Weights and Plates Podcast - #89 - New Year, New Goals: Removing Your Limitations

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

      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 of Plates podcast. I'm Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. I'm here. I'm alive. That's about all I can say. Well, happy new year to those of you listening. Cause this is probably when this will be released. It'll be 2025. Yeah. Happy, happy new year to y'all.

I hope y'all had a very merry Christmas. Uh, if you can't tell, um, I got sick over Christmas and I'm still fighting that off and my whole family got sick. So it was a bit of a rough, uh, rough week in the Jones household,

but hopefully, hopefully it's, it's all uphill from here. Right. And then what you're supposed to say, is it up or down? I don't know. I don't know. I think, yeah, it's supposed to be better. It's supposed to be better. That's, that's what they say. But, um, yeah, anyway, so forgive me for my very, very froggy voice today. I'm going to just do the best I can and, you know, muddle through it. But, you know, it's New Year's today. What are we going to talk about? Are we going to talk about, like, resolutions and stuff? Isn't that what you're supposed to talk about on New Year's?

I guess we're supposed to talk about a version of that, right? Like goal setting. Goal setting. Goal setting. Are we setting goals or like, you know, actually accomplishing them? I think for some of us, you're going to continue working towards accomplishing them. You know, I accomplished some big goals last year that were multi-year in the making, you know? Yeah. And then some that I set last year, you know, and not necessarily in New Year's either. I think I had a piece of paper down, folded up in my sock drawer with goals that I wrote dated in August. And then I got them all done by the end of the year, by today.

Yeah, you've hit some big PRs lately. But, you know, so I'm curious. I know you're talking about lifting goals here. Did you have any resolutions, though, outside of fitness in 2024? And how did they go? You know, so I embarked on a multi-year quest of getting myself out of student debt. And I started this January of 2021. It just happened to be January.

It wasn't like, oh like New Year's, right? Right. I had a couple good years there because a lot of online business picked up with the pandemic. And it was actually I got an email in the beginning of the year. And it kind of showed a summary of my transactions in my business account for the previous year. And 2020 was better than 2019, 2018, 2017 because after, I'd say I was shot in March and April because the lockdowns hit, but then I'd say at the very end of April, I mean, let's go back and look. I remember it was like the very end of April, the online transactions started picking up.

And this was when I was working for another more established company at the time. Things just got really busy. People started figuring out, well, shit, I want to work out, and the gyms are closed. So online business got busier, and then in January. I remember you couldn't buy workout equipment for anything it was impossible to find everybody bought it you wanted a rack plates bar nope yeah so it was funny because i remember when everything happened i'm like well shit i had savings so i'm like okay i think i got a few months here what the fuck's going going on, you know? Yeah. And then I'd say from April of 2020 to the end of 21, it's like a good year and a half, I was just slammed more than I've ever been.

I don't know that I want to get that slammed again, to be honest. But it was – the end result was good, but, yeah, I was really fucking busy. the end result was good but yeah I was really fucking busy like online coaching like literally just breaking down workouts was like and getting back to people for diets it was like a nine hour day and I was able to do it

and I remember thinking myself I can do this for a little while you know yeah but I you can't do that now things have calmed down and I'm still in a good place. But I'm like, yeah, I don't know that I want to be that busy again, at least busy doing that.

Yeah, right. So anyways, in January, I saw the transactions. I saw that I had made more, and then I kind of sat down and told myself, okay, well, make hay when it rains. This isn't going to last forever. So let's get this debt paid off. So I don't have consumer debt. I didn't have consumer debt then.

I had a little bit of business debt from the gym. When I opened the gym, I put some of the purchases on credit. So that was a first-order business. I paid off all the gym debt, which took me just a couple months. It wasn't a lot of money. And then once I got that taken care of, then I started directing my efforts at the student debt. And I knew that was going to be a multi-year deal. And yeah, I paid for two degrees and credential and then the cost of living when I was doing my doctorate for the first year and a half that I lived here. And then once

I started, once the business got going, I didn't have to take student loans on anymore. But I went off on my own five years ago and, you know, been there ever since. And I have my gym, my little gym that serves as, you know, a local gym, a studio, my personal gym, and an office. Just been kind of doing that, but I haven't really been able to invest tons into it because I was trying to pay off all that personal debt, which was mainly for my education. They say I'm one of the few that does that, especially ahead of schedule. I think I paid it in half the time that it typically takes. When I finished my master's in 11, we'll make that the baseline because PhD came later and that was for different expenses. But yeah, it's like a 20-year loan, I think, if you pay it standard.

And I was done by 23, so 12 years since graduation. But then I really paid it down, most of it in the last four. Yeah. Gave it the old debt snowball approach or whatever they call it from... Yeah. Well, I was mostly in Avalanche, but there was a few... Avalanche. There we go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I did the Avalanche. Dave Ramsey says it doesn't work, but if you have the discipline, you can do it. I did it. It's not fun because some of those – I left all those loans individual. So every semester you get an individual loan.

Some people consolidate it into one. I never did that. That way I could – it was quasi Dave Ramsey. Because I had individual loans, I could just – when I paid one off, I felt like I got somewhere, right, versus this big number. I just did it in the order of the interest. So I had three loans. So during COVID, this was also one of the reasons that I had that fire under my ass. The loan interest rates were frozen at zero from, I think, March of 2020 to, I think, September of 23. So I wanted to get that paid off before that freeze was up. However,

I had three private loans that were a smaller portion of the balance, fortunately, and those were higher interest. So I paid those off first. And then there were three federal loans that were pre-2009 when the student loan program went direct from the feds. So like the old ones, they were federally backed, but they were issued by banks technically, but they were considered federal loans. Those carried interest during the pandemic. So those, the freeze did not apply to those. So then those were the second loans I paid off. So I paid those off next. And then after that, I just, you know, I pretended that the interest was in effect and went in the order of the ones that were adding the most interest. And I, you know, eventually got them all paid off.

And once I got them all paid off, you know, I got my car paid off. I think I underpaid taxes accidentally in 21 because it was just a jump in income that year. So I ended up paying that back as fast as I could. So I didn't have to owe Uncle Sam money. And then I paid my truck off, and then I got my retirement caught up. And, you know, now I'm on a pretty, you know, steady budget. You know, I have to deal with the typical issues a small business owner deals with of, you know, fluctuating income. But I don't have these long-term liabilities, these personal long-term liabilities weighing me down. So, you know, if I have good months, I can, you know, spend more on marketing or other things that'll help the business. You know, if I have bad months, I can pull back. That's the nice thing. I can cut expenses. Right. Because I'm not, I don't have anything that's, you know, requires me to pay large sums of money every month, you know? Right. Right. Well, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a big, big, big thing to check off. So well done there. That's a, that's a, that's a big, uh, big, big thing to check off. So well done there. Um, my,

my, my one resolution outside of, you know, like fitness stuff for 2024 was much, much smaller. Um, I think I've mentioned on the show a couple of times, but I resolved to, um, floss every day in 2024. And I'm, I'm happy to say that here we are at closing out the year. And I think I've, my compliance rate is probably about 90%. The only times I haven't flossed are when, um, I traveled and I didn't, you know, there's, I just didn't have time or, or a place to go pick up floss. Or when I ran out, there's one time I ran out and it was just like two weeks before I could like get myself to the store to go buy more. So there you go. So I think, I think my compliance rate, I'd say it's at least 90% for this year. So I'll call that a win. Um, even if it wasn't exactly every day, it's just a, it's now just part of my regular habits. It feels weird if I don't floss now, which is kind of the point

that I wanted to get to. So, you know, I was, I was thinking about, and we were talking about resolutions and goals, goal setting. I was, I was trying to think about, you know, what, what have we not said on our show thus far? We've talked a lot about goals. We've talked a lot about how, um, with fitness goals in particular, this is a long game. You can see big improvements in the short run. In short run, in this context, it's three to six months. But the real gains, the real physique and strength goals that most people want, those come over a period of years. and strength goals that most people want, those come over a period of years, right? And so we talked about that. I think the thing that I would like to leave with everyone today is in when you're thinking about your goals for 2025, let's strip away those self-limiting beliefs that you have. limiting beliefs that you have. And let's, you know, let's, let's try something that you've never tried before and see how it goes. So, you know, I'm talking to, if you're, if you're underweight, if you're skinny and you know it, and you'll know it because you've been listening

to us and we've told you what body weights are underweight. Why not this year? Why not just say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to give myself permission to get up to 200 pounds. Or if you're a tall guy, I'm going to give myself permission this year to get up to 245 or 275. You know, why not? Why not? You can, you can always go back down, right? But why not just change that factor that you have not changed yet that's been limiting your progress? Why not change that one thing, right? Why not sleep eight hours a night this year? Why not? Whatever those things are that are holding you back, you know, let's strip those away.

That's what I want to talk about today. Yeah. Flossing is extremely important, dude. So when I first moved here, I had to get a deep clean and the needle in the mouth thing. Don't want that ever again. So that is my motivator to keep flossing to avoid another deep cleaning. Yeah. Those are no fun. I won't do it at night. My dentist wants me to floss at night. I won't fucking do it. And guess what? Those little measurements they take to see the gaps, you know, or how thick the gums are, those have gotten smaller since I started flossing

every day. So I don't know that the magnitude of difference from morning to night is going to be huge, you know, given that, where are they getting their data from when most people won't even fucking floss, you know? Right. I know. Yeah, that was my whole thing. It's like, you know, given that, where are they getting their data from when most people won't even fucking floss, you know? Right. I know. Yeah. That was my whole thing. It's like, you know, I don't care when or how often, like during the day, it's just, I floss. I floss every day now. Yeah. I don't floss multiple times a day, but I floss every day now. I didn't do that for years. Yeah. So. So that's a win for me. Yeah. So we talked about a couple nonlifting goals. I talked about a multi-year grind that fucking wore on me pretty fucking hard. I mean, if Dave Ramsey wants to invite me to his podcast, I'll go into detail, but it does not belong here. It's a different topic.

But I had some short-term goals, too. So last year, you know, I'd say this kind of falls into the new year thing. It was the end of last year. I decided I wanted to train for strength again. I'd been doing that high rep bodybuilding stuff for a couple of years and I wanted to go into fives. Now, remember when I was doing high reps, I was setting PRs at those high reps. So there was strength acquisition there. It's just a higher rep range, right? So I decided I wanted to bench 315. It was the only goal that I had left under a barbell that was, you know, numeric and that I wanted. In 2020, I benched 310 and I could not get the last five pounds. And I went back and looked and so funny

how our bro egos are at the time. I'm like, I was so close. I wasn't even fucking close. I went back and looked at the video. I'm like, no, that wasn't going to lock out. I don't know why I spent, I spent like two months trying to lock that out. It wasn't happening. So 310 was, I guess, all I had that training cycle. I think with what I learned recently, I could have, I maybe would have done better if I peaked differently, but that's another story for another day. So anyways, I said, I want to bench 315. And this probably started around October of last year. And it lasted until December of this year. I think it happened this month. I think so. I think at the beginning of this month, I benched 315. Yes, people. Yeah. Yeah. I benched 315 at the beginning of this month. So it took me one year and two months, so 14 months, to bench 315.

So I went into 2024 saying I want 315 by the end of the fucking year, and I'll get as heavy as I have to to do it. And I wanted to wrap up this financial journey of mine by the end of this year. And then at some point in all this, I wanted my cash reserves back to a higher amount where I used to kind of keep it before I got really into paying the stuff down. You know, the further I got down this rabbit hole, the thinner the tightrope I'd walk financially because I just wanted to use as much as I could to pay it down. And I wouldn't recommend that if somebody were to ask me what to do there,

because it got really fucking stressful. Thankfully, it worked out, but it just created a lot of stress because I just wanted it done by the end of this year. So those were my three objectives for this year. One was part of a longer term goal, and the other two were short term. I wanted my cash to be at a certain level by the end of the year. And I wanted my muscular strength on the bench press to be at a certain level by the end of the year. But then some bonuses happened, you know, because I gained all that weight for the bench, the deadlift shot up like a rocket ship. You know, last year, I hit my first deadlift PR in like three years. So I've got 470 for five in October of last year. And then I couldn't get

475 until April of this year at the coaches conference 2024. Then I couldn't get 480 at all. And then I reset back down to 415, started going up every week by 10 pounds. And while I was doing that, I let my body weight go up to 205. And once I got back to 465, I'm like, oh, it wasn't that bad. I went to 475. Well, shit, that's my last PR. That wasn't that bad. Then I went to 485, got that. Then I tried to, then I'm like, let me wait two weeks. It's getting hard. Then I tried to go to 495, missed it, waited two weeks, went to 490, got it. And then every two weeks thereafter, I kept going to up until this week at 505 for five on the deadlift, which is 40 pounds over where I had been kind of at since 2020. Yeah, I'd say 2020.

I hit 465 for five, and then I didn't hit a new five until 23, the end of 23, as part of the current training cycle. So I put fucking 40 pounds on the damn deadlift in 2024, essentially. I mean, I guess 35 technically, if you want to count that first PR at the end of 2023. But effectively, I put 40 pounds on it this year, my 5RM. Yeah, it's funny how for advanced lifters, how that tends to happen, right? Where it's just like you're kind of stalled out effectively for long periods of time. And then you have these breakthroughs. It's rarely that you have these like long uninterrupted, slow,

predictable increases in your PRs, right? Like at your level, right? That happens earlier in your training for sure. But it just, it doesn't, it tends to be these kind of like bursts,

you know, you kind of break through and something, you figure something out or the stars align in the right way for you to make that progress. Yeah, I think that's funny. But what you just said there, you let your body weight go up. And specifically, you let your body weight. I remember talking to you about this. It was the 315 that prompted it, right?

Like you said. But it's like, okay, all right, fine. You know what? I've tried everything else that I know how to do. Uh, I'll get as heavy as I need to fuck it. Right. Because before you kind of were capping yourself off at like, well, you know, when I'm bulking, you know, I'm going to cap myself off at what, like one 90 or one 95 or I forget where you tended to like to hang around but yeah 195 was that was kind of the top right if you're limited but then you're like all right fuck it you know what I don't care if I need to go to 225 to bench 315 I'll do it and then go back down afterwards so that's what I'm talking about when I said you know sort of self-limiting beliefs um that might be a little bit too harsh of a word in

your case, but I think what it was is that you said, okay, I exhausted all of the programming things that I know how to do. I've, you know, I've, I've, I've adjusted every other parameter that I can possibly think of. Fuck it. Let's just go with the body weight. And there's a lot of people out there who are doing who are missing much simpler you know aspects of their training right it's i think for a lot of people it's not all these minute um sort of like variables of training that's that are the missing link to them making more progress right it? It's not that. It's not like, oh, if you would have close grip benched with this amount of tonnage versus standard, but it's not that.

It's for most people, it's they're missing something big, something basic and fundamental, right? And it's eating enough, eating enough of the right kind of stuff, right? Eating enough carbs, eating enough protein, sleeping enough, just simple stuff. It's not easy stuff, but simple stuff, right? Big fundamental things that if you can just get that out of the way, all of a sudden you can realize progress. I'm curious to see where the hell my squat is

because I've been squatting after I deadlift. And, uh, well this week I accidentally hit a squat PR. I've been squatting with a transformer bar set to low bar because I've been nursing this elbow tendonitis that I've had for almost two years. And it's down to the last, maybe 5%, you know, it's just, it's there, not gone, but it's not, it's not bugging, you know, but when I bench heavy, for those of you who follow me, the left arm gets asymmetrical because that elbow shuts down, you know, so I'm trying to nurse the rest of it off so that I can maybe get a more symmetrical bench press long term, you know, but, and anyhow, so I was squatting with a transformer bar set to low bar. And then this week after I deadlifted 505, I set to squat 400 for five well i did it set to high bar and i had no idea so that was cool i squatted 400 for five high bar on a transformer

bar um and it was fucking hard but i got it um so i'm curious to see where that goes when i start i'm gonna reset and just run it up you know yeah artificially limiting your squat because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Cause I don't care. I want the deadlift and I don't really care where the squat lands, but I suspect there's a squat PR, um, coming in all this too. Um, so, um, yeah, I think the thing, the thing that I want to get across is that, uh, for most people out there, uh, like I said, it's, it's, it's usually it's the simple things that are holding them back. And I think that's what, if you're looking at a goal that you have, you know, most people have goals that are outcome oriented, right? Like they want certain numbers on a lift, like you're talking about. Or they might have an outcome that's like a

little bit more soft or nebulous like a physique outcome you know so it doesn't necessarily have a hard uh definition like a quantitative definition but you know it's it there are measurable things about it right smaller waistline so most people have this outcome related goal, but where they fall short is, is changing the lifestyle factors need to be changed to support that goal. You know, I, I don't generally, I don't generally run into people who have a problem doing the training right now. There's a few, there's a few out there who are like, Oh, I want to do this. And then they miss half their workouts. If that's you, if you're missing workouts every week, if you, if you miss a workout, if you regularly miss your workouts every week, like even if it's

just one workout out of four, let's say, um, then that's just an obvious one, right? That's, you've got to create a schedule that works for you where you can have compliance first and get all your workouts in. But for the most part, I'd say that I'd say that the vast majority of the people that I work with, compliance is not the issue with training, right? They do the training. The hard part is all the stuff that happens outside of my influence, which is diet and recovery. And, um, this is where a lot of people that are spinning their wheels and not accomplishing their goals are

getting stuck is, um, is, is they're not, they're not eating enough. They're not eating the right things and they're not sleeping enough and not recovering enough. And so, um, I think that that's where that's worth putting most of your attention when it comes to reaching your goals, because the programming is fairly simple. Frankly, if your program, if your program calls for you to add weight to the bar on a regular basis, and you just stick with it, in other words, you don't miss workouts, you're going to make progress. Like even if you have fairly shitty programming, you're going to make progress if it calls for adding weight to the bar regularly and you regularly show up.

So programming is probably the part that you need to take, you know, put the least of your attention on and put most of your attention on the lifestyle factors and getting those nailed down. And there's a big gap between knowing what you need to do and actually implementing in your life. And that's where I think the vast majority of people fall short when it comes to reaching goals. majority of people fall short when it comes to reaching goals well people like to major in the minors as they say yeah right yep um it's you know programming is interesting there's a lot of different things you can do and yes and i'm not saying programming doesn't matter because it does matter and i i believe it matters i see it matter but it matters a lot less than most people think it does i've seen people with fairly shitty programming that are just really, you know, that are really, uh, have a high compliance rate and work hard and they keep adding weight to the bar and you know what, they keep getting stronger.

Even though I would have done it differently and maybe a little bit more efficiently, it's not like they would have made enormously more progress with my way than they would doing it their suboptimal way. Well, 90% of anything is just showing up, you know, walking through the door and making an attempt, you know, and I try to explain that to people. When you do something new,

and this is important for people thinking about what they want to do next year, when you're embarking on a journey to do something new, there's the initial excitement, the honeymoon phase. Things kind of go well initially. You know, if you're a brand new lifter, it's the novice effect. But I think some version of that applies to anything that you start doing that you weren't doing before.

But then a lot of it becomes very routine. You know, you're showing up, you're doing something rather mundane, but then you're making it a little bit harder, you know, over time. And just showing up, doing the work, clocking in, clocking out, repeating is 95% of it, I would say, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. percent of it i would say you know yeah absolutely absolutely you know if you're you know if every day is a new day and you're doing all these different exciting things all the time what you'll usually find is that uh uh that you're stagnant when you start looking at the measurables because the more you deviate from the path the more you deviate from the path, the more you deviate from the path. You're not investing into things that are moving you forward.

You're now indulging in distractions because you don't want to face the boring nature of that journey. Yeah, the classic example of that is CrossFit. that journey. Yeah. This is the classic example of that is CrossFit, right? Like this is less the case now because CrossFit is less popular, but I remember a few years ago, you know, like, yeah, maybe like four years ago, I ran into a lot, a fair amount of CrossFitters. Um, I've never coached a whole bunch, but I ran into a fair amount of CrossFitters. And, um, the typical story with, with them is the ones that found strength training did CrossFit for usually somewhere between one to three years. And at first saw great progress. And then sometime around year in the year two of doing CrossFit, they, they stalled out real hard. And then sometime between year two and year three, they got hurt.

And then the people that would come to me because they discovered barbell training in a more structured way and wanted a coach to help them with it. They were the ones who were maybe decent at CrossFit, but not great at it. Or they were bad at CrossFit. Right. So in other words, these weren't the natural athletes. These are people who had a fairly low baseline. The CrossFit helped them a little bit for about a year, and then they stalled out real hard, and they got frustrated that they still couldn't, you know, RX the workouts, as they say, right? They still couldn't perform the workouts as intended with the, you know, RX the workouts, as they say, right? They still couldn't perform the workouts as intended with, with the, you know, whatever weight that they're snatching for time or, you know, whatever crazy workout they're doing that day. They always had to scale things down.

Um, and that's, that's the classic example that they're, they're constantly doing new things and they're never actually spending that time in the trenches, just kind of plodding along regularly, adding weight to the bar. So they never, ever get to that level of performance where they can actually do the workouts as intended. On the other hand, the people who do well with CrossFit tend to be the natural athletes who just had their, their baseline was high enough to be able to do the workouts as written without having to scale them down. And of course, they're like, CrossFit's great. What are you talking about? It's like, well, yeah, but they have a different experience than the average person doing it.

You know, it's the same. And then they get hurt too. Everybody gets hurt. Yeah. It's the same problem bodybuilding suffers from. You know, the guys that do really well with it already have the foundation for it. Exactly. And they follow these programs that

have been passed down for decades where they're doing a ton of volume a ton of exercises and in some cases taking a bunch of roids um and then bodybuilding is great as a result but then when you or i do it at the very least there's tendinitis you know you know what for them there's tendinitis you know sometimes they talk about it sometimes they don't they lose their flexibility and they get tendonitis it just happens in fact i struggled to press when i was doing hypertrophy work uh because all the benching and the tricep work and the bicep work made me so fucking tight when i was pressing it was the first time ever i had problems locking out. It's hard to shrug out my press, and I knew it was because of all the isolation stuff I was doing and all the volume, too. You're doing a lot of reps, and I think things just get tight.

So you always hear about these guys who are like, oh, I can't get in this position or I can't get in that position. But then they don't really highlight that as a potential risk of what they're doing. And we always say these guys are non-functional athletes well right no we don't call them athletes they're non-fuck they're non-functional lifters yeah you know yeah who compete in a contest a beauty contest that's what it is essentially you know it's their idea of beauty it's a beauty contest but it requires them to lift to achieve the physique that, you know, they're being judged against, right? But we say they're non-functional. They can get pissed off all they want.

But then at the same time, they're going to tell you that they, you know, one guy said he can't press anymore, you know. Other guys, he can't squat, back squat anymore, you know. Like they lose a lot of flexibility because the way they're training, you know. They lose a lot of flexibility because of the way they're training. So that's – yeah, that's what you said about CrossFit. I'd say that's true about bodybuilding. Yeah, right, right. They get away with it because they're built well and can get away with it.

But when – we don't talk to elite athletes. We don't talk to people that are gifted for lifting. We're talking to, you know, the IT guy that works 40 hours a week, has never done a sport, and whose baseline squat is probably 95 pounds, maybe 135, you know? Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. And he's going to fight hard to squat 300, you know? Yeah. That guy is not going to be doing... No. And that guy, those guys are higher in numbers than the mediocre power lifter that squats 500. That's right. Sorry. Yes. Way higher numbers. Way higher numbers. Yeah. So these guys, these dickbags that sit there and say, oh, I benched 315 when I was 18.

Well, good for you, dude. You're not the majority and you clearly don't train people. Yeah. They're a tiny, tiny percentage. Yeah, 315 won't even get you golf claps in a local powerlifting meet, but you're still in a very, very tiny percentage of the population that can do that. You don't see that at commercial gyms. I mean, you see it at commercial gyms, but not on a regular basis from, you know, one and two members, you know? No, not at all. Not at all. It's like probably one in a hundred members can do that, you know, at a commercial gym, maybe higher, you know? So I'm going to steal something from another company that I work with. I produce a few

podcasts for this company called YNAB. You need a budget. It is a, they're like an online, how would I describe them? They are, they sell a really clever software for managing your money. But really what they are is it's a company that sells a method for managing your finances. That's kind of, it's a lot like the starting strength linear progression in a way. Like they basically have these four rules of what to do with your money. And you follow these four rules and it's sort of like the first principles of starting strength, you know, like, you know, why do we lift? You know, we want to train the most muscle mass over the greatest effective range of motion so we can get stronger, you know, as quickly as possible, right? So it's kind of fulfills these sort of foundational principles of managing your money. And then they just bundle that with this nice, you know, looking,

you know, clever, sleek looking software for actually implementing those rules. But the owner or the founder of the company on his podcast said recently, try this as a sort of goal setting exercise before you start writing down that, you know, your goals on a sheet of paper for 2025. Try this as a little exercise. Imagine, think about the things you want to do, because you already got an idea of what those goals are going to be, right? Think about the things you want to do. Now, imagine that money is no object. You are not limited by funds when it comes to pursuing your goals in 2025. How does that change your vision of accomplishing those goals? Right? So, you know, let's think about that. You know, if you had all the money in the world, what would you want to do with your fitness? Like, what are the kinds of things you want to do? Like, so, you know, I can think off the top of my head, I might say something like, okay, well, you know, I'd want to train four times a week. And then I'd want to make sure I'm training these lifts. Okay, cool. And then I want to, I want to sleep eight to nine hours a day to maximize my recovery. Okay, cool. I want to eat, you know, I definitely

want to eat 200 grams of protein a day. I want to eat 300 grams of carbs, but I want to make sure all my food is very high quality, organic. You know, I want to eat like well-balanced meals, plenty of fiber, plenty of fruits and vegetables. Okay. So you just go on and on through the list of things. Like I think most people listening to this podcast, you know, the basics of what, like what you, you ought to be doing. If you don't go back and listen to the other 88 episodes of this podcast and you'll have a real good foundation. Um, but just imagine all those things that you would, that you would do in a perfect world where you are unlimited by money. And I would say in our, in our context, also unlimited by time and, uh, and, um, you know, attention. Okay. Think about those things

that come up when you do that. I just listed some of them off like sleeping, eating well. Those are the things you can put the, the actual resources that you have, which are limited, those are the things you can put your attention towards, right? In the YNAB terms, they would say that's where you want to put your money. That's where you want to go spend on things, right? Is how you visualize yourself living day to day. Well, in fitness terms, we could say the same thing. Like you want to spend your attention and your time and maybe your money too on those things that you identified in this little vision exercise, right? So you're visualizing what life would be like day to day in your perfect fitness regimen and identifying what those things are. Okay. Now walk it back to real life and say, well, what am I not doing right now? And how can I go spend my attention on that?

Yeah. Because at the end of the day, you have an economic situation in your life, not a financial one necessarily, but you only have so much time. You only have so many resources. Right. And you have to start there. What has to get done, no matter what, what has to get done. Right. Allocate time, kind of like you would allocate money if you're doing a budget. And then you look at the other things you're doing. What can I cut?

And then how much gym time, how much time do I have left to allocate to the gym? Right, right. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yes. And I would say that the thing though is we're not looking at cutting yet. We're not thinking about cutting at all. We're looking at how do I spend more time doing the things that I want that are going to get me towards my goals. So I'll make it a little more concrete for you. So let's say that, um, you, you think about this and you're going through like, what are the things you would do in this perfect, um, fitness regimen you have? And you come across that I would be sleeping eight to nine hours a day. Okay, cool. And then you go back to real life and you're like, what am I actually sleeping?

You're like, I'm sleeping five to six hours a night. Okay, well, that's where you can spend your resources that you have on improving your fitness is figuring out how do I get more sleep than five to six hours a night? It's probably not buying a template with a new program for you. Right? That's probably not where you want to spend your resources this year, or even hiring a coach. It's let's figure out how to get more sleep. Why are you only sleeping five or six hours a night?

Is it habits at night that are holding you back? You know, are you spending a lot of time at night that are holding you back? Are you spending a lot of time at night watching television or doom scrolling on your phone? Or do you just have so many responsibilities you have to knock out after work that you don't have any time until the very end of the night to wind down and go to sleep? So that's pushing your bedtime out too late. Okay. I don't know. That's just things you got to go through in this, this exercise here, but maybe let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's not bad habits for you. Maybe it's just like you have so much shit to do that's pushing your bedtime out later and later and later. And therefore you're never getting the amount of sleep that you really know you ought to be. Okay. well, how about assigning some money to that, to that problem? What could you do to

automate something in your life or pay something to take care of something in your life or rearrange your circumstances by spending some money so that you don't have a whole bunch of work to do when you get home, and you can actually wind down for bed on a more reasonable time and therefore get more sleep. So that's what I'm talking about. This thing is finding those areas where you can spend more of your time and energy and maybe even more of your money in order to make your goals happen. And we're not talking about cutting anything. It just happens by nature. This is like when we talk about diet, you know, for a lot of people, it's easier to eat more of the good stuff than it is to cut out the bad stuff. Right. And for a lot

of people, you eat more and more of the good stuff and you just naturally, we don't even talk about it, but you start cutting out the bad stuff. You're crowding it out, right? We're doing that with our time and energy here. This is how you can think about getting to your goals in a better way this year. Yeah, 100%. I've already thought about it for this year. You know, there's a couple things I want to do. I want to peak this deadlift properly,

and I think if I play my cards right, I'm going to get either get or get damn close to 585, which is six plates on each side. For those of you who are unaware of why that number is significant. Yeah, that's right. Six plates, bro. And it's like about 87, 86% now. Yeah, yeah. For a set of five. about 87 86 percent now so yeah yeah for a set of five i've pulled 86 i pulled 87 percent of my one rm1 training cycle for five and then i had to travel so i think there was a little bit left

that i wasn't able to get so i think i'm like right there we're like if i do pull 585 it's gonna be no bullshit one rm most likely you know right? Right, right. But it's going to, you know, I'm having to like put my thinking cap on here and talk to some colleagues about how to do this because I have not been the best at peaking when I've done it on my own. I did it with a coach six and a half years ago when I pulled 500 for the first time. And that was the one time where my max was way ahead of my five. And right, lo and behold, I wasn't the one who did my max was way ahead of my five and right lo and behold i wasn't the one who did

that you know when i've done it i've gotten fairly close but not quite that wide so i think i'm i'm always going into my test week with carrying fatigue so i'm hoping this run i can do it right and get that 585 to kick the year off so probably it's hard quarter next year yeah it is it is hard to peak yourself i have not done a great job either when I've handled myself. No, my five's been like 90, I think 91% of my max when I've done it myself because I'm still tired.

I think what it is, yeah, I think what it is, you just identified it, is that for when you're trying to peak yourself, I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of being like, I'm not doing enough as you're bringing the stress down. And when I've peaked, my lifter's the best, like I'm not doing enough as you're, as you're bringing that, the stress down. And, um, I, you know, the, when I've peaked my lifters, the best, you know, I, it's, I have them doing a shockingly little the week before the meet now a month before the meet, they're dying.

And then a week before the meet, it's like, they're barely even lifting, but then they walk onto the platform and they're super fresh. And they, that's some of the best PRs I've been able to manifest for people. But see, if I'm there and I'm a week before my meet or even just my, my one RM attempt, um, I'll be sitting there and I'll just do like maybe a couple of doubles on this, on the squat and be like, that can't be enough. It just can't be enough. And then end up doing too much. And then, yeah, you blow it. Cause you're,

you're too fatigued, too tired. Yeah. Very difficult to do yourself. That's been my problem. So, you know, I want to pull five 85.

Then when that's done, I need to pull my body weight back down to where I kind of sit normally in the like one eighties probably. Yeah. So those are like the two immediate things. And then, you know, I have some financial goals. in the like 180s probably. Yeah. So those are like the two immediate things. And then, you know, I have some financial goals. I want to keep building on my cash reserve,

try to make it bigger and just keep doing what I'm doing. You know, then I have some business goals that are still kind of taking shape. You know, I'm going to probably put up more videos this year than last year. But the big thing is, you know, on the fitness side, I want to see what I got in me on the deadlift. I'm going to do it on the squat too, of course. And then trim the weight back down.

I don't want to stay at 208. You know, you guys, you don't stay here permanently. That's right. You leverage the size, literally and metaphorically, to lift heavier weights. Then you peel it back. You know, it's not a permanent situation. You do it when it makes sense. If you're not chasing PRs, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you know?

Right. But if you're trying to grow and get stronger, it makes sense. So, you know, I'm over it. I don't really necessarily want to run another training cycle at this body weight and try and get closer to 600, at least not right now. You know, maybe that'll come later, you know? Yeah. You probably, yeah. And at some point, you have, maybe that'll come later, you know, I, yeah, you probably,

yeah. And at some point you have to start thinking about like longevity where you're like, yeah, if you stack too many of those really intense training cycles on top of each other, you just start breaking down and you get it, get it, take some time, you know? Um, I mean, we're, we're going on a year and a half of this shit, you know, where I've just been, it's a long, long time fucking body yeah yeah so yeah i i feel um yeah for sure i i think that's um something i've been thinking about is like okay you know i've i've gotten myself i've i've clawed my way back to a respectable level of strength with my squat my deadlift isn't where it needs to be but i I am pulling in the four hundreds and, um, for sets across on, you know, when I'm doing my heavy, heavy pulls, which are doubles right now, um, you know, I'm pulling four 20 for doubles. It's not great, but it's, it's, it's something. And,

um, and I think, I think that, um, given my fatigue levels, I probably have a four Oh five for five pull in me. If I was actually fresh. Um, I've been experiencing a lot of fatigue from my squat bleeding over my deadlift lately, but, um, you know, I, I've thought about, it's like, okay, well, I, I have a PR in sight that I don't know if I'm going to be able to make between now and when our second child arrives. So we'll see, I'm going to try anyway. But if it doesn't happen, then I'm not really going to be in the best position for the rest of this year to chase strength numbers because my recovery resources are not going to go up in the near future. They're only going to go down. So my goal this year, I haven't fully fleshed it out,

but it's basically to, okay, how do I hold on this to most of these gains that I've had, where I'm squatting in the mid 300s for fives, where I'm pulling in the 400s for five, and I'm benching in the mid twos for fives. And, you know, I'd like to get up in the higher twos for fives and I'm pressing in the high hundreds, you know, like 185 to 200 for fives, right? Like how do I, how do I keep that level of strength or pretty close to it while giving my body a little bit of a break from the, uh, the higher intensity lifting where I'm pushing my, uh, my, you know, doubles and triples and that kind of stuff. Cause that seems to be just taken more and more out of me as we, as we've gotten towards the end of the year.

And I think, you know, for me, that's going to be, um, finding some stuff outside of lifting to go do and do a little bit more just general activity conditioning, I might go do yoga again this year. And for mainly because, um, I, I enjoy it. I used to do yoga several years ago, um, pretty regularly and I I've fallen out of the habit, but one of the things I like about it is it's easy to find a class and you can just drop in and someone tells you everything you need to do for an hour and you go home. And that's where I'm looking to spend some of my money and my resources on is paying people to tell me what to do for my general activity. So I don't have to think about it. I just show up and then do it. Um, cause I found the last couple of years,

my attention span to, to organize new things in my training, you know, like I know strength training inside and out because I do it all the time. I do it every day. It's not too hard for me to design my own strength program. Fine. But if I want to get more creative and branch out and do something else, I just, I'm just, my brain is so weighed down by everything else that I have to do in life that I don't want to think about it. I don't want to come up with some sort of, you know, like calisthenics program or just, you know, some, some sort of activity, you know, physical activity.

Um, I don't want to come up with my own program. I'd rather just pay somebody to do it for me. And the easiest way for me is just drop into a class. So, uh, I found a studio that's pretty close to the house. So it wouldn't be a far drive. And I think I could reasonably get away once a week to do that. And, um, so, you know, I, as I get a better idea of, of what that, what those goals will look like, um like in more concrete terms over the next week or two i'm gonna i'm gonna write down those those things like how i'm gonna make it happen like sign up for class once a week you know go for a hike with my son once a week i can do that

and that gets me outside and staying active And while giving me the opportunity to pull back the lifting a little bit, give my body a little more time to recover. So I don't know if any of that made any sense, because I'm sick. And, you know, I'm, it's almost 1am here. But I hope some of those things make it a little easier for you to think about your goals this year and, uh, and reach them. One step at a time, ladies and gentlemen. That's right. That's right. All right. I think, uh,

I think we hammered that pretty good and we both want to get to bed. Well, yeah. Well, why don't you, why don't you close this out, man? All right, man. Uh, thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at weightsandplates.com or on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. You can find the gym here in Phoenix off 32nd Street and Broadway just south of Sky Harbor Airport in the South Mountain Village. We offer gym memberships and one-on-one training. South Mountain Village. We offer gym memberships and one-on-one training. And you can find us on YouTube at weights underscore and underscore plates, youtube.com slash at weights underscore

and underscore plates. And the gym is also on Instagram at weights double underscore and double underscore plates. So yeah, let's kick off the new year. And I think Trent, you have an announcement, right? Yeah. So this will be my last episode on the podcast. I'm going to be stepping away in 2025 and that's, that's to pursue other goals since we're talking about goals here. Um, yeah, I have, I have a number of other things I want to pursue. And also, um, we have a baby coming in six weeks if it comes on time, you know, thank you. Thank you. Um, you never know. Sometimes it come early, sometimes come a little later. Um, but yeah, if all things go to plan, then in about six weeks we'll have a baby here and that'll make two. And, um, yeah. And then, so I, I just need to take some time to, um,

you know, make sure I'm there for my families at the time when we normally record podcasts and, uh, also give myself a chance to pursue some other goals outside of, um, outside of this coaching thing that we do. But if you want to find me, keep tracking me. You'll always find me lifting on Instagram. I'm at marmalade underscore cream on Instagram. If you're interested in online coaching, I do that. You can find me at jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. Just send me an email and we can talk. And then if you're interested in any of my audio production work, I've talked to some people actually from this podcast that ended up wanting like custom music tracks or even audio production work for their own podcast. I do that. And you can find my website at www.marmaladecream.com. All right. Well, I was about to say we'll see you again in a couple of weeks, but I won't. I will. And we'll see you again in a couple weeks but um but i won't

so we'll see you again in a couple weeks all right take care happy new year you