Weights and Plates Podcast - #88 - It's Time to Rethink Body Fat

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Many people (most?) get into fitness because they want to look better. At least, that's a primary reason. It's a worthwhile goal -- looking better is a gateway drug to performing better after all, becuase your performance (i.e. your strength and conditioning) drives your body composition. There is a big breakdown in what many people perceive as the ideal or even just good body composition, however, and what is realistically achievable for the average person without PEDs. Social media and pop culture has warped people's idea of what a good physique looks like, and what healthy body fat percentages look like on strong, muscular men and women.   In today's episode, Dr. Santana and Coach Trent attempt to rebalance the scales of body composition, and point out that strong, functional men and women don't have to be (and shouldn't be) lean and ripped to be healthy.     Online Diet Coaching and Strength Training with Dr. Robert Santana https://weightsandplates.com/online-coaching/     Follow Weights & Plates  YouTube: https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf- Instagram: @the_robert_santana Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/weightsandplates Web: https://weightsandplates.com   Coach Trent Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream Email: [e-mail]  

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. What's up? What's going on, brother? What up, man? Well, it is at the time of this recording, December 13th. Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th, which means we just have a couple more episodes to go and just a couple weeks left in the year. Right. How did this happen? How is it already December? Where did 2024 go, bro? I don't know. You know what's crazy to me? I was thinking about this the other day, that COVID happened four years ago. Well, it's about to be five years ago. Practically five, yeah.

Practically five, because it was when all the lockdowns started happening. Was that March? March. Yeah, okay. So March is when it all started happening. And yeah, that was nearly five years ago now. That is wild to me. That's wild.

It's crazy to me too, man. It feels like those two years of my life, like I sometimes have a hard time believing that they ever happened. You know, it just doesn't feel like they actually happened. It's just some weird thing. It's like, you know, when you go out and you drink too much and you're like, you brown out.

It's not the full blackout, but there's like, there's parts of the night where you're like, I know this happened and that happened, but I have no idea how we got from memory loss. Yeah. That's, it feels sort of like that, you know? Uh, dude, I feel like the last four to five years have been all one big thing, you know, like, yeah, it's hard to explain, you know, there was 2019 and then everything after, you know, it's right. It's the before times, right. It really is, you know, it, it, it makes me think too, you know, we're, well, you're 40 now you're, you're in your fourth decade of life. Fifth. Um, Oh, fifth. Well, yeah, fifth decade. I made that

mistake on social media. I am in my fourth decade of life. So, you know, we're not old by any means, but we've also been around a little bit. And we have a lot of our life that happened before 2020. For those people that are, you know, 20, 21 years old right now, the last four or five years of their life was a pretty significant part of their adolescence. You know, um, that that's pretty, that's pretty wild. I can't imagine going through that in a very formative time of life, which is already tumultuous, you know? So this is strange. I don't know if, um, I don't know if we'll ever go back. Well, I don't think we will ever go back in our lifetimes to the culture and the speed of information. And the sort of, yeah, I'll just call it like the cultural zeitgeist, for lack of a better word, that we experienced growing up as adolescents and young adults.

Yeah. And we've talked about that a lot on the show, right? In terms of like how that relates to training, you know, the physical culture, that's not coming back. It, you know, it was so, it was so different back when we were in high school. Forums and magazines are not coming back either. Yeah, right. And that's the thing, you know, in forums back then were still pretty new. I mean, they were around, but I don't think I was not really tapped into forums yet. It took me,

I didn't really get into those until college. And then I was reading back, you know, an old forum post when I, by the time I was in college, probably some of the ones I made. Yeah. Right. Well, yeah. You know, it's the stuff that happened in the late nineties, you know, like bodybuilding.com or what was the powerlifting one? I'm sure there were a couple of them, I'm sure. But anyway, yeah, so it's kind of interesting when you this time of year when you go and kind of reflect back on things. And yeah, it's such a such a different way that we consume information and that things get, you know, like ideas get propagated. get you know like ideas get propagated and uh yeah in some ways i feel like a dinosaur because uh you know we've we've been sitting here on this podcast

trying to dunk on this stupid hypertrophy arguments that just will not die no they won't you know it's it's it's just such a different beast than it was, than the bro, than the stupid bro hypertrophy arguments that were happening in the 90s, you know? Right. It was a different culture. Like, you had a bunch of guys going out there and training fucking hard and eating a bunch of food and not really worrying too much about the fine details of training because there wasn't a whole ecosystem of podcast and YouTube videos to like make them, you know, sort of appeal to their anxiety about, uh, all the fine details of programming that were still training hard. They might've had some stupid ideas and then, you know, you just, you're just like, Hey man, let's, why don't you just squat? Why are you doing all this

leg bullshit? Uh, it was, it was more, uh, it was a different culture than nowadays. It's the total opposite. It's like, everybody is just, it has to, has was a different culture than nowadays. It's the total opposite. It's like everybody is just, it has to, has to have the perfect answer to things that the perfect analysis and just the right ideas before they even start the training part. With a citation. Yeah. With a citation. Yeah.

That's right. Before they ever just start fucking training hard. Yeah. I just, I don't see a lot of people that, that come to me and they're like, yeah, man, I've been, you know, that are just like legitimately training hard and they just need some direction. That's not the people it's, it's usually the other end of the spectrum where it's people who have just overanalyzed everything to death and they're missing the, the broad strokes basics, doing compounds, adding weight to the bar, putting on body weight.

You know, I've used this phrase in the show before. The phrase that I like to use to describe those people is, I read everything, I've done nothing. However, I don't know that people read a whole lot anymore, so I guess I have to amend that and say, I've consumed everything and I've done nothing, you know? Right. I watched a bunch of jack dudes on steroids tell me, you know, what I should do, and then I didn't do it. Yeah. Well, then you got social media, the social media universe. Yeah. That is basically like the WWE, which I still call the WWF, by the way,

where, you know, you got your heels, you know, your bad guys and your baby faces, Where, you know, you got your heels, you know, your bad guys and your baby faces, and they'll basically amplify that character to draw more attention to themselves, regardless of whether the content that they're distributing is of any value at all, you know? Right. Because now social media is a form of entertainment. Let's call it what it is. It's all kayfabe. It's all kayfabe. Yeah, it's all kayfabe. And I think right now

we're in that stage where wrestling was in the 80s and early 90s where you do not break kayfabe. You actually have to hate each other. You can't be seen eating together. You can't be staying at the same hotels.

And I can't help but to wonder that some of these people who sit there and attack each other, if they're in on it together or if it's organic, I think it's probably a mix right now. But I think people have figured this out. I still get powerlifters going on my page just talking a bunch of shit about how I'm not strong, I'm not entitled to an opinion. I've had a couple guys guys that go on there. They make fun of my fucking hair. And then they're like balding themselves because they probably took one too

many jabs, you know, not that, uh, you know, not that I have a problem with that, but you're making fun of my hair. Well,

go stick yourself with some more drugs and lose more years, dude. Fuck off. I really liked the, uh, I really liked the old fuckers from the eighties. Sorry, sorry,

rip, uh, that, you know, that there were like power lifters back in the eighties. Sorry, sorry, rip that, you know, there were like power lifters back in the eighties, you know, just because they, they squatted,

you know, six 42 high, like, you know, six inches high and they're bullshit fed with this, with a single ply suit in the, in heavy knee wraps. And they're like,

yeah, man, you know, you know, someday when you grow up and, and you squat more, you'll, you'll understand.

Yeah. Come on. You know, you could lift a whole bunch of up and, uh, and you squat more, uh, you'll, you'll understand. Yeah. Come on. You know, you can lift a whole bunch of weight and not have a clue as to how to get someone else stronger beyond Rob's effect, you know? Right. Right. And,

uh, cause there's a lot of, why do people squat a whole bunch of weight? You know, there's a lot, there's several reasons, but at the foundation of it is they have the genetics to get there. You know,

let's, let's not ignore that. I'd say it's 50, I'd say it's 65 foundation of it is they have the genetics to get there. Let's not ignore that. I'd say it's 50. I'd say it's 65% of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Then there's the will to show up. I'd say that's probably another 25%. So you're at 90% there.

If you have good genetics and you show up, you're going to probably lift more than everybody just from those two things. Yep. And then I'd say the next 5% is resistance to injury, you know, takes them even further. And then willpower to work harder and keep going, you know. Right. These are just broad, general numbers I have pulled out of my ass. I don't have a p-value for you. I don't have a citation for you.

But if you're asking for one, you're on the wrong show anyway, because you're not going to like me very much. But let's be real, you know, just by simply showing up and having the raw materials to lift more than 99.5% of the population, that's going to get you very far. We've seen it, guys. Fuck around in the gym, but they show up three to four times a week and they squat over 500. Yeah, absolutely. Then maybe they hire their first coach and get some structure behind it and they go from 500 to 600. I've seen that happen too.

Not regularly. This doesn't happen on a regular basis quite casually. Maybe at certain gyms and small little ecospheres of the country or the world, but for the most part, it's not an everyday fucking occurrence that people are fucking just going in the gym, lifting weights, and they're, you know, just getting to 600 because it's not that heavy since, you know, the top squatters are doing over

1,000, almost 1,100, you know. So therefore, 600 must just happen all the time. That's how these guys talk, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, I say that, and at the same time, I'm going to say, if you have access to a gym where guys are squatting 6, 7, 8, 900 pounds, you better go there, you know, because you may never get there, but just seeing that is going to push you to go further and try to approach your limits, and you'll surprise yourself, right? So, you know, I'm not sitting there saying things are or are not possible. There are people that are real fucking

strong out there, you know, and you can't predict who they are. Sometimes they start out real skinny and they're just not eating and they haven't touched a weight yet. So you can't just look at that guy and say, oh, he's a skinny novice. You know, he might just get to 300. No, that guy might start eating and taking his life seriously. Yeah. And, you know, squat 700. You know, you just don't know. Then you got these big, thick guys that you would expect more out of, but then, you know, they're only benching threes, maybe low fours, you know, whereas others are doing 500-pound benches, you know? Yep.

And we didn't even get into the drugs, but yeah, of course, you know, like you take drugs, you go further. But I'd say a lot of the guys that are lifting big, giant weights, at the bare minimum, they have the genetics to get there and they keep showing up. So they're going to leapfrog over numbers that the remaining 99% of the population won't even dream of. Yeah, absolutely. When I say I benched 315, by the way, I benched 315 because I did not. Yes, you did. I did not as of the last episode. So let me throw that out there. Yeah, well, we actually have two PRs to talk about here.

So you benched 315 and you also yesterday pulled 500 for 5. That's right. Was that yesterday or was it today? That was yesterday. That was yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was an unexpected PR, man, 500 for five. Like, I just, I committed to doing whatever I had to do to bench 315.

And yes, for powerlifting, not a great bench. You know, when you got Julius Maddox, who benched 795, that's the best raw bench that we've recorded to date. Yep. It was supposed to be 800, and they misloaded the bar. And obviously, when you bench 795, you're probably not going to bench 800 after that. Right. But he's, for all intents and purposes, he's an 800-pound bencher. So yeah, 315 is not that heavy in that world.

But first of all, there's one man that has done it. And I think the guys behind him aren't even close. You know? Yeah. And then you have to figure how many have benched over seven how many have benched over six how many have benched over five right i'd say the raw numbers are probably not that large the relative number is very tiny we're talking fractions of a percent right so does it really fucking matter that you know i'm uh you, benching 40% of what this guy can bench with the best

bench in the world can bench, you know, does that really fucking matter? It's a stupid, yeah, it's a stupid comparison. I mean, all you have to do is go into, um, you know, go into your average gym and look at regular people. Um, cause that's, that's mostly who we coach, you know, regular people. And, um, yeah, look around, see how many 315 benches you you'll see, you know, regular people. And, um, yeah, look around, see how many 315 benches you you'll see, you know, and you'll see a couple, you will see a couple, that's the one lift where you will see a couple, uh, but not very many, not. And then what do you see after that? Like, it's not like you see a bunch of two 75s. No, it's, you see, you see three 15, you'll see a couple guys do pull that off. And then you'll see a bunch of 225s and then a bunch of 135 to 185s.

And then, yeah, and then you go over to, like we've talked about before, then you go over to the squat rack, and it goes way down from there. Right. It's because nobody squats. So, yeah, if you look at in deadlift. You're not going to see a 500-pound deadlift. No, you're not going to see a 500-pound deadlift. I mean, sure, it happens. Somebody listening is going to say, well, I saw it.

Yes, it happens, but that one's more rare, well, I saw it. Yes, it happens. But that one's more rare because that buck and knurling on those commercial gym bars is terrible. Nobody's pulling heavy on that. Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, that's what exactly I was going to get to is, you know, if you even see somebody deadlifting, it's not going to be, you know, it's going to be two plates maybe. So, yeah.

Well, you know, this is a good segue. so yeah well you know this is a good this is a good segue it's it's become more and more obvious to me over the past couple years really well really since covid um the past whatever what do we say was almost five years ago it's become very obvious to me that reasonable uh balanced practical information it's harder and harder to punch through all the noise out there in the world. It's only gotten harder over the last five years. It has not gotten easier. And part of that is because the, the, the, you said it well, it's like the WWE out there. If you want to have a show and you want to build a big following, you got to have a character and you got to be outlandish. You've

got to be outrageous. You know, this is not, this is, you know, this is theater. It literally is. And so, uh, what does that mean? Well, you know, in the WWE, uh, I know there's a guy that talks about this is there was, there was kind of a, uh, uh, I'd call him like a, maybe a low to mid Carter kind of guy from the early 2000s. His name is Maven. I don't remember him at all. But, but you know, yeah, he's low to mid Carter for a handful of years back in the early 2000s. Well, anyway, he talks a lot about his experience in the WWE. He's in like finance or something now. And he talks a lot about the kind of behind the scenes, how it all works, you know, how, and anyway, um, he talked about,

he was in good shape when he got his WDWE contract and he shows a lot of video and photos from that era. And then they're like, all right, now you're in the big time. We've got to get you on a stack. And so he starts taking steroids to pump himself up because you got to be a caricature of a human, right? You've got to be a superhero on stage. You got to be a car. I said character. You got to be a cartoon. That's what I was trying to say. You've got to be a cartoon of a human out there. And so you've got to look enormous. You've got, you can't look normal. You can't even look great. And this guy looked in shape. You know, he was jacked. He was lean, you know, probably 14%, 13, 14% body fat jacked, you know, he's like five, 10 to 25 or something like that. Or, you know, at the time,

maybe he was like two 15. And then, you know, so he gets on, he gets on some gear and now he's like two 35 at, you know, 10, 11% body fat. That's the WWE look. And you got to have that in the fitness industry. Now, if you want to be on the internet and really build a big following, you got to have something outrageous about you and you have to make outrageous claims. And, um, this is, um, this has distorted a lot of people's idea of what an ideal, it's a weird word, we'll dig into that some, but what people's idea of what a good physique looks like, what good body composition looks like, what strong is, that's what we wanted to talk about today is, man, I'm sorry to say it, but a lot of y'all have a really messed up idea of what a good physique looks like for an average person, right? I think a lot of y'all, especially the younger folks, you're looking at a circus and deciding that

that's the ideal physique and anything less is terrible. Yeah, absolutely. And the reality of the situation is that a minority of the population even exercises. We're not even getting into training yet on this discussion, but a minority of the population exercises. The last time I looked at the recorded statistics on this, it was somewhere around 23-ish percent. So a quarter of the population does some form of muscle-strengthening exercise. That's what I was looking at. Yeah. All right.

Total exercise is probably not much better. You know, I'd say for some reason 30% pops in my head. I'd have to look that up again. This is of the total U.S. population? This is based, yeah, the U.S. population. This is based on survey data. So they sampled probably large. So we got to throw out like little kids, you know, they're not going to be like exercising necessarily.

Yeah, no, this was adults, U.S. adults. Oh, it's adults. Okay. Okay. 23%, so we'll say a quarter of U.S. adults, do some form of muscle strengthening exercise. Now, that could be bands. That could be kettlebells, you know. That could be machines. Pilates. Pilates. you know, it has to have resistance, right?

Anything that can strengthen your muscles, anything that could be loaded, right? So that's not even training. That's, they're not accounting for overload, right? So now when you start narrowing down, you ask yourself, okay, how many of these people are adding weight to the bar or to whatever tool they're using? How many of them are progressively strength training? And that number gets smaller, right? Then you get down to modality, okay? Machines, barbells, kettlebells, strongmen. You know, you narrow it down to barbell, it's going to get smaller.

narrow it down to barbell, it's going to get smaller. And then when you narrow it down to barbell, you ask yourself, okay, how many of these people are adding weight year after year, okay, for more than, let's say, two years? Because at that point, you have to get creative, and you have to be committed to get stronger. And then you remove steroid use. Okay, we're talking about a minority of the population even do what we do, right? And what you and I are talking about is general strength training. You know, we're a unique segment of the population that hasn't really been studied. There's not really a name for it in academia. But we're, you know, I'm a gym owner.

You know, you're a coach. But the people that we train and even like how you and I got into it, for instance, right? You didn't start lifting weights to be a power lifter or a bodybuilder. I didn't either. We did it as part of our youth sport programs, of course, but then we continued as adults because we had to do something. I mean, I can't speak for you, but that was my mentality. It's I don't want to look like shit.

I don't want to feel like shit. I want to look better. I want to feel better. Yeah, exactly. I wasn't trying to post a total in a power lifting meet. I wasn't trying to get on stage at a bodybuilding competition. And that's part of why, that's a big part of the reason I never got into drugs because drugs are part of those things. I just enjoyed lifting weights.

Yeah, that was all it is. So that's what I was like, okay, well, I'm going to keep doing this. So we were recreational, we started out as recreational trainees. And at some point, we figured out ways to get more progress out of what we were doing. For me, it was when I met Rip that was a turning point. I had been stagnant for about 11 years at that point. I had really gotten stronger. I started lifting weights at 15. Then I'd start for three months, stop for the rest of the year, start for three months the next year, stop for the rest of the year because it was swimming. I didn, I didn't have access to a gym, you know.

It was swimming and PE class I had it my last two years. It was strength conditioning. I took that. So, you know, I was lifting for a portion of the year then stopping, then going through puberty, so adding muscle from that, you know. And at age 18, I started lifting weights at a gym. You know, I did my first bulking phase when I was 19, gained weight, lost weight. I was in and out of the gym after that for about 10 years, 9, 10 years, by the time I found RIP. program a couple years before they had a lot of overhead movements. And before that, I didn't train overhead movements real seriously. So, you know, I had somewhat of a press baseline at that

point. I didn't deadlift at all. You know, like maybe three months out of the year, I didn't put a deadlift into my program. But I've been squatting, I've been benching, I've been doing dips, and I've been doing chin-ups, you know, all those years. And those were pretty stagnant. You know, I wasn't really PR-ing the bench, wasn't really PR-ing the squat, you know. So I, you know, all those years, and those were pretty stagnant, you know, I wasn't really PR in the bench, wasn't really PR in the squat, you know, so I, you know, was in the weight room for 10 years, not really going anywhere, and I found starting strength, I learned about fractional plates, I learned the value of the deadlift, I learned that I didn't know how to move correctly. And I started, you know, and I learned how to properly apply the stress recovery adaptation model. And that's what I've been doing for the last 11 years.

You know, I've been steadily adding weight to the bar, but not to compete against other competitors. You know, I want to get stronger. I enjoy it. I enjoy the process. It's good for my brain. You know, it's just something I like to do. It's why I own a gym. It's why I do this podcast.

It's why I put content out. So the problem we run into is you and I are part of a totally different category, and the people who hire you and I are a lighter version of you and I. They're committed, but not to that point, you know? But they're committed more than the person who goes in the gym and wants to just sweat and get their heart rate up, right? Absolutely. So we're part of a brand new cadre of people, you know? Historically, people that went in the weight room were either athletes doing it as part of their sport program, they had to do some strength training, or competitive strength athletes like Olympic lifters, power lifters, strongmen, or bodybuilders who were using the equipment to try and change the way they looked. There were not just regular old people that worked desk jobs that wanted to get

as strong as they can while staying healthy and not getting hurt all the time. It wasn't get strong at all. The demographic that we service is not the get strong and ripped at all costs. And that's never been you or I either, even when I was more about leanness. I stopped at about 9% to 11% body fat. I didn't give a fuck about getting down to 5%. And even when I stopped at like 9%, I got there on accident the last time. I never got to 9% until the last time I did it. Because at that point, I went in there with a deadlift well into the 5s, a squat well into the 4s, you know, a press, a two-plate press, and almost a three-plate bench last time. So when I cut down, I got stuck at 170 and did a fat percentage test. I was 9%.

I'm like, holy shit, I've never been single digit you know yeah right but uh right you know i never wanted those extremes right so the problem that we now run into is we start putting content out about what people should do in the weight room what regular people should do in the weight room non-competitors right and who comes and starts trying to troll our shit competitors yeah right exactly and then they will sit there and they anoint themselves as experts because they have a 700 squat or an 800 squat or you know 900 deadlift or whatever or they're or they're you know 225 and ripped yeah oh or that and they you know on the physique side they'll come on here and say, you're fat, or you're not even ripped, or your arms are skinny, or something like that, right? You don't even look like you train, man.

Yeah, exactly. Then on the performance side, you'll get powerlifters, typically. Usually it's powerlifters. I haven't had anybody who's not a powerlifter. They'll hop on and say, how dare you give advice when you're not that strong? on and say, how dare you give advice when you're not that strong? And when I look around, if I go to any commercial gym, you've got to seek out gyms that have these guys in them, first of all, which tells you something. The majority of people who work out are not even close to as strong as I am now. And I'm not that strong compared to the extremes. I will acknowledge it. I'll be the first

to fucking acknowledge that, man. I am not strong compared to powerlifters. But I'm not dealing with powerlifters. I'm trying to get people that don't work out to work out. And I am a lot stronger than most of them. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And guess what? So are you, Trent.

Yeah, exactly. Right. No, you make a great point. 800-pound squats and deadlifts aren't going to get new people in the gym unless they're already strong and have done something like that before. That's right. Yeah. And this is, you make a great point about the new demographic that we're talking to. you know, if you go back and watch the old bodybuilding videos or powerlifting videos from the 90s or the 80s, you can go find them all on YouTube now. It's guys like, you know, Louie from Westside or, you know, Kurt Karwoski or Ed Cohn or, you know, whatever. I don't know the bodybuilders well, but yeah, I'm sure Dorian Yates, I'm sure had a video and like this, these like underground dungeon training videos

of these guys, uh, like you said, pushing themselves to the extreme. So you've got genetic freaks pushing themselves to the extremes and achieving extreme results. And the only people who are into that were people who were also in a very small minority. A lot of guys like, you know, there were there were good athletes. I remember, who's the guy that that Rip interviewed who was in the NFL? He later became a CrossFit coach, CrossFit football. Now I think he's got his own program. Wellborn. That's who it is. Yeah, John Wellborn. Interesting guy. He had a good interview with Rip.

But anyway, so, you know, here's a guy. He was talking about that. Like, he was in college. He and a buddy were, you know, he was an offensive lineman and playing in a D1 school. And he and a buddy were really into lifting weights. Obvious, right? You know, genetic phenom and offensive lineman. Of course, he's going to be into lifting weights. And he wanted to get his bench. I think he was trying to bench 500 for the first time. And so he found the old Louie videos from Westside and, you know,

called him up and he was chasing this. But like, this is a lot of the kind of guys who were into strength training back then. And a guy like John Wellborn, even though he would tell you he wasn't the best athlete in the NFL, um, he still made it to the freaking NFL. The guy was a cream of the crop athlete. And then he trained really intelligently on top of that and became enormously strong. If you're average like me, then you're going to have to work really fucking hard to get like 40% of that. And it's going to take you a lot longer than it did John Wellborn. And guess what? You're not going to look like John Wellborn did either. And by the way,

after his playing days, he got pretty lean and the guy's jacked. He's ripped. And yeah, you're not going to look like a comic book hero. And you've got to come to terms with that. And this creates a lot of friction for us, doesn't it? because we get people, I think most people, and I don't, I'm not, I'm not deucing on this. I understand where it's coming from, but I think most people get into training because they want to look better. They want to change the way their body looks right there. It's aesthetics first. And, um, that's fine. You know, I don't think that's a good reason to train long-term because for most of us, we're just not going to ever look that impressive aesthetically. But I understand it. It's not a bad impulse.

But the thing is, people, I think, come to us today that are much more average folks that have this idea that they're going to have a comic book physique like the WWE wrestlers. Which, by the way, a lot of those WWE guys were D1 and pro material. They were. A lot of them.

Some of them, yeah, made the cut or, you know, just barely missed the cut for, like, NFL teams. So they are high-level genetic cream of the crop pro athletes. Yeah, like The Rock, he basically got injured. That's why he didn't play in the NFL. He played at Miami, right? Goldberg did play in the NFL, correct? Oh, he might have, yeah.

I know Brock Lesnar tried. Yep. He was, gosh, he did real well in the MMA. He sure did. In his 40s, you know? Yeah, so a lot of them were pro athlete material some of them were too degenerate to stand you know to stay in to go into pro sports you know right yeah you know they i guarantee they all have around 40 inch vertical jumps if you were to test these guys if you look at what they're able to do

uh kurt angle just came to mind yeah the, the guy has an Olympic medal. Yeah, exactly. But there's been this lie, and it's not new. It's just gotten, I think it's reached more people now because of social media. There's this lie that it's all related to effort, and it's simply not. I mean, when I was growing up know it was widely accepted that michael jordan was one of a kind right and that professional basketball players were unique individuals you know they had to be a certain height for it you know they're tall they can jump high and then out of them michael jordan was even more unique like you just knew this and you knew that no amount of basketball playing was going to get you to that level.

Right. And you can probably apply this to any other sport. I think you could safely say that, yeah, this probably applies to other sports. That's why when you're in youth sports, some people make the team and some people don't. And some people don't even try out because it just, they're not drawn to it because it's not something that selects for their skills, right? We saw this as kids. I can't speak to people in younger generations, but we saw this as kids. There were high school sports, and you tried out for them, and some people made the team, some people didn't, right? So you kind of understood that some people were more gifted for physical activities than others. We saw it

academically. There were guys that would show up to class, barely study, and get A pluses, you know, and then other guys had to work harder to, you know, get a B or even a C in some cases, right? Somehow, in the weight room, there's this idea that your outcomes are purely related to effort and nothing else. Right. And it doesn't even check out with other attributes, you know, other talents, other skills, right? We accept this with other skills, but for some reason in gym culture, in the weight room, there's this idea that is all related to effort and nothing else. And that is bullshit, you know? Right.

Effort gives you a delta. You go from point A to point B, but it doesn't mean that you're going to get to the same point B I'm going to get to or that I'm going to get to the same point B that Brock Lesnar got to, you know? Yeah. Like, point B is different for everybody. You know, if you lift weights and add weight to the bar, you're going to get stronger. Now, there's numbers that we see frequently. So we might say, yeah, most guys are going to deadlift 315. And, you know, a lot of them will probably get to 405. You know, we'll say that, you know.

I think it's a safe thing to say. That's just speaking from our experience working with a variety of people. And we say a variety of people. We've worked with physical idiots, you know. And we've worked with old people, too. You know, I've seen old guys. I'm thinking of a guy in particular right now. He's 75.

And he says anybody younger than him is a young guy, by the way. But he's a good friend of mine. And he pulled 315. I think he pulled over that recently. I can't remember the exact number, but he definitely pulled 315 at 75. He's 6 foot. He's 185. Yeah, that's great. kind of built a little on the more slender side, you know, so, uh, not wide and thick and huge. And he's always been on the thinner side his whole life. You know, he never, he only got over 200 pounds once he said when he was younger and went to the air force and that was it. So, you know, he tends to, you know, lean thinner, you know, smaller frame, slender build, you know, he's not a thick, big power lifter. And he had 75 with a fucked up vertebrae, L4, L5, bad shoulder. He's had neuropathy, you know, a bunch of ailments, you know, it's a 75 year old body, you know? Yeah, right.

And he deadlifted 315. So, you know, I don't think it's unfair to say most guys will deadlift 315. Absolutely. But where it gets ridiculous is when I post up a 315 bench press or a 500 for five deadlift, and a power lifter comes in and says, that's all you're doing? Who are you to give advice? And I'm like, dude, you live in a fucking bubble, first of all. Your baseline was probably higher than mine or your novice effect was probably greater than mine, most likely. Or you're taking drugs, too, on top of it.

I don't fucking know and I don't care. or you're taking drugs too on top of it. I don't fucking know and I don't care. The whole point is that, yeah, I'll sit here and say, most men are going to deadlift 315 if they want it, and it'll happen pretty quick. I've seen it enough times with enough people with a variety of different genetic makeups. But when you come in here and say that deadlifting 500 pounds for five

is a routine thing that anybody can do that just really shows how low your IQ is and how detached you are from reality, you know? Yeah, it really does. You know, a very committed lifter with the right set of genetics could probably get there. I mean, I just did. You know, I gained body weight, my deadlift went up. So to Rip's point, you're right, Uncle Rip. I suppressed my body weight and I suppressed my progress. I'm seeing it now. At age 40, I allowed my weight to get to 207, all-time high.

I've never weighed this in my life. And I was doing it for the sole purpose of bench pressing more weight. And I still had to work my ass off for it. That's a whole other topic. You know, I've been benching since I was 15, so that one's the most stubborn for obvious reasons. Because despite all the stupidity I was doing, I did a lot of volume on chest pressing with dumbbells and barbells, and I did full range of motion. So even though I'm training it properly now, eking more out of that is just going to be harder for that reason and nothing else. But back to the point, the bonus of that was that my deadlift just started going up.

And I'm like, well, fuck, rip's on to something. I just put 35 pounds on my 5RM. And, you know, I did some progressive overload in the last three years at higher rep ranges. It just wasn't transmuting until I ate more food and let my weight go up. Then all of a sudden, the deadlift started going up. So that's an interesting topic for another day. But my point is that 500 for five at age 40, 11 years of serious training, you know, 25 years in the weight room, 11 years of serious, steady training. And no, knock on wood, debilitating injuries, that's not a bad result. You know, I'm not bragging.

I don't want a fucking trophy. But what I'm saying is most people that are not working out right now will probably never do anything close to them. Probably won't pull 500 for one. And I've trained thousands of people. And you're not going to sit here and tell me I'm an incompetent trainer. There are challenges you run into with regular people with mediocre to below average genetics for strength training. Try training somebody who's very good at long distance running and see if they'll casually deadlift 500 because it's just only 500. Everybody around me is pulling six, seven, eight.

It's only 500. Go get a long distance runner and try to get them to 500. See how long it takes you. See if it's even possible. See how many injuries he gets and how much bullshit he has to deal with. See if he even stays motivated enough to do it. So you power lifters that are going to jump on the feed and talk a bunch of shit about this and say that I'm not entitled to an opinion, go train some subpar talent and see

how far you get versus drugging your way through the problem or relying on mommy and daddy's genes to get through the problem. In other words, go fuck yourself. Beautifully said. Beautifully said. A round of applause, please, for Dr. Santana. You and Jordy can throw that in there. Yeah, I agree. And all this also extends to your physique. This is another one where somehow people can accept. They're like, okay, yeah, I get it. I get it. I, I understand what you're saying. Listen, I don't want to pull 600. I don't even want to pull 500. Uh, maybe it'd be cool to pull 405, but listen, I just want to look jacked. I just want to look like that guy. I want to look like that guy over there. And when they point at that guy, it's usually some guy on Instagram or YouTube who is somewhere between 5'10 and 6'2 and they're 10% body fat at over 200 pounds, 200 to 225. Right? That's the guy that they're pointing at. I want to look like that. Wait, dude, did you just say pull 405? I think you meant bench, bro. Yeah, I know. Right. Yeah. So this is what the power lifters, but even leaving that aside,

the regular folks will have this idea. They're like, yeah, I get it. I'm not going to be a really big, strong power lifter. I'm not going to do any of that. But, but I just, I just want to look like this guy. And then they point to a guy who's over 200 pounds at 10% body fat and isn't some crazy height, right? Not super short, not super tall. crazy height right not super short not super tall and and you realize this and you're like okay you're pointing at somebody that has 180 pounds of lean mass or more right if they weigh 225 they would have what 200 pounds of lean mass that's right percent body fat okay that's a lot of fucking muscle you know there's a little bit of skeleton in there and other connective tissue but like that's just a lot of skeleton in there and other connective tissue, but like, that's just a lot of muscle. That is an enormous amount of muscle muscle to pack on a frame. And, um, if you're average or of course, if you're below average, it's not going to happen. There's a, there is a ceiling to how much muscle you can put on that frame and how lean you can be while doing so that is, um, well below these people that you're pointing at.

You know, I have to think a lot of this, we blame Fight Club for this. That's where it started. Sort of the modern, like skinny, because it's a skinny physique, right? But skinny ripped physique, right? Brad Pitt was probably 160 pounds in that movie. And he's, is he six foot tall? Do you know? He's somewhere around six feet tall. I think probably. He's an actor. They're usually under six feet, but maybe. Okay. He might be 5'10". He's not short. Let's put it that way. And he guys like 160 pounds. Right. But this guy, you know, he's, he was ripped, but he was also

skinny. And I, you know, the, the, the the the trend has changed you know nowadays with like these tv series we have and like a lot of comic book characters on in movies and in tv uh uh tv shows video game characters there's a lot of that right in the popular culture now these guys are beefier now um because comic book heroes are you know they gotta be strong another one looks like another 185 yeah another 185 right um but so these guys have beefed up but you're also looking at that um guys who are still carrying a lot of muscle mass at a low body fat percentage on a fairly normal sized frame. Let's put it that way. And, um, you know, to expect that you're going to be able to do that and not apply, I mean, you know, to be, to be,

to expect that you're going to be able to do that in the first place at all is, um, that's a lot, that is a lot to expect. Probably not going to happen. It's probably not going to happen. that's a lot. That is a lot to expect. Probably not going to happen. It's probably not going to happen. But then to also expect that you're not going to put in incredibly hard power lifter effort and try to chase big, big, big numbers and then have that kind of physique is also unrealistic, right? You're going to have to chase some big, big numbers. And we've already said, you know, if you're just, if you're average, you're going to have to chase some big, big numbers. And we've already said, like, you know, if you're just, if you're average, you're going to have to work really fucking hard to get a fraction of those big numbers, which means also your physique is just going to be a fraction of those amazing,

pumped up comic book physiques that you see in popular media. Absolutely. And, you know, I just like, this, uh, it's crazy because it gets, it gets, I have like, you know, 40 year olds, 45 year olds, 50 year olds that, that clearly want this and get caught up in it. They're like, dude, I don't know. I've been lifting for like two years, three years, whatever it is, four years. And I don't look like that. You know, it's like, I want to be jacked. I want to be lean. And I'm like, okay, listen, um, you work in it, you're 45, you're not a natural athlete. Um, you know, you work 55 hours a week and you train with a barbell for three to four hours a

week and you do a little bit of conditioning, which the three to four hours a week. And you do a little bit of conditioning. Which the three to four hours a week is not the problematic part. That's not the problem. That's not the problem. If it gets heavy enough, that's fine. That's right. That's not the problem. But let's just put things into perspective, right?

I'm trying to kind of line up of, you know, where training fits. And then, and it's like, oh yeah, by the way, you're about 80% good on your diet. You know, about 80% of the time. That's pretty good. That's what I just described right there is pretty damn good, right? You can have a damn good training career doing exactly what I just said, right? But you work a lot, you got a family, you have other priorities. Um, you are

not perfect on your diet. You're about 80% there, 80% of the time. That puts a pretty low ceiling on what your physique is ever going to look like compared to these comic book physiques that you see. Absolutely. So just put things in perspective to start with. 100%. And when we're talking about Hollywood actors, these people are being cast for their face usually. Their face and then obviously their talent. They've got to be able to act. I don't know.

There's debates about that, but I'm not a film guy. I'm sure there's a lot of legacy hiring in Hollywood. Yeah, yeah. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're just going to talk about the basics. You want someone for a movie. Can they play the role convincingly? And do they look a certain way, typically, face you know their build matters too you know if

you want just a normal looking guy they don't have to be they don't have to be jack they just have to look normal in clothes you know right versus a big fat guy or a big tall guy you know like jaws and james bond you know he was tall he had the menacing you know face and the right the teeth you know um but uh you, typically they want a general appearance, a certain look in terms of their face and their ability to carry out the role convincingly, right? But then sometimes they get, they try to audition for roles that require more muscle mass, right?

These guys have never lifted in their life. So how the hell do they even know that they can put the muscle mass on, right? I mean, they think they're going to hire a trainer, which they do. But then one of the pieces of advice they're going to get from that trainer is, hey, dude, or like your fucking guy at GNC, hey, brother, in six months, you're going to need to take some steroids for that, you know? Yeah, right. You want to put on 25 pounds of lean in six months, you're going to need some steroids, brother.

Yeah, stick this in your butt every morning. Yeah, so the Hollywood guys are – that's a good example of why drug use tends to end up in the mix. Those guys have no idea what they're capable of in the weight room in a lot of cases because it's not what they spent their life doing. They spent their life acting and if they've been in you know roles that don't require muscle mass and then now they want to try out for a role that does require muscle mass and they actually put it on it's not that their trainer's a wizard it's that they're probably taking drugs you know occasionally they get lucky and have the genes you know but you typically find that out in the first you know the first few months with the novice effect you know the one i think of is that old movie american history x where edward norton uh you know he has abs and you know his arms are developed oh yes

yeah apparently arnold called him and asked him if he was on if he took what he took and he denies ever taking anything now you know i don't know if that's true i've watched it recently and you know back then everybody was big because i wasn't big you know so i thought maybe he did take drugs but then i watched it recently i'm like hey no he's actually not that's probably novice effect he was probably one of these ecto mesomorphs that just never lifted weights you know um but at the same time i don't know what the time constraints were you know if he did take drugs that's what he has to look like for the film. Who gives a fuck? He's acting in a movie. He needs to look a certain way. So you're getting paid millions of dollars to appear a certain way on screen, and drugs are

going to get you there, and you've evaluated the risks of the side effects against the benefits of taking them. I think in a lot of cases, as long as they're not going overboard, which I don't think they are, they're not bodybuilders and strongmen and people like that are taking way more drugs than actors, I would assume. I don't know. I'm not a drug coach. But the reason by which those groups are taking it versus somebody who's just appearing on screen for a movie and has the camera that can help, you know, enhance that. And I would guess that the use is going to be different, you know, and I would say that higher use probably skews towards the athletes that are

trying to win and perform at all costs versus the guy that just needs to look a certain way and has the help of production equipment. Right. But the main point, you know, I kind of went on a tangent there. The point is these guys don't know what they're capable of yet. Just like you and I don't know what we're capable of when we haven't lifted before.

They just know they want to be muscle-bound for this movie, and they're going to hire somebody to train them. But as you and I know as coaches, you start training somebody for a few months. Some guys you see it come on fast, and some guys you don't. What happens when you don't and that person has millions of dollars on the line, right? They're going to take drugs. Yep, exactly. It's not that we're saying that, oh, it's impossible for you to look jacked by lifting weights.

What we're saying is in a lot of cases, it's improbable that you're going to gain 30 pounds of muscle mass in your first couple years of training or even over the course of a training history, you know? Like, you're starting out on the thin side and you put on 10 pounds in a year of lean mass, you did pretty fucking good, you know? Yes. That's not a bad thing. And guess what? When there's no drugs involved and you're not naturally lean, you're gaining body fat. And I'm just going to call it, I'm just going to tell it like it is. You're going to gain more body fat than muscle mass in a lot of cases beyond the first year. And the first year, it might be 50-50, you know, if you've done things reasonably well.

But the longer you're in this game, you are literally leveraging fat. Kind of like how people borrow money, leverage capital. Is that the term, Trent? Yeah. You were in that business in your past life, right? how people borrow money, leverage capital. Is that the term, Trent? Yeah. You were in that business in your past life, right? Sure. Is that the word, leverage capital? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you're leveraging fat to lift more weight, and then you lose the fat, and you're leaner, right? So this was what we originally wanted to talk about, but then all this stuff is kind of tied together, and we're going to have to probably change the title of this fucking thing. All this stuff is kind of tied together, and we're going to have to probably change the title of this fucking thing. But when you look at BMI standards or body composition standards, which are mostly random number generators, I implore you all to read my article on the Starting Strength website called Barbell Training and Body Composition, or Body Composition and Barbell Training, I think is what it's actually called. And I go into the history of this.

Another good book by Glenn Gasser, he was a professor of mine at ASU, it's called Big Fat Lies. And he does it more, he takes a more of an academic approach to it. And he breaks down the history behind all this obesity stuff in public health in terms of guidelines, recommendations, the health risk that has been reported, etc. And he was my professor. That's where I learned about this. risk that has been reported, etc. And he was my professor, that's where I learned about this. And then I kind of wrote my synopsis of it in the context of lifting weights a couple years back, I think it might have been 2020. But when we're talking about BMI, for instance, you have underweight, overweight, obese class one, obese class two, and obese class three or morbid obesity,

right? And it's all based on height and weight. Training status is not taken into account. Frame size is not taken into account. So you have limits here, right? Some people are naturally muscular without lifting too. That's not taken into account. It's just height and weight and nothing else. So it's already limited. The way those numbers were derived, practically a random number generator. I mean, I'm not going to go into the whole history of that here. I've written about it. We could talk about that in a different episode,

but these data are very limited. The MetLife tables, those are bullshit. There were some people that were heavier and had a lower risk profile than some people that were lighter and not necessarily lighter by super underweight. I think the overweight category had a lower health risk than the normal weight category. Yeah. So all these numbers that they've come out with in terms of, you know, if you're heavier, you're unhealthy.

You know, the methodology behind that was not good. But that's not even the important thing. Activity level and lifestyle is the important thing. thing. Activity level and lifestyle is the important thing. A fat guy who sits at a desk all day, then goes home and sits on the couch and eats a bunch of junk food and doesn't really do anything physical is very different than a guy who weighs exactly the same as him, is the same height as him, but lifts weights, stays conditioned, and sleeps well and manages his stress, right? Absolutely. So the central theme of the fit-fat people in academia is that adiposity, or your fatness,

is one risk factor for cardiometabolic disease. Another name I'll throw out there for those of you who like academics. Stephen Blair, he published a lot of epidemiological research on aerobic fitness and fatness. It's the fit-fat thing. And found that when you control for aerobic fitness, a lot of those cardiometabolic risk factors disappear. So, you know, if you're aerobically fit and fat, you are healthier than somebody who is aerobically unfit and fat. Now, let's bring it all home. What are we recommending to people that are underweight and new to this? We're recommending that they gain weight. And if

you're brand new, you're going to gain a good even ratio of muscle and fat realistically. You might be able to skew it more towards muscle in some cases. There's a lot of variability in terms of how people will respond to strength training and calorie surplus. But in general, we're suggesting that you gain weight, which means you're going to gain fat, which means you're probably going to gain more fat than muscle. What is it going to look like? That's subjective, but it's not going to look as bad as you think. Your traps are going to get bigger.

Your shoulders are going to get bigger. People are going to think you're big and strong. You're not going to have visible abs, most likely, but you don't need to. You don't need to. You know you're at a greater risk You're not going to have visible abs, most likely, but you don't need to. You don't need to. You know, you're at a greater risk of death from an acute situation if you are underweight than overweight or obese or, you know, class 2 obese, right? Absolutely. If you have a heart attack and you're 140 pounds because you want visible abs at 5'10", you might not survive that heart attack, but if you're 200 pounds and fat, you probably will survive that. Chronically speaking, I'd say it's the same thing. You get

older, you lose more muscle mass, and you're already skinny to begin with. You're more likely to die than the fat guy, right? I'm not saying it's good to be fat. I'm not saying it's good to be very skinny. I'm saying that there is this standard now that anything over 15% body fat is considered obese. I had a fucking bodybuilder went on my page and said that, and then I thought about it. At first, I had a smart-ass response to him, but then I started thinking about it, and I'm like, this is what these people believe, that the further it gets from 15%, this arbitrary number that does not take training into account, does not take muscle mass into account, this arbitrary number, that anything above that, because they don't like the way it looks, they, meaning bodybuilders, don't like the way it looks, you know, therefore you're fat. And

then they start citing papers about 25 percent body fat being associated with some sort of health risk. I'm guessing it's cardiometabolic risk, right? Because they never cite anything. They just say this, right? And, you know And I generally remember in academia reading about this, that 20%, 25%, 30% body fat is not great for your health. But again, sedentary populations that aren't lifting weight and are deconditioned. So what happens if you start lifting weights, gaining weight, and let's say you are 15% to 25% body fat, right? And let's say you're... We're not going to use 15% because that's the low end. We're going to say, let's say you are 15 to 25% body fat, right? Let's say you're, we're not going to use 15 because that's the low end. We're going to say, let's say you're 20 to 25% body fat, because that's probably where a lot of people end up when they overeat and get to a BMI that allows them

to lift more weights. Yes, BMI, I'm using that in context here, height for weight. They get to a good BMI that allows the weight on the bar to go up, that aches and pains to stop and minimizes risk of injury. They're going to be probably 20 to 25% body fat in a strength sport. Look at shot putters, look at power lifters, look at strongmen. We're not saying that you're going to do that, but if your goal is maximum force production, which, you know, if your best squat's 135, that should be your goal for a little bit. You know, not to get to 435 or 535, but fuck, man, 225, maybe 275. I mean, you'll figure it out as you go along, but if you want that to move productively, if you want to get your 115-pound bench to 185 pounds maybe, you're going to have to put some weight on.

You're going to be quote-unquote soft, as the bodybuilders say, but you're not getting on a stage as a bodybuilder. And you're not going to be unhealthy if your diet is well balanced, if you are staying active outside of the weight room. If you're an IT guy that's sitting at a desk all day and then you're just lifting weights, it's not enough for you. You need to do cardio. Okay. When Rip says you don't have to do cardio, back when he was doing this, when he was our age, I don't want to make fun of him for being old. I don't see him as old. He's my friend, you know, and it's, I don't see him that way. It's hard for me to say he's old, but you know, when he was, I'm 40, when Rip was 40, I think people were generally more active, you know, that was in the nineties. You know, now people have become less and less active.

There's jobs now that weren't around then. And when you're in a metro area in general, people are less active because you're, you know, it's easier to get to things, you know, it's easier to do things. Things are more accessible and convenient. So yes, IT guy, physician, accountant, pick your job. If you're sitting all day or standing in place all day, yes, you need conditioning in addition to the lifting to offset all that sedentary time. If you're doing those three things, the diet you're following to gain weight is fair and reasonable.

You're not eating a bunch of Big Macs all day or donuts. You know, you're trying to eat a well balanced diet and you're active outside the weight room and you're lifting heavier and heavier. You're going to put that weight to productive use. And by the end of it, if you're satisfied with your strength, if you're completely satisfied, let's say squatting 265 for a set of five. And you're like, dude, I just don't like carrying this extra weight. And I've lifted enough. And you know, realistically, from a health standpoint, you probably have, you know, you've pulled into the threes and you've squatted into the twos, probably okay, you know, then okay, you know, lose some of the weight, you'll lose a little bit of strength, that's fine, your deadlift will probably keep going up. And you take it off,

right? But the main thing is, yes, there are health risks with being fat, but you are offsetting those by incorporating the types of activities we're talking about. I've seen guys that do this. They bulk up and they lift, but then they're sitting on their ass all day and I've seen bad blood sugar data that I didn't like. And I hammered their ass about conditioning. I dropped their carbs down, I adjusted their diet and try to do things to allow them to keep the weight on so they can keep getting stronger. And it seemed to work, you know, but the conditioning was the big one. That was the biggest, they had the biggest effect on it. So, uh, yeah. All right. I'm going to take another direction

here. Agreed on all those things. I want to take another direction here. Let's be real. The reason that most of y'all want to be 15% body fat and jacked and lean looking is because you think that will make you more sexually attractive. Oh, we need my ex-girlfriend on here for this. Right. I mean, I would like to like there's a part of me would like to say like this is a problem mainly for, you know, young guys and girls, you know, young men and women. But it's not right. It's the same. I see the same issue with like 55 year old guys. It's weird. Right. That there's there's this obsession with sexual attractiveness. And a lot of men believe that they are, if they are jacked and lean, which means showing abs, then that will make them more sexually attractive. And look, I'm only 35, about to be 36 here in about a month and a half, but that does not seem to be true at all. Right. It just does not check out i mean physical appearance does play into it right it's not not a zero factor right but it's um it is but one factor among many and i don't even think it's the primary factor uh because i see people that have very

attractive mates you know very physically attractive mates. They're mates that can be attractive for other reasons because they have, you know, other desirable characteristics. But, um, you know, it's just stick with physical attractiveness for now. I see people that have very physically attractive mates that are not particularly attractive themselves. Right. You see this all the time. Um, you know, I used to used to make fun of uh sitcoms and stuff because you'd always see like the kind of fat schlubby guy with the super hot wife that's the that's that's the every sitcom seems to be like that but you know what that's actually closer to reality than not um when you go out there so being lean is rip said it in a and you guys interviewed we did this you guys know exactly what he just

said you've seen the beautiful woman with the fat guy yeah or just three years or just like an average looking guy with the dad bod right doesn't have to be or that i'm not i'm not saying a big fat disgusting slob right but just a kind of fat doughy soft dad bod kind of fat, doughy, soft, dad bod kind of guy, right? Yeah. Seen that a lot of times. That or the fat guy. Right. It's more common than the guy with visible abs. That's right. That's right.

Every single one of you motherfuckers has seen that. You have seen that, right? And if you haven't, you're just, you're 19 years old and you just haven't seen much of the world yet. Yeah. And look, Rip said it. and look rip said it and when we interviewed him however many episodes ago that was like being super ripped and lean and all this it's for other dudes if you were male and you have these characteristics it's for other dudes that's who it that's who it's attractive to here i'll let you do with that what you will. Here's the funny thing.

Jordy's going to cut a clip of this episode, and I'm going to post it. Probably somewhere along the lines of what you just said. And there's going to be a swarm of assholes that come on and say that we're full of shit, and I'm fat. 15% body fat is too heavy. Abs are better. All this stuff, right? Key word, dudes. There will not be a single female that comments on that.

Yeah. Not a single one. And there hasn't been to this day. Every time I put something up that sparks this discussion, all the responses about looks come from men. That's right. all the responses about looks come from men. That's right. And then it just blows their mind when I say,

at what point did I say I'm in the business of impressing other men? Right. You know? Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it's like they're not ready for it. I haven't really gotten a good response to that. I think one guy said, well, what about women? I didn't respond to that because I'm like, well, let's see if a woman chimes in. And guess what?

Not one did. I recently had a guy that was sent to me by a female colleague. And, you know, he's been maintaining his abs, but now he's gotten the bug to get strong. And he's finally loosening up and willing to gain 10 pounds from visible abs. And you and I both know trying to use more. I told him to ask the gal, and she's fine with it. I asked him to ask her what she thinks if a man's abs are more visible than hers. And question number two, how she would feel if a man's legs are smaller than hers.

I know what the answer is because I know who he's asking the question to. But he was just cracking up. I'm like, no, write that out. You'll be fine. She's a good sport. You'll be fine. And I think he did, and he's going to find out real quick. This woman and many others have told me it is unattractive for a man's legs to be smaller

than a woman. She says it makes her feel fat if she sees that. And two, if his abs are more visible than her abs, she feels fat. It just makes her insecure about her own body. But then the more common thing you hear, and you've heard this on content with women on it talking about it, when they see that, and you can tell when somebody naturally looks like that versus somebody who's worked hard to look like that. When women see that, they often think that you're more into yourself than them and you're spending so much time on that are you going to allocate your time

to them are you going to allocate your time to a child if you reproduce you know that's right yeah a lot of women are looking for um security in a mate right and um yeah, as someone who is self-interested is not going to be a secure place. And security means like, you know, the security of like a stable place, a stable income, also a stable emotional state. that's just an absolute, you know, Nazi about their diet because they got to keep this artificially low level of leanness all year long, that's not a very stable household to be in. No. You know, that's a whole other rabbit hole, but yes. Yeah. So, you know, so I think, like, let's just put it on the table here.

It's like a lot of this is about perceived sexual attractiveness. And I can hear it. I can hear, like, some young guys who young guys who are like i don't know man i think this guy's full of shit they're not all young anymore though dude i've got abs well i'm talking about like guys in college like oh i've got abs and i pull a lot of ass on tinder right like you know i'm doing pretty good for myself like you're just you're just a hater um, guess what? The good wife material you're missing out on. And by the time that you wake up to that and you're like, oh, you know, I, in fact, the women who are into the bodied for a one night stand, by the time that you get over that and you're 28, 28 or 38, you know, so it takes some people longer than others, all of the women that would be good marriage material

are gone. They're long gone. And everyone else you'll be looking for, you'll be looking at is gonna have a lot of baggage. And think about that for a minute. Well, I mean, these people, I don't know why I'm even bothering to talk to these people. They're not going to listen to me.

They're not going to listen to me, but I'm just going to tell you that. Think about that. The kind of woman that would be really into you just for your body is not the woman you want anyway. um so i i yeah the the the physique thing is just like it's it's just it's the more the longer that i do this the crazier it is because it's out of control it's out of control and the thing is like i i don't know about you but i when i go to a strength lifting meet uh i've been to a whole bunch at wichita falls and a handful at you other, other gyms in other parts of the country. Most of the, most of the people there, these people are all strong, right? You know, these people are, you know, they train hard, but they're average people. There's a hand, there's a few outliers that are really strong and they're the power lifter types we were talking about that have a lot of potential, but it's not, it's like two or three people at the whole meet, right? Chase and Cordova. The other 45 people there are, are various forms of average. And you have some people that have trained like 12 years that are lifting there that have done pretty damn good for themselves, but they're still average. And you

have some people who are brand new that are just getting started for their first time. Right. Um, started for their first time. Right. It's a pretty normal slice of the population. And I don't see very many, like the number of lean ripped people up there that are lifting big weights is small. It's people that are just, you can tell are naturally built like that. They're these kind of ecto mesomorphic kind of somewhere in that somatic type. Yeah. And it's again, it's just, it's usually just like maybe three or four people out of that entire group of 40 to 50 lifters. Everyone else is a normal body, what I will call a normal body fat percentage, but also muscular, right? So a lot, you know, all the other guys are hanging around somewhere around 20%. You know, some of the bigger

guys are 25. Some of the smaller guys might be closer to 15, but they're all hanging around 20%. And for the women, I'm not as good off the dome with women's body fat percentages, but the women are the same equivalent, but for women. So I don't know whether that'd be 25, 30 or 30%. I'm not as familiar with women's body fat percentages. It's pretty well established that carrying extra body fat in and of itself is not a risk factor.

It's when all the other lifestyle things come along with it. Yeah. So what I'm getting at is that, okay, you've got these normal people that are really strong and a few outliers in this group. They all look good. They look like healthy, vibrant people. You can tell they look very different when you're in that crowd. It's very different from going to the mall and taking a random 50 people that you see and observing that group. Like the physical condition, the body habitus of these people is much more vibrant and good looking, right? That's what I see. Now,

these crazy sex-obsessed bodybuilders on the internet would look at those people and be like, man, look at all these fat people. They don't even look like they lift. I had a bodybuilder say 15% body fat or higher is obese. Right. But I'm just telling you, you take these 50 people at a strength lifting meet and side by side with 50 people from the shopping mall, right? Same age and all that kind of, you know, it's just a random group. These people look a lot of TV and you're seeing all these, these, you know, curated physiques, you lose touch with the fact that like, you can look really good and vibrant to people. And most people aren't looking for you to be veiny and ripped. Like they're just

not, they're just be like, wow, that guy guy looks good he looks good in a t-shirt also when do you take it what what are all these places that you're taking your shirt off all the time are you just walking around with your shirt off like a like a dumbass on tiktok like that like that's come on like how often are you really taking your shirt off you know it's old now it's it's crazy to me that's been what 16 years but remember the dark night rises yes i do i know the scene that you're about to talk about yeah yeah if you start talking to people if you sample a group of people that is outside of gym culture, just your regular rank and file person, and ask them to describe Bain's physique, they're going to use one word.

What do you think it is? Maybe two. Oh, Bain's? Yeah. Oh, huge. Yeah, huge. Massive. Or big and strong.

Yeah, dude looks huge. They're not going to call him fat. They're not going to call him fat. He was probably 20% to 25% body fat. And me and my friend, if you watch that movie again, you'll see when he's standing there in the sewer, and you'll see him kind of shaking his hand and twitching his thumb like you see lifters do before a deadlift. Yeah. Yep. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. My buddy pointed it out to me. He's like, he's a lifter, dude. And we were cracking up. Because we know what I'm talking about? Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. My buddy pointed it out to me. He's like, he's a lifter, dude. And we were cracking up because we know it's not Tom Hardy. I think it was a stunt double, right? Okay.

Yep. Yeah. He's like, dude, the guy that was a stunt double is a lifter. He's like, look, he's doing the hand twitch thing. Right. Yep. Yep. That's just an aside for those of you who are enthusiasts here.

But what scene were you thinking of? Okay. I was thinking of oh okay so i don't remember what all the titles but the first uh the first of the the uh oh gosh uh the first of the christian bale batmans of that series right yeah the uh batman begins batman begins there you go so there's this scene where he's like uh it's towards the beginning of the movie where christian bale is talking to alfred and he's in like his bedroom or whatever in this huge mansion right and he like drops down he like gets out of bed you know he's shirtless he's pretty jacked looking and he drops down and

starts doing a bunch of push-ups you know right yeah and we're kind of showing like okay this is batman you know he's this is the guy underneath the suit. He's jacked, right? Yeah. And he's looking a lot more jacked and ripped than, you know, Michael Keaton. Oh, yeah. And, yeah, what's funny is, like, you go back to those movies. And this was still, like, again, this was not that far removed from. 2005. Yeah, not that far removed from Fight Club. Yeah, about seven years, eight years apart.

That's right and so um we all thought back then i remember because i you know that was i was at the age where you know i was in uh high school then i'd be like oh man that's like this guy's super ripped you know he's super jacked and gosh he was probably he was probably 15 body fat yeah christian christian bale in that movie was 15-18% body fat. Yeah, and he looks great, but nowadays, I think the bodybuilder dude that complains on your

Instagram would be like, man, he's kind of fat looking. We thought he was like, oh my god, dude, that physique is awesome. I would love to look like that guy. I thought he was solid. He's like a medium-sized male. Yeah, he's probably was solid, you know? Yeah. He's like a medium-sized male, you know? Yeah. He's probably, what, 200 pounds, you know?

I think he was over 200 in that. I think he's taller, right? Yeah. I don't know how tall the guy is, but yeah, I'd say he's probably like, I'd say 205-ish in that movie. And here's the thing, guys. You can do that. You can achieve that.

And for, I'd say for a fair number of men, that's achievable. You know, if you're a really hard gainer, and you're really skinny fat, like you're 160 pounds of 30% body fat and have a hard time with this, okay, maybe not. But, and you exist, you know, I'm not making fun of you. But you know, I gotta be realistic here. But I'd say for most men, that's, it's a fair result to achieve, and maybe not quite that big, you know, but also remember, maybe quite that big, actually, because remember, the cameras add 20 pounds. People don't know this. So he probably, you know, I think they said he was over 200, but he might have been slightly under, you know, but he's tall. So sure, you could probably achieve some version of that

long-term, but to get there without drugs, you're looking at years of training, and you're going to have to get probably, quote-unquote, softer than that. You're going to have to get 20% to 25% body fat, get strong, lose the weight, get down to like 10% to 15%, then go back up. And for a lot of you, maybe not 10% to 15%. I could get down to that fairly effortlessly. Yeah, I'd say a lot of people are going to cut down to 15% at the bottom. I'd say that's more realistic. I'd say that's more realistic. As I see, as I got stronger, I had a unique experience. I could not get far below 15 when I first started doing this because I was very bottom heavy. So my legs were pretty developed. I went into starting strength with a 315 squat. And my

lats were pretty developed because I've been chinning since I was in high school. But I didn't have a whole lot more going on. I wasn't that strong of a bencher. I wasn't that strong of a presser. And I didn't deadlift. That's the biggest one, right? So once I did starting strength, I think I went up to 192. I drank the gallon of milk. And then I got down to 168. And at that point, I was probably 15, like 14, 15. And I was with a coach who's like, yeah, you don't need to go any lower than that. Let's go up. And we went up and I didn't get stuck. I could have lost more weight if I wanted to. Like, I didn't feel like I was starving, you know? But then I went back up to 205 and then got rid of that guy, hired a different coach, went back down to 162. And at this point I was like 11, you know, I was 11. That was a bare

bottom that I can get to. And at that point, my deadlift on the way down around 185 i peaked it i got like 475 i think at 184 and i squatted 400 at that time and i think i was my best bench was 290 at that time and then when i got down i lost a lot of that strength so i think in the 160s, I was squatting 370, pulling 440, 455, something like that, and pressing 185, benching 275, right? Then I went up over a six-year span. I went up to 197 was the highest I saw on the scale, and I was probably like low 20s for body fat. Squatted 405 for five. I squatted over 440. You know, at that point, I reached a whole new level of strength.

I've never quite peaked my squat since I squatted over 400 for reps. Not quite, not well, at least. So the best I ever, ever squatted for a single is 445, but I had sore quads. My back was sore. Like I never really expressed all the strength I have on the squat. And I'm hoping to do that in the next month. But, uh, a side note. Yeah, I got up to 197. I squatted 410 for five, 445 for a single. I pulled 515 for a single. I think I rack pulled 525 for five. And I pressed 225 and I benched 310,

right? And then it was time to go back down. I tweaked my adductor and I'm like, all right, let's go down. I can't squat heavy, you know? So I went down, then I got stuck at 170. I think I may have seen 168 for a day, you know, but I got stuck at 170 and then I did a body fat test and I was 9%. And I'm like, what? I didn't even realize I got that. I mean, I could see the definition, you know? Yeah. But when I saw the single digit, that was the first time I did it and I wasn't trying to do it, you know? And that was pretty neat. You know, this time I went up to 207, you know, we'll see where I end up on the way down. But yeah, I can get below 15 now. I couldn't before because I was, I did not

have enough fucking muscle mass. So for me to get down to 9% body fat pre-starting strength, I did the math on this because I have data from those days. I'm going to do some content with that at some point. But the pre-startinging strength days i would have had to get down to like 139 to be nine percent body fat oh my god something like that because i was just not i wasn't strong i didn't have enough lean mass that's where that's where i'm coming from people i've lived this i've done the same stupid shit you've done the difference with me was i was never unwilling to gain the weight i just didn't want to fucking train you know yeah so that's what you're looking at you know if you want to hang around in the mid mid to high teens or maybe low teens you know 13 14 if you can pull it off you know anywhere from 12 to 19 percent

you know that's usually where guys like to be you know where they feel good they move good they look decent you know you could do that but not with a 135 squat and a you know 185 dead, you know, where they feel good, they move good, they look decent, you know. You could do that, but not with a 135 squat and a, you know, 185 deadlift, you know. It's not going to happen there. You need to get a little bit stronger, you know. Do you need to do 585? Probably not. I think I'm going to, hopefully, hopefully next year, you know, since this year's almost over, but I think if I eke out another set of five on the deadlift, I might get fucking

six plates, but I didn't set out to do that, by the way, people. You know, it just looks like that's in the cards for me, which means that knock on engineered wood, I'll find the real wood in a second. As long as I don't break, I think I might pull six in my lifetime, which is cool. I didn't set out to do it, though. You know, I just love this. But for you guys, yeah. You know, if you want to be like, you know, in the high hundreds, you know,

175 to 195, depending on height and, you know, 12 to 19% body fat, depending on your ability to maintain that. There's nothing wrong with that, but you're just not going to achieve that with low numbers. You're going to have to train like a lifter for a while.

And part of training like a lifter is you have to weigh what a lifter weighs. You know, you need enough leverage. And it's, you know, our version of leverage capital. You've got to leverage body fat to lift some weight. And the bodybuilders are going to tell you otherwise. And I say fuck them because, in theory, it sounds great. You can be single-digit body fat and stay between 5% and 9% and have hypertrophy. Okay, that sounds

great in theory but in practice it doesn't seem to fucking work that way yeah it doesn't work man it doesn't work i've tried it i've tried every stupid thing you've tried it doesn't fucking work and for whatever reason when you let more fat come on you get into that 15 to 25 percent range it's probably really more like 20 to 25 like like I said earlier. Yeah, I'm not going to sugarcoat that. And just train there for a while, right? Now, if you're 20 to 25% at 165, that's a different story. You're under-muscled. But I'm assuming that your BMI is now in the overweight or low obese category, right? Your body mass index. You're probably heavy and your fat percentage is 20 to 25%. But you're lifting heavier and heavier and heavier. You're not getting hurt. Your diet's fairly clean. Your

conditioning is up. So you're not huffing and puffing, moving the weight around. You're not huffing and puffing between deadlift reps. If you're doing all those things, you're probably going to be fine. You're probably going to be healthy. You're controlling for a lot of other risk factors. And you're going to get big and strong and then when you lose the weight guess what when you go back down to 175 to 195 you're going to be stronger than you would have ever been trying to train there so now you're leaner that's right more productive you look better you feel better you know i don't think you have to feel bad when you're heavy either because what i just said you know it's just it's a little more it's a little bit more maintenance you know you're tired from lifting and last thing you want to do is cardio, but care about that.

You got to do it, you know, because the risk factors are real. If you just get fat, sit at a desk all day and lift heavy, you know, some of you are at higher risk than others of developing some things. But if you keep your conditioning up, you're dropping that risk by quite a bit. If you eat a healthy diet, you're dropping that risk by quite a bit. Yep. I agree. That's been my experience. And you're not going to look like shit. I was going to say this cause you know, I know, um, I think a lot of people would say, you know, I don't have a very impressive looking physique, you know, I'm not turning heads at the beach or anything, but you know, to put it in perspective, I got down. So this happened to me, right, where over the last 18 months, I dropped from about 195, 198 down to 178. What was it when we were at a strength lifting meet in Wichita Falls a year and a half ago? That was two and a half years ago. A year and a half ago.

Two and a half years ago. Wow. Yeah. So when that happened, I was 170. I weighed myself when I went home. I didn't even think I was this light. I was like 178 pounds. I was, you know, I'd lost, you know, 20 pounds from my previous peak.

Let's highlight something there. So I saw you. You were pretty fucking skinny. I'm like, damn, dude. How much were you lifting, Trent, in that deconditioned, detrained state? Well, I was still squatting three 15 for fives. Uh, I did, um, you know, I was still pulling in the high threes for five. Um, I could still press, um, well over body weight. I could still press 200 at that point. My bench press took a big hit. I was struggling to bench much over two 25 to 35. I believe it.

struggling to bench much over 225, 235. I believe it. Yeah. But, um, yeah. Cause when I, when I've climbed back up, I'm now 193 and, uh, I've, my bench is, is, uh, I benched 255 for three sets of five. Um, bench, I'm trying to peak it out. I'm at 270 right now for triples. Uh, my press, I just pressed 207 and a half for doubles. It should have been triples. I'm gonna do it again, get triples there. Um, I just squatted three 85 for three, you know, I squatted three 65 for five. Uh, my deadlift sucks right now. Can I have it? I'm not really doing much with it, but I still pulled, um, you know, pulled four20 for, um, for some doubles the other day. Um, and I'm rack pulling 465 for five. So, um, and at 193, right. So I'm actually still a little bit lighter than I was in my previous strength peak. And you know, what's interesting is at my strongest, I was a little over 200. So it was a little bit heavier, but at my, my waist was 36 to 36 and a half inches, somewhere on there, around 36 inches.

And then I've gone through these ups and downs that I just described. And now I'm climbing back up into the mid 190s and my waist is 34 inches. And I've gone from 185 to 195 and my waist has not gone up at all. And I wear a size 44 jacket and some brands 46, but I'm a size 44 jacket in most, most brands. And I'm a size 34 pant or trouser. So I've got a 10 inch drop. That's a V shape, right? So even though I, you know, I don't have ripped abs or anything like that. I don't have, super defined and muscular. I'm muscular, but I'm just not super defined. It's because of my body fat distribution. I have that V shape. I have that, I've created that V

taper and I look really good in, you know, a blazer and a pair of trousers look good in a shirt and jeans. And don't overlook that either. Not being super lean does not mean that you can't have good body proportions and can't have a good shape to the physique, right? It's not all about striations and visible abs. Because guess what? I didn't have visible abs when I was 155 either. I carry all my fat around my stomach. I predict this though, because this happened for me. You get that deadlift well into the fives, midsection will look different. You're not going to lose all the fat, of course, you know, you store where you store. But what I've noticed is the bigger that deadlift gets, the better the midsection looks. Yeah. Yeah. i i definitely um you know my my deadlift has been

has been heavier in the past um i have pulled 500 for a single um would like to get that 500 up for for some reps um but um yeah but it'll get there it'll get there eventually i've got a lot shorter arms than you. It sucks. I forget this. I have short arms. Like, I have to get every jacket that I buy, I have to get the sleeve shortened. They're all too long for me. That's why you got the fucking bench a lot easier than I did.

Yeah, that's why my bench, yeah, that's why I benched 320. And, yeah. Anyway, so I think that's enough for today. But just some perspective, just some perspective. If all you ever compare yourself to is pop culture references, you're just in for disappointment and failure. and real people that you know, if you train and get strong, and you do your conditioning, and you eat pretty well, and you do this for a few years, you're going to look great. And you're going to look like a vibrant, healthy, physically attractive person.

That's right. Relax, motherfuckers. It's going to be okay. Yeah, it's going to be all right. All right, let's close out of here. this will probably be our last episode before christmas so to all of you who celebrate christmas merry christmas yeah merry christmas yeah um you can find me at weightsandplates.com instagram the underscore robert underscore santana uh and my gym is here metro phoenix on 32nd Street and Broadway, just south of Sky Harbor Airport in the South Mountain Village. The website's weightsandplatesgym.com.

The Instagram page is weights double underscore and double underscore plates. And this show is now on YouTube. So we should have said this in the beginning, but if you like what we had to talk about today, click that subscribe now button. Smash that like button. Ring the bell and subscribe. It's youtube.com slash at weights underscore and underscore plates. All right.

Excellent. You can find me on Instagram at marmalade underscore cream, or you can send me an email if you're interested in online coaching. My email is jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. All right, we'll talk to you all again after Christmas, in the new year. Take care. you