Weights and Plates Podcast - #94 - How To ACTUALLY Build Muscle | Hari Fafutis, SSC

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

Hari Fafutis, SSC joins the show to talk about doing the Starting Strength Linear Progression, gaining weight, building big arms, and more.  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 Hari's Instagram: @harifafutis

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with a special guest. Would you like to introduce yourself or do you want me to do it? Let's have you do it. Well, let's hope I don't butcher your fucking name here. Today I have Harry Fafutis, who's a starting strength coach down in Mexico, Guadalajara, is that right? Correct. And he also transcribed the starting strength text into Spanish, into Espanol. So welcome, Harry.

Gracias. Pleasure to be here with you. De nada. So, welcome Hari. Gracias. Pleasure to be here with you. De nada. I'm sure your Spanish is a lot better than my fucked up butchered elementary level. So we're not gonna do this interview in Spanish, but. Well, that's why eventually you gotta come down and visit

so you practice your Spanish. My grandmother would agree with you. I think I, I don't know if you know this, but I learned it when I was up until age of five. Then I went to school and my vocabulary didn't extend past that. So I have an accent and all that shit, but my vocab is terrible. Even though I took Spanish in high school, I just kind of coasted because it was for

Americans so it was kind of easy. Yeah. Well, again, I got to start back into it and, uh, recover the language. Yeah. Yeah. No, I need to pay you a visit. This is long overdue. Um, you know, I didn't mention in your intro, you're also a gym owner. Um, I always forget the name of your gym. So you're going to have to tell the audience.

I remember all this other shit about you, but I've never been to your gym. So it doesn't jump out at me. I know it starts with a T is that right? Yeah. So the name of the gym is Tavros. And that's a Greek for bull. Cause my, my partner, his last name is Toro, bull. Get out of here.

And I have ancestors from Greece. So we thought it was like a, a good mix of a strong animal, his last name and my roots kind of like mixed it up. And now we are eight to, I guess, eight or nine years later. Is that how long you've been open? Yeah, open for eight years or nine. So was it 2025? So you started in 15? Yeah, 2015.

Damn. That's pretty cool, man. Um, well, I wanted to bring you on for a few reasons. Uh, there's, you know, we've had kind of a similar trajectory and, uh, I think you have a lot to share here in terms of your training history, but I think maybe you should start by telling us, you know, how you got into lifting, you know, when you opened your gym and what kind of led to that. And then I really want to take a deep dive into the training journey that you had, because it was quite similar to mine. Although I would argue you took it a lot further and we'll kind of get into that when the time comes. I'm, I've been waiting to do this one for a long time. Okay, sure.

So I was always enthusiastic about training and fitness in general. I did sports when I was young and then, uh, right in college, I tried to play basketball in, in Mexico in college, but I was, I'm not like, I don't have the height for that sport, but I was stubborn and I wanted to make it to the team. I got red-shirted for six months and then I realized it wasn't for me. So I started looking for like some sort of physical activity to keep me as committed and engaged. And that's when I started lifting. I read some fitness books on how to stay in shape. And it was more like bodybuilding stuff. And I started doing it, got some results. And then eventually I injured my back trying to deadlift. I think it was back

in college. I was like 20 years old and I was pulling like 270, something like that. Popped the back, got really, really scared and stopped lifting altogether for like a year because all of the doctors told me that I needed to stop training and lifting. And then I started swimming and I had a lot of back pain and I was getting very frustrated with it. So eventually I read the, I don't know how the book came about, but I read the starting strength book and I decided to contact Rip personally and I asked him if, if you could give me some sort of consultation to work up the back problem. And he was kind enough to receive me like in a summer, I think that was back in 2014.

So I've tried like, it was a year after having tried swimming and you know, like all the physiotherapy back movements get better, nothing worked. I was weak. I am 5'8", and I used to weigh back then 155. So literally the stereotype that Rupito likes to describe in his articles, I was that guy, 155'5". Did you meet him in person or did you talk to him on the phone? Yeah, no, I paid him a visit. Oh, nice, nice. Yeah, I remember the day that Nick was there as well. And I was with one of my cousins.

So we both came out, visited him and I was like, rip. But like my back hurts this and that. And he's like, have you read all the articles and stuff in the blog that I've posted? And I'm like, no. And he's like, do you have like a pair of shorts? Just like change clothes and I'll teach you how to deadlift. You'll be fine.

And so yeah, there was me, 155 skinny kid and he showed me how to deadlift. He coached me and then he told me, you're fine. You see like your back didn't break. You're okay. Do the program and come back maybe in six months or let me know about your progress. Get strong, do the program. You'll be fine. And he was like the guy who gave me the. Assurance that I felt I needed to like start if, like, if you want to call it,

he gave me permission and that's what I needed from like a authority that wasn't a doctor, but was experienced in this area. Did he tell you to gain a hundred pounds? Of course. The first thing you said when he walked in. Yeah, he's like, you have to gain weight. I remember he told me, can you press up to a hundred pounds and your deadlift to 300? And I can almost guarantee you that your back pain is going to go away.

He's right. He's right. He's right. You know, I came in with a lot of open mindedness to learn from him. And in my mind, I was like, OK, whatever he says, I'm just going to follow to 100 percent. So I came back, I did the program six months in, no pain whatsoever, gained a lot of weight, maybe like 30 pounds. And I just fell in love with the process of getting stronger and seeing what my body was capable of doing. And that was, that was how I started. It's funny, man, cause I had a similar, I mean, I knew that we had similar

training trajectories, but I kind of ended up in that place kind of on a similar path. When I finished high school, I think, how old are you? I'm 32. I'm 32. So I'm 40. So I finished much earlier than you. So I was 2002 and I had swam. I was a competitive swimmer in high school. And when I got out, it was basically, I'd gained weight between seasons, you know, off season, I get a little chubby, but gain weight for me was like, you know, 165 pounds in skinny fat, you know?

Um, and, uh, when I graduated, I was like, well, I need to do something to stay active and productive, um, because I don't want to be coming out of shape sack of shit, you know? And back around this time, a lot of health magazines were starting to circulate, you know, in the eighties and nineties, it was a lot of bodybuilding. Um to circulate, you know in the 80s and 90s It was a lot of bodybuilding And then in the 2000s you started seeing the popularity of health publications saying

Oh, you know, you need to lift and do cardio and eat healthy, you know So that you know because America's fat week and etc and all those things And then I stumbled upon RIP in 2013 So a year before you so we kind of found him around the same time. And I just found the program and like yourself, I consumed a lot of bodybuilding content. So I looked at it and I'm like, okay, well, you know, just follow the program, not even paying attention to the fact that, you know, what does a squat mean? What does a deadlift mean? What does the press mean? I'm like, oh, I know how to do this. I've done this before, you know, I've done these exercises and.

About three months into it, I tore my adductor and I didn't visit rip, but I put a post up on the Q and a in his forum. He had a message board. Um, some people that are listening may still view that some people may be young and don't know what that is, but we were on a message board and I didn't expect him to personally answer because he was all, back then I didn't realize that there's this whole social media YouTube stardom thing,

where anybody could become known by other people just merely by the click of a button. You post a video up and people see you, right? So I known that he had a program. I didn't know there was a book attached to it and that went on his site. And I posted up the video and he just basically said, yeah, all this is fucked up, you know, go find yourself a coach. So, you know, I went to a local guy, got tuned up, read the books, went to seminars and, uh, even traveled to his gym a few times in

2014. Did you, did you get to meet Fox when you were there? No, I met not Carmen rip and Nick were there the first time I was there. 14 Fox was still training there and I, he gave me a coaching session and we just hung out, you know, at the gym. He's a cool dude. This guy's a freak athlete. I think I may have mentioned him on here before I'm going to get him on because I have another topic I want to cover with him,

but he's got like a vertical jump in the high thirties. You know, he played football when he was younger. I think when he was at Rips Gym, he was half-assed following the program and he pulled and squatted around six, pressed close to three, and he was like at a body weight of 209 and lean. Just one of these freak athletes that we all hate, but he's a cool guy and he knows like at a body weight of 209 and lean, just one of these freak athletes that we all hate, but he's a cool guy and he knows he's not normal. So that makes him a halfway decent coach.

Um, but, uh, yeah, no, I went there back then and the rest was history. I met you I think in 2016 or 17. When did you get certified? I think I got certified either 16 or 17. Yeah. Because I certified in the end of 14. My first conference was 2015 and then I went every year after that. I think I'm, I remember I met you when you were still under 200 pounds because the second

time I met you, you were unrecognizable from the first time. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, that sounds reasonable. That sounds logic. So that's that sounds reasonable. That sounds logic. So let's talk about that. So you gain 30 pounds as a novice, but then you didn't stop there. So yeah, so I started 155 and probably I need to check my log. But in the first six months, I remember I got the LP all the way up to 405 squad and probably was at 200 pounds when I started 405 the first

time. And then I took it all the way up to 255 was my heaviest. Damn. Yeah. So for the audience, when you say you squat at 405, that was three sets of five and you were squatting three times a week still? Yes, I was squatting three times a week, but it was, uh, like he was at the end of the novice progression. That means I think I had like a heavy squat day, a light and a volume

day. Yeah. So two heavy days a week or were you already, that was intermediate at that point? I think it was either two heavy days or intermediate and I had like heavy, light, medium kind of distribution of the program. But it was like either at the end of LP or at the very start of intermediate training And how was your deadlift? Around the same Back then back then that's what I figured and I talked about that a lot on the show One of the and this doesn't happen to everybody I think it depends on how the person's built But I find that when these guys really run the fucking hell out of the

squat on the LP, it starts to interfere with their ability to deadlift sufficiently heavy. And I noticed when we get into intermediate and you start pulling back the stress and not quite hammering yourself so much on the squat, the deadlift kind of wakes up and, you know, it exceeds, you know, excels past the squat over time. Was that your experience? Yeah. And I also think that the deadlift takes a little more time to get ahead of your, of your squat. When you starting out, when you start out, it's like squat deadlift about the same strength and the longer you train and once the programming gets

And the longer you train and once the programming gets like a smarter distribution as your ability to recover gets harder, then the deadlift catches up to where it needs to be, which is for most people, maybe 10% more than your squat. And also the press and bench, once you start to train them more frequently, they also get proportionally stronger than at the beginning. So you don't look like a dinosaur, like the T-Rex, which is like people imagined. I have my current clients, I have like a couple of dudes and some of them are more responsive at the legs at the beginning. So they do start to look like T-Rex's.

Yeah. And then. That's, you know, it took me a second because I thought you were talking about T-Rex arms, but I see what you mean. No, that's, I've seen that happen so many times with these guys come in here. They got huge legs, a huge ass, and then like skinny arms and a gun. Yeah. And they're like. Like a T-Rex. I don't want to then like skinny arms and a guy. Yeah. And they're like...

Like a T-Rex. I don't want to look like a T-Rex. I want bigger arms and I don't want like a fat ass. And I'm like, dude, dude, you're just starting out, you're drawing the LP, you're squatting much more than... Well, not much more, but your squatting frequency is higher than press or bench. So once you get past LP and start intermediate, and if you do this for long enough,

everything was gonna be proportionate, but it's just at the beginning, it's normal to expect sometimes the T-Rex body, but then you're gonna get rid of it as the longer you train correctly. Oh yeah, I used to have that problem when I was younger. I didn't press or deadlift really before starting strength. I definitely, I hardly deadlifted. I had done the exercises

in the past, but I hardly deadlifted. And at that point I had been doing overhead work for about two to three years, but I would like alternate press with push press with dumbbell. But I'd say the first 12 years that I lifted weights, I did nothing overhead really, like, you know, occasionally maybe I'd do a dumbbell press for a couple of months, but like, I really didn't do anything overhead and the deadlift would appear and reappear on and off. So when I started NLP and this kind of speaks to what you said about having comparable strength on both the squat and the deadlift, I had a 315 pound squat

when I started my first run at NLP for a single. It was deep. I have videos on Facebook. It wasn't, the form wasn't great, but it would have passed in a meet is what I mean. But my deadlift was the same because I hardly deadlifted. So I had all this lower body training on the squat, you know, my quads and possibly my adductors, but like I had never really pushed my posterior chain like that. So in order for me to get that deadlift, you know, the injury was a silver lining because in order for my deadlift to go up on the NLP, my squat was basically in rehab mode and I was able to push the deadlift. So I ended up getting my deadlift up over, I think I was pulling 405 for a set of five and my squat was 335 for a set of five and my squat was three thirty five for a set of five.

The issue I had with the squat was I would, I never missed and probably if I had someone like myself or you coaching me at the time, I think I could have went further, but I would start hurting when it would get heavy because my technique would change and I had nobody riding my ass to fix that. So at the end I just said, fuck it, I'm not going to, I fix that. So at the end, I just said, fuck it. I'm not going to, I didn't go to the light day. I didn't go to heavy light medium. I just kind of got off of it, you know, hired a coach that.

Overcomplicated my programming, but got me out of pain, you know? And, uh, hard to tell where I would have went with a light day, you know? But, um, I didn't really deadlift and I didn't really press. I benched a lot and I think I had a couple of years of overhead work going into it. And yeah, that would always happen. I'd gain weight and I'd get the T-Rex body. And for me, it was just, I wasn't micro loading

and I wasn't training overhead. So once I started doing those two things, you know, taking the smaller jumps and focusing on the press more, I mean, my shoulders filled out, my arms filled out a little bit. And, you know, everything pretty much evens out if you do the program. Things that we typically see,

and I'm sure you've seen this probably more online because in person this tends to not happen since we run our gyms, you know, the way we do. But people try to go up by five pounds on the press, go up by five pounds on the bench. They won't really up their deadlift in the beginning. Like in my case, my squat was pretty strong, my deadlift was not.

But in a lot of cases, these guys haven't done either of the lifts, but the deadlift feels heavy first, because it's stuck to the ground. So these guys, and we've talked about this, you've seen it, you've experienced it. They think they're like, oh shit, that was so heavy. And you watch it and you're like, you could have done five more reps, bro. You know, and they just don't know how to push.

So then they'll like make five pound jumps at like two 35, you know? Meanwhile, there are squats going up to 300. And I see that happen quite a bit. You know, that's the opposite problem you see on the press and the bench press where they're making big jumps. They start making small jumps on the deadlift, drop the frequency early, then they become squat specialists. Have you seen this phenomenon? Oh yeah, but it's like either you become a squat specialist or a deadlift specialist

is also the case, like people who don't want to squat and they just do deadlifts or like the gym bros who just do bench press, you know, uh, it's, and it goes back to where we began, which is if you do this for long enough in a smart way, your body's going to be thoroughly trained every corner of your body, every muscle, and you're going to look like you train in every part of your body. Everything evens out in the end. I don't know what your experience has been, but I know that if I focus more on the bench press, my arms get bigger.

And if I focus more on the press, my shoulders get a little bit bigger. At this point, everything is growing slow because I've been doing it for so long. And I'm sure you kind of experience the same thing because you've been doing it for so long. And I'm sure you kind of experience the same thing because you've been doing it for so long. The one thing that I did notice is that unless I do heavy rows or curls, my biceps aren't doing anything. And that's just me. I can't say that for everybody, but what's been your experience with that? You know, you training or training others. Sometimes certain things need a little bit of extra, depending, probably depending on how the person's built.

I would imagine, cause some guys say, Oh, I do chins and they grow. I've been doing chin since high school, man. It was a staple in swimming workout, you know, and it didn't do shit for my, I mean, they grew a little bit, but the only time I really see, saw them fill out was when I did heavy rows and curls. That that's interesting. Cause I was actually going to bring up the chin-ups. After 10 years of coaching and owning a gym,

I've concluded that the chin-up for me is just as important as the other four main lifts. Yeah, I, at the same level because, and, uh, I think also rip concluded that not too long ago. I know in the book he mentioned said, but it's just like peripherically compared to the lifts. And in one of the videos later, he was talking about approaching mentally speaking, approaching strain training in a way where you think about movement patterns. And, and he categorizes, roughly speaking that the human body can pull stuff from the floor. You can push something like away from you. You can press something up, you can squat. And then he said,

but you can also, and you should be able to pull with your arms towards you. You should be able to do that. And the chin up is the movement that allows you to train that strength aspect of your body. I do think like the more I train it, the more I think it's important. And in my personal experience,

the chin up is probably the one exercise that was filling up the hole of like training your arms, your biceps. It's funny that it doesn't stimulate your arms as much. But not as much. I don't know if that's, you know, I started doing them in high school because we swam. So my first year we did lat pull downs with a wide grip behind the neck.

And then we swam lots and lots of laps. Like we did a million yards a season and the lats got stronger from that because kind of like cycling, you know, makes these cyclists, they make their quads bigger, their calves bigger, swimming makes your lats bigger, you know, fills out your triceps too, to an extent. Um, so by my second year year I was pulling myself up. By my third year I can do them with any grip, wide grip, narrow grip, underhand grip. And a few years back I pushed them, I maxed the lift out, and I'm going to come back to

what you said about it being a main lift. I maxed it out, I think I did a combined weight of 300 pounds with my body weight, the belt, the plates, you know, I did 300 pounds. And, uh, I think that like, I'm just very good at using my lats to, uh, pull myself up, you know, I don't really get a lot of arm work out of it. Um, I've never had my grip fail on it, not on those, but I learned two years ago that my grip was the limiting factor on Rose and on curls as well, because I started doing, uh, you know, those hand grippers they sell iron mind. Yeah. ago that my grip was the limiting factor on rows and on curls as well, because I started

doing, you know, those hand grippers they sell, Ironmind? Yeah. I did the Captain to Crush grippers. I started running those up and all of a sudden my curls got easier, my rows got easier, I can hold heavier dumbbells and shrug. And I figured out that my hands, for whatever reason, if I'm pulling something without necessarily using my lats, I guess as much through full range of motion, I should say, uh, they're weak. Like I had, I couldn't, I used to have trouble holding groceries. Like no matter

how strong I got at squat press, bench press, deadlift, pull ups, uh, holding things for long periods of time was very fatiguing until I got my grip stronger and started doing those exercises. Now it's a non-issue. I can hold anything. So I don't really know how to explain that because I can hang from a bar with my arms overhead with a bunch of weight and, uh, no problem. My hands hold on, but if I have to pick something up off the floor like that, other than a deadlift, you know, deadlift, no problem.

Never failed on a grip on a deadlift, which also makes it strange. But if I have to like bend my elbow and hold something that way, you know, because your forearms also participate in elbow flexion, whatever muscles of the forearm participate in elbow flexion, they were fucking weak and working those grippers fixed a lot of it. But I just never got anything out of full range of motion overhead pulls, you know, chin ups, pull ups, et cetera. The neutral grip I like because now you engage the brachialis a little bit more.

So I felt like I got something out of that, but just standard supine medium grip, chin ups and pull downs. I didn't see much happen. And I figured this out probably three years ago. I modified a program Andy Baker wrote that was an arm program. And it was basically a lot of bench rows, shrugs and curls and not a ton of curls, surprisingly, you know, they were in there. And I just filled out really quick on the front of my arms, you know, I've never had a problem getting my triceps bigger if I bench a lot and do a little bit. I don't

even have to tricep work. If I bench a lot, they just fill out. But doing a lot of chin ups and heavy chin ups, never really did it. But I remember when he did his program, I was doing cable rows, I was doing neutral grip pull downs. There was a couple of bicep curl exercises there, barbell rows, there was a lot of rowing and a lot of curling.

And then he did the shrugs so that you would be holding heavy dumbbells. I think that was the point because they were supposed to be done without straps. Um, and it worked, but, uh, I don't know. I, I, I never really got it out of the chin ups. I think I've just always been very good at using my lats and maybe it's my arm dimensions. I have long, uh, arms.

Most of my length is in my forearms. I have fucking grasshopper arms, you know, but, uh, I don't have a good explanation for it. But to your point, I would agree a hundred percent that it's the fifth lift. I think it's more important than the power clean. And my reason being that if the press is a main lift, then the chin up is a main lift because the press is an overhead push. You extend the elbow, you flex the shoulders through full range of motion. When you do a chin up, you flex the elbow and you extend the shoulders through full range of motion. When you do a chin-up, you flex the elbow and you extend the shoulders through full range of motion. So how can a press

be a main lift, but a chin-up not be a main lift? See what I mean? So that's what I always tell people. I rank the chin-up or the pull-down higher than I would the power clean. Yeah, definitely. I agree. If the press is a main lift, chin-ups a main lift or the pull-down. I agree. If the press is a main lift chin up the main lift or the pull down. Yes absolutely. Now interesting that you mentioned the the Rose, Barbell Rose as a also staple for the biceps. I'm reasoning that you probably do supine grip Rose. I do I'm prone I'm not a fan probably do supine grip rows. Or I do them prone. I'm not a fan of using barbell rows for arms because my, what I've heard is when you do supine, it fucks with your elbows.

Yeah. So I like, I like the neutral grip personally. I've done them with a trap bar, which is kind of cool, but typically I like them on the cable or a dumbbell personally, cause then I can keep the palms facing each other. Um, people don't know this, but a lot of people don't know this. You probably know this, that brachialis is your strongest elbow flexor. So when you do a prone grip or a neutral grip, you're hitting that muscle more. And that just fills your whole arm out, you know?

Yeah. Um, yeah, I like neutral grip type rowing. Uh, I've do barbell rows. I think they're great, you know, as deadlift assistance. I don't think they're a great arm builder because they start to bother the elbows when you start turning the hands. I played around with a trap bar once. I never ran it up. So I have no opinion because I was trying to replicate what the dumbbell accomplishes with a barbell, you know? I like dumbbell rows and croc rows a lot. And I like a cable with a neutral grip personally. I don't like doing supine grip rowing because the thing about what is a row? A row is a partial.

You know, it's basically a partial around the shoulder because your shoulders halfway through extension versus a chin up, you start in full flexion. Right. So you're removing the lats from the equation by shortening them. Right. So now your arms and your feet from the equation by shortening them. Right. Uh, so now your arms and your forearms have to take the brunt of the load at

this point, and that's, that's why it could be a good arm builder. But, uh, I think when you're doing a whole body exercise, like a barbell row, with no freedom to move your hands around or supinate, it just pisses off the elbows. I think it's too much load. Yeah. Has that been your experience? Not personally.

For some reason, I've been lucky to preserve my elbows, like at a hundred percent healthy. And I've always been able to do like supine rows, lots of chin ups on top of that jujitsu. And I'm good. So that's awesome. I don't know if I'd get it or not. I've gotten tendonitis from benching. So I'd imagine if I did the other range of motion, maybe I would, I don't know. I should try it because other types of rows have been very helpful in building my arms.

And, uh, I'm sure it would work as long as I don't piss my elbows off. Um, but did you get what I was getting at there though? When you shorten the lat, now your arm muscles have to do more of the work versus your back. Yeah. It's like saying you're, you're halfway through the chin up and now that's where the arms take over the movement and not the, the lats. Yep. And that's why I laugh at these bodybuilders, man. They're like, if you just do the row this specific way, it's a great

lap builder and I'm like, it's a partial, you know? Yeah. At least they talk out of both sides of their mouth because they sit there and you know, they jerk themselves off over the stretch. You got to get stretch mediated hypertrophy, you know, and all this bullshit. Well, the stretch happens at the top of a chin up or the top of a pull down. When you're in a row, you're shortened. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's, go ahead. No, I was, I was going to say that you're right. And the, but the row is also like a really good exercise. I would not place it at the level of the chin up and, or the press or the, but it's like, it's close. It's close. See, and Rip talks about that in the book.

It's a good intermediate exercise. Once you've been doing this for a while, it doesn't have to, you know, that's a whole nother topic. I've done several videos on this. It doesn't have to be super fucking strict where only your arms and your shoulders move. It's a compound exercise and I think it's functional because sometimes you have to pick things up off the floor and you're not going to do that with a strict row.

You're going to use your hips and knees to to get it up and that's also why These people that like to pussy out and not do their fucking cleans I also argue that a clean is functional because you have to hoist things up from the floor to chest level sometimes and you have to Know how to you know, what are the weight lifters call it engage that triple extension, you know We're using your hips and knees and ankles to hoist weight up so I think it's very important to and ankles to hoist weight up. So I think it's very important to know how to hoist up weight safely. And I learned that when I was moving out of a three bedroom house and I had to pick a

lot of things up and in doing that, I realized I'm like, I'm pretty good at using my hips and I learned how to do that through the Olympic lifts. So you know, the row and the power clean and those things are very useful. Yes, I agree. I agree. Even though I'm not sure I would place the clean as a priority relative to the other lifts, like I feel like it's also slightly lower than the main lifts. I still train them, but this is an interesting data point in my training. When I was doing LP

and I did train the power cleans, I remember I got them all the way up to like 230, 235 for sets of three. That's pretty good, man. Yeah, but I was 200 pounds and then gained a bunch of weight and the Power Clean stayed relatively at those same loads. I think my PR is like 260 maybe for a single. I'm my heaviest. And then now that I lost weight and I'm at 180, I can still Power Clean 230 to 235. I did at Rips Gym back in December, I think I did 242 power clean.

Nice. So, I mean, you cannot train them as you can the other lifts. It's just like, I use them to maybe think that I am retaining my explosive power or reminding my body to stay explosive, but I don't feel like there's much gain anymore in training them. No, I would agree. If you want to clean the most weight you could ever clean, now you're getting into Olympic weightlifting and it's become sport and specialization.

I don't train them at all, but I did, like you said years ago, and a lot of novices want to skip them because they're limited more by technique. So you don't, you arguably don't get as much training intensity from them as you would from a deadlift variant, which could limit your ability to deadlift heavier. I understand that argument, but I think the technical execution is useful because you have to move like that out in the world. And if we're just talking about functionality and functional strength, that's my argument

for it. I think being able to use the hips to hoist weight up and catch it is useful because you know, you pick something heavy up off the floor that you got to carry and walk across a parking lot or whatever. You're not, you're not going to do that strict, you know, it's not going to be strict and static. You have to know how to basically use body English to get it up. And the Olympic lifts taught me how to do that. Now I don't have to sit there and go become a weightlifter, you know, but I got my clean in the mid-200s as well. And if I have to

pick something up, I know how to keep my back in extension and I know how to hoist the weight up safely because that's what I was saying. No, I see what you mean. Under that context, I agree. If you're training for strength and you've never done power cleanings, then I think it's a good idea to at least learn the skills so you can learn how to hoist weights, as you say. But know in advance that you're not going to slam dunk playing basketball. No. It's not going to get you there. No, it's good for teaching you how to use momentum to move weight around. Right.

You're going to have to do at some point. So yeah, so let's dive into this because this is what I really wanted to get you on here for the topic of weight gain. You know, we get a lot, you know, you were one of those guys that needed to gain it. We, I've worked with a lot of these guys, you've worked with a lot of these guys. And there's always this reluctance. And I talk about this on the show a lot to gain body fat and. Rip will say, gain the fat now, lose it later.

It's easier to lose fat than build muscle and get strong. That's true. You know, I agree with that. I've gained weight myself. I'm heavy right now myself. I'm 208, which is for me a lot. So we're all kind of on the same page there. I think the thing that kind of gets glossed over and in part because it doesn't make for a good business model

is that you're gonna gain enough body fat to be uncomfortable. And I've talked about this at length with you and other people. We always get these guys that'll sit there and they'll point out a lightweight lifter or a bodybuilder that's strong. Right. And I have one here, the episode that is going to come up before this one. So by the time this releases, it'll have been two weeks before I

interviewed a weightlifting coach. He trains in the 73 kilogram class. He's about 5'6". He's 165 pounds and he's 9% body fat. And what we talked about in that episode was how he has to eat 3000 calories to stay there. You know, whereas most of the people that come to us have to starve themselves to get there, right? To get to 9% body fat. This guy can't keep the weight on because he's got a 36 inch vertical jump. He's a natural athlete and he's just naturally lean despite the fact that he eats a lot, right? But what he'll tell you is that he's in a club sport and we covered this, but I'll

kind of review here. He's in a club sport and his goal is not to lift the most weight possible or gain the most muscle possible. His goal is to break records and win medals. And because of that, he has to stay at a weight that allows him to do that. If he goes up a weight class, he's probably not even going to be in the top five and we went through this, right? Um, so what he'll tell you is that all his joints hurt, everything feels like shit

because that's sport, that's competition, right? And there comes a certain point here and you know, that guy, he's breaking national world records as a master's lifter. Um, but there comes a point here, we get a lot of, uh, people that are in the middle of the bell curve or probably below, you know, people that we call motor morons. And they might have to do some version of that to get a mediocre result. So that's one thing that I like to explain. The second thing is, you know, just when someone's lean, that doesn't mean that

they feel great. Like I said, this guy has all sorts of pain and a lot of it, you and I probably know this, is because he's training at a very high level and he's very lean, you know, and he acknowledged, he's like, if I got fat and just started training more, I'd feel a lot better in terms of joints, but then it's harder to breathe, right? And all of this kind of ties into the fact that, you know, when you're a novice, everything kind of happens fast and steady. You're adding five pounds of workout, 15 pounds a week on the squat, maybe 30 pounds a week on the deadlift for a while. This might go on for three, four,

five, six, nine months depending on whether you're a young man, an old man, you know, good joints, bad joints, you know, somewhere in the first year that's gonna end. And then at that point, if you're not satisfied with where the number is, if you're not satisfied with how you progress as a novice, well now you've become an athlete of some sort and there's different levels of that. You know, as I covered in my previous episode, there's, you know, you could be a recreational athlete, like that's what I would consider myself. I don't compete in meets, I don't chase medals, I don't chase records, but I chase numbers, which means that I am lifting to get from point A to point B. I am training, right?

So I'm an athlete in that regard, but it's recreational because I don't, I don't have deadlines, you know, I can just keep going. Right. Uh, then you have somebody who's in a club sport, like my friend, uh, you know, he has deadlines, he has meets that he has to go to, to qualify, et cetera. He has records he's trying to break. He has medals he's trying to win. That's another level. Right. And then you got pros, right? Yeah, pro athletes. So

I bring that up because once you have decided that, hey, I want to get a lot stronger than what my newbie gains or my novice linear progression provides, you've now committed to a higher level of risk. And then if you go into club or pro sports, now that risk gets even higher. So when we say gain weight, yes, we mean fat and muscle. And sometimes that amount of body fat you gain is going to make you uncomfortable. There are trade-offs to that. I've done it, you've done it. I've talked about me many times on this episode, but I want to hear about you

because you took it even further than me and you went further than me as well. You've got a lot stronger than I did. So I think that this will be good for the audience to hear. And, you know, in this show, I like to touch on the good, the bad and the ugly. I don't like to gloss over things, you know? So if you're doing something

and there's a negative trade-off, we need to talk about that because people need to understand this shit. They're not going to get into the gym and lift weights, gain a little bit of body fat, You know, so if you're doing something and there's a negative trade off, we need to talk about that because people need to understand this shit. They're not going to get into the gym and lift weights, gain a little bit of body fat and be lean the whole time. Because I think that's the perception a lot of men have is that they're just going to come in here.

Okay. You know, I can gain some fat, but I'm not going to become a fat guy. Well, you know, fat guy is typically stronger than a skinny guy by virtue of being fat, even if his training program is bullshit. We've all seen this. So I'm going to hand that off to you. Okay. Well, so I guess that what you're trying to make me talk about is what the experience

of gaining weight is and all of the trade-offs that you are considering when you aim for that. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And, you know, talk about the good first, you know. Okay. Explain to people what happens. Why is it good to gain weight? Okay. Before I talk about the good, I'm going to talk about my motivation behind it because I did have a goal like you did, which is, you know, you're trying to drive up the numbers. In my case, my all-time ambition was to squat 300 kilograms. Why? Because my dad told me that's what he squatted.

He played football 15 years and we don't have a video, but like he's promised many times and I believe him. So I wanted to be at least as strong as him and that was my all-time goal. I trained first to rehab my back and then because I really like the process of getting stronger and I just wanted to see if I could get to 300 kg squat. So you know, you know, like when I started, I was very motivated. I followed everything by the book and I did get very, very strong. Again, my squad went up and like. I think I started at one 15, my first day, my first squat.

And after six months, four or five, I think after another six months, 500. And then here's the interesting part. When I got all the way to 500 pounds, yes, it was, it was a very fulfilling process. You know, like you gain weight, the numbers go up, you lift more weight, you enjoy the process. And I didn't really care about my appearance in that moment. Like my vision was the squad, the 300 kg squad. And I did gain some fat, you know, around like a little bit of belly, this and that.

I never thought I was like too fat. And then I continued training and I started competing, like I said before, in terms of balance development of muscles, since I trained everything balanced, like two presses per week, two bench presses per week. I think I was doing two squats, two deadlifts. Everything went up smoothly and slowly I started to gain weight from, I think I was probably in the 220s and then over the years got all the way up to 250. And the interesting part is I got to a point where my squad got stuck in the 555. That's the most I've squatted.

And like the reason I wanted to gain weight was first thing is the squat, second is I just wanted to see where my limits were. And probably I'm not going to say that I untapped all of my genetic potential. Of course not. You're still a young man. But I probably was close, you know, like I did everything I could in terms of resources and, and tactics and programming and technique, you know, I was 250.

I did like very advanced programs, like three months of like block programming, stuff like that. And my squad got stuck for like two, three years at 550. And that's where I thought, you know what, gained a lot of weight. It was a very satisfying experiment, but I don't think I can go like, if I continue training like this, what's my squat going to be in two years, three years? Maybe 50 more pounds, like 600. That's still way off from what I wanted, which is 666, I think, something like that, the 600 kg.

660. So, that's where I started reckoning, like, what we started started the trade-offs, there's a point where the trade-offs don't make sense anymore because a pound that you gain in your squat is going to cost you much, much, much, much more than what it used to cost you six months earlier or a year earlier when you were a novice. So that was one thing. And then the other thing is my mentor and coach told me, and he was a strong man, he was quite big, strong. He told me, if I did one mistake was

I stayed too heavy too long. And I don't want you to do that. I think now is your time, you're young and your skin, cause that's another thing to consider, right? Your skin can still adapt as you shrink again and not have like loose bits and pieces of that. So I would recommend that you start losing weight slowly and you're gonna enjoy the process

and you're gonna like the end product of your body. Like after having accumulated what I call the muscle savings account, because man, I'm telling you, something happens when you get your deadlift up to 600 pounds and then you lose weight. I do feel like there's infrastructural changes that remain permanently. I have a huge back still. Oh yeah. And I feel like I couldn't have gotten that back or the physique that I have.

I'm not saying I'm like a professional bodybuilder or anything, but I'm quite satisfied with what I have. And most of that I think comes from having gone like that far with my body weight and muscle accumulation to only like shrink again, but I've retained a lot. And in concluding the trade-offs, I lost 70 to 80 pounds because right now I'm 180. So I was 250, came back down to 180. And my squat came down from 555 to 470. My deadlift from 635 to 555.

I just pressed 225. So if we try to do the calculations, I probably lost 20% of my strength, but I lost maybe a little bit more of my body weight. What did you lose, like 70 pounds? I lost 70 pounds. So 250 to 180, how much is that in terms of percentages? Let's see, 70 over 250. 28%.

Right. So I lost more weight, but in terms of percentages, I retained like 20% of, 80% of the strength. So I feel like that's a good trade off, you know? And actually, Rip told me the same. When he saw me the first time I lost weight, I explained him this, that I got stuck at 555 and probably there wasn't much more to explore. And he's like, well, yeah, that's a shame, you know, but it is what it is. Like, yeah. And I'm just, I'm pleased with it.

I like, I saw what I needed to see in that experiment. Yeah, no, that's exactly what I wanted to, wanted you to talk about because, you know, I've done this a few times. And this last time I was open to going heavier, I'm 208. And in the past I've went between 190 and 160 and the last couple of times I couldn't quite get under 170. This time I got to 208.

And I lose a little bit of strength, mostly in the bench press. But what I've noticed is some of, there are two things happening. You're gaining muscle and you're getting stronger, obviously, but then you're also moving weight a lot easier. You're able to move more weight. Have you noticed that simply having a smaller body, even though a lot of that's coming from

losing body fat, changes the mechanics of these lifts? Oh, absolutely, man. I think especially on the press, when I was 250, I was pressing 300. I was doing like regularly over 250 every week. And I remember, man, when you unwrap the bar being that heavy, it just feels so good. Like you have all this support of the big mass of the of the arms, the shoulders, the chest, the back. And now that I'm like a little skinny bitch at one 80, you just feel the like it's it's a whole operation to on rack to 25.

So these. Yeah. Everything needs to be perfect. The bracing, the grip. Whereas when I was a 250, like you just felt so much better. We get people that either follow me on my Instagram page or listen to the podcast and you get these little trolls that'll come on here and say, Oh, you know, you weren't 250 and lean.

That would require steroids. Uh, this was all drug free, you weren't 250 and lean. That would require steroids. This was all drug free, correct? Mm hmm. Yes. Yeah. I, you know, we talked about it beforehand. I'm just putting it out there for the audience. I already knew that, but the next thing that you're going to see from a troll is, well, he wasn't lean. Well, why does he have to be, right?

That's the thing that I've been asking these people. Your goal was to squat 660 and people like to pretend that the gain in body fat doesn't play a role in this shit and it absolutely does. You know, like you said, it changes your center of mass entirely and moving weights a lot easier when you just have more overall size. Now you have to gain muscle obviously, you know, that's what's driving most of it, but there are leverage changes that take place, kind of like, you know, when we talk in the seminar about the cheater pipe and the wrench, you know, the same kind of deal, you know, your leverage changes when you put on more body fat.

So some of that weight that's come off the bar simply has come off the bar because everything's different now, you know, it's not that you lost a ton of muscle mass, you probably lost some because you lost body weight, you always lose some, but the loss of body fat changes the way all of that feels and how you can move that weight. Would you agree with that? Oh yeah, absolutely. The physics of executing the lifts feel different when you are at a much heavier body weight. And there's something about it and we can't really explain all of it because it's just one of those things that's hard to measure. But when you do that, when you get that big, that's, you know, you and when I say that

big, what would you say you were 25% body fat probably? Probably I mean you've seen the pictures, you probably know better than me. That's what I would guess. I don't think you touched maybe 26, 27 at the most, not 30. I wouldn't say 30. Mid 20s, let's just call it that. And now you're what 12? Probably 12, probably 12.

Yeah. Yeah. So when you get that large and you're lifting and adding weight and eating and you know, you're releasing more insulin, which again is the most anabolic hormone in the human body. And then you lose the weights. There's something about that you put on, I would argue, and you know, people have argued this for decades, the quote unquote exercise science people try to say that this has been debunked. It has not been debunked because you can't debunk this in a lab.

But I would argue that you're not going to be able to gain that much muscle mass staying lean and trying to do the whole lean gains thing. Oh yeah. I actually wanted to bring that up. Cool that you mentioned it. So because from your perspective as a nutritionist, this is going to be cool to bring up to your audience. And it's like my own personal dilemma that I have because you know, when my clients come in and they look at me now

and they don't know my training history, And when my clients come in and they look at me now and they don't know my training history, they think that it is impossible to achieve the physique that I have achieved. And in part, I think that's true, but not because I have like special genetics, but maybe like what we're ruminating on right now, maybe it's just a fact that this process of shooting up to 250, driving up to your strength limits to then come back down, may be the most effective way to transform your physique, aesthetically speaking, in the long term. Because like the other route is you do what the scientists recommend, which is you do like the little cycles of bulk and then cut, bulk and then cut, right? So right now I weigh 180.

If I had started, like when I started when I was 155 and I do those little cycles of shoot up to like 165, come back down to 160, then repeat until I get to 180. Man, I don't like my intuition tells me that it would not have been the same result that I've gotten, but I don't know what's, what's your thoughts? I don't think he would not be pressing 225 right now. Right. I don't think so.

Um, for one, it takes a long time to build muscle. So these little three month cut bulk cycles make no sense when you consider the physiology. You need to bulk to whatever weight that may be, and you need to stay there for a period of time so that you can allow yourself enough time to progress, adapt and grow. So that's number one. These three month things. That's just the length of an academic semester. So the guy can get a publication and get promoted and get tenure. Uh, that's just not grounded in reality. We all acknowledge whether you're in academia or out in the, in gyms in the field, that muscle

takes a long time to build. So why would you cut yourself short when you're just starting to build muscle? Right. It makes no sense. So for one, you got to stay anabolic for a longer period of time to, again, it's the leverage thing. There's something about having all that size and I'm sure there's a hormonal response involved too, that allows you to lift more and that nervous system

adaptation that happens, you get used to handling these big poundages. I don't think that goes away either. You know, um, I've seen this on a smaller scale than you, you know, went up around 200, give or take several times. Every time I cut down, I'm lighter and I'm stronger. So I pulled 500 for the first time when I was 175, you know, um, I've squatted 440 at about 180 pounds. I pressed 225 at about 180 pounds.

Um, but I didn't do that with 10 pound cycles. I was gaining 30 or 180 pounds. I pressed 225 at about 180 pounds. But I didn't do that with 10 pound cycles. I was gaining 30 or 40 pounds. It didn't occur to me that I should have went further. If I was in my twenties and I was talking to you and had your data at the time, I would have done it. I would have done it. I just, I thought it just seemed too heavy for me.

I wasn't in that environment. And the first time I tried to gain weight when I got in that environment, I got to 205 and I wasn't that strong because I was working with an incompetent coach. But if I did what you did and had access to that information, I would have fucking went to 240 back then easily. But now it's just, it's a lot rougher on a 40 year old body

and I'm not even that old. You know, I can probably get away with it, but there's definitely differences I feel even at 208. So I'm thinking, hey, another fucking what? 42 pounds? I don't know about this. You know? No, and I think that's a really good point you bring because most people don't see this

long-term project. They're like, I want to look good in six months for my wedding or for my trip with my friend, whatever. But I was looking at it from, no, no, no, this is a long-term process and I want to make result to be the best that I can achieve. So it needs to be like, well, that's what I did and it worked. Five, six, seven-year perma-bulk and then you slowly cut back down in weight. You go slow. So you try to preserve the muscle mass. So, I get it when people see me, they're like, dude, it's impossible. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna do this for, I don't want this in eight years. I want the results now. So, the question is, are you guys willing to sacrifice the things that I sacrificed?

Like, yeah, you're gonna look chubby for a while and you're going to like, you want to be okay with that if you want the best end result possible. And I don't think too many guys are willing to like undergo such a like training process. No, fuck no. It's an athlete's approach, you know, and it makes sense. You were in sports, your father was in sports. I was in sports, my father was in sports. And when you do something like what we're describing,

you're now getting into sport, even though you're not in a league or a club, it's no longer about health, you know? Obviously you wanna stay as healthy as you can doing it, but you're taking a higher level of risk. That's what I try to put throw at people because they'll say, oh, you're just so unhealthy because you're getting fat and this that and the other Well, you've now gotten into post novice training. You've decided to specialize in a physical activity That progresses over time. You're an athlete now. Athletics are not healthy people.

There's this misunderstanding that athletics are healthy. They're not healthy. Whether you're a lightweight or a heavyweight, you're putting your body through absolute hell. And if you talk to a competitive athlete, they're going to tell you they feel like shit. They feel like shit all the time. The big ones can't breathe, the small ones hurt all the time. That's just oversimplification, of course, there's other things present, but you know, at this point, you're taking some risk with your body because you want it that bad. You don't have to want it that bad, people, but don't pretend that it doesn't work. That's kind of what I try to tell people. Yeah, you know, this works, but you're not going to feel great, you know, you're

going to, you know, you're going to have problems breathing. In a lot of cases, you know, big guys have problems breathing, even the conditioned ones talk to strong, they'll tell you they're, you know, they're very conditioned, but all that size makes it harder to breathe the skinny guys. They're pounding on their joints. They don't have a lot of fat stored in between them. Everything hurts. So you have to understand something when you're not genetically gifted for strength and muscle mass.

You're going to have to take athlete level risk to get a mediocre result. And that's the bitch of it all. Right. You know, like you're not one of these guys, it's naturally ripped fast, lean and muscular. And you know who you are. Those guys aren't listening to me. They're in there doing their thing because they don't think about what they're doing. But if you're a hard gainer, let's just use that word because it's familiar. You're going to have to take risk, push

yourself, dedicate years to get to where the natural athlete is at baseline. So, you know, 180, 12% body fat, that's pretty damn good for someone who's five eight and not on drugs, you know, a lot of these people, I think part of the problem is with these, you know, 180, 12% body fat, that's pretty damn good for someone who's five eight and not on drugs. You know, a lot of these people, I think part of the problem is with these, you know, Oh, you're going to look good in six months is, you know, if you're a Hollywood actor, you're taking drugs. If you're an athlete, you're taking drugs, you know, and if you take drugs

and fuck off in the gym, you're going to see muscle gain. That's that's drugs working. But if you want to go in there and do it the old fashioned way, you're looking at ears, you're looking at potential injuries, you're looking at ears. You're looking at potential injuries. You're looking at feeling like shit. If you do have to gain weight to do it. Um, there's a lot that goes into that. That's why it's not recommended that older

people do something like this. You know, if you're 40, 50, 60, I ain't going to tell a 65 year old to get to two 50 and, uh, give himself diabetes. I'm not going to do that, but if you're under 35, it's probably fine. 35 to 45, it depends on the person. You know, I don't like the way I feel right now,

but I know I don't have diabetes or high blood pressure from it. I haven't done it for that long, but this may be the last time I do this. So I may go a little, I'm going to go up a little bit more. We'll see. I don't think so. I think this is the final end of the line for me, but, uh, in my 20s, if I had this information, I would have done it.

I would, if you said, Hey, your problem is two Oh five is not heavy enough. Go to two 50 and do it this way. Get off this bullshit program. I would have been like, yeah, hurry. I'll do it. Yeah, definitely. And actually that would be like my, my message to your audience. And that's what I tell all my kids at the gym.

Like, are we aiming for physical excellence or just mediocrity? So if you want physical excellence, do the work, get under the bar, get heavier, get strong. And once you pay your dues, trying to get to your potential, once you've seen that panorama and you're like, okay, I think I paid my dues. I went too heavy for long enough. I think now it's the time to cut back down after years of training, after years of paying

your dues. Then you have my permission to cut. You have this permission, ladies and gentlemen. I think that's a good message. I think we hammered the hell out of this topic, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I think it was good. All right. Well, I'd love to have you back because I think you and I can go on and on and on about a lot of shit Yes. Yeah maybe next time it's a

over here in my studio when you come and visit and we we can shoot a I'm down man many stuff many different topics nutrition training Yeah, what are some promos to you know? Yeah, let's close out 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. If you are Metro Phoenix,

we are just South of Sky Harbor Airport off between 32nd and 40th street and Broadway. Come on by, we offer private, semi-private training and gym memberships. And we're also now on YouTube youtube.com slash at weights underscore and underscore plates and hurry working people find you guys you can find me at instagram my account is at harry fafutis. And there's also my gym in Guadalajara. It's called Tabros.

You can also find us at Instagram at Tabros fuerza. And if you ever come down here, want to have some solid training at my gym, you are welcome.