooth, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The gains are predictable and the effort level is
relatively predictable, right? That's another part of it. The subjective experience of lifting it
is, is, you know, it like on the novice linear progression, it gets steadily more difficult,
but you don't really have, I mean, I don't know if you felt this way,
but I don't remember feeling this way running a novice linear progression. Like it just goes from
like easy to like a little challenging to like medium hard for a while. And then it gets really,
really hard. But the thing is, it's like you have, everybody has experience where you're like,
oh man, 275 was like really, really hard. And then 280 was like really, really hard. And then like
285 is like, oh my God, I'm going to die. And then 290 is like, it's just really hard. It's
not, I'm going to die anymore. And it's, you know what it means? Like it's kind of fluctuates as
you're getting recalibrated as to what hard really is. But it's like this gradual like increase in
subjective experience along with the objective weight on the bar.
But then like, I feel like the more advanced I get, my subjective level of exertion is like all
over the place. You know what I mean? Like it's, you know, I have the mental fortitude to just,
to, to give every rep, everything I've got all, know every workout but my like sometimes 365 is like
really really heavy and then sometimes it's not so bad and then it's it's you know it's just more
more variable and that's a challenge too where i start to see a problem is when it gets that
really hard territory right people tend to burn out and. And that's normal because think about what's happening to
your body. It's a tremendous amount of stress. You're missing reps. You're beat up all the time.
You're tired. I mean, how should you feel when it's that hard? Exactly like that. So then you
got to troubleshoot and you start ruling things out. Well, the first thing that most people want
to rule out are these lifestyle things. Well, maybe if I just ate a little more, or maybe if I just slept a little more.
And if you've had steady progress for several months that's been uninterrupted, chances are
your diet's probably close enough. You're sleeping probably decently enough unless something suddenly
changed. And any improvements to that might get you another workout or two, but
that does not change the reality that you're about there, buddy. You know, you're about at that wall.
Now, if you've kept yourself underweight, that's a different story. You can push your body weight
up. You know, I had that problem. I did that. But you're going to reach a point where the
stress from the workouts themselves are going to wreck you to the point where you're psychologically
overtrained too. And you're just like, fuck it. Why am I even doing this? You know,
like you feel like you're comatose. You hate the gym. You don't want to go in. I mean,
if you just think about your brain as an organ, like anything else, how do you expect it to react
to that? You know, you're, you're, you're going so fucking heavy. You're missing reps. You're
tired all the time. You're sleeping 10 hours when you're not even trying to, you know, like,
yeah, that's, those are signals that you need to listen to, right?
And then you have to transition.
But guess what?
You go to an intermediate program.
That might be steady for a little bit, but then you get to the same place.
And then you get to the same place faster.
Your margin of error, especially in the lifestyle area, starts to shrink the longer you do this, you know.
One night of bad sleep might get away with that in an LP, might get away with that in your first two years of training. But guess what? You get past that
six to nine months of intermediate, I'd say three to six months more realistically,
unless you're younger, and you're there all over again. Every little thing matters. You lose two
nights of sleep or you don't eat enough, then you miss reps and you're resetting and you're
working back up. And then you're also thinking about, well, maybe did I overstress myself with volume
or did I overstress myself with intensity?
Did I start too heavy, you know?
Or maybe did I not use enough?
That's usually not the case, you know?
Rarely do I see that people aren't doing enough, you know, on the volume side,
even though that's what's oversold and that's what's fashionable now.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, right. More often too much is a problem than not enough yes yeah you know
occasionally it's a not enough deal but uh i don't see that as a common thread because we're always
pushing intensity and eventually there's a inflection point where intensity gets so high
volume has to come down right and you're not going to lose your gains you're going to make more you
know and that's yeah yeah kind of where i at. That's what inspired this episode. I was just thinking,
I'm like, if you're going to coach this stuff, you know, for those of you coaches or aspiring
coaches listening, you know, you really have to train yourself to advanced status, not because
you're going to go on a powerlifting platform necessarily, but because you're going to deal
with advanced lifter problems across various demographics, somebody who's old, somebody who's sick, somebody who injures easily, somebody who just has shitty genetics, somebody who works a lot and the stress from training competes with the stress of their job, somebody with multiple small children.
All this creates conditions where progress is slower.
And the planning of the training program and the manipulation of those variables is very similar
to that, which you would do with a very strong advanced lifter that is otherwise recovered.
Right. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. And like you said earlier, it's a matter of both the sort of hard print programming
variables, which, you know, are weight, intensity, stress, fatigue. I'm sorry, I said weight and
intensity. Same thing. Intensity, volume, stress, fatigue, and then the soft variables, which is the
psychological part, you know, and like, yeah, learning, you know, yeah, you can burn yourself out. And like, there's, you've, you've got to avoid that, right? Training,
if you want to be successful in training in the long run, training has to be enjoyable to some
extent. Um, it doesn't mean it's always gonna be fun and it's not easy, right? It's, but,
and you're not, the gains aren't always coming, right? So it's not always going to be super
rewarding, but it should be, it should be at least something you're enthusiastic about in general.
Because if you're not, you're never going to give it a hundred percent and then, then
all bets are off.
This is, this is why, by the way, this is why I think so many programs work.
You know, when you look at how, how different some training programs look like for advanced
lifters, there's individual variation, of course, you know, so people need different
things to make lifts go up but uh i think there's also i think an underrated part of it is just the psychological
factors if if a trainee is stoked about their training program and they believe it's going to
work then they're more likely to put more effort into it and and the more effort is what's going
to make it more effective um if somebody doesn't really believe in what they're doing,
they're going to half-ass it, they're going to sandbag,
and then of course the program's not going to work.
No.
And also, they've been beating themselves up on the previous program,
that deload, to get on the new program, makes them feel better.
Right.
More energized, ready to go. Yeah, exactly.
But, you know, we used to say, and I think a lot of other starting strength coaches still say this, Right. And that phrase probably originates from the fact that we hadn't dealt with a lot of people doing this 10, 15 years ago.
Right, right.
This used to appeal to enthusiasts, people that were into powerlifting or bodybuilding or other similar sports and wanted to get as strong as possible, as big as possible.
Now we're dealing with a lot of the general population and getting them under barbells and teaching them.
And what I've learned is that that's actually not correct. Most people become some version of an advanced lifter.
Advanced, yes, absolutely, yeah.
The program, you know, maybe the person's not an advanced lifter, but their programming becomes
advanced because of other variables that interfere with their ability to recover at the fastest pace
that they can, right? Yes.
And what do you do there, right? Just say, well well you're fucking it up you're not sleeping enough dude i have a two-year-old right
and it's like what do i do yeah you're not going to tell that guy who's 5'8 you know 205 you're
not going to tell him to go to 240 to get his squat up you know like because he's not a competitive
power lifter no right like there's yeah that's a practical thing he's not a competitive powerlifter. No. Right? Like, yeah, that's a practical thing.
He's like, look, the guy's already 205.
He's jacked.
But, you know, he's not going to go to that extra level.
It's just not.
You can't tell him that.
So what else?
What else you got?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's where you got to think.
You're like, okay, well, we got to try and find a way to move the needle here.
And there are things that he's willing to do and not willing to do.
Or in the case of, you know, you live through this, you have a small child.
You're not sleeping because you have a small child, you know?
What are you going to do?
You're going to tell this guy, well, just sleep more, dude.
Right, yeah.
It's just not going to happen.
That's the reality of that man's life.
Right, exactly.
So therefore, is he not recovering at all now?
So I think we've had this on a dichotomy, right?
Like where, well, if you don't sleep enough, you're not recovering at all. And if you sleep enough,
you're getting full recovery. But what about that in between, right? Can that person still progress?
I mean, I don't know. The way that I've approached it to keep weight on the bar moving up
is I just stretch out how often I push that person at a high intensity. And we're able to
make some semblance of progress that way. It's very slow. It's not great. And then sometimes they just crash and have to reset. There's nothing
I can do about that. But you know, we've given a couple extreme examples here. What were you
going to say? Well, I want to, I want to unpack that, what you just said there. So, okay. So we
have somebody who has, you know, okay, but not great recovery. So they're not, they're not an athlete kind of by
definition, right? Because they're not devoting that level of attention to the recovery, whether
it's because of desire or just because of lifestyle factors, right? Busy parent with a job and all
that stuff. Okay, so that yeah, this person, one solution to solving the stress fatigue issue here
One solution to solving the stress fatigue issue here is to spread out the distance between the heavy attempts, right?
Like you said, like you just said, that is one solution.
Now, here's what's interesting is with this kind of trainee.
Because those are the ones that suffer the most, if you haven't noticed.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it, yeah.
And it works, right? If you get 10 days between heavy squats, whereas previously you had seven days between heavy squats, that can make a huge difference, right? If you get 10 days between heavy squats, whereas previously you had seven days
between heavy squats, that can make a huge difference, right? You know, day five, day five,
before you're still, your back's still torched. Day six, seven, you're like kind of 80%, but not
100%. Well, now you move it out to 10 days apart from those heavy squats. And now you're feeling
fresh by the time you squat again. Yes, that totally works. But there's a, there's a limit here with the sort of average
folks who are of average athleticism. And I've run into this problem where it's like, okay,
well, we're at 10 days, then eventually it becomes two weeks, then eventually it becomes three weeks.
And there's, there's a lot of people that I run into that are just sort of genetically average and they you know they don't have a super high uh training drive let's say you know for lack of a better term
oh yeah like they're in it right obviously they've been doing this for years like they're in it but
they just don't have like a super strong competitive drive to make that number go up
and i'm gonna say it and i think you'll agree with me you see it in their approach to the
fucking deadlift yes right yes absolutely yeah you see it in their approach to the fucking deadlift. Yes, right. Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, you definitely see it on the deadlift.
On the deadlift, you have to have the highest drive.
You do, yeah.
You have to be so pissed off that that bar is on the ground and not locked out.
It just has to absolutely gall you.
It has to just—you need to be like Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
Yeah.
The bar is the English—
With the war paint on it, blood all over him.
That's right.
Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
Like, yeah, the bar is the English.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, it needs to be that level of disgust that the bar is laying is on the ground and not locked out.
But because you have a lot of options on a squat.
That's right.
You can muscle it up ugly and it'll still be legal.
I mean, I'm not saying you should do that, but I'm saying you have options there.
On the deadlift, if that thing's stapled, the only option you have is to generate as
much drive and adrenaline as you can to get the fucking thing moving correctly. Yes. Right? Absolutely. Yeah, it's not just going to magically come up. No. So the squat will come down and you will stretch. That's right. Exactly. You'll get some semblance of a rebound. That's right. That's right 100 so but the thing is here's here's a problem i run into okay so we stretch it out now
to somewhere between two and three weeks right between these heavy attempts and um if you go
anywhere past there now all of a sudden they've lost the feel they're not prepared anymore for
that heavy attempt whether it's a central nervous system uh adaptation that's been lost in that time gap, or it's an emotional,
psychological thing, right? They're just like, it's been too long. This happens with average folks.
And so you can only stretch that out so far. Now, it's really different. Like for me,
different. Like for me, um, I'm not, I'm not genetically gifted, but I have a higher than average, uh, you know, drive. I have a higher than average training drive. Yeah. And so for me,
like I can go three weeks, but you know, between a heavy squat and I can still get after it. And
my technique is good. It's good. It's not going to change. And I can generate the necessary mental focus to make that happen not everybody can so
there's other ways to to solve for this rather than just continuing to make the distance longer
and longer and longer um and one of the ways is i you know this is this goes back to our rpe episode
i i don't use rpe to solve this but i I do something. I do auto-regulation to solve this
where I'm like, okay, let's say we're now at every two weeks you squat heavy. Okay. Instead of moving
beyond that point, I'll be like, we're squatting heavy every two weeks, no matter what. But what
I'm going to do is I'm going to say that this top set is going to be a single to a triple. It's
going to be somewhere in there. And some days you're going to have that this top set is going to be a single to a triple. It's gonna be somewhere
in there. And some days you're going to have the single, some days you're going to have the triple,
some days you might have five, you know, right. But, um, but we're going to, we're going to do
that. And I'm just going to give them the option of how many reps they do, right? That's there's
other ways to do this, but that's like an example of auto-regulation. And I found that for those
people who are more average and that don't have a super high
training drive, that is mentally less taxing for them than a fixed rep range.
And, uh, and sometimes if they're just having a bad day and it's for, you know, they just
don't, they just don't want to be in the gym.
They just hit that single and they're like, okay, that wasn't so bad.
And then they hit their back offsets and they go, go home.
Um, so I just want, I wanted to unpack that because i have run into that problem where it's like oh you can't not everybody responds even if they're advanced to
just simply continually increasing the distance between heavy attempts no you're absolutely right
because you said something there that you know struck a chord with me that you know if you have
a fixed rep range you have to have an insanely high drive to commit to that.
Right.
And I'm going to speak to that because that was me this year.
Yeah.
I've watched people have meltdowns over a variety of things that go wrong in the weight room.
The difference is when I have them, I'm back in there the next week trying to troubleshoot it.
Right.
And for, I'd say, most average people, if we're going to use that lingo, most non-serious, non-competitive recreational lifters don't have that level of drive.
They don't have the patience to miss the same weight for three months, which is what I did. Because that's what it took for me to figure out how to move it, how to get it to move past that point.
So to add context, my best bench press ever for a set of five was 267 and a half for five in 2020.
That was about 190 pounds. And I did that and I haven't touched it since. So now I'm working back
up. And then this spring at some point, I got stuck around 260, had to repeat it a couple times,
got it, right? Right. And I was trying to add weight every week.
So I figured, well, I've done this before, and last time I did it, I added weight every week, and I was doing less volume and all this other shit, right?
I get 262 and a half, and then I get four.
Then the week after, I get four.
Then the week after, I get four.
You know, first I adjust lifestyle factors.
Okay, let's sleep more.
Let's get my protein up.
I was slacking, you know.
Still getting four.
Then I'm like, all right, let's go every other week so i go every other week keep getting four and i'm just hitting sets of fucking
four at 262 and a half remember this is five pounds under my pr and then i'm like all right
uh let's go every other week you know so i'm going every other week still four yeah then i'm like
all right let's drop the volume and also let's drop the intensity on the light day because I was doing a two-day bench split.
Originally, I was at three days, by the way.
I dropped it to two.
So I was doing a two-day bench split, one day heavy, one day it was less heavy back then.
So I'm like, let's actually make it light.
Let's do 80% on the heavy day on the second day and see what that does.
Well, then I got 262.5 for five.
Then two weeks later, I got 265.
Then two weeks after that, I got 267 and a half, right? And then today, right before this podcast,
I went for 270, locked out the right arm, did not lock out the left. That's how I feel.
So close.
Bunches, by the way.
So close.
Yeah, you saw it. Yeah. And then I got pissed off, threw some shit. Actually,
I didn't throw anything this time, but figure a speech in this case yeah we were getting somewhere you
know but i was pissed off and then i immediately calmed down because i knew i'm like okay let's
think through i'm like my internal rotators were kind of sore when i was warming up which suggests
to me something i did last week was probably not recovered from right so i went down the list i'm
like okay what i do last week i tried to pin bench press 312 and a half first out of five.
I keep getting four there.
So that lift isn't really moving, but it's an assistance exercise, so I don't really
care that much.
I just keep getting stuck at four, and part of it's the way the bar is landing, I think.
You have to, when it gets close to your 5RM on that, the bar is over you.
You can't realign it like a rack pull or press.
Right, right.
So that's over you. You can't, like, realign it like a rack pull or press, you know? Right, right. So, you know, it just, that's less relevant.
The point is, I'm like, okay, so I did 312.5 for four.
Then I did 245 for, I think, two sets of five back offs from that, right?
And then the second day I did 205 for three sets of five.
So I'm like, well, it's not the second day.
That was light and easy.
You know, I'd barely rested.
So it had to be something from the first day.
Because the second day, I did feel it too, that soreness, you know.
And I'm not injured.
It's just that soreness is usually an indicator that I'm doing too much.
And I know that because when I made that adjustment, when I was stuck at 262.5, I was feeling that too.
Then it went away once I made that adjustment.
Right.
It's back.
Right.
So I'm looking at it.
I'm like, okay, i think that this reminds me
of rack pulls you know when you're an early intermediate and you're you know let's say
you're going from three mid 300s low 300s to 400s in the deadlift you know you might rack pull one
week deadlift one week and that you know you can handle the stress of that just fine and the partial
gives you a break from the full range of motion because the full range of motion is the stressor
but if you're a late intermediate advanced lifter and you're rack pulling, you know,
into the 500s or heavier for a set of five, that could start to interfere with your full
range of motion deadlift for a set of five, which is, Rip would say, well, that's why
I tell you to do haltings.
Okay, sure.
Okay, that's valid.
But, you know, I noticed that, I'm saying that I noticed that.
So I think what's happening to me now is that the pin bench press, the stress of the pin bench press is starting to interfere with my bench press, which is what matters, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
So my next move here is, well, today, instead of doing two backoffs at 95% of the top set, so that would have been 257 and a half. I did a single backoff,
you know, before I was doing two. So I dropped the volume on the high intensity week and I will
probably drop a set from the second day too, because that's going to be like 220, you know,
for three sets of five. I think I'm going to drop that to two sets of five, you know, drop that
volume down because the intensity is now higher for both days. And then next week, I'm not going to pin bench at all.
I might either do three or four sets at 245 and then try it again two weeks from now and
see if that works.
So why am I bringing all this up?
I mean, I'm not incredibly strong, as you can see, and my training's, you know, not
really anybody's problem here except my own, but because this is what it looks like when
you're a highly committed lifter with a
high training drive. I've been fucking frustrated. So I started this strength phase on bench,
if you want to call it that, last September. So it's been a year that I've been chipping away at
this and I've changed a lot of different things, including my body weight. I've gained like 30
pounds, I think, close to it. Yeah, about 30 pounds. I think I gained 30 pounds because I
got to be, I think I was 201 last week. I think I'm probably 202, 203 right now.
Yeah.
Right. And I'm carrying it better than ever, by the way. And it's clear that I put muscle mass
on the relevant areas. So there's a bigger bench hiding under there. My arms are bigger,
my chest is bigger. And as I just explained to you, I was able to go up in weight once I made
some modifications. I dropped some volume, right?
Right.
you, I was able to go up in weight once I made some modifications. I dropped some volume, right?
Right.
So my point is, you know, a highly committed lifter will sit there and get pissed off week after week, month after month, changing one variable at a time.
Somebody much less committed may not want to do that. And that's where your strategies make sense.
You know, if you give them an option for a rep range, that's going to work better with a brain
that can't handle that, those missed reps on a consistent basis, or achy joints on a consistent basis.
That's another thing, right? So I have a lifter. I'm glad she walked in because I just thought of
her. One of my members here, she's in her 20s. And I'd say she's on the lighter side. She's
low 120s. She's about 5'3", 5'4", something like that.
Okay, yep.
And recreational, she does this for lifestyle to be healthy, you know, but she tweaks her back very easily.
Her best set of 5s, 175 on a deadlift.
I think it's 145 on the squat.
She's benching less than 100, like 80s for a set of 5.
And her best press was 60 for a set of 5.
I know this because she just posted them all up in her metrics last night on True Coach
when I added that feature for her.
And if a competitive lifter looks at this, well, she's not that strong.
But guess what?
She's being trained like a late intermediate.
Yes.
Because she tweaks her back sometimes with 145.
And these back tweaks were happening all the fucking time last year.
Right, right.
To the point where she stopped lifting.
She took a break from the gym, was doing silly bullshit, physical therapy shit,
found her way back here.
And then one of the things she really wanted was for me to give her an old man program.
So I started talking to her how I've been dealing with other lifters.
She's like, oh, please put me
in the old man thing.
And I'm like, okay.
So we did that.
You know, she rack pulls one week.
She deadlifts one week.
But her rack pulls,
like, what, 165 or something?
Yeah.
And then her deadlift today,
today she's going to do 150 in here.
Yeah.
And, you know,
these aren't enormous numbers,
but guess what?
She's been back here
for several months.
No back tweaks.
She's better not
fucking tweak her back right now.
Right.
Yes. And then she says when she feels it coming, it's gone by the next week when she does the other variant, you know? Right. Yeah. This is,
yeah, this is a big part of, you know, I always say with programming, one of my goals, my main
goal is momentum, right? It's maintaining momentum and a big part of that. You gotta stay in the game.
Yeah. It's just staying in the game. And a big part of that is just avoiding the fucking tweaks.
You know, because tweaks are, again, this is where the training drive comes into play.
Some people handle them better than others.
You know, I know because I have a lot of experience.
I know that if I tweak something, I'll be pissed off about it because it's interrupting my training plans.
But I know I can work through it and it'll be fine. And I'll get back to where
I was and then move, move, pick up where I left off. I'm not, I don't get too up in my head about
it, but people that I work with, they don't have that experience. And they're some, some of you
listening might be like that doctor was right all along. That's right. Yeah. And it's very bad for
my back. And here's the thing too. This is another thing that's, that's unique is most of the people that I train that have
been with me for, I mean, even two years, there's nobody else in their life that does
this.
There's nobody else they can look to and, and, and say like, oh, okay, well, he's dealt
with that before.
You know, that's people aren't, the people I train are not hanging out at powerlifting
gyms or, you know. Fuck no.
They don't have people that have years and years and years of lifting experience.
They can talk them off the ledge and be like, hey, man, listen, been down this road like a hundred times.
It's going to be okay.
It's just me saying that, right?
Me versus the doctor or whatever that's whispering the opposite message in their ear.
Right.
So, yeah, this is another thing.
And this is completely valid, in my opinion. It's okay to modify your training to avoid tweaking your shit. And that might mean that, you know, you don't go for sets of five, even if sets of five are the ideal thing to do.
sets of five are the ideal thing to do. Maybe you do triples. Again, I do the same, that same strategy I was talking about earlier, very simple, where you just say like, Hey, you know, here's our
top set. We're not going to do five because rep four and five start to get sketchy. And with
people who are prone to back tweaks, especially in the squat, it's those sketchy reps you need
to avoid because that's when you start doing weird shit and your back moves under load and
tweaks tend to happen at that point. So that's right. You can weird shit and your back moves under load and tweaks
tend to happen at that point. So that's right. You can, you can do the same thing. Say like,
you know what? Hey, listen, we're going to do, you can either step them down artificially,
but like, Hey, I know you're capable of doing five here. We're going to do three.
Or you can just say like, you're going to do one to three reps there again, auto-regulate it.
And if you keep them from tweaking their back, that make them feel a lot better when you accumulate multiple back tweaks
right after each other
a few months apart
it's just demotivating as hell
then you're like why am I doing this
I can't even do anything I'm just hurting all the time
and they're like I'm not even strong
it's a spiral
it's a spiral
so the point is
I think the point that I'm really trying to hammer in this episode is that we're all going to become advanced lifters for various different reasons.
But very few of us will become advanced lifters because we've gotten so fucking strong.
Exactly, yeah.
All these weights that we're talking about, that you talked about in your own training, it's very similar for me. You know, a lot of people might look at this, like strong people might look at this and be like, well, it's not that heavy, you're not advanced, and completely missed the point.
And on the gray book, and I think in the blue book as well, the gray book being practical programming, the blue book being starting strength for anybody who's new to this, it states that the level of advancement is determined by your recovery time, how fast you can recover. A novice can recover in 24 to 48 hours, an intermediate generally about a week, and late, and so on, right?
There's no real definition of advancement, but I'd say if it takes you more than a month to hit a new PR, you're probably advanced. So that's what we mean by rate of
recovery. How often are you hitting PRs? The more often you're hitting PRs, the more novice you are.
The less often you're hitting PRs, the more advanced you are. So a better way to put this,
the phrase I really want to hit home here is, we may not all become advanced lifters from a competitive standpoint,
but we're all going to need advanced programming at some point for various reasons. For me,
it's been the amount of weight I'm lifting. A competitive lifter will say it's not that heavy,
but fuck, man, I just tripled 495 on the deadlift. It's pretty fucking heavy.
And I'm not taking any drugs either, and I'm not incredibly athletic. My vertical jump's 24 inches, so factor all these things in.
So, yeah, 495 for three.
If I hit it for five, which I'm hoping for, it's a lot of fucking weight.
So I'd say I'm an advanced lifter because I've added weight to the bar for over 10 years.
And then before that, accidentally for probably the first three of the 15 that preceded that.
So adding weight to the bar for a very fucking long time
and still hitting PRs.
They're happening less frequently,
so I'd say I'm advanced for that reason.
But the majority of you listening
will require advanced programming for other reasons.
Sometimes the recovery time for your muscles
is faster than that for your connective tissues.
And unfortunately, you only kind of find that out when you start lifting and fucking tweak something.
And a lot of you won't have that issue.
Some of you will.
I'm not saying.
And most people that walk in here don't tweak things.
But then some people are just tweakers.
Michael Wolfe's a tweaker.
We've been trying.
This might be a good.
Poor guy.
If you're listening, dude, we've still got to get you on.
But he was a tweaker back in the day, and I don't know where he's at now.
As far as I know, he's healthy for what he is right now.
He's able to train.
But he tweaks so many things, and his form was impeccable, and he's extremely strong and extremely athletic and extremely muscular.
He has all the things going for him, but joints and connective tissues, for whatever reason, weren't cooperating. I think that might be a good reason to bring them out and talk about that.
Yeah, right. But some people just tweak and you have to factor that in. Tweaks extend recovery
time, even though your muscles are strong enough to go again sooner. People don't think of it that
way and you need to. So again, I'm going to say it a million times on this episode where most of us
will not become advanced lifters because we've gotten so strong, but most of us will require
advanced programming. Yes. A hundred percent. There's another, there's another couple, a couple
of situations here that are kind of nebulous too, when it comes to thinking about training
advancement. And that's like uh
this is the situation i've been in for the last you know four years which is okay i'm i'm progressing
at a rate which you would say would be somewhere in the intermediate stage right where i'm
you know my deadlift i'm adding every three weeks on my squad.
I'm adding every two weeks at this point.
And, um, so we would say that maybe you're like a late stage intermediate, right?
So not, not, not necessarily advanced, but I'm progressing back up to levels I've been at.
Right.
So it's going to, in fact, take several months to produce a real PR.
In some cases, years to produce a PR.
Unless...
Even though I'm using an intermediate level rate of advancement.
Like, so what does that mean?
That's just what happened to me just now with the deadlift, yeah.
It's the macro, macro cycle, right?
You know, so there's the macro cycle.
But then there's like the macro, macro cycle of like...
And when you start to think about this, like, okay, so it's going to take the last time I hit a squat
PR was 2020. Think 2019 will try 19. If you think so, I'll just
get up to 65. Then you'll get the novice effect. Yeah, right.
Of course. Yeah, that's just true. You know, if I if I got
heavier, I would. Now, I know here's an this is an important
data point that I've mentioned many times would. Now, this is an important data point
that I've mentioned many times in the show,
but just to revisit it really quickly,
I was 211 or 212 when I produced that squat PR.
Now I'm 190, right?
So I was significantly bigger then.
And I'm close to as strong as I was then now.
Right.
Right, at a lighter body weight.
That matters.
Anyway, what I'm saying here is that
when you start to think about the macro, macro cycle of training, when it takes you three years
to ramp yourself back up into a position where you now hit a PR, you're also three years older.
That's true.
And when you look at the lifespan of a lifter, man, we don't really have that many years where we're just at our prime.
No.
You know, like there's very, very few of us that are Chase Lindleys that started like right on the dot when we were at puberty and at the right time to start training.
Yeah, he was 13.
I think he was right there at the very, very beginning stage of when he could have started training.
And he's been training since then. So now he's 20. He's trained as long as I have, but he's only what, 23?
Yeah.
Or I don't know how old he is.
It's fucking crazy.
Right? You know, I'm 30. I'm 35, about to be 36. So the point is, if you are highly advanced and you go from age 20 to age 25, that's very different from being highly advanced and going
from age 35 to 40 or 45 to 50. Or my 50 year olds that started with me five years ago that are now
55. They're just in a different stage of life. And that's a big factor too. You're fighting,
you're fighting the slopes going down, even if you're trying to progress upwards.
going down even if you're trying to progress upwards recovery takes longer every year simply by you getting older which you know pushes you into more advanced programming yeah so yeah so
that's to cap it off you got to think about this because um if i'm comparing myself to
the last time i hit a squat one rm it's not it's's not a squat, just a squat PR. It's a one RM I'm talking about specifically. Okay. Well that, you know, I was 30 when that happened.
Right. Right. I'm 35 now. That's, that's a pretty big difference in terms of, you know,
age and, um, in life circumstance. So I have to, I have to be generous with myself. Um, I'm not,
but you know, on the podcast, I talk about this. I got to be generous with myself
when I make those comparisons. So anyway. Yeah. First time I pulled 500, I was 34. And
I'm pulling close to that for a set of five now. I tripled 495 last week. And that was what,
six years ago? Right, right. Yeah. And now I'm older, you know, But I got to 485 for five on an intermediate program adding every
week, right? I just kind of leapfrogged over my PR from April, which was 475. Went up 10 pounds a
week, and then guess what? I tried to do 495, it didn't move. Then the next week I got a triple.
So I'm like, okay, back to reality. I'll do 490 in two weeks, hopefully get five,
Back to reality. I'm going to do 490 in two weeks, hopefully get five, then say a prayer and maybe get 495 for five two weeks after that. But it might take me months. I think it's there, this training cycle. I just don't know the frequency that I'm going to be able to get away with. But then also, I'm 201. So there's a little bit of novice effect there from being heavier. Yeah. But yeah, like you got to think about this
from the perspective of anything that interferes with recovery will put you in a situation where
you have to train like someone who's more advanced. So you just have to be prepared for that. That's
why it's important for coaches to push themselves to advancement due to strength. I think that's very important for a coach because for me, at least, when I'm dealing with people
that can't recover for other reasons, I kind of know what to do. I kind of think about it and I'm
like, okay, stress recovery adaptation. This person tweaks their back when they get to about this
weight. So at about 80% of that weight, we're going to go every two weeks or 85% or whatever,
you know, like, I don't know the exact percentage. I'm throwing a number out there.
But I know that because I've had to sit here and troubleshoot these big numbers that beat the shit out of me, and then I can't add to them.
And I've got to figure out how to add to them because I want to get stronger,
and I've never taken drugs to circumvent that.
So when you've done that and you've been through that experience as a coach,
now when you have the guy who's just 75 and he's just wiped from doing a
couple sets of squats, you know what to do. Or the 25-year-old who keeps tweaking her back
with 145-pound deadlift, you know, despite the fact that she's eating, she's at a good weight,
and other girls her size aren't having the problem, now you're thinking, because you're like,
well, shit, I did this with you know 445 but uh you know same
concept applies you know her joints aren't ready to do that weight so we're gonna adjust this way
or the guy who's losing a bunch of fucking sleep you know whatever yeah all these situations lead
to the same place recovery is taking longer that's what advancement means uh now other things are
causing recovery to take longer not just the load on the bar and your level
of strength that's the difference but the bottom line is you're going to need to know how to apply
training principles to accommodate the stress recovery adaptation cycle for each individual
lifter yeah i think the biggest lesson that i've learned is that you have to, when you're at this level of training, you have to
look in the mirror and, and go by what the log book is telling you, like go by what,
you know, so when you, when you enter it, what I mean by that is, okay, I'm going to do 365 for a
set of five today. I get three reps and I missed rep four. And that was a surprise. Okay. One, one workout's
not a trend, but three workouts is a trend. And you have to look at that and be like, okay,
this is not working. Stop beating your head against a wall and make some changes, right?
That is undone. That has slowed down. My progress more than anything is, is thinking
that I should be able to progress at X rate and then running myself into a wall. And then, um,
you know, I'm, I'm pretty fortunate. I've, I'm pretty resilient. I don't really have many
connective tissue injuries. Um, I've had, I've had a number of them over the years, but that was
really mostly in the first five years of my lifting from technique mistakes that I was making.
Now that I've figured out all those,
it doesn't happen very often to me.
So I can sit there and beat my head against the wall
for a long time.
But other people are not so lucky, right?
Like your girl that you're talking about.
She just survived, by the way.
She came in here and gave me a thumbs up. Okay, good. All right. Awesome. Hey, nice work. Nice
work. But yeah, you know, if that's happening to you and you're getting these tweaks all the time,
you got to stop and say like, okay, hold up. Even though I think I should be able to progress past
this weight at this particular rate, you know, five pounds a week or whatever, I got to go by what I'm actually
seeing in my training here, which is I keep tweaking my back at this, at this weight,
what's happening. Okay. Like you said, a reasonable thing to deduce from that would be
my rate of, my rate of increase is too fast leading up to that weight. So before I get there
somewhere like what, 80 to 90%, like you said, I'm going to slow down my rate of advancement and see if that's enough to give my connective tissue time to recover between
sets. Um, but, but, but that's, you know, it's, it's very tempting to get caught in this. The
shoulds is what Dr. Pewter calls the shoulds where you're like, well, I should be able to do this.
Like it shouldn't be a problem that it's, it's only this weight. It shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah. Rip says every guy can, can deadlift 500, you know, so this shouldn't be a problem. Rip says every guy can deadlift 500. This shouldn't be
an issue. What's the problem?
People get very wrapped up in that. Like, look, man,
you got to go by what your
training is telling you.
Most guys should be able to.
Yeah, they'll get there. Look, you're
going to get there.
If you want it, most of you
are going to get it. Some of you won't.
Some of you won't.
Most of the time, the commitment and the drive is there, 500 deadlifts doable, I'm getting off topic here.
That's right.
But some of you, it might take you five or six years to do it.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a point where these should statements are productive, and then there's a point where they're not productive.
Right.
And that's why I'm saying at this level of training events, but this is not
something, it's not conversations that I have with novices and early intermediates because their
problem is they have self-limiting beliefs more often than not. Right. This is, this is more of
like, Hey man, you know, these are the people, like you said, at the very beginning of this
episode are typically looking first to like, Oh, you know, well, I only ate 194 grams of protein today. I didn't get my 200. Um, you know, that's maybe, that's
gotta be some, you know, it's gotta be part of it. Right. And you're like, no, like, bro, like,
like no bro. Or they're like, Oh, my, my right toe was turned out, I think 16 degrees and it
could have been 20 degrees. And it's like, that's, that's not the reason, man. It's like,
we got it.
Your training is telling you that we're done with this.
We need to keep you moving.
I had a guy recently, same thing.
He's a novice.
He's young.
He's in his early 20s.
And he's 6'4".
He pushed his body weight up to 275.
And he was just trying to latch on to this novice forever stuff.
And I just kept seeing everything falling apart.
just trying to latch on to this novice forever stuff and i just kept seeing like everything falling apart and i'm like the stuff that you are talking about wanting to fix is like
two percent of the issue you know like you're not gonna make that much improvement there
and right the level of perfection required is probably unsustainable so we got to be practical
here i want you to keep adding weight to the bar just because it's not every two days doesn't mean
it's a bad thing i want the momentum to continue And that's where we moved him to, you know, something more
intermediate. He did fine. And he took a break and did it on his own and crashed. And now I'm
building him back up. But he didn't stay away too long. So I'm going to get him right back up there.
He's getting some good numbers. But yeah, you know, you want to keep moving. And in order to
keep moving, you have to have those tools in the toolbox. You know, not everybody's going to
keep moving, you have to have those tools in the toolbox. You know, not everybody's going to
run a linear progression and do a good job with it, then go on vacation, get sick, take a break from the gym, come back and do that again every single time. That's not typically what happens.
What's more common is that they run a linear progression. It ends early because recovery's
not optimized. And it's not because they're not doing the program necessarily. Sometimes that is
the case, but sometimes it just ends because we're not doing the program necessarily. Sometimes that is the case.
But sometimes it just ends early because other things are pulling recovery down.
And you have to embrace the practical reality rather than saying,
well, you're fucking it up.
Just fix all these little things that are going to make your life extremely high maintenance.
You know, like, again, these people aren't competitive lifters we're talking about.
If it was a competitive lifter, I'd be like, look, motherfucker, motherfucker you need to eat more you need to gain 50 pounds you need to sleep don't
fuck your girlfriend before a pr and let's get this done you know for whatever right i'm gonna
be a lot harder on an athlete obviously but the people that hire us aren't typically athletes
they want to be healthy you know uh and yeah in a different situation now you're dealing with other things and it's
interesting that we're we're seeing this because um yeah like you said this was just not a problem
that starting strength anticipated 10 years ago this didn't draw this type of audience 15 years
it's a different way he wrote the book 80 was it 19 years ago holy Holy shit. The first edition came out. 2005.
The first edition came out in 2005.
The third edition, the blue book, came out in 11.
So that was 13 years ago.
So 13 to 19 years ago.
I mean, by the time I started going to the seminars, which was 2013, that was 11 years ago.
There was a heavy CrossFit base there because he used to be the subject
matter expert for CrossFit. And I saw the tail end of that demographic, you know, people that
go to CrossFit. I mean, you know, it stood the test of time, I'd say. It's not as big as it used
to be, but people that go there tend to, you know, jump from one fad to the other, you know,
it was kind of like that. But I would say it stood the test of time because of the community aspect of it.
I would have to say if I had to gamble on any one variable.
But, you know, that's a different topic.
But the whole point is, you know, he was a subject matter expert for CrossFit until about 2009.
So a lot of that was still turning out at these seminars when I went.
And then it transformed into, you know, old guys with back pain, you know, or, you know, or insert your joint, you know,
something hurts, you know, and it's been kind of interesting seeing that unfold. But, you know,
Rip had a powerlifting background, you know, he did some Olympic lifting too. He competed in powerlifting, but, you know, he coached Olympic lifters. He did a lot of, he did the Olympic
lifts in his training and Steph's an Olympic lifter. So, you know, one of the things, if you
watch his leg press video on how to perform a leg press, he talks about, you know, one of the things, if you watch his leg press video on how to perform
a leg press, he talks about, you know, you guys think you're going to train athletes, but then
you realize athletes don't make a bunch of money for a gym. So you've got to learn how to tailor
this to the general public, you know? And that's what has made him so good at what he does and
what's made the content so great and what's made us competent as a downstream effect. But I think
that when he
wrote the book and uh was trying to tailor it to athletes it's a different mentality right
than somebody who says i need to function in life and i want to get stronger at a pace that allows
me to do that that guy is going to be doing or gal is going to be doing advanced programming
at some point in his lifting career
so that he can stay in the fucking game and sooner than you think yeah yeah i mean i've had people on
it within the first year you know but occasionally i get a guy who's in that situation but has high
training drive i got a guy right now up in idaho he cracks me up man he's working through some
injuries right now and it's just fucking killing him that his progress
is on the tape, is put aside right now.
He's working through a tweak.
He's going to get out of it,
but he just can't
wait to have some weight on the fucking
bar again. I'm having to talk to him
about this. He drives me a little bit crazy,
but we're good friends. You get people
like that sometimes. They work in IT
and they just, for whatever reason, have a high drive for this shit and will, you know, destroy
themselves to get a PR, you know, to get strong, you know? Those guys are funny, huh? You've had
them too. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's, oh yeah. There's some people that you're constantly having to kind
of, you know, push them, you know, push them like, come on, let's go, let's go, let's get it. You got
this. Come on, let's go. And then you're trying to light a fire, and then there's other people.
You're just, you're constantly pulling back on the leash.
Yeah, they're like, hey, look, Santana, I don't want to get fucking hurt.
Okay.
And then that's the lens that I look at it through.
You know, it's like, okay.
Can I, you know, can he get it this week?
Probably.
But, you know, based on what happened last week and the way that looked, I don't know if I want to, like you said, those last two reps on a set of five.
I don't want to move him to triples yet in this case, but if he does another set of five this week, it's potential for injuries high, you know, and I don't think there's anything.
I don't think I can cue him out of that because it's just fatigue, you know, and then you just move it along, you know, train them like an intermediate or advanced.
So, yeah, I mean, I think we've hammered the hell out of this, man.
so yeah i mean i think we've hammered the hell out of this man yeah well you know there you go that's i think it's a testament to how well strength training works though that people are
running into this issue you know they're sticking with it long enough to run into these problems
and that's and that's because it worked you know it produced some results and people even average
people who are interested in health, not competitive lifting are like,
yeah, I want to keep doing this. You know, it's working. I want to keep it going. So
yeah, the, the need for advanced programming is, is more important than ever. And, um,
yeah, that's, that is, that is still a gap in the messaging of, of starting strength.
Uh, it, it's been addressed many times, but I think in the sort
of what most people pick up from the starting strength world is this idea of programming that
is actually really geared towards somebody who's competitive, um, either competitive mindset or
actually competitive. And, um, yeah, it's just, it's gonna look different when you're, when you're
not that person. And so, you know, you, you to get the shoulds out of, if there's anything I want to leave today, it's you got to get the shoulds out of your mind because they're holding you back.
If you're not that person, this is not at the top of your priorities.
So, yeah.
You're not going to run Texas Method.
No, you're not.
You're not going to like, you know, it's fine.
And that's fine.
35-year-old father of two working 60 hours a week.
You're not running fucking Texas Method. That's right. You're not going to have that experience, you know? Yeah, exactly. And that's fine. 35-year-old father of two working 60 hours a week. You're not running fucking Texas Method.
That's right.
You're not going to have that experience, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
And that's okay, right?
Maybe don't.
When we say Texas Method, we really mean for squats.
That's right.
Yeah, for squatting.
That's right.
That's right.
Because it's not Texas Method unless it's on the squat.
So, exactly.
100%.
So, yeah.
So, get the shoulds out of your mind where you're like, oh, I should be able to run that.
No, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Focus on like, hey, let's make the weight of the bar go up.
That's what we should be doing.
That's the should that you should have in your mind
is how do I make the weight of the bar go up?
Not, you know, I should be able to do it
within this amount of time
or I should be able to do it with this method.
You have to factor in these other variables.
You don't want to get hurt.
You want to keep adding, keep the momentum going, and you want to stay in the game as long as possible.
I have a guy in his 60s who broke a state record at his first meet. He pulled 530. He squatted 440,
you know? Awesome. So, you know, you can get to some big numbers, you know, at any age, but
the guy barely does any volume each week on those lifts, you know?
Yeah, right, right.
Because he knows better.
You know, he can tweak his back.
And, you know, when you have a 60-something-year-old back,
you know, it takes a lot longer to recover from than when you have a 20-something-year-old back.
And sometimes, you know, when you have a 20-something-year-old back,
it takes as long as the 65-year-old back for reasons unknown, you know?
So you just stay in the game, keep finding ways to keep adding without hurting yourself,
and, you know, enjoy the ride.
This is like brushing your teeth.
You just got to do it, right?
And if you're getting to a place where it's making you non-functional outside of the gym,
that doesn't mean you need to stop doing this.
It simply means you need to
change your approach to it and spread out those more stressful workouts so that you're not doing
them as often, or you're doing them in a way that doesn't make them quite as stressful,
but keeps you achieving those other things, moving, staying in the game, not getting hurt.
Bam.
There you go.
I think we made our point.
You think we made our point?
I think we did.
There we go, man.
Let's close it out.
All right.
Well, thank you for listening to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at the underscore Robert underscore Santana on Instagram or weightsandplates.com
if you are interested in a consult or online coaching.
We have all of that fun stuff there. If you're Metro Phoenix, Weights and Plates Gym,
we're just south of the airport where the I-10 meets the 143. Come pay us a visit. If you're
local to Phoenix and listening to me and for some reason don't know I'm here, come on by.
local to Phoenix and listening to me and for some reason don't know I'm here, come on by.
And we're now on YouTube, youtube.com slash weights underscore and underscore plates.
Bam, there you go. You know where to find me on Instagram at marmalade underscore cream.
If you have any training questions for me, shoot me an email. Jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com.
That's my email address.
All right, we'll talk to you again in a couple weeks. you