Weights and Plates Podcast - Ep. 113 - Strength, Body Composition, and the Realities of Training: A Conversation with Mark Rippetoe

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

In this episode, host Robert Santana welcomes Mark Rippetoe, renowned author of "Starting Strength," for a candid discussion about strength training, body composition, and the myths perpetuated by modern fitness culture. The conversation covers Rippetoe's journey in writing "Starting Strength," the evolution of its audience, and the persistent disconnect between appearance-focused goals and performance-based training. Rippetoe argues that true strength is best developed through heavy, compound lifts like the deadlift, and that an obsession with visible abs or extreme leanness is misguided for most lifters. Both Santana and Rippetoe share personal anecdotes and coaching insights, emphasizing the importance of consistency, recovery, and focusing on objective progress over subjective feelings or societal expectations about physique.

Yeah, man, last time I think I had you on here was three years ago in May when you had that strength lifting meet up there. I don't, uh, somehow I don't remember that. It was you, myself, and Trent, uh, at the warehouse. Yeah. And we took where I'm at the warehouse right now. Last time we talked about the food supply and how that's changed and how the number of options. at the store, the market, was far fewer. Do you remember this now?

No. I don't remember anything. What the fuck happened to you, man? You survived everything. Early onset Alzheimer's, I guess, or maybe it's not that early. I'm 70, you know. This is my birthday. I'm 70 years old today.

Today's your fucking birthday? Yes. Did I really schedule this on your fucking birthday? Yes, you do. That's pretty cool. Well, I'm honored, man. Happy birthday. Well, good. Yeah. You're going to pull anything?

Tickled to not be dead yet. Well, they say you don't die. That's the rumor. They do. Yeah. I know a lot of people who are dead, though. Well, you haven't died yet. I haven't. So maybe you won't die.

You know, it's possible, I suppose. Are you like the fucking Highlander? The What, no? The Highlander. I know you were a fan, right? Oh, the Toyota or a movie. The movie? Because I've got a four-runner, not a Highlander.

No, Highlander's a piece of shit. Highlander is a good movie, yes. I thought it was a real good movie. Yeah. I always enjoyed it. Underrated, grossly underrated. The show wasn't quite as good. So many good movies are.

Yeah, they made Connery a Spaniard, and I didn't make that connection as a child. But now I think about it, it's kind of funny, a Spaniard with a Scottish accent. Hollywood, if you've got some kind of an accent, they'll just make you whatever they want. They'll have to actually be that kind of an accent, you know. Creative liberty, right? Is that what they call it? Well, think they're relying on the stupidity of the audience. for lots and lots of things.

That's been, and I think that's gotten increasingly more true in recent, recent years. I can't sit through anything, man. What's the last thing you saw? The last movie I saw? Yeah, like the theater. Oh, I haven't been to the theater in years. It just, it's fat, noisy women.

I don't want to be around them so I don't go to the theater. Well, now they give you alcohol and food and all this other shit. No, I definitely didn't get any of that when I was at the theater. I don't know if they've upgraded the one in Wichita Falls, but most of the theaters are doing it.

They might have, but I'm not doing anyway, so I don't care. Well, that's the purpose of film. Yeah. Today is to educate us stupid, consumers. That's what it was supposed to do. On what we're supposed to think. And I'm just, you know,

I buy movies on DVD and I watch movies at home. I watch something basically every night. Right. And without having to go to the theater.

What does it cost? I'll go to the theater. I really don't know. So it depends. The time I went, I think it was like seven bucks. It depends. Sometimes I've heard of people paying 20, and I certainly paid that when I was L.A. For a theater ticket for one movie?

I was paying that 12 years ago in Los Angeles, like $18. I never paid, did I pay 20? Maybe 22 once. I think 18 was what I remember routinely paying. Here, it's been closer to about 12, and I don't know if it's because of the time of day I go or the theater I go to, but I think the model now is they keep the ticket price low so you buy alcohol and food. Because they have to sell the experience since the movie suck. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I just, if I see a movie that looks interesting, I just go on Amazon and buy the DVD. And, you know, I'm careful about what I buy. So usually that works out to be the best use of the movie. money. I didn't surprisingly enjoy

sinners and I think it's getting, did it get the Oscar? It may have gotten the Oscar. I certainly not familiar with it. It takes place, I think, in Georgia in the 30s. And these a couple black guys from Chicago come down, hang out with their cousin. They buy a warehouse to throw a party. So it starts out like that. It looks like they

robbed some gangsters. It's kind of the premise that they show you. But then a bunch of vampire shit starts happening. and it just takes a complete left turn. Wow. It was pretty fucking cool the way they did it. Like, I wasn't going to see it. I thought I was going to be a pile of shit when I saw the poster. Well, I'll keep that one in mind.

Like, it was one of those movies where I left and I'm like, this one's getting the Oscar. And then they actually gave it to them. And I think it was deserving. I could be wrong, though. Don't fool me on that. And he heard of it, though. Sinners. Sinners.

Sinners. It takes place in the 1930s south. What an interesting place that must have been. Good musical soundtrack. I know you appreciate that stuff, but it's like rhythm, old school rhythm and blues type stuff. I'm not familiar with 1930s R&B. I didn't know there was such a thing, and I'm a teenager. Maybe that's not the right term.

I don't know what you would call that. but it certainly sounded it sounded real good the music was a big feature of the movie that stood out yeah but yeah man that was the last good movie I saw in the movie theater

I can't even remember the last one I saw it at the movie went to the show I had I don't even I don't remember it's been it may have been 10 years ago Well, you starred in Gladiator. What's that?

You starred in Gladiator. I did. That was you. That is the rumor. Well, I did see Gladiator in the theater, but that's 20 years ago, isn't it? That's 26 years ago, yeah. Yeah, that's a long-guessed time ago. They did a good job with it, film.

But as far as, as far as the recent. movie i just i just decided that i would wait four weeks for the DVD to come out by the DVD take it home and watch it in the comfort of my own living room make a drink

eat supper and watch the movie you know i need to back it up to hear a lion again i can. I do like that part. That's just a much more enjoyable way to consume the entertainment than going to the theater with a bunch of fat screaming women.

I'm not interested in that, though. Yeah, I haven't seen too much of that, man. I think I go at off times because I'm usually one of the only fuckers in there, and I never go opening day when I have done it. You never go. I don't go opening day. Oh, oh, no, that's stupid. Yeah, that's, you get shitty seats and fat screaming women.

Fat screaming women there for opening day thinking that their ticket price entitles them to fuck up your enjoyment of the film. And I'm so not going to do it. have that happen is your fault because you know what's going to happen that I'm just not up for that I understand that man so any lifts for 70 that you have planned

what's that? Do you have any lifting targets you want to hit? Me personally? Yeah, I know you're all fucked up but I'm also not going to believe I just don't want to die anytime I'm staving off death, quite literally, staving off dead. I think I am going to reintroduce halting deadlifts into my program. Okay.

And, but other than that, my shoulders are so bad that I, the bench press has become dangerous. I can't control my elbow position. Fuck. And so I haven't been mentioned a while. The squad has become a problem. My balance has gotten real bad because of this knee, appropriate section, just isn't there anymore. So I've got to be careful with that.

But pulls are still pretty strong. You know, I've noticed that the pulls stand the test of time better than the others. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. See bigger numbers, too. Because there are very few muscles that are not involved in a pull. Everything is in contraction, pretty much. Can you elaborate on that compared to, like, a squat?

Well, if you think about pull, your hands are on the bar and your feet are on the floor, and everything in between is in contraction. Right. Now, you have to understand the mechanics of the pull to really appreciate how critical that is. The middle of your foot is the balance point. And your hands on the bar. Force is being transmitted between the middle of your foot and your hands on the bar. And what lies between the middle of your foot and your hands on the bar?

Everything else. Everything else. And it all has a rule to play. Most people in our profession do not understand what the lats do during a deadlift. They have no idea. You know, the bodybuilders don't know anything about. They don't understand a deadlift. Yeah.

They don't understand the point of a deadlift. don't understand it. And so the deadlift is, if you were going to do one exercise and one exercise only, I used to say that would be the squat, but I really at this point, I kind of think the deadlift would be

the single exercise you would do. Because it works everything. It requires minimal equipment. It's safe. Something bad happens, you just let go of the bargain. Mm-hmm. You know, there's a lot to be said for the net lift. That's pretty cool hearing that from you because I came to this conclusion a few years back.

Yeah. Arrived at the same place. Would you say that the fact that it's not really compressive like a squad or a bench plays a role? Well, there is compression. I mean direct compression from the barbell on the body. Oh, no, there's tension from the barbell that is transmitted up the arms and at the shoulders. Everything between the shoulders and the floor is in compression. Mm-hmm.

But if that's what you're talking about, I don't. Yes, yes, that's what I'm talking about versus. there's a bar on your back, a bar on your hands when you're laying down. Right. So it's direct added compression from the bar. Maybe it's called something else that you have a better word for, maybe. I don't know. I hadn't thought about it like that.

If you're doing barbell prisons and deadlifts, you're getting pretty much everything worked. I would agree. You know. And yet. Those are the exercises that are the most strongly recommended against. Who recommends against them, actually? Oh, they're the usual suspects. Your doctor, your physical therapist.

Doctors don't know anything about. Bodybuilders. About much of anything, really. Yeah. Yet they walk around with this bizarre superiority. Uh-huh. Or about them. Well, after all, he is a doctor.

He is a doctor. He is a doctor. He's got apparently their understanding is very shallow. Very, very shallow about what we do. They don't know anything about it. Nope.

And yet are supremely confident in telling the patients what and what not to do in the gym. And outside of it, too. Yeah, we can't. Yeah, that's pretty too. I remember an old line of yours.

You said they'll fix, they'll tell you how to fix your TV if you ask them and send a bill yeah yeah because they everything there is to know is known by doctors mm-hmm some total no no no no no I still I got an 80 year old lady come in and uh I think she was 78 when she started at my gym and I also had a 60 year old same thing on it was improperly healed rotator cuff repair or I think one of them was an injury one of them was a repair right and she was told don't go overhead So, of course, I put her overhead and it became manageable.

She came in with realistic expectations about it. Like, it's always going to feel like shit, but at least I can use it now. Right. And that's where we got her to. Well, it's more than her doctor got her. Yeah, she couldn't control her shoulder past her fucking, I guess if she flexed the arm out forward, she couldn't get much past parallel. She'd avoid it anything overhead.

She was able to put her luggage up on an airplane after pressing. Yeah, I have to get somebody, some kid to put your handbag in the overhead compartment. Yeah, fuck that. You can't do it yourself because you're so physically incapable of the simplest tasks. Mm-hmm. Because you're a doctor. Your doctor said so. Your doctor told you not to do anything overhead.

Mm-hmm. I need to get permission from my physical therapist. Tism therapist. Well, this is a pretty good segue of where I wanted to go. So you kind of mention how fucking banged up you are. So, you know, some asshole is going to say, well, that fuck should I listen, this guy. He's all fucked up. So. Oh, I'm aware of it. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

I know. I know why you're fucked up. We've talked about it. I remember sitting in your office once looking at your training log that went back 40 years ago. And I asked you some question about your back or something. You're like, I don't fucking know. This didn't exist. Nobody was watching me. Yeah. So my question is, and most of the audience knows who the fuck you are, but I'll just formally introduce you anyway.

this is Mark Ripito, the author of Starting Strength. We're on a third edition. That's the final edition, right? For a lot of no, right? Yeah. And this is where I learned how to perform and teach the barbell lifts. So you've probably been asked this question quite a bit. When you wrote the first edition of the book and you talk about it in the seminars,

who did you expect to get to jump on board with this shit and then where did it go from there? I kind of wanted to start. Well, that is an interesting mistake I made early on. See, I thought that I was writing the first edition for coaches, for coaches of, you know, like for personal trainers, but also for sports teams, coaches. So the language was skewed in that direction. And after the first edition had been in print for a couple of years,

it became obvious to me that that's not at all. at all who was using the material. Not at all. Football coaches already know everything there is to know about all of this. Because they lifted weights, right? And they know how to do it. And they're not interested in reading a 300-page book about how to lift weights. Most of them can't read anyway.

Or if they do, it's just a lot of trouble. So that was a serious mistake on my point. So I came back and wrote the second edition and redid, that was basically a restatement of the same material. And then by the time we did the third edition, I'd actually learned a whole lot more about the mechanics of the lifts

and all of that information was in the third edition. on the improved grass what actually goes on in the human body under a loaded barbill. And

I don't so. There probably is not a fourth edition coming because it's not a I mean we every time there for a long time, every time

we did another printing of the of the third edition I would submit some changes you know fix a sentence add a paragraph restate a concept

so all the little adjustments were made within the printing history of the third edition and I think it stands by itself pretty well

so another edition is not forecoming. But we, you know, and the website also is, is a, that's where I spend most of time. With this material is clarifying things on, on the website that would, that need to be, need to be straightened out in response to these questions. Right. So who ended up adopting it?

Well, individuals, individuals that bought the book for their own training. And that's the primary difference between the first and the third edition. First edition is written for a group of people who weren't interested in reading it anyway. And the third edition was written for people who were concerned about their own training. And, you know, and I... At this point, starting strength, the title has sold over a million copies, which makes it the best-selling book on barbell training in print. That's pretty damn good.

Well, it's interesting. Who would have thought, you know? Who would have thought? I had no idea. It would resonate that thoroughly with the people who, the red, but it has certainly exceeded my expectations. It's pretty cool when it happens, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's cool. It restores my faith in a segment of the population. There are people actually interested in how to do this better. And they read that and they immediately. you know, put 30 pounds on their deadlift. Because now they're not, you know, trying to pick the bar up from way over there. Right. And I'm glad we've been able to help people with it.

So that's interesting, too. I'm going to come back to your leg press video where you talk about how if you want to train power lifters or athletes, I think, was the term you used. you're like, go right ahead, but they don't make any money or something to that effect. And you explained how to take an old lady or a fat person from a leg press to a squat. And you mentioned that here at your gym, you had to train regular people. You weren't cleaning house with athletes necessarily. The commercial gym business is not about training athletes. It is interesting that at this point in time, there are better,

better strength coaches in a commercial gym business that don't deal with athletes, that there are in the institutional programs that do deal with athletes. Mm-hmm. That's just fascinating. Absolutely. It's one of the things that I really got from being in this world listening to you talk was this concept that gets, you know, I'd say tapped on. in traditional schooling, that some people are just born better than you at a variety of fucking things.

And somehow this idea that's very obvious has become unpopular. And I bring it up because, you know, I moved from human beings to canines in the last few years, as you know. And in that world, the selection process is a big part of what they do and it's very well acknowledged. Yeah, they obviously know that. breeding effects the end product. Well, and all animal breeders know this.

Yes. But for some reason, it is unfashionable. Would that be the word? Yeah. To apply the same reasoning to human beings. It's the mechanisms are exactly the same. You can't take a stupid person and make them smarter.

Now, you can take a stupid person and broadly educate them. But that probably will not improve their reasoning ability or their analytical skills. Right. you it's uh and it's a damn shame is you know 100% man i mean if you could just send everybody you're really good school and have them uh finish the program at that school and uh you know just do calculus problems or fun yeah but but that's not the case that's not the case. It never has been the case and it cannot be the case. Because not everybody's reasoning ability is as good as everybody else's.

There are degrees of ability. And they're inherent in the organism. You know, the DNA gets shuffled every time the breeding occurs. Sometimes the pieces fall into a, highly effective pattern. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they don't. And it's funny because when you look at

physical things or artistic is a good one, we acknowledge that not everybody's going to be a great artist. Nobody really denies that. Everybody recognizes that indeniable fact, a deniable fact that it's not everybody can paint a pleasing landscape.

You know, I don't even try. No ability in that area at all. And it's not it's not interesting enough to me to try to practice it and develop it.

Right. And so it remains undeveloped. Because the The germ of the ability is just not there. So now, to bring it back to our world, your favorite friend of ours that kind of made all this possible for us, unfortunately, for better or worse, Mr. Wheater convinced several generations of people that anything that goes wrong in the weight room is limited by effort. and that effort will produce the result that another human being produced irrespective of everything else. Right.

That's how he sold all those magazines for all those years. He developed a – that's a very compelling model to show us pictures of Tom Platt and Frank Zane and Arnold. It's 100% hard work. Mincer brothers. If you work as hard as Mike Mincer, you were going to look like Mike Minster. That's right. Yeah. And that lie still holds strong today. That sounds convincing, though, doesn't it?

Because that's kind of what everybody wants to hear. Everybody wants to hear that all you have to do is try harder. Trying harder does not always result in a better product. Because what you're trying with, but just what you're trying with is not of the quality necessary to end up with that product. You know, I just, my genetics are horrible for, you know, aesthetically pleasing muscle mess. Same. You know, most people's are.

That's why there's only eight or ten guys in those muscle magazines. Mm-hmm. And they look fantastic before they even get on all the drugs they take. Oh, yeah.

I mean, these fuckers are born. Yes. Champion bodybuilders are born, not trained. No, they got a train. You know, no, they got a trained real hard. We're not saying

And he didn't, you know, Mr. Olimby, the guy doesn't train. He trains. I mean, Ronnie's in a fucking wheelchair over it, you know. Wow. And that's a botched surgery mostly, but, you know, he had to train through a fucked-up back with crazy-ass loads. I'm sure it didn't help. Yeah, he, he did some things wrong. So, right.

We all had. And because of that, you've saved a lot of us. from really fucking ourselves up. I include myself in that because I first met you after fucking myself up. I don't think you remember this either. But I tore my ad doctor five days before your seminar. And I could barely walk and you taught me how to produce a deadlift that was near my current PR on that day, which was pretty cool. And these were all things I had not considered.

You know, I used to think look at the picture in the magazine, copy that. You're sure, of course, you're copying what the guy in the magazine is doing. Yeah, I know how to squat, you know? Yeah. And it did not occur to me that, you know, this needs to be done in a specific way. Well, because Joe Weeter didn't emphasize the way it needed to be done. No. Because he didn't understand.

The only thing I got. You know, and most people don't. Most people don't understand what the squat is. They don't really understand how a squat should be performed to maximize the amount of weight lifted in the movement pattern. And to therefore maximize the strength accumulation size and strength produced by the exercise. They don't understand it because they never sat down and thought about it. I sat down and thought about it because I didn't have anything else to do. So, you know, I turned a petroleum geology education into the starting strength.

Interestingly, how'd that happen? I was training. I was training in the price of oil crater. How? And they were just work jobs. So I moved into this other thing. Bought the gym and started devoting my attention to that. So this whole time, like you said, you weren't, you didn't have a bunch of athletes lining up at your little gym.

Yeah. Dealing with all sorts of people. What made you ask the questions about how this shit's supposed to work? My own training. Okay. My own training, I was not a very good power lifter. My PR deadlift is 633. PR squad was.

I believe it was 622, right? No, I think it was 611. Oh. But I, you know, I'd have to look at a, I don't actually remember right now. But it was right over since. PR bench of me was $3.96. And that makes me a mediocre run-of-the-mill lifter. But the biggest problem that I had at that time was I was trying to do all of that

in the 220-pound weight class. Yes. And that was a giant mistake. It was a giant mistake. and I didn't have anybody to straighten me out on it. You know, I was five foot at 220, and if you're five-age, you need to be 242. I have.

You should have been 242. Should have had somebody tell me go on up a weight class and just see what happens. And it would have been, a different outcome. I promise you it would have been a different outcome. I still have that interview you did with Marty Gallagher in 2012 memorized that part of it were you were talking about that. Yeah.

And you asked him where you went wrong. And I remember him telling you, you know, if you were training with us and you were 242 or better yet, 2.75 could have easily built you up as a champion or something to that effect. Yeah. I would have, I would have squatting. At 275, I'd squatted in the sevens. I believe it. I would have nobody trained any harder than me. I don't know anybody that ever trained any harder than I did.

I saw your logs, man, and the notes you would leave. And I was not. I wasn't afraid of the weight. But, you know, you got to get the right advice on things like that. And there just aren't that many people who understand the relationship between body weight and strengths. And I didn't until recently, man. You and I went rounds about that for years. Years. And I understood it on the bench press because that's where I'd see it directly work.

Like it was a huge difference between me being lean with visible abs and being a little chubby. Like it would just go up. Yes. And I think part of it is that the. bench press was far more advanced on the adaptation curve than the other lifts because I'd been doing it since I was 15 close to how you're supposed to do it. You know, I added an arch when I met you and got the legs involved, but full range of motion. You know, it's not like squat where some people half squat. They meet you and they start squatting for real. So I think part of it was I had eeked out

so much from benching for so long that I saw a direct benefit immediately, whereas on the other lifts, I would get stronger in spite of being lighter or too light for my height. Yeah. Because I was more novice. Yeah. Or more intermediate or whatever you would. I squatted a lot too. Early intermediate, whatever you want to call it.

So you're further along the level of training advancement on that one lift that you've been doing a lot longer. That's normal. Yeah. That's what you would expect. So it's funny, Rip last year, and I called you about this. I wanted to bench 315 and I think I got to 310 in 2020

and then I lost and gained weight and just I was focused on the press that's what it was I was pressing a lot and I'm at a point where I have to bench four times a week or the fucking thing ain't moving so I told myself I'll let my weight go wherever it needs to go so I can check this fucking box off right

I ended up overperforming I got to 320 but I was 215 and then something happened this is no surprise to you But at this point, I told myself I'm never going to argue with Rip about this again. I put 40 pounds on my 5RM deadlift. And I started training the deadlift for real, what, 13 years ago when I met you in 2013. I had a baseline 315 deadlift, so I was a novice, essentially, you know?

Yeah. And it put 40 pounds on it. And after that many years under the bar, just highlights your point. I was suppressing adaptation by not allowing myself to grow. and push that lift at a larger size. Right. Precisely. Precisely.

It was an unexpected result. This is why bodybuilding is a bad idea. If you spend a bunch of time looking at the magazines and looking at all these guys weighing 285 with abs, with visible abs. You fixate on the aabs and not to 285. Precisely. That's what you do, because that's just what humans do.

And the hallmark of all of those guys that are in contest shape is low body fat. And low body fat becomes the deal. And low body fat is all the body fat is all. also the enemy of strengths. Mm-hmm. If you are not eating enough to be carrying 12, 13% body fat, you're not getting recovered.

Fuck no. You're not getting recovered. And the only place on earth that 4.5% body fat is worth a damn is in a bodybuilding kind test that nobody else cares about but you. It's a terribly impractical approach to the problem.

Humans are not, there's a few of them born this way, but humans are not culturally or physiologically designed to be at 4.5% body fat. Fuck no. That's not normal. And it's not healthy. You know, the lay person doesn't understand what I mean when I say this, the lay person

case. Well, it's always better to be leaner than fatter. Go ahead. It depends on what you're trying to do. On the health side of this, you know, there's this emphasis on fatness has context to it, right? Like you have fat, sloppy fuckers drinking cases of Coke and eating Cheetos on the couch and becoming obese, that's unhealthy, even if they're fat, it's unhealthy because they're not doing shit. Right.

But, you know, getting chubby and getting strong is a completely different physiological situation than sitting around getting fat. And they don't study that because there's no money in it. The NIH doesn't want you to get strong. They want you to be a pussy. Yes. The NIH does not want you to get strong. They're not going to research that. They're going to look at the most fucked up.

person so they can get something equivalent to the novice effect in their findings and say, hey, look, look what we saw. You've got a guy who was a sack of shit. And then you made them be less of a sack of shit. Oh, of course. Just like you start squat and you add five pounds in two days, right? If you've never done it before. Right. So now we have this 40-year-old obsession with visible abs, abs, or close to it, not being fat.

Because if you get fat, it's always bad in every situation. Right. Never mind the fact that some athletics require the men to be fat, to be chubby. Shot putters, a defensive lineman. You know, it's not just power lifters we're talking about. These guys aren't walking around at 4% body fat. They're walking around at 20 to 25% body fat. That's right.

They are. Now, would it be better for their health if they were at 15% body fat? Who gives a shit? Who cares? And how much better when you're working that hard? You know, if you are working hard enough to play sports at that level, then your nutritional requirements are not the same as what the blather that comes out of the doctor's office. Your nutritional requirements are you've got to eat more calories than everybody else does because you're performing.

at a higher level. You're using the calories. Even when you're not performing, you're using the calories for recovery, that sort of thing. You're doing all kinds of hormonal things to try to get recovered from the work you did. And if you're eating enough to get recovered,

you're going to eat, you're going to be eating enough to also be carrying a little more body fat. But it's not a function of, I mean, your abs are not, visible abs are usually a sign of starvation. That's low status in India, by the way. It is.

Yeah. It's low status in Africa. Yeah. You know, if you're skinny and I have to wear, you've got visible abs. You're not the king because the king has things to eat. You see it here, too, these fucking, you know, multi-millionaires, billionaires. They're not, they don't have visible abs, dude. No, no, I had this point brought home to me by a woman.

Many years ago, who told me that a higher status male has a belly. That crosses cultures. Here is just informal. Yeah. But it's that's the human condition. High status males have a little better. Now, at one point, that was obvious to everybody. Right? So what made it unobvious?

What reduced the obviousness of that? Fucking Hollywood, man. Joe Wheater, obviously. Joe Weeder and Hollywood. And I remember watching some of the action movies of the 70s, like Dirty Harry. And, you know, those guys were skinny and in good shape, but they didn't have visible abs and vascular. Oh, no. You know, like Young Eastwood.

He was just a skinny guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You know, he lifted. And you can kind of see that he was doing something, but they didn't show like every fucking muscle belly. And it wasn't necessary. No. But this, that wasn't.

Back then, the plot of the film was actually. Not the physique of the man. Not the physique of the actor. Right. So. I don't know physique contests

They're pageants They're pageants, dude It's pageantry They're beauty pageants That's all they are I've said that for years The damn thing is a beauty page You know

And if you're If you're particularly ugly You can't do that Rather obvious You know? There's a funny video of Ronnie in the offseason doing a contest. He's like fucking dancing around on stage, making a joke out of it. Good for him.

He seems like a cool dude. I've never actually met him in person. I've seen him a couple of times, but I've never shaken hands with him. He said, Ronnie, you're pretty cool. Ronnie was proud of his death. Oh, yeah. And he had a big-ass deadweight. $800 for double?

Yeah. Something like that, you know, more than Arnold. Mm-hmm. I think Arnold was 7.706 or something. I don't know. Was he really? I didn't know he went above $600. Yeah, I know.

706. Amazing. I wonder what the Mincer could pull. Sure you can find it. They all used to do this shit. Mincer was a big strong guy too. Yeah. You know, he has a real good genetic physique.

Well, then his whole training philosophy moves in our direction from the standpoint of, well, if it's heavy enough, you don't need to do a lot of it, you know. It's not exactly what I would do, but he's in the right direction. If it's heavy enough, you don't need to do a bunch of shit. the reason you're doing a bunch of volume is because it's light. This seems obvious. You know, I mean, light is easier. That's why I most people think about how many rich you did. You do, you're able to work out.

It's what we're saying? Tunnage. You know, it's gotten weird to rip. When I go to these fucking commercial gyms now, I mean, I can't do it anymore. But I was doing it for a while when I was living out of my gym, I paid 10 bucks to use the shower. the commercial gym. And he got these young 20-something boys and fucking speedos flexing in the mirror talking

about their rear delts with each other. And when I share this with other people that go to these places, it's not an isolated incident. This is what's been happening across all of them. So this weird bodybuilding thing has come back and taken on a whole other level because you have more people doing it now. I think it's because of social media most likely. Really? And I'm having these same stupid arguments again.

They kind of died down for a while. I think when CrossFit was popular. But it's all coming back now. You've got to train six days a week. And now they got fancy words for it. You don't want a deadlift because the stimulus to fatigue ratio is too high. Stimulus to fatigue ratio. Yeah.

Or what's the other one? Lengthened Partials. That's that shit Ronnie used to do where he wouldn't lock out the bench. Yeah. Those are called lengthen partials now. Lengthened partials. Yeah. Yeah.

Basically don't walk out. Yeah. Just don't finish the movement. Yeah. Don't finish the movement. And, you know, it's hard. That's one of the first things I learned from you is hard doesn't mean better. Like when you taught me to press, I'm like, oh, you just made it easier.

And I'd been in that mindset of, I must be cheating if it's just moving. so nice, you know. It's supposed to be hard. Then they add five points. Well, it becomes an emotional thing, dude. Like, they go into the gym to chase a feeling. They're not chasing an objective. The objective is subjective.

Yeah, it's not spring drink. No. It's not strength range. Strength range is about the numbers. Bodybuilding is about the subjective feeling of the bump or whatever the car. But half the time, that's not what's producing the physique that you're seeing. I'd say more than half the time. Most of the time.

Most of the time. Almost all of the time. Some of them strength trains. That's why I don't say all of the time. You know, the old school guys would talk about it. They would put on a bunch of weight and get strong in the offseason. That's one of the first things I learned years before I met you. I just didn't know how to do it.

I didn't know how to train heavy. But I remember reading that as a young boy. Now that's gone. But people ignore the fact that if you put these guys under a barbell, they're lifting quite a bit of weight. More weight than any of these people that are having. these arguments will even max out in their lifetime. You know, Platz did what, 525 for 23?

That was the rumor, yes. Yeah, that's the rumor. Platt's had the plagues now. He's also been quoted. He also was a strong guy, too. Mm-hmm. He's referred to himself as a power lifter at heart, and that gets ignored, too. Well, he lifted real heavy.

He understands the. the actual equation. You get bigger, you get stronger. You get stronger, you get bigger. You get bigger, yeah. Unless you're eating in idiotic ways that prevent that adaptation. Because when you get stronger,

the mechanism by which that occurs is muscular growth. Cross-sectional area of the muscle increases when it gets stronger. If you stimulate it, correct stress, and then recover from that stress by eating correctly and resting, then the muscle can grow. But if that process is interrupted at any one of those stages, you're banging your head against the wall. Now, this is work, it's interesting. So, you know, we've hammered this topic to high health. I have, you have.

My opinions basically become the same as yours at this point on that body fat stuff. But you get a lot of people that want to lift weights either, you know, in many cases, they want to look better, right? And they don't have any interest. That's probably most people's initial motivation to start trying to. Yeah. Just their appearance. That's just.

I mean, I think, I think Ed Cohen himself said that too about himself. Yeah. Yeah. That's in the DNA. So, but in a lot of cases, especially your average gym member, they don't have any aspirations of oiling up and getting in a fucking speedo or, you know, $600 bikini if you're a woman and doing all that. But yet, that's where the information that they're getting on what they need to do in the weight room is still coming from. That's right. 50 years later, 50 years later, yeah, I've got to target the muscle.

Do they still publish muscle magazines on paper? Probably. I'll check. It's all online now. I think they have a few that are still in circulation. I haven't been to the magazine rack in the store in so goddamn long. I don't, I honestly don't know. I'm sure guys my age and older still buy them just out of habit.

Old subscriptions, et cetera. Yeah. And I remember, well, I remember 20 years ago when I was just getting into like supplements, the mom and pop shop still had the weeder brands because the old timers back then were still buying the weeder brand. Now I'll never see that anywhere. I don't know if they're still making it. I have no idea. I have so far removed from that part of the industry, I don't have any idea.

but you're good. So that was one interesting thing. Well, there were multiple interesting things I saw at your gym the first time was, I think either the day I came in or the next day, you had members working out at some point or maybe a couple. And then there was also the audience, too. And I saw all different body types lifting and multiple cases, respectable weight, at least what I was doing or more. And the guy that stood out to me was our friend Abde Mulei from Chicago. My first impression of this, remember, I'd not been around this world before. My first impression of this guy was, oh, he's chubby.

You know, probably lift something. Motherfucker did like 500 for five on the squat. And, like, as he was warming up, my buddy's, like, tapping me on the shoulder. He was a strong. Yeah, man. He was a strong motherfucker, but he did not look at when I met him. And over the years, you know, I saw more people. I saw that there were a variety of. of phenotypes associated with different levels of strength.

And obviously, when you get to the highest level of strength, it's always a big, heavy, strong motherfucker, which is another point that I want to hit on. But that was the first time I started thinking, I'm like, maybe this appearance thing doesn't have to do with what you're doing in the wait room. Right. But he was a strong motherfucker. Every single lift was way bigger than I would have guessed based on what I thought somebody who's strong should look like.

Was this something that was rather obvious to you from the beginning? No. No, no, of course not. Okay. I was in the same position everybody else was. I was educated by, quote, unquote, by the bodybuilding industry, you know, who equated appearance with performance. Because that's what bodybuilding is.

that's all it is is you perform to your appearance you train your appearance appearance appearance is what is what bodybuilding is all about

and this is why it is such an unproductive place to start training for strength because anybody can train for strength your grandmother

can train for strength You know, there are subtle differences in the way you approach her. But everybody, the basic method is you find out how strong on normal human movement patterns. You find out how strong they are now. And then you come back 48 hours later and go up a little bit on that same movement pattern. performed exactly the same way. And that's the essence of strength training. Sounds pretty simple to me.

Obvious, too. Well, if you sit down and think about it, I mean, you squat down and you stand back up. Normal human movement back. Pick something up off the ground. Normal human movement back. Push something up over your head. Push something away from you.

Pull something toward you. There are only a few moving patterns that you can execute like that without, you know, a nautilus circuit. Yeah. You know, that allow you to, and all of those are multi-joint exercises. Yeah. You have to edit that. Yon. they're all multi-joint exercises and all of them use multiple large groups of muscles

like our previous discussion about the deadlift how much of your muscle mass is involved in the fifth rep of a five rep max deadlift everything's in correct probably the muscles that that raise the hairs on your arm in contraction everything's in contraction oh yeah and it's a function of the weight it's a function of the weight

a standing overhead press there's nothing not in contraction of a standing overhead press you know good bench pressers they've figured out how to use their hamstrings in the bench rest, right? Mm-hmm. So the way to do this is obvious.

You know, don't look at a muscle belly and think to yourself, how do I work that muscle belly so that it will grow? That's, that, don't do that. That's not effective. what you do is is you look at the muscle chart on the wall

you look at all of them and then you stop looking at the muscle chart and you start looking at normal human movement patterns. You look at movement patterns not muscles. Movement patterns

require muscle mass because that's what makes movement. So if you have a normal human movement pattern and then you find out how much you can do on the bar because a barbell is how you usually use how you normally use a movement pattern. And then you find out how strong you are. Then you find out how strong you are

how much weight you can load on the bar to do that squat. And then you write that down. And then next time you squat, you go up to a little bit heavier weight. Not much, because you won't be able to do it. You go too big a jump, but you take a jump, you can manage. Take a jump that you can manage, and then you continue to add weight. And you, as a result of this process, you accumulate strength. and therefore muscular mass.

You accumulate strength and therefore muscular mass. It's a process of accumulation. And that is a difficult concept for people to grasp when they are chasing something in the individual workout, especially early on when you first get somebody in. Yeah, it's not the assumption that most people start with. Those people start with a picture in their mind of what their biceps are supposed to look like. And this idea of what a good workout is supposed to feel like.

A common complaint I get in the first month is that it's not enough, you know, when I'm dealing with. People have done other stuff or they've done a lot of endurance-based things that feel different, obviously. You know, I always tell people, endurance training is a that teaches you how to tolerate, tolerate, pain. Strength training teaches you how to manage fear. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

That's good. And that's why I find that these programs where they say, I'm going to have you do a leg day until you puke, that appeals to a segment of the population. But if you tell somebody, I'm going to put a weight on the bar that you're going to squat and that it's going to make you want to shit your pants, that does not sell. No, no, that doesn't. An effective strength training program. You get out of the fifth rep and it lasts up five.

You really honestly don't know that you can do it. But you have to try it anyway. So not everybody's eligible. No. Because a lot of people just don't have the balls from that. You know. Everybody can be right. up to the wall and look over the top of it.

Not everybody can do that. But if you, this is probably one of the most important aspects of barbell straight rate. If you do it anyway, you extend the boundaries of your will. That's a clip. I like it.

You extend the boundaries of your will. And that's a practice. That's as much a practice as any other practice we do. Tennis practice, whatever, you know, practicing the Olympic lifts. You know, the practice aspect of training applies to the psychological aspects of performing those movements as well as it does the movements themselves. You essentially read my mind there as you said that because I've started thinking about all the different stressful situations I've been exposed to since I started lifting

legitimately heavy. And that fight or flight response becomes quite familiar and you learn how to manage it better. Yes. In other situations and you make better decisions. That's what I've seen. Yeah. Everything kind of goes back to the wait room eventually.

Mm-hmm. That's why it's funny. Dude, the first time I pushed heavy, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing yet, but it was, I had a strength phase in my periodized program that I got from this fitness book, right? Yeah. And the guys had the movements in there. So, you know, this is when I first started pressing overhead just before I met you. And I was in my dietetic internship. And it was one of the most miserable fucking experiences ever because you're working with, I don't even want to get into it.

but health care workers, some of them are great, some are not so great. And, you know, they're the fucking cousin of academia. You know, it's kind of the same shit, just different language. And I remember leaving pissed off every day, man. And I just wanted to fucking scream at some of these crazy fucking women. And I worked out afterwards because my shift started at 8 in the morning, and I didn't want to wake up at 5 to train. So I would train afterwards. And the first thing I noticed was it would take the edge off.

It's hard to be pissed off when you've actually lifted heavy. Yes. And the second thing I noticed was I was able to tolerate the bullshit they were thrown at me. And that only got better in the years that followed because the amount of bullshit that I encountered later in life was obviously higher and higher level as typically happens when you try to push the boundaries of things. I guess that's really the point here. When you try to push the boundaries of things and accomplish things in any area, you're going to, have stress applied to the system that's greater than what you're used to. And I see a theme here in terms of what that feels like and what you have to do with your brain to manage it. Yes.

And the high intensity lifting, you know, five reps or less on these big, scary lifts, helps a lot. Yeah. But it's not, it's not something everybody can do. No, it's not, it's not something everybody can do. But if you can just do it a couple of times, if you just get through a couple of times. Of getting down to the fifth rep of your deadlift set of five. You don't know whether it's going to go or not, but you try it anyway. Then what you learn by doing that applies to everything else. That's a stress.

Everything else is stressful. It's the same kind of deal, you know. It's interesting because I think one of the first. of the reasons I wanted to get you on here, the issue that I've been kind of harping on lately that I keep running into kind of comes from the fact that this is kind of how I started the show. I was asking you about who you intended the information to reach and who it reached. We've had so many people over the years and I think other coaches and yourself would speak to this that 25, 30 years ago you wouldn't be caught dead in a weight room because of the

way that information has been presented. And once it gets a lot of the time, it gets to be caught dead in a weight room, It gets hard. I start seeing not a lot, but there's enough of a pattern for me to notice that once it gets repeatedly hard, people want to eject. And, you know, that can apply to anything, but that once that fear response is presented too often, that's one of the main reasons for attrition that I see and that I've been trying to get better at helping people with. And I don't have a clear answer on that other than don't be a fucking pussy. You know, I do that that works sometimes, but it's not very effective, you know? Sometimes it works better on some people than others. Yeah, like, you know, you told me that way that works.

I mean, you're not going to say that to your grandmother. No. You know. So. But you can't explain your grandmother. Grandma, do you ever remember being afraid of anything? And she'll say, oh, yeah. Oh, God, yeah.

I remember that. Why well? I've been afraid of a lot of stuff. Well, what did you do about it? You just talk through the process. Now, if you're working with a 17-year-old kid, you know, different approaches necessary. Right.

But either way, it's a learning. process. Can you pick up this last rep of the set of five? You don't know? Try it and see. What do you have to do differently? You got to not quit when you'd rather.

If you can get it off the floor, you can probably lock it out, but you have to keep pulling on it. even though it feels like it's going to stop you can get it off the floor or you can probably finish the pool not always but you know

significant amount of the time you can you know but you have to try you have to start the rip somebody sets the fourth rip down and then won't even try the fifth it's just not good

Good, man. That's not how it works. It teaches you to bail. Yeah, you're practicing. You're practicing failure. When you do it like that, you're practicing failure. Then there's the whole programming aspect where shit inevitably happens, especially as you go through life, get older. And it may not be able to train like a lifter necessarily.

But you still got to show up. And you've talked about that. I think if I remember correctly, you said something the effect of you're always working towards something, even if it's an overall net decline. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I had a guy recently say he had to stop because he had all this shit going on. And I challenged it. And where we ended up was I needed, I need an hour and a half to train.

And I'm like, no, you don't. But that's a hard thing to communicate. why it's important to show up. Yeah. You do something, even if it's not ideal. Yeah, we're not going to reach everybody with this logic. No. I mean, it's just not possible.

Yeah. But these are just new things that I've started to see in higher frequency as we've attracted more people to it. Because now you're not dealing with an athlete or even a recreational one. That's an enthusiast, reads magazines, is on the board. You know, now you've got information workers, you know, that sit all day, unathletic, haven't done anything too hard physically. Great. There's a lot of that. And the training drive is much lower.

So it makes me understand why this stupid RPE shit got so popular. You get better client retention when you're dealing with a bunch of people that don't have your drive. Yeah, that's exactly what that's all about. If you're selecting the load, I'm giving you permission to be a pussy whenever you want. That's right. And then you're not going to have a meltdown. Without even knowing you're being a pussy because you're putting in a number. You're signing a number to your own exertion.

I don't know where all it came from, but it's, I wish I'd thought it up. I've had to use it for certain people, man, just because of that, the psychological aspect. I don't think it's a good training tool. It's not a training tool at all. It's a way to avoid training. If somebody has to drive to work, they need to be held accountable to a fucking load. Yeah. If you're dealing with a big pussy and you'd rather have them exercise with a barbell and do nothing, then, oh, by all means, assign yourself a fucking load.

That's not who we deal with us. No. That's not our audience. No. Not our market. They trickle in, though, man. And then they typically filter back out. Well, if you're running a commercial gym, you're going to have to deal with certain percentage of those people.

Of course. Most of the people that come through put in work for greater than six months is what I've noticed. I've got to run those numbers, but I'd say that I could say that confidently. Last time I looked, I think that was the average time. stuck around. That's probably about right. That's pretty good. You know, I have multi-year clients, too, that are PRing year after year, not just people

that sign up and hang out like the commercial gym, personal training clients. Right. But, yeah, man, everybody's a pussy, essentially. If you make that assumption, you're going to be less disappointed. That's what I. I'm fine to admit. Yeah. Just assume everybody's the pussy and, you know, the ones that don't will pleasantly surprise.

Mm-hmm. And I'd rather be pleasantly surprised. I remember I had one guy once all sorts of just tweaks and shit that happened near the end of his term, and then he fucking renewed. We worked through it the following year. I remember that. I'm like, that dude's gone. And then, nope, back at it, dude.

I'm like, all right. Cool. Cool, man. What else you want to talk about? I think that was about it. There was another topic I was in a touch earlier, and we deviated. It doesn't quite fit. Well, it fit earlier.

I guess I'll just bring it up, and we can use it or not use it. Back to the topic of leanness. Leanness. Or fatness. Call it fatness. Call it leanness. I don't care. Body composition.

I had one of our colleagues on here a couple months ago, and he was talking. about how a lot of power lifters now are leaner than back in the day and gone are the days of going to the buffet and getting as big as possible. And he's really talking about middleweights. And I clarified some things in the interview. But, you know, you get these 198ers like John Hack, who's a real strong motherfucker, right? Yeah.

But I had to remind him, I'm like, who's got the biggest squat in the world? It's the super heavyweight. That's fat and strong, right? Why is the biggest number still with the biggest weight class? Same with the deadlifted. Oh, he's got to be 350 or something. I think he's 375 or something. I mean, look that shit up.

Because he's 6'5. That's a big, huge human being. My God. Yeah. He is 375. You were right. Yeah, he's a piece of work. But all the guys you remember.

in both sports, all the guys you remember in both sports. Casmeyer, Pisereenko, Taranenko, the big. Now, Arredaer at the same time, guys in the 198's that are pound for pound, quote-unquote, stronger than those guys. Yeah Now that's a mathematical expression though Yes That's not reality No reality is

Bigger and strong I also used to not understand that Until I started doing this longer Yeah And you look at the leaderboard The biggest squat And what's that What was that

Fuck why I was Ray Ray Williams Right I think he was the biggest raw squat Yeah The IPF And maybe it got broken. I don't know, but it was, what, 1,100? And he was fat and strong.

400 plus, big dude. Then you go down the list, the bench press, Julius Maddox, 795. That motherfucker got robbed. Do you know that story, Rip? No. It was supposed to be 800, and they put 795 on an ax, misload. They misloaded the buck. They misloaded the buck.

He had 800 that day. But after 795, he wasn't going to do five more pounds. He tried. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, nervous system's done. So I think, I don't think he's ever going to get it now. That was six years ago. 795, but the dude was fat and strong.

And it wasn't lean. Then you go to the deadlift. I like referencing strong, man, because at least everybody pulls it the same fucking way. Thor and Eddie were not lean when they did it, the 500 plus kilo deadlist. probably 25% body fat. Yeah. Yeah. So why does this keep happening consistently?

You know, I'm like, okay, yeah, $1.98 or is cool. There's an association with, you know, the stronger. It's, you know, it all comes back to bodybuilding. It does. Bodybuilding is a problem. Dizek contest is a problem. not only is it it's a

it's a celebration of vanity that may be the worst part of it but who's thought this up I mean I can understand you know you and I are normal heterosexual males and we understand the value of a beauty contest

of course with girls yes but boys that makes zero sense it makes zero sense less you're gay it makes no sense at all you know and

but we've been taught over the past 60 years that that's normal that it's normal to look at another man's almost naked body and say yeah that's good he's really hot

we still use those terms. No. He's cut. Look at those cuts. Look at those cuts. That's what in the 1990s. It's just, I don't think it's productive. I don't think so either.

I don't think it's a productive thing to do. It's not our natural state as men either. That's feminine behavior. It is. It is, in fact. their value is for better or worse determined on their appearance so it makes sense our values determine on our performance so why the fuck are we behaving like women put literally right that's an excellent question that's an actual question and I'm

sure it's going to piss people off but yeah I don't miss some ugly comments about this about that statement but it's the truth it's the truth it's the truth I'm sorry, the truth. Women know it. They size each other up more than anybody. Oh, yeah. That's why we have a multi-billion dollar fashion industry with women's fashions that doesn't exist with men's. Yeah.

So it's not a negative stuff. Yeah, there are things associated with the sex of the individual that are behavioral and that are predictable and that are normal. Bodybuilding is not normal. At least men's bodybuilding. Anyway, it's just not a normal. You know, if you want, we're not going to say it's easy. You said that earlier. They train real hard.

Oh, I'm not saying they're training their asses off. Right. I'm just questioning their motives. Mm-hmm. You know. And it's also not about health like anything else that's competitive. No, it's not about health. They like to say it is, but that's...

It's not. Somehow athletics got conflated with health in the last 40 years. I don't know where that comes from. I don't believe it, because it's certainly not the case. I'm guessing when these Olympians had to go before John McCain, that's where all that probably started. Yeah. Because they started banning steroids for your health.

People using them at the time were athletes at the Olympic level. who are not healthy with or without the steroids. Sports aren't healthy. No, competitive athletics are not performed for health. You're performed to win. Mm-hmm. Two different things. Same thing with bodybuilding.

Yeah. All right, Rip. Okay, Bob. Thanks for having a bunch of topics. Yeah, thanks for coming, man. I always like to have you on. We'll do it again sometime, shall we? No.

I think we should. Let's not wait three years again or four years. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. I think most people know where to find you, but give them your details before we sign off. Startingstrength.com is where you communicate with me. Startingstrength.com. Startingstrength.com.

And the forums are there. You can contact me through the forums. You can contact, contact. All times of people. I have a very busy board, foreign board on Starlink.com. And you can discuss all kinds of things there if you want to. Do you want them to smash that subscribe button on YouTube also? You know, I get so annoyed by people telling me to press the like.

button I just soon as I associated myself with well I mean sure they want you to go ahead you have a pretty good underrated YouTube channel which would have more subscribers in my opinion my YouTube channels just got a bunch of stuff going on

there's a bunch of share on that YouTube channel we work on that pretty hard you know yeah and it's what's a legacy account right it's been around forever It's an old account. Certainly is. Certainly is.

Cool. Well, you can find me on Instagram. You don't use any socials, rip, huh? No, I just thought of that. I'm not going to do it. I'm just not going to do it. That's funny. Yeah.

Well, all your stuff. Facebook, I used to be on. Oh, I was on Twitter for a while. I've never been on Instagram. And I'm just, I was not in the mood. I can't picture you on Instagram. You're all over it. I just can't picture you doing all the commenting and shit.

Yeah. You're everywhere, dude. Yeah, good. Whether you want to be or not. I don't know. I don't seem to be making money off. Yeah. Yeah.

You have to have like millions of fucking people. following your shit. And then you become more of an entertainer, you know, which you are. I think you're entertaining, but you also produce excellent content, which that's not the requirement, unfortunately. No. No, I've noticed that. I have noticed that. Yeah.

All right. Let me sign off. I'll talk to you off here. Okay. You can find me at Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana or at weights and plates. If you are Metro Phoenix, I am at Waits and Plates Gym just south of Sky Harbor Airport between 32nd Street and 40th Street and Broadway. And you can subscribe to us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Waits underscore and Undersportplace. Thank you for tuning in. I'll see you in the next one.