Weights and Plates Podcast - #97 - Barbells Work. Your Instagram Workout Doesn’t

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

In this episode of the Weights and Plates Podcast, Robert Santana gets real about what lifting weights actually does for your body—and what it doesn’t. He breaks down the difference between training for strength and chasing aesthetics, why most people misunderstand barbell training, and how steroids and genetics skew expectations. Whether you’re a beginner confused by conflicting advice or a coach trying to get clients under the bar, this episode is a deep, no-BS look at what matters, what doesn’t, and how to train for the long haul. 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

Welcome to the Waits and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana and I am your host. What's going on ladies and gentlemen? Long time no see. I have not hit an episode in about a month. A big part of that reason was because I redid the studio a bit. So as you can see, there's a backdrop behind me. There's some other things you can't see, but I redid the studio and now there's a little bit more setup involved than what I used to do, where I just kind of turned the camera on. Whatever was behind me was behind me and we hope for the best. But now we are a little bit more official.

I wouldn't say official, but more official than before. So that was one reason. The other reason is, you know, I've been thinking that, another reason is I've just been kind of rethinking how I want to shape and direct this podcast. If I'm going to be doing, thinking about the types of things I want to talk about and the guests that I want to invite on the show.

And I've arrived at the conclusion that we might need to do a little bit of rebranding here, but not much, not much. The core message has not changed. So I've just been rethinking things a bit and we'll see what happens. I'm going to start talking. I might actually do more of these and release these more often, if anything. But right now we're going to stick to the two times a month, but we'll see.

I've been recently inspired to talk more and, uh, we'll start with this one. So without further ado, let's get to it. So, you know, a lot of what I've been thinking about is we've spent the last five years in this show talking about strength training in the context of using barbells, um, I'm starting strength coach. I refer to that book and, book and Mark Ripito on and off on the show because that is where I learned how to teach people how to lift barbells safely and add a lot of weight to them safely. Inevitably, if you become a competitive lifter, things get more

serious. You get further away from general strength training and you get closer to competitive lifting, chasing genetic potential and taking on more and more risks. I've done a version of this because everything I do in the weight room is designed around getting another PR. Maybe not necessarily on a specific date like you would in power lifting or Olympic weight lifting or strongman, but I lift with the intention of lifting more. And by lifting more, I mean the 1RM. I want to lift a heavier 1RM. I just don't care if it happens in a meet or not. I want the flexibility to

celebrate Christmas at the gym on the day that it actually arrives and not have to course correct because it didn't happen on a specific day. Typically you go to a powerlifting meet, you perform your attempts, and then whatever's there that day, that's what your max is, and then you have to reset everything and start a whole new training cycle. See, I want to leave nothing on the bar, and recently I tried to do that, and it went okay. You know, I'm not very good at singles, and part of that is that I don't train singles that often. So last time I tried it was five years ago. I tried it again this year. My bench did phenomenally well, surprisingly. I hit 320 to top off this recent mass phase you've heard me talk about.

So I like to do it differently. Speaking of which, let me kind of give you an update on my own lifting because it has come up on this program. And when I was coming up, I like to hear what other people were doing. I didn't need to hear a whole monologue on it, but I like to see what people were doing. I find it interesting. I learned from it. So I try to share a little bit of what I'm doing without spending too much time on it. But I was chasing a 315 bench starting at the end of 2023. I learned a lot in that process about training the bench press and managing injuries such as tendonitis in my case. And I worked through all of that.

And the biggest thing I learned at the end was about training frequency. I ended up having to train the bench four times a week this year. I pressed once a week. I cycled the reps. I kept them anywhere between singles and sets of five or six. You know, I think eights for a short period, but mostly one to five reps. And I got real good at doing singles and I ended up benching 320 with a fairly symmetrical grip. 315 went up clean. That's on Instagram. I never posted the 320, but I think I should,

you know, as part of the record, because if it's not on the internet, it didn't count right. But I got a clean 315 like I wanted, because the one I did last year was uneven. The tendonitis was in the way. I wasn't proud of it. So I got a clean 315, ath state on the bench, bar was level. I was happy, put five more pounds on it, got that, and that was the end of that. I did not get a new 5RM or a 3RM in that training cycle. I improved the technical efficiency of my 1RM and then even set a new 1RM so that was nice. The deadlift topped off at 505 for 5, 520 was my best triple in that training cycle and then my best single is 545. I don't truly believe that's all I had, but I think because it had been five years, and

then I think before that it had been a couple years since I'd done singles, I probably needed another training cycle, like a full training cycle starting from fives going down to ones on the squat and deadlift if I really wanted to express that. I never maxed out the squat. I was pretty beat up. The best I got there was 425 for a triple. I don't really care. I wanted a bench 315. I ended up getting a lot of progress on the deadlift so I took whatever was there and maybe next time I go up you'll see what happens. But right now I'm actually losing

weight. I topped off at 214. It's just it's not fun being that heavy, you know for long periods of time. It's necessary, you know, I did it I'd do it again, you know, but it's just it's a it's a lot to stay that heavy long terms and I decided I'm gonna go down because it was just too much weight. So take a break from that Maybe I'll go up again, you know, drop my weight down. Maybe to 180 work back up again slowly Let's see what I can do again, you know, drop my weight down, maybe to 180, work back up again slowly, and see what I can do. I think I'll pull 600 at some point in my lifetime, probably at some point in the next 10 years, but I'm not in a hurry because I'm not a power lifter, which brings me to what

I want to talk about in this episode. I've talked about this in other programs and then in this program, but, you know, I started, I got into weightlifting probably when I was, I'd say 11, 10, 11 years old, I saw my dad doing it at the Y. You know, he used to live at the Y, train at the Y in Chicago. It used to be the Leaning Tower YMCA. And he told me a man needs to be big and strong and this is how it's done. So he benched, he leg pressed, did curls, he did flies, he did all this bodybuilding shit.

I didn't squat or deadlift, but planted this seed in my head that I needed to lift. So I could not wait until I was old enough to lift without parental supervision. At that time, I could just watch him lift. So that consisted of me sitting on the parallel bars. So fast forward, you know, I was a swimmer in high school, not an explosive sport.

So they exposed us to the bench press and then a bunch of machines, because this was the 90s. So machines were still popular. And then by the time I was 18, my stepbrother, he was a football player in high school and he started picking up men's health magazines and running through some workouts there.

And then I started trying to do what he did. It didn't work quite as well for me because I'm not built the way he is, and I've talked about this before. But it led to me discovering the basic barbell lifts. I mean, at the time it was the squat, the bench press, the pull-up, the dips, and then I would deadlift. I just didn't understand what the deadlift was doing for me, but I would do it on and off. And if I'm being completely honest, I thought I would look good and it would help me get dates. I was a young man in my early 20s, late teens, early 20s, and I thought the big muscular guys had an advantage.

And there's argument to be made that they do. There's probably plenty of data on this. But that's an entirely different topic. The point is I wanted to lift to make my body look better, but I didn't want to do anything unhealthy. I didn't grow up around anybody that used any type of drugs. People drank, but I wasn't around drugs growing up. My peers didn't do steroids. There was a lot of pot smoking at my high school, but I didn't see any hard drugs. I didn't see any steroids. But my friends that I ended up connecting with later who

were on the football team, on the wrestling team, told me that there was steroid use in those sports. But I just was never exposed to it. I thought lifting weights, sports, and any other type of physical activity that could be conceivably used as exercise was all about health. So I didn't want to do anything that would compromise my health. I didn't push too heavy in the weight room. I would try to add weight. Where I got to that point, that which I now know is heavy, I would typically not go past that point. So I avoided injuries for

a long time simply because I was risk averse and I didn't want to lift anything. I didn't feel like I could manage it. I didn't know what heavy meant or what I was supposed to do. Except on the, of course, you know arms and chest you would just push as hard as you needed to I had no leg drive I didn't know what an arch was. I just knew I had to touch my chest not bounce it like a dumbass and that counted so I Pushed myself on the bench. I did not push myself in the squat of the deadlift. So, you know upper body I'd try to do it Didn't really get into curls very much and I had no idea that my strength was being limited by the equipment I was using. I didn't

have fractional plates. I didn't know you could add a couple pounds to a lift. I also didn't know that I could press and touch the bar to my chest either. You know one guy said, oh just stop at your chin you're gonna hurt your rotator cuff you all the way down. And just shit like that you know. So spun my wheels for years. And then when I was in my late twenties, I found rip trying to fix my neck. Cause I got into pressing, uh, I found rip and starting strength and the rest was history. I, it was the first program I did where I saw all these muscles develop that weren't developing before, uh, when I was doing the other stuff.

So when I would squat bench, yeah, I'd see my pecs fill out, I'd see my quads fill out. When I would do pull down, I'd see my lats get wider. But like, I didn't really get any back thickness as the bodybuilders would call it. I didn't get any bicep growth and my delts weren't really growing except my front delts and my rear delts from all the bench pressing and chin-ups I was doing. But I wouldn't get that beloved lateral delt that the bodybuilders

obsess over until I started pressing, which is why I'm on this fucking crusade to get people off the lateral raises and under a barbell to press. I mean, you could do your lateral raises. It's fine. You know, anything that puts resistance on a muscle can grow that muscle to an extent. But your meat and potatoes are your barbells. I've always known that. I still promote that. That is my core message. But what are some problems with it? Functionally, there's none that I can see. You know, some people get hurt and movements need to be modified because the model for which the lift is supposed to be performed

may not work for certain individuals. So then you make modifications. You might put somebody in a high bar squat or a safety squat bar. Some people might not press because they can't flex the shoulder to terminal range of motion. They can't get the arms beside the head. Some bench presses need to be done with a close grip, some with a wide grip, some with dumbbells.

There's modifications that need to be made on occasion. But these movements are your meat and potatoes, you know, or some variation of them. You know, I stand by that. But the number one problem that I run into with the general public is palatability. Some people simply don't want to do a handful of lifts and take a minimalist approach. They're bored. They're bored. They want to be in the gym, you know, four to five days a week, sometimes six, and they want to do lots of exercises. They like the feeling that the isolation type exercises give them, the pump,

the muscle pump, the burn, right? And for many years, I've been fighting that. I've been fighting that and been losing greatly because more people want that than not. I don't know that minimalism will ever dominate the fitness industry, but you can certainly sell it. And we have had plenty of great people sign on for it. But by and large, when people go in a weight room, you know, they want to try lots of different things. And I'm guilty of it too. You know, I like the standing lateral raise machine for as much as I make fun of lateral raises.

I am just fascinated by the engineering in this thing. You know, those old seventies machines, now they've made modern ones. I haven't seen an old one. I don't think ever in person, but the company Arsenal and Atlantis, think Watson up in the UK, they all make this standing lateral raise machine where you grab these handles and you can go up overhead on a couple of them.

And I'd never seen that before, and I saw that last year and I think it's cool, you know, but am I doing that because I want to get as strong as possible and build as much muscle as possible? Not necessarily. I just, I like the machine. I like how crazy that range of motion looks. So it's, you know, it's fun. I like donkey calf raises, you know, I think those actually do build big calf muscles once you've exhausted what little bit you can get out of squats,

you know, now some of you don't need to do any calf exercises. And to you, I say, fuck you. But congratulations and thank your mother or father for those. But, you know, some of us, like myself, have to train calves. And I like donkey calf raises because it takes the the back and the waist out of the equation and places the load right on the hips. So you know I like machines, I like doing curls, I think curls are actually functional for as much as we make fun of guys overdoing curls. I think you don't need to do a ton of curls but curls are functional, you have

to hold things with your elbow bent and I think that they help you do that I think grip grip exercises with the captains of crush hand grippers help enhance that you know from your curling strength your row strength your Ability to hold dumbbells for longer periods of time goes up when you do something like that At least it did for me, you know, that's the last 5% You know, I mean curls aside, you know, I think it's fine to do curls early on, you know, once you're pretty much done being a novice. I think it's great to throw those in because it is a functional movement,

that those are movement that did not get strong for me when I wasn't doing it. I struggled holding things, carrying things, distances. So I think they're great. I think farmers carries are great. I think a lot of things outside the five main lifts that you would train a novice in, I think a lot of it has utility. Leg extensions, I don't see a point in that. Some people like them to warm up. It gets

the knees warm. I've never used them for that purpose, but I can see that argument. But like, do I want to sit there and do five sets of 20 on the leg extension and the leg curl? I personally don't, but a lot of people do. Otherwise, these gyms wouldn't stay in business. I know they make a lot of money off people that don't use it, but there's also a lot of people there that are using it. That kind of raises the question now, where do we go from here? Obviously, the best way to train a novice human being who's willing to do it is to squat, to press, to deadlift, to squat, to bench press, to power clean and do chin-ups. Then alternate that, add five pounds and see how far you can go

with that. In six to nine months that human being is gonna be a lot stronger, a lot more muscular, and his bones are gonna be a lot more dense. And if he keeps training those lifts, he'll gain a lot of muscle mass over time. If we're talking about female trainees, the same applies. This minimalist approach can arguably get you anywhere from 80 to 90% of your genetic potential to build muscle without steroids. You know, bodybuilders and fitness people will disagree with me, and that's fine. You know, these aren't things that I can necessarily prove that other people can necessarily prove. We're not going to follow human beings and train

them and feed them and surveil them for decades to prove this point. But it is rather obvious that when you're doing whole body movements with load, whether it be with a barbell, whether you're doing a strongman, whether you have a laborious job that requires you to pick things up and carry them or, you know, hold heavy things in your back and climb, you know, like rucking in the military. I'm sure that there's some thigh hypertrophy that occurs with that. Cyclists get thigh hypertrophy from riding a bike, you know, especially mountain bikers and sprinters.

They're producing a lot of force on a bike and they get, you know, their thighs get bigger, their calves get bigger. So you know, it's pretty clear that compound movements make muscles grow and make large muscles grow. Now, single joint movements also make muscles grow. Why? Because you're applying resistance, you know. So it's just one of those things, right? Like how much weight are you going to put on a lateral raise? How many sets are you going to realistically add week after week, right? You know, a lift like that kind of levels off quickly,

whereas a squat, a deadlift, a bench press, a press, a chin up, a power clean, those things can go up for long periods of time. Maybe, you know, and more for some people than others, of course, but these are trainable movements in the sense that you could get stronger at them for years. Whereas, you know, something like a bicep preacher curl or a one-arm lateral raise, you know, you're not going to have that go up for years.

They are fun for a lot of people, which is why when I get somebody that wants a little bit more time in the weight room, I mean, who am I to judge, right? For a long time, I resented it. And now I just want more people doing these exercises in the way in which I teach them because it will give them longevity. So if that means that I got to throw in lunges and leg presses and bicep curls and leg extensions just to get them to squat and deadlift, you know, it's a trade off. Now they are squatting and deadlifting correctly and getting some benefit out of it, probably still getting a ton of benefit out of it, versus doing a circuit and squatting, you know,

five inches high, not deadlifting at all with another trainer. So, you know, the focus, you know, has to evolve. I think the most important thing is if somebody is willing to show up to a gym all the time, I think the first question is will they do these willing to show up to a gym all the time, I think the first question is, will they do these lifts? If the answer is yes, great. I'm not really interested in working with somebody that doesn't want to lift for the

barbell because that's my specialty. You got to draw the line somewhere. But I'm also not going to exclude somebody that wants to do other exercises as long as they are still going to do the barbell exercises and learn them in the way that I teach them. It's one of those things where perfect is the opposite of good, right? Why don't we get down to the nuts and bolts of this? You know, perfect is the opposite of good. You have a lot of people that don't understand what the weight room can do for them. I think

that's the number one problem we have. It's not that we have this large population of people that are squatting and deadlifting wrong and desperately want to know how to do those things right. They are squatting and deadlifting wrong if they're even squatting and deadlifting. So first of all, most people in the weight room at most gyms aren't even squatting or deadlifting. And those that are, most of them are doing it in a way that is neither efficient or safe. So you have two problems here. Sure, you want to get people squatting and deadlifting, and then you want to get them doing it safe. But what do they care about? The average gym goer,

and I've been talking to the average gym goer for a long time, they go to the weight room because they want to look good. Okay, so let's talk about what that means. If it's a male, he wants big pecs, washboard abs, big biceps, veins down his forearms and maybe up his biceps, round shoulders, you know, maybe a thick back if he cares about that because one of the problems is most people Care about the muscles they can see right and then when you talk to the run-of-the-mill Female at a commercial gym or just an average person average woman that doesn't pay attention to this shit doesn't consume fitness content What she's gonna tell you is she wants her lower body nice and firm wants abs Doesn't want any upper body muscles, doesn't want traps, doesn't want shoulders, doesn't want to look like a man. You know, that's the concern,

right? They don't want to look like a man. If you tell either of these people that, okay, well, you're going to squat and press and deadlift one day, then the next day you're going to squat bench and deadlift. Then we're going to add five pounds every workout, right? They're not connecting how that's going to make them look better. And they are going to think that it's going to make them bigger because the guy who lives heavy has a giant gut, a beard and is bald. That's the image in their head, right? I don't make the rules here, but that's, you know, perception is reality. The perception is that big weights mean a big body. When I tend to be lighter, my message is received a little bit better than when I tend to be

heavier. I have noticed this. That's just how it is. You know, if you see a guy with a gut and you see him deadlifting 600 pounds, the perception is that you will have a gut deadlifting heavyweight. And it's not something that's thought about too deeply. This is an involuntary thing, right? So what do you do about this? Well, you still want the person squatting and pressing and deadlifting and bench pressing and doing chin-ups and eventually doing rows and also learning a power clean. Because again, you have to hoist things up in life. So the power clean is not a lift you want to skip. So what do you do? Well you have them do the lifts and then

you pepper it with other shit because at least at this point they're doing the lifts. Now are they gonna look better? Absolutely. If a woman starts squatting her legs are gonna get firmer, her ass and thighs are gonna develop, the lower body is gonna get firmer, the abs are to develop. If you have the guy, start pressing, which most men don't. Most men bench press and do bicep curls. If you have the guy, start pressing and focusing on chin-ups more versus the wide grip pulldowns that are actually rows because he keeps swinging and he never moves under the pulldown attachment to get full range of motion. You have him start chinning and pressing. His arms are gonna grow a little bit more.

His shoulders are gonna get rounder. Starts bench pressing. Triceps are gonna get bigger. Pecs are gonna get bigger. And the list goes on. The barbell exercises fill these muscles out. If you're not a big person to begin with, and you're worried about getting big, guess what?

You're probably not gonna get fucking huge, because we just don't, most of us don't gain that much muscle mass. Some guys do. You know, there's situations where you have a guy who's got good muscle building genetics, but he also has a fast metabolism because these guys exist. These guys, bodybuilders are typically guys with good muscle building genetics that have fast metabolisms. That's why they eat so much fucking food and then when they get on drugs, they have to eat even more fucking food. So you might have a guy who's got that phenotype who is just not eating and then he starts eating and training and he gains 20, 30, 40 pounds of muscle mass because he's just been

suppressing it. That was not myself. I was skinny and chubby, skinny fat. And if I started eating more, I gained fat and muscle, but mostly fat, right? And over time, I probably gained about 30 pounds of muscle in my lifetime, just from gaining weight and losing it, gaining weight and losing it. Every time I gained weight, I tried to get stronger. So over a lifetime, I probably gained about 30 pounds of lean mass. That is very different than the muscular guy who's suppressing his growth. So over a lifetime, I probably gained about 30 pounds of lean mass.

That is very different than the muscular guy who's suppressing his growth. I knew one guy who was just running a lot of marathons, and then when I met him, he was 190 pounds and pretty lean, pretty muscular. You wouldn't believe that he was ever a runner, so he was suppressing his growth. So you have those situations, but your average person that eats like a normal human being and lifts weights, it's going to be slow, a slow and steady deal. This is why steroids are so fucking popular. So we're back to the aesthetic thing, right? I think it's important to educate people on limits of what weightlifting can do for you because everybody that lifts weights is going to get bigger. How much bigger varies from one person to the next.

If you have a woman who was a gymnast and was good at it, she's probably already muscular and she's going to start trending towards the direction of a female bodybuilder. If she gets on drugs, it's going to be more pronounced, right? If you have a woman who was a cross country runner and was good at it, she's also going to grow, but not nearly as much as the other one and she's starting from a lower place. So the look will be what most people call toned. You know, she'll lift, she'll develop muscle, but she'll be a little less skinny, a lot more defined, right? And that's because you have a person here and they have the types of muscle fibers that don't grow very large. So you're going to have a skinny person become

less skinny, become a little more muscular. If a fat guy starts training, he's already typically muscular and he'll get more muscular and he'll still be fat, but he'll just look more muscular and less fat. If he goes on a diet, he'll lose some of that weight, but the inner fat kid always exists and you guys know who you are. And anyone else in between, which is where I put myself, is going to get a little more muscular and a little less fat through more and more training. What does more and more training mean? Well for me, it was 25 years in the weight room. You know, I started lifting weights when I was 15. We would lift during preseason swimming, so there's a good three months of the year that I

lifted from age 15 to age 18. And then since the age of 18, I've been training at gyms on and off. And then at the age of 18, I've been training at gyms on and off. And then at the age of 28, I started training and I learned the starting strength method. I learned how to lift heavy safely. And then in about 2013, you know, that was what, 12 years ago, I found starting strength. They'd already been in the weight room farting off for years, you know, but maintaining a decent level of strength. I had a 315 squat and deadlift. I benched 215 for a set of five at that point, and I could press 135, I think, for a single. So you know, I went into it, and 12 years later, I'm still adding weight to the bar.

So I don't know how much more I'd have on me if I started training that way as a teenager, probably a little bit more. Maybe I would have gained 40 pounds to the 30. Maybe I'd have an extra if I started training that way as a teenager? Probably a little bit more. Maybe I would have gained 40 pounds to the 30. Maybe I'd have an extra 10 pounds of lean mass. I don't know. That's a question that's impossible to answer. The point is it's a hard sell when you tell a young man that he's going to spend 20 years in the weight room before he starts looking better. You know, he wants to look good as a young man. When he's a middle-aged man, his priorities are going to change. So what good is that going to do for him? I mean, it depends, obviously. It depends on what your lifestyle is, but most guys in their 40s aren't spending that much time in the weight room and aren't concerned about optimizing their physical appearance.

Although, there's a good number that do. I've worked with them. You know, they hire me. I've worked with them. I've helped them. But, you know, by and large, it's, you know, what a young man does and what a middle-aged man does is different, is what I'm trying to say. So it's something that's been burning in my mind, you know, like I'm reflecting back on all the work I've put in, the results I've obtained. You know, I start thinking to myself, how do I tell a guy, hey dude, you're 21 years old?

Just start training now, add a few pounds to the bar, and it's gonna slow down in a few years. Just stay with it, and 20 years from now, you're gonna look the way you wanna look today. Or worse, I could say, you know, you're gonna be a little bit bigger than you are today. You know, it's a tough sell. You know, they say you gain most of your muscle mass in the

first five years of training. I don't know how true that is. You know, that's a pattern that I've seen, you know, it seems plausible. Um, and you keep gaining it year after year, but it definitely slows down. And if you see guys that are gifted, the same goes for them. You know, most of their size came on earlier in their training career, not later. So yeah, I mean, it's important to understand that, you know, a lot of what you've been told, it's important to understand that there's other variables at play here. And you know, I talk about

guys using drugs a lot. I don't want to come at it from the standpoint of a hater. You know, you get guys that purely just want to change their appearance. They don't give a fuck about muscle function. They don't care about preventing injuries. They don't care about preventing sarcopenia when they're older. If you're in a college weight room, you're going to see it. There are guys that come in, they're farting around in the gym and they're rock solid. If you slap them in the arm, it feels like a brick wall. This is rampant at college gyms and commercial gyms, you see this. And you know, I couldn't wrap my mind around it when I was younger because it wasn't

something I was around. But, you know, you spend enough time in this industry, you hear people talking, you get various customers inquire with you, you lose certain sales and you start thinking about this. And the reality is that, you know, that the ends justify as the means for these people. They don't give a fuck about how they got to the result. They care about the result, right? And if Using steroids is gonna get them that look at that age I should say, you know, they want to look that way in their 20s not their 40s They're gonna do it, you know, and I was talking to someone yesterday, you know now unlike before There's so much information out there and there's I I guess, a less bad way to do it.

Taking anabolic steroids for performance enhancing purposes where you're starting to push limits, I don't know that that's ever safe, but the whole point is it's not about safety. You know, for some people it's about winning in sports and for other people it's about looking a certain way. You know, kind of like plastic surgery. Some people get plastic surgery to change the way a body part looks, right? That's the same concept with steroids. But you know, when physical appearance at the expense of everything else is the outcome,

people will do crazy things, you know? And in a world where the result of visible abs, low body fat, perfectly chiseled out muscles, is the outcome that's being sold to people. You know, somebody's got to tell the truth, you know. Some of these guys are just born that way. And a lot of these guys are taking fucking steroids, you know. And I'd say most people in that sphere are taking a bunch of fucking steroids. Some more than others, of course, and this isn't a judgment, it's just an objective reality, right? Like, when these Hollywood guys

will sit there and say, oh, I just drank meat shakes and trained really hard for three months, and then you look at them and they have like 20 pounds of muscle on them. And yeah, I get it, the camera does tricks too, but their body looks dramatically different in a short period of time. And those of us that understand the mechanisms of strength training and how this all works know that more is not necessarily better. You can overtrain very easily, especially if you're not taking steroids. So these guys are taking drugs because in a movie, if you need to look like a fucking superhero and the drugs are going to do that, and that's going to be the difference between a seven or eight figure salary or

No salary, they're gonna fucking do it and there's no Wada or you know, you saw to in Hollywood, you know, they don't give a fuck about that and some countries the shits legal so yeah, they're gonna fucking do that to to achieve a certain look and You know, it's not something we should hate on. I think that the information needs to be disclosed more is all I'm saying because there is this false perception that there's a magic program in the weight room that's gonna allow you to achieve those results and there's just simply not. You come lift weights to get stronger first and foremost to learn how

to move better to support your foremost, to learn how to move better, to support your joints better, to strengthen your connective tissues, to make sure you have a surplus of muscle mass by the time you get to an age where it declines. And then you are going to look better than you did before you lifted weights. That's just a given. But you may not necessarily going to achieve a look that can only be achieved by drug use. And I'm going to get some guys on that are more, have firsthand experience with this to speak on this. And I think it's important that I bring some guys on from the fitness sphere that have

experience with this. I know females that come to mind that have done women's bikini or other physique contests. And the first thing the coach asks when they go in for an intake is what drugs are running. And then at some point in the conversation, it gets into recommended drugs that they should be running. I mean, again, it's a beauty contest, it's a pageant, it's pageantry.

So they have to achieve an appearance. And unfortunately, drugs allow them to achieve that appearance that cannot be achieved without it. Sorry to burst that bubble. I think most of you listening to me know all this at this point. Some of the newcomers might be hearing this for the first time. You have to decide early on what it is you want out of the weight room. And even if you are on drugs, you know, doing your barbell lifts is going to do a lot for you. It's going to still strengthen your muscles, grow your muscles, strengthen your connective tissues, and increase your bone density. All the benefits are the same. You're just going to take things

further because you're on drugs. So the message that I'm trying to get at here is that there are the effects of the steroids and the genetics and the effects of the training. Training with barbells will make most of your muscles grow and continuing to train with barbells will further that growth. As you become more intermediate, I'd say probably after the first year or two, you're going to see some weak areas. You know, weak points are a thing. They just develop much later than people think. Most people want to jump to weak point training in the beginning. Your whole fucking body's weak, okay? You know, if you're in this for a year or two and you notice your biceps aren't growing anymore from chinning or doing rows,

then you know, start hitting some curls. I've argued that you should hit them earlier. As soon as you're not a novice, you know, six to nine months in, start curling because you know start hitting some curls. I've argued that you should hit them earlier as soon as you're not a novice, you know six to nine months in, start curling because you know you have to carry things with your elbows bent, but you know different topic. The point is if you look at bodybuilders for instance, the guys who win, they all do these lifts. You know they squat, they bench press, they deadlift, lifts. They squat, they bench press, they deadlift, they typically press with dumbbells. I wish they would press with barbells. The old school guys did. But they're doing overhead work. They're pulling down usually. Some of them chin. But they hit these movements for a reason because they can be loaded heavy. So even if an individual muscle is contributing

less to that lift, the total force production from that muscle is going to go up over time, whereas if you're doing a more isolated lift, you're limited because you're not going to keep adding weight to that for very long. The press is my favorite example. Your press will go up for years. Your lateral raise will not. So even if the lateral deltoid has a smaller contribution to the press or has less muscle activation, the amount of forces producing to aid in the press is increasing along with the press increase. See what's happening there? Again, let's go back to the point here. Drugs will change the way you look more

than lifting in a lot of cases. You know, you have to lift while you're on them for them to work well. You know, you'll gain muscle mass without lifting at all, but if you just get on drugs and don't lift, you're not going to get much out of them. But, you know, lifting on drugs is going to change your body a lot more than lifting not on drugs. Starting out very muscular with good insertions, good skin elasticity, and good skin tone, all of which contribute to how that muscle looks, is going to make you look bigger than somebody who doesn't have all that, right? So what is

the universal message here? Well, you lift weights, you get strong, and you always look better than before. I think this point's been lost You know people like to sing a lot of guy who's you know? 165 pounds that's bench in 315 right well. That's great. That's cool to look at but that's not that's not the norm and Keep in mind if he didn't lift at all he'd be less than 165 pounds now, wouldn't he? Some people are very good at using less to do more. And that's not because of their training. It's not because he's training for strength and not training for hypertrophy. He's getting hypertrophy.

He's gotten stronger over the years. He just didn't start out very big. He probably has certain leverages that allow him to do that. He might have short arms. You know, I knew a guy who was 175 that benched 405. He had short arms that were very muscular. He had, you know, big triceps and short arms. So he benched 405 at 175, you know. So there's other factors involved there. But if he didn't lift weights at all, he'd probably be 145, you know. He was 5'4 by the way.

Strength is a relative thing, right? And by that I mean we're all going to acquire different levels of it through training. We're all going to acquire different levels of muscle mass through training. The thing that is consistent regardless of genetics is that you're going to move that needle. You're going to get stronger than before if you try to. You're going to have more muscle than you used to have if you try to. But you're not gonna necessarily have

what the other guy has. And you're certainly not gonna reproduce what the guy on drugs has done. So we need to narrow our focus. I think that the fitness industry needs to narrow its focus and find a way to make strength training about strength training and not necessarily entirely about appearance. How you do that?

I'm not a marketing wizard. I'm not a fucking market. That's why I want to get other guys on here because I like other insights on this, but that is the problem. That strength training and lifting weights is not about lifting weights or about strength training. It's about appearance and appearance is influenced by so many other factors for a lot of people. For some people, they get crazy changes from lifting weights and that's fantastic.

Fuck you. I hate you, but I love you. Some people get crazy transformations from strength training and to them again, I say fuck you. You know, I admire that you could do that but I also hate you but most people that hire a personal trainer aren't those guys. Those guys never hire a personal trainer unless they get into some sort of competitive sport and they need some coaching to compete right or if they're in a bodybuilding contest and they need some coaching to compete, right? Or if they're in a bodybuilding contest and they need coaching with the drugs or the diet, you know, um, because they don't know what they're doing there. But for the most part, people hire people outside the competitive sphere

that hire a personal trainer. A lot of the time they are not already jacked. They're looking to get more jacked than they are. And getting those expectations down, I think part of that battle is separating lifting weights from physical appearance. And I think the biggest part of the equation is taking the lifting weights part as an individual variable. It's going to contribute to your appearance.

Food and diet are going to contribute to your appearance. Food and diet are going to contribute to your appearance. You know, I can get most people lean. You know, if you're the fat guy that can get up to 400 pounds, we're going to have a tough time getting you abs and you're probably going to be starving and there's a high risk that you'll get back up to 400 pounds after you've done that if you can pull it off. But you know, for most people, you can get to abs, you know, if you want to torture yourself with that, that's doable. Can I put six inches on everybody's arms? Probably not. You know, some guys can do it. You know, you put 10 guys on one program, one of the guys is going

to have phenomenal results and one of the guys is going to have shitty results. Maybe not 10, maybe it could be 20, 30, 40, a thousand. Point is there's this thing that we understand in other areas, individual results vary. So, you know, how do we make it appealing to somebody to work hard? You know, most people don't want to work hard, so we got to keep it fun, right? How do we make this more appealing? Well, it's got to be in the context of other shit. You know, when you're dealing with the general public that is terrified of minimalism. They just they want to be entertained in the weight room. They want variety and they want to feel like they got a workout. So you got to pick your battles. Most important thing to me is that they squat, they press, they bench

press, they deadlift and they do their chin-ups. If I have to throw another shit to get them to do that or to get you to do that if you're one of these people listening, we could do that. That's you to do that if you're one of these people listening. We could do that. That's the trade-off we're making, whether you know it or not. You know, let's get you what you need, but then let's also give you what you want so that more people are doing this. And I think that's all I want to talk about today. You know, I've been away for a good month. I want to expand the range of topics. My biggest goal for this show and my goal as a coach is to get more people doing this. And these are some of the barriers I've seen.

Lifting is associated with appearance. Steroid use is not disclosed. People don't understand the role of that. People don't understand the role of genetics. But people are willing to lift for periods of time. Some people hit the ground running and continue lifting for many, many years. And other people start and stop and start and stop.

So now we're all left with the task of, can we get these five exercises into most exercise programs without a lot of resistance? And I happen to think we can. And I think that a lot of resistance and I happen to think we can and I think that a Lot of people can benefit from it. We need more competent coaches teaching it for sure And I think we're getting more and more of those but uh You know, I think the message needs to be

That a stronger person is better looking person Because that's really what's happening here. These muscles are growing and they're getting stronger. You know, this strength hypertrophy dichotomy is good marketing, but a muscle that hypertrophies is a muscle that can produce more force. And I'll qualify that by saying at the given rep range that you're training it in. So before you say that the bodybuilder has a shitty 1RM, well, you know, his to eights and tens are strong. So, you know, within the context that you're applying external resistance to that muscle, it will get stronger. So anyways, now I am fucking rambling. I think I'm done. I think I

talked for what? Almost an hour. I almost made it to an hour this time. I think these monologues are going to get better, especially if I start doing them weekly. But I want you to know I'm not going anywhere. You know, I lost, you know, I hit what's equivalent to a writer's block, I'd say in the last month, where I just didn't know where I wanted to take my content because I, you know, I had some guests at the beginning of the year. And then once I started doing these monologues, I had to really think hard about what I wanted to talk about where I the beginning of the year. And then once I started doing these monologues, I had to really think hard about what I wanted to talk about and where I want to gear the show.

And I think I want to preserve the value of strength and function and the important of good technical execution for safety and to go further, like all the messages I've been sending thus far. I think that it's important that people understand that regardless of what they try to do to improve their appearance, even if that includes risky methods, that you are almost always better off training with a barbell and incrementally loading it than, you know, running around the gym

doing a million different exercises. And I think that the process and the hard work that comes along with it helps shape other behaviors in your life, positive behaviors. You know, the concept of delayed gratification is one that you'll grasp really fast if you train as an intermediate. Oh yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of rewarding benefits to lifting weights other than improving your appearance, but it's always going to improve your appearance. You're always going to look better lifting than not lifting. Provided that you do all the other necessary things, sleep, diet, stress management, just

to facilitate that. This is not Santana saying lifting isn't going to make you look better. It's always going to make you look better. But some people's idea of looking better is outside the scope of what a barbell is going to do for you, but you should still train with a barbell anyway. And we're going to talk about those reasons week after week. You know, I might decide to pick on a muscle group next week, or I might bring out a guest that's on the fitness side of things. You know, trains more like a bodybuilder, but has exposure to these exercises, believes in them. I don't know yet. You know, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here.

There's a variety of different things that we could talk about. Those of us that just want to get stronger and stronger and stronger and like the simplicity, we are in the minority. But I do think it is our duty to try and make this more appealing. I think we can do that. I think that's reasonable, make it as appealing as possible so that we can at least get people doing it, you know? Even if they're doing it wrong,

they're gonna get a lot out of it. We've seen this, but, you know, food for thought. I'm back. I'm not going anywhere. And I look forward to seeing you next week. So with that, I will sign off. 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 in Metro Phoenix, you can find my gym between 32nd and 40th street and Broadway, just south of Sky Harbor Airport. I offer one-on-one private training. And if you need to drop in, you know, text the phone number that you find on Google. You know, it's on my Google page as well as a website.

You can text that number. Let me know you're coming in. Give me some notice and we can get you in for a drop in. And yeah, glad to be back. With that said, I will talk to you soon.