Weights and Plates Podcast - Ep. 114 - Strong, Sleek & Starting Over: The New Chapter

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

After four months away, Robert Santana is back—and a lot has changed.The Weights and Plates Podcast has officially evolved into Strong and Sleek, a new name and brand built around the idea that getting stronger, looking better, and building a more durable body doesn't have to mean living in the gym or chasing extreme numbers.Robert opens up about why he closed his old South Phoenix gym, moved to North Scottsdale, and built a completely new training environment. He explains the philosophy behind Strong and Sleek, why he wanted a more balanced and accessible approach to strength training, and what he's learned about the biggest obstacle facing most people: not motivation, but time and recovery.He also gets unusually candid about a major personal change: after years of training and making progress without steroids, Robert started testosterone replacement therapy earlier this year. He explains why he made the decision, what changed, what didn't, and how much testosterone actually contributed to his recent strength gains—including new PRs on the deadlift, bench, squat, and press.Along the way, Robert tackles genetics, muscle-building potential, weight cycling, recovery, aging, the realities of natural strength training, and why Instagram fitness promises don't apply to most people.The podcast isn't dead. It's evolving.Strong and Sleek is the new name. The mission is still the same: get stronger, get healthier, look better, and build a body that can handle real life.

Welcome back to the show. I am Robert Santana. I am your host. And notice we have a different name. We were formerly the Waits and Plates Podcast. And now I've went through some rebranding and we'll kind of get to the name as I talk about this. So I think my last episode was with Mark Ripato, my good friend Rip back in March. And it just happened to work out to be a good stopping point because he was the man that,

set me on this journey. He's the reason I even have a podcast. I discovered the book starting strength back in 2013 when I was trying to figure out how to get strong and build muscle. I'd been in the weight room since I was 19. I think I was 27 at the time, 28, and 28, right before my 28th birthday. And I stumbled upon starting strength, learned how to handle a barbell, learned what heavy weights felt like for the first time and how to push through them, and stayed on that course for the next 13 years and counting actually because I'm still still chasing numbers still want to add a little bit more weight to the bar and that pretty much defined an era for me and I met him in 2013 I was certified as a starting strength coach in 2014 and moved out to Arizona in 2015 I started

my online business worked for a couple heavy hitters at the time uh and opened up my gym in 2019 and recently started winding that down in favor of a new gym, a new name, and a new brand. So what prompted this? Well, a lot changed after the pandemic. So I opened the gym in 19. We were shut down in 20. And I continued to operate in the years that followed.

and over time the interest in that type of a gym you know your traditional black iron gym started to wane at least in that market I was in South Phoenix for those of you who are unfamiliar I was south of Sky Harbor Airport between 40th Street and 32nd Street on Broadway Avenue and it's not

it's not the best part of town it was a destination location as one of my colleagues said when I first opened it but that was okay for a while I used it as a studio used it as an office i had members uh i trained people taught people the lifts over the years many people over the years while i was extremely busy online and uh it was great it was great i loved having a gym but after the pandemic a lot of real estate changed hands a lot of commercial real estate changed hands including the gym i was located at the building that my gym was located at and uh as you can imagine the value of the building was more than what the previous owner had paid. So the mortgage was

bigger for the new owner, and that got passed on to us tenants. So with a big rent hike overnight, a few years ago, I had to make a decision. So this would have been the beginning of 2024. I had to decide, A, whether I'm going to renew the lease, which the answer was yes, because I wasn't ready to move yet. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my in-person business yet, but I knew that I could, I knew I could absorb the rent hike for a few years, so I signed a three-year lease. And in that time, I started planning my next move. And I still stayed busy for the first couple, but it steadily got less and less busy. And I eventually started winding down my operations. there. I sublet a portion of the gym to a USAW, USA Weightlifting Club, continued training my

clients in a little sliver of the gym. I kept four racks there, two racks, four stations, so it was a station on each side of the rack. And as many of you who have been listening, know, I also trained dogs. So I formally started a dog training business that I operated out of the office space end of it. So it was mixed. It was office and warehouse so i took a small portion of the warehouse space and used the offices to meet with clients evaluate dogs and sometimes board them there at least during the day um so that's where i was the last year year or so probably middle of last year it started transitioning to that and the goal from there became to move the gym over to the weightlifting club remove myself from it open a different location

with a little bit of a different spin in a different business model, and that's what we've done. So without further avail, I decided to name my new gym, my new brand, Strong and Sleak. And why did I do that? Well, we had a guest on here, I believe, a year ago, a little over a year ago, a year and a half ago. Harry Fafutis, he's a strength coach down in Mexico, in Guadalajara. So if you haven't heard that episode, you should go back and listen to it. was a good one. I think I might have done two with him. I don't remember, but we're going to get him back on here because I thought he was great. He's also a starting strength coach, but in Guadalajara,

so that market isn't familiar with starting strength. So he had to build his gym up from scratch. He had a good location, good marketing platform. And I believe his gym is named Tavros. If I pronounced that incorrectly, R. You can totally let me know, dude, but I think I got it right. And at Tavros, he does a lot of what I do. He teaches people how to get strong under a loaded barbell. But that's not necessarily what he's promoting directly, at least to the customer. He's promoting the outcome, which is strength. You know, strength, you're going to get stronger, you're going to look better, feel better, move better,

which is something I've said over the years. And essentially what I've tried to promote, we both have a very similar history under the barbell. Hari pushed his body weight up to 250 at a height of 5-7, I believe. If I got that wrong, let me know. But at high to 5-7, he pushed his body weight up to 250. He got as strong as he possibly could in that period of time. It was a three-year span. He was in his 20, so he was a young man doing this.

And I think he pressed 310, bench pressed 4-10, deadlifted 635, and squatted 555. His ultimate goal was a 300-killed. gram squat 660s as his dad did it he talked about it in the episode he was too far away from that to continue staying that heavy so trimmed himself down to 190-ish i don't know what he weighs now but he was pretty lean looked great all the muscle he had built training heavier paid off all that work paid off and i have had a similar trajectory myself although i could never quite push to 250 i pushed myself over 200 several times and uh as you know my numbers have gone up over the years

as a result. So when I trim down, I don't look like a power lifter. And it's one of the key things that I try to teach people that when you get strong, your muscles grow. They look more defined. They look denser. The whole, your entire appearance changes. But in order to do that, your weight cycling. You're pushing your body weight up, which includes some fat gain. You're pulling your body weight down, which includes some muscle loss. So, There are periods of time when you're doing this without the assistance of anabolic steroids or fantastic muscle building genetics from your parents when you're one of these people that struggle like myself and people that struggle even more than me. There are periods of time where you may not be fascinated with the way you look when you're doing this. And him and I paid our dues there. You know, we got real big, got strong, trimmed back down. And then we'd tell people you lift heavy. And people would always tell me, you don't look like. you do that. To add some numbers to that, my best deadlift last year was 505 for 5.

I bench press 320. I pressed 225 years ago. And I squatted 425 for a triple last year. So it's three reps. So I'd hang out at like 180, 180 to 190 most of the time. But there'd be periods where I'd push up to 200 last year i think i got as heavy as 215 to bench that 320 was the one lift that it just was not happening when i was leaner it just wasn't and uh most guys figure that out so a lot of the podcast has been focused on that strength and building muscle uh which is what a lot of people want to do um when you look at the extremes it tends to skew more male so i've had been criticized we're not talking enough about how females benefit from this hoe older people may benefit from this, people that aren't interested in raw, large numbers.

So I'm trying to spread that out. And that's what inspired the name change. I'm talking about what you get out of doing this the way that we do this. And when you lift heavy weights, you eat reasonably. You don't let yourself get too sloppy. You're going to look better. You're going to be strong. And if you don't want to be fat, you don't have to be.

And that's the type of person. comes to me. The type of person that comes to me wants to be strong and reasonably lean. Maybe not lean enough for a bodybuilding show, but lean enough to feel confident in their own body. And that's basically my specialty. And I've done it firsthand myself and then second hand for other people without having to put them on a bunch of drugs or any drugs for that matter. Some people are already on different things. but I'm not going to sit here and ask you what kind of steroids you are on as a screening question. I mean, I might want to know that information, but I'm not asking because I want to put you on more or less. That's not what we do here.

I bring that up because bodybuilding coaches will screen for that because it's a big part of the contest, is how many steroids you can tolerate and what they're going to do to make your body look different. That's something I've touched on many times. There are different things that you can do to change your appearance. And lifting weights and eating healthy aren't the only two things that change your appearance. This tends to get missed by a lot of people. They think that special diet, that special program is going to transform their body in and of itself because some guy on Instagram or back in the day a magazine told them that's how it's done.

Well, oftentimes those people are born that way. They look great and then they do anything in the weight room and look fantastic. They look even greater. And that's not because of what they're doing. That's in spite of what they're doing. That's what we call a high responder. You know, I've talked about that a lot on the show. Many of you are familiar with my position on that,

but I have to reiterate it a lot. So if you are responsive to strength training, you already have muscle or just build it easy to begin with. Sure, anything you do is going to work. It's going to actually be hard for something not to work. But for the rest of us that are in the bottom 50%, it don't work that way you can't just go in follow some jerk off workout that's on instagram or a magazine or a website and look like a fitness model in three months just as they

tell you 12 weeks to 20 inch arms yeah not going to happen so that being said um i kind of got off topic there so my point is that diet and exercise do change your physique You will always look better stronger. You will always look better if you don't eat like a pile of shit. I mean, those things are true. But better is relative to what you want and to where you start, right? Absolute is a different story. People want absolute results many times.

They see a picture of somebody and they want the absolute result that that person has. I want to look like that person. Well, you are far enough away from it to where a couple cycles of strength training and dietary manipulation aren't going to make you look like that person. And in fact, you may not even have the same type of muscle bellies or the same shape of muscle bellies that that person has or they may not insert in the same places. So again, there are other things besides diet and exercise that influence the way that you look. Steroids are one of them.

If you take anabolic steroids, even if you don't train, you're going to grow muscle mass. you know, will that continue? If you take more, sure. It's kind of like lifting. If you keep lifting heavier, your muscles grow. If you take more steroids, your muscles grow. This has been studied for decades. I always bring up the 1996 study.

The guys who were on high-dose testosterone, which was 600 milligrams a week, gained more muscle than the guys are trained. So, anabolic steroids, whether you're a man or a woman, by the way, changes the way your body looks. and in different ways. A lot of women think that taking steroids will make them look like Mr. Olympia.

The one that jumps in my mind is Ronnie Coleman. I stopped keeping track after him. There's been a few others since. It's been a while. But that's what they think. Some women take steroids to have harder, denser bodies, and they don't necessarily grow. You see this in CrossFit. Some men take steroids, and same thing.

They get stronger, they get denser. They don't necessarily grow huge. So there's a lot of variables within that. You know, which steroids are you taking at, what doses, what can you tolerate, etc. And then the number of muscle fibers you have. Steroids don't make you grow more muscle fibers. They enlarge the ones you have. So if you don't have very many muscle fibers to begin with, you're only going to go so far even with drugs.

Same thing with training. It's probably the biggest limiting factor. There are guys that just have a lot of muscle fibers. And when you grow more muscle fibers, you're going to have a bigger muscle belly. than when you grow less muscle fibers. So that's on the muscle side. On the fat side, sure, you can starve and lose weight. It's obvious, right?

You're going to lose muscle out of muscle, too. You can manipulate your macronutrients to skew it towards fat, and that works. But then you can also take weight loss drugs, too. Those are super popular. Weight loss drugs get weight off really fast. We see it all the time. With celebrities, people we know, they're in fashion right now, right? So again, that is something that's not diet or exercise that's changing the way

that your body looks, right? So you got drugs. That's one thing. Genetics. You know, if you have parents with phenomenal muscle building genetics or that are naturally skinny, your likelihood is higher. It doesn't always work out that way, but you may just be lean or muscular because mom and dad were. So you have to consider that, too.

This doesn't get touched on enough. You cannot out-train or out-drug bad genetics. So what the fuck are we doing here? Well, here we teach you how to do the work part. of it. How to train, how to get stronger, more durable, and how to eat properly so you don't fly off the deep end and become a big, fat, sloppy mess. Or also so you don't fly off the deep end and become emaciated, because that's not what we do here. You know, we're not going to starve you to the point where you look gaunt and then you're talking about how, oh, well, you know,

I'm stopping senescence and my telomeres are shortening, aren't shortening as much. So I'm going to live longer, but I look like shit because I look like I'm dying. And if I trip, I'm going to break something that kills me. We don't want that. We also don't want you so fat that you can barely walk, breathe, or tie your shoes. Well, the shoe tying thing I've ran into that, but I was never morbidly obese. I guess it doesn't take that much fat to have trouble tying your shoes, but you get the gist of it. We teach you how to make your body more durable, and we use strength training to do that. We teach you how to lift heavier relative to where you've started, what you're capable of, and to the demands of it. You know, there comes a certain point. I've talked about it on this show many,

many times. There comes a point where the demands of training interfere with the demands of your life. Your life as a father, your life as an employee or business owner, your life as an athlete in a different sport, right? Your life is a homeowner. Your other life responsibilities eventually are, eventually are at odds with your training. So that's usually what limits people from getting far past being a novice or an early intermediate. Getting to the point where I'm at, I'm an advanced lifter. The time commitment is actually less now because everything's so damn heavy. I don't have to do as much.

But the recovery demands are higher. My body's more sensitive to, more sensitive to stress. So whereas 10 years ago, if I trained and maybe I didn't sleep one day or I slept like shit one day, I can work through that. Now, I have to reset if I'm far enough into the training cycle and the sets are earth-shattering. I can no longer show up on five-hour sleep and just muscle through it. So recovery changes, you know, with age and with advancement. You know, when the lifts are heavier, you know, when I'm doing. 480 for a set of aid on the deadlift, things got to be dialed in or else rep one won't come off the floor.

So the people that have gotten this far understand this. Older lifters understand this because recoveries in the toilet when you're, let's say, over 70, you can't recover the same way. People with chronic diseases, certain chronic diseases, autoimmune diseases, the recovery is all over the damn place. So I think a lot of advice on this is intended for a young person, 18 to 25, with decent genetics who has no other ailments that can fuck with their recovery. They live in mom's basement and can train. And that's not most of us. You know, most of us have something that interferes. So how do you work through that, you know, and how much do you want to commit to this too?

So I like to pride myself in helping the majority, not the minority that are in the extreme, right? Like somebody who's genetically gifted is just going to, they're going to do well. They're just going to do well. We saw it in school. If you've been through an academic program, there's the guy that doesn't study and gets straight A's. There's the athlete who slacks off all day, and he gets better every year. I mean, some people are just gifted. And we have to remember this because this has got lost over the last.

30 years. So I'm, you know, recycling shit that I've said before, but I've been off the air for four months. So we've got to hit the highlights again. You know, that's an important point. So on the topic of recovery, I've made a life decision that's relevant to you guys. It's my personal business, but I think it's relevant to share because I get questions about it quite a bit. In February, for the first time my life, I started on testosterone replacement therapy, which I'm just going to call it what it is. I got on steroids, people. So TRT, testosterone replacement therapy is basically, you're taking a testosterone injection at a dose that's lower than 200 milligrams. So it's what I would classify as less steroids versus more steroids, which is what bodybuilders and pro athletes take.

You know, a bodybuilder might take, shit, I don't know what they take because I don't, I've never ran around in those circles. I heard it can get pretty high, but they take so many other steroids with it. But let's say they might take 500 milligrams. I mean, that study I cited earlier, 600 milligrams was considered high dose by the academics. Now, I've known of people taking more than that. I'm nowhere near that. So full transparency, I'm taking about 168 milligrams a week, which is what they call TRT. So less steroids.

I'm on what's considered a normal therapeutic dose if you're taking it for, quote, unquote, low tea. I just don't like calling it replacement. You're not replacing shit. You're enhancing. No matter what you're enhancing. So even if you're low tea, let's say your total testosterone's 200, your free testosterone's 30 picograms per deciliter. So 200 nanograms per deciliter. let's say your free is 30 picograms per decilater and your hypogonatal, right?

Sure, I mean, what are you replacing? It's low. So you're adding more, first of all. You're not replacing. You're adding more. And now your testosterone is at a certain level throughout the day versus when you're not on testosterone, it follows what they call a diurnal variation. It's up earlier in the day.

it's down later in the day for most people. I'm sure this fluctuates. You know, there's no absolute for every individual. But when they've looked at group studies, in general, it tends to peak earlier in the day, dip later in the day. When you start injecting it, it's up all day, all night. You're pretty much the same level. So you are adding, number one, because you're low, you're adding.

Maybe you're replacing what was once there. I think that's the argument. But maybe there wasn't ever anything there. I guess if you're old, it does decline. So maybe that's probably where that replacement term comes from. But no matter how you take it, you are enhancing. You're making the situation better than it was. And there is nothing wrong with that.

But I've always been a straight to the point kind of guy. I like the direct no bullshit answer. And the reality of it is you're taking steroids and you're enhancing your body's capabilities. And I did not take it for training. I was still getting stronger. For those of you who have followed me, I PR'd the bench last year. I got up to 215 body weight. I bench 320.

So I got my three plates plus 5 pounds. That's what I was chasing. I wanted that three plates. I would not even entertain testosterone for any reason if I didn't bench three plates without it. It was very point of pride for me. But, you know, up into that point, like I had nothing to prove anywhere. I'm not going to be a competitive power lifter. I'm never going to be a competitive bodybuilder.

I'm not a pro athlete and I'm shit. I mean, I'm not, I'm probably not going to be in any movies or TV shows where I got to lie and say that, oh, I just look like that from working out seven days a week, twice a day and taking meat shakes and eating this weird diet and the best trainer. Those guys aren't a bunch of steroids. By the way, you should follow the actor Frank Grillo. If you want to learn about Hollywood and steroids, he's very transparent about what the hell he's had to do for a role. But my point is my livelihood didn't depend on me. looking that crazy and lying about it. So it just, it made no sense.

I'm like, what, I'm going to be a mediocre lifter and be a slightly less mediocre lifter. Just to put it into context, 215 would put me in the 220 weight class and powerlifting. Guys that are 220 and powerlifting are benching upwards of 600. So taking testosterone and other steroids, what, is it going to get me to 405? It's not going to put 300 pounds of my bench people. I know that the internet and the media and the government make it sound like, you know, steroids are going to make everybody a champion. But the reality is those champions are beating a lot of guys on steroids.

And there's a lot of guys on steroids that never even make it to the top 100. I know guys on steroids that were weaker than me, not on steroids. There was a post on social media by my favorite Mr. Olympia. Believe it or not, it's not Arnold. My favorite Mr. Olympia is Dorian Yates because he's very to the point and transparent. He was talking about it. His first show, he was not on any steroids. And the guys he was competing against were, and he won.

And his reasoning, he had better genetics. I mean, it's okay to admit that. So I was never going to take it to lift more weight or to perform better because that's not my life's calling. I'm not a gifted athlete. I'm not a famous person that has to look a certain way real quick for a show. So if it wasn't going to improve my life in some meaningful way, it didn't make any sense. So for me, it was more of I was starting to get brain fog, and I just could not perform cognitively at the level that I used to.

And I noticed it for the last three to four years, and I wasn't making the connection. So I tried to improve life. I've always slept well, so sleep wasn't an issue. I've eaten fairly well. sure when I get heavier, I feel shittier and sluggish, and then I usually just drop the weight down, lean up, and I feel better. And that did help. You know, after that bulk, I came down and it did help, but I still, they get these afternoon slumps that were getting worse and worse and worse. And by this point, being in the industry I'm in and having the colleagues that I have, I understood the benefits of taking testosterone that went beyond the body composition benefits of more muscle, less fat,

etc, you look better, blah, blah, blah. I knew that there were cognitive benefits, and I've been researching them for years. I've researched the side effects for years. It was something that, you know, that I've been in contemplation about for a long time, but never quite had enough incentive to do it. I was able to work through any limitation

that I thought it could fill until I couldn't. It just got to a point where my productive time during the day got really low, and the demands of my life got really high. Like I had to rebrand, move the gym, I started a new business, new skill. I'm working dogs now. I'm training people.

I got a lot of things going on, and I can't keep up the way that I used to when things would get chaotic. So finally I tapped out, I'm like, I'm going to try testosterone and see what happens. And within 24 hours, a fog just cleared. Like, that was an immediate benefit. I was able to function better in the afternoons. No more afternoon slump, just very focused like I used to be. and it's not a foreign feeling. You know, the more I think of it, it's not a foreign feeling.

It's just I haven't felt this sharp in a long time, and I'm just able to go like I used to. So that's what I was after it. The demands of my life called for it, and I knew that if I'm going to basically do the startup thing again, that I need to be more on it than I was, and I didn't like the pace I was at. So that's why I got on it. That being said, it does help with training, but to give you some numbers there. So right before I got on it, I think my best deadlift, I was doing eights. I've been running eights since last year.

I deadlifted $4.60 for eight, I think, the day that I got on it. And now I did $480 for eight a month ago. I'm going to go $4.85 tonight. Hopefully I'll get it. I tried it two days ago. I was a little bit dehydrated. I got a stomach cramp on rep number three. I was not going to pull an ab muscle, so I just dropped it.

I'm like, give it two days, try again. But, yeah, so I put 20 pounds on my deadlift. Now, I've talked about this on the show before. I think my deadlift is very responsive because, A, I got long monkey arms, for one. But B, I didn't start training it until I did starting strength. I mean, I had pulled 315 before, which is kind of a joke of a deadlift. You know, there's girls that clean it. So it's not a very impressive deadlift.

Obviously, they're weightlifters, by the way. But I think it's been cleaned by a female. But 315 is not an impressive deadlift. So that was just me occasionally deadlifting. And I'd get my three plates and I felt strong because I didn't know any better. So I've only really truly been training it consistently for about 13 years. So it tends to when I do something smart like gain more weight. Like last year, I put 40 pounds on it, which seemed like overnight.

because I allowed my body weight to go up higher than it's ever went. Now I've gotten on a little bit of testosterone at a lower body weight. I'm about 200 pounds now, but I've been 195 for most. I was 180 when I got on. I'm about 195 to 200 right now. And it's going up steadily. But I haven't changed the way I train. I'm still deadlifting twice a month, squatting twice a month.

Could I do more? Probably. It's not something I care to test. The thing about taking testosterone is your recovery is faster. So I don't want to go in and just push my limits and get hurt. I'm not doing this for lifting purposes. The injuries aren't worth it. So I just continued on the same path that I was on.

You know, twice a month, I deadlift. I deadlift once. I already owe once. And then I squat twice a month, once heavy, once lighter. And it seems to be working. So like I said, I put 20 on the deadlift and counting. The bench went up 10 pounds. I just maxed it out at 3.30.

I was in the middle of a training cycle when I started it. So I probably didn't take as much advantage of it as I could have because the volume was starting to get low as it is. We'll see how the next training cycle goes. But I put 10 on my bench. My bench press is my most mature lift. I've been doing it since I was 15 years old. So I'd expect that one to not move very much, but 10 pounds on it. 15 pounds on the 5 rep max.

I benched 285. My best was 270 last year. my press went up five pounds i barely trained that so there you go i got on testosterone i pressed once a week and i just pressed 230 the other day i got to post that and the squat has went up 10 pounds 380 for 8 i'd probably argue more because i'm going i'm pretty sure i wasn't as deep when i did it last time some of those were at parallel i mean that just happens when you're doing high rep squats but we'll call it a 10 pound PR on the squat and counting that could continue to go up. I'm hoping I can squat 405 for eight, but I don't know. We'll see how far it goes.

And I bicep curled, I cheek curled for the bodybuilders. I cheek curled 155 for a single. And I did 135 for 5. I cheek curled it. I think my strict curls are, I could strict curl 135 for 5 now. A whole other topic that's irrelevant, but the cheek curl drives up the other curls. Sorry, bodybuilders. When I do my backoffs, they're with weights. I used to not be so strict with, and now I'm strict with them, so something happened there. And, you know, I'm chining a lot. So, as you can see, these numbers aren't earth-shattering. I haven't been on it that long.

We'll see how I do in a year. But people make it sound like, oh, you know, you're going to double your bench. You're going to triple your squat. You're going to four-x your deadlift, and anybody who takes steroids can be a champion. I mean, I'm not taking a high dose, mind you, but any dose of, I won't say any for everybody. it's different, but taking testosterone is going to improve your lifting better than not taking it. I think that's a safe argument to make. So, yeah, I got on it.

I think it's relevant to the show because one of the things we've talked about from the beginning was how I've not been on it and I've accomplished what I've accomplished. So I've outlined what that was before. And now moving forward, you're seeing what TRT can do plus intelligent training because we know it's intelligent. Now I figured out how to get myself from novice through intermediate, to advanced. I did that without any steroids. 13 years of training. First of all, I've aged 13 years. So my recoveries went down because of that. But I've aged 13 years while adding weight to the bar.

Okay. And I had 15 years of lifting before that. So it's safe to say I'm advanced and that my training plays a role in what's happening too. I never peaked out, by the way. You know, I was still getting stronger without it. So, you know, that being said, you know, I'm confident that my training methodologies work because I suffered through them for many years and made progress. So you're not going to sit here and say, oh, you're on steroids. No, it doesn't count. Well, you can say whatever the fuck you want. I don't care. But I think it's an important announcement to make because shit has changed. So I think you all need to know that. People don't like to talk about it. They like to pretend that everything is their hard work. Yes, my hard work plays a

role in it. Sure, but I'm recovering better. Shit is better. So I'm working hard and shit is better. I'm working smart and shit is better, but shit is better. Let's not pretend it isn't. So there's that. And then the new gym. So I've talked about it. I've opened a new gym. So I'm in North Scottsdale now. So for those view who are from Metro Phoenix, I have moved out of South Mountain area, the South Mountain Village, up into North Phoenix. So now I went from south of one airport to I guess technically east east of another one the Scottsdale airport's down the street this is the boosy airport for those of you who are not from Scottsdale it's where all the private jets are it's a private airport um so I'm in the Scottsdale air park um just uh off the 101 and rain tree if you're local to here so I'm in a much more affluent area the gym is different than my last gym my last

gym was very much uh had the industrial look I'm still in a warehouse but the look is different The last gym I had bare concrete. I had seven stations, four by eight platforms at five of them, eight by eight platforms at two of them. We had rogue infinity racks. So it's like a black iron gym. I'd say it was a semi-polished black iron gym. The thing I hated was I didn't have concrete walls.

I had dry wall on both sides. So I was missing that concrete, industrial look or brick, you know, the things you see out in the northeast or the Midwest. I just hated all drywall walls. But I had a garage door. I had concrete floors. You know, it was definitely an industrial building. But that, damn, that drywall used to piss me off.

Now I have one stone block wall. So I at least have the big center block brick looking things with the, you can see the grout in between. So, because I'm on the corner. I'm at the end unit. But yeah, so I went from a polished black iron gym that was a mix of power lifting, weightlifting. I should say powerlifting. I never trained power lifters. I've used the starting strength method.

I've strength trained people. So it was a combination of strength training, a little bit of Olympic lifting once in a while. And, you know, later on I added some dumbbells. You know, we had a couple machines there, but it was mostly a strength training gym for people who were serious. This gym has the same equipment, but it's half the footprint. So instead of seven racks, I have three.

Instead of infinity, I went monster. Instead of black, I went blue. So it's a blue and black theme. I got my dumbbell. rack with a mirror behind it. Now we got mirrors so we can like do curls in the mirror, bro, you know? I got my leg pressed still. I got my lap pulled on. I added a cable station. The rogue, I forgot the name of it, the nine foot one, the seat, I think a CT something. It's the super tall cable station rogue makes. So I got one of those on Marketplace for a steel.

And then I added in a treadmill. I sold my York legacy iron plates. I still have some left, but all the five sold out. I was going to keep a set for myself, but once I accidentally sold all the fives, I decided, well, if I get fives, I have to replace five, so my original set is incomplete, so it'll never be my original set. I'm just going to sell them all. So we'll see if I can sell them all. But I bought Strength Co plates, the Strength Co plates, that Rip Atoe designed himself, that my friend Grant Brogie owns and sells. Highly recommend them. They're the best cast iron plates in the business. They're milled to precision. You can buy them at

The Strength.co and just go to the store. If you're in Costa Mesa, he has a gym called the Strength Co. But they're great. And they're made in the USA. I believe his foundry is in Wisconsin. Wisconsin or Georgia. I think he had two at one point. I forgot

which one still makes them. But yeah, I went from York made in China cast iron plates to the Strength Co cast iron plates. So I have those in there. So we're still, we still got the cast iron plates. They're just on blue a frame plate trees instead of bare steel. So the black and blue thing looks pretty cool. You'll have to check out the pictures online. We have a Google page that I changed over. It's all the same old reviews from before.

And you'll see some old pictures from the old gym, but the pictures from the new gym are now up. It's called Strong and Sleak, just like the podcast. And yeah, I'm really happy with it. Oh, and I put a treadmill in there because I think you've heard me talk about, the importance of uphill walking. If you've worked with me as a client before, I've recommended it. If you don't have hills or mountains to hike, get on a treadmill, raise the incline. Here we have 110 degree weather. While I like going out in 110 degree weather to hike, most people don't.

So I have the option of a, so I have the option of a treadmill because it's what I believe in. I think if you're going to do cardio, it should be standing cardio, not seated cardio. You know, rowers and bikes are so popular, but we spend most of the day seated as it is. I don't want you exerting yourself seated now. That's just more spinal compression. I found that the best training cycles I've had are when I hike every day or every other day because my knees and hips are a lot looser. So when I'm warming up the squat, warming up the deadlift or anything in general that involves my lower body,

I don't feel any of those creaks, any of that stiffness. I just feel way better. I blast through the warmups faster and I can exert. myself more comfortably. So instead of having an echo bike, you know, it's just an air bike and a rower, like I had at the old gym, I sold the bike, the rowers for sale, I put a treadmill in there, a commercial treadmill from a local company called Sports Fitness Exchange. Their commercial treadmill is quite nice. I like it. It's also black and blue, so it fit the theme of the room. So I got an all-black room now, and no stripe. I used to have a stripe at the old gym. It's

in all black room with mirrors and, you know, some pieces of blue equipment. So it looks pretty cool. The logos, the decals are coming soon. You know, I got a little front office there. You know, we try to make the bathroom pretty. But, you know, I really put a lot of attention to the details of the aesthetics because I want to sell something a little more premier, more exclusive, but that also utilizes the same methods that I used at the other gym with a few extra options.

So people who come in, they're still going to squat, press, deadlift, bench press, learn how to pull down so they can do a chin up or start doing chin up if they can already do them. And then I got a few options to keep things entertaining because ultimately, the general public isn't going to train to be as strong as they possibly can. People get bored. They need options. Things get hard and demanding and start to interfere with their lives. You have to have options. But you want to keep your core backbone intact.

You don't want to remove your backbone because life got hard. You still want to maintain the base you worked hard for under a loaded barbell, even if you can't push it to the limit. So that's why we have three racks, but we also have dumbbells and cables and a pulled-down machine and a leg press. So I think I want to offer a more balanced approach because I've heard what many clients have said to me over the years. I've notated why people tend to leave. The most common reason being that perceived lack of time as the umbrella reason. I'm stealing that from a research article I read years ago.

Perceive lack of time. So when the workouts get demanding, take long and put demands on the person's life. I feel like, what's the point? I'm skipping workouts or I'm showing up doing one exercise. Like, you know, why do I need to keep doing this? So in terms of my in-person business, I've heard you. I get all that. And I wanted to craft a gym that's not so serious, but is still serious.

And that's what we do at starting. And that's what we have at Strong and Sleak. So I think I beat everything to hell. I think you got all your updates on my life and why I've been absent. So now you know, the show is not dead. I needed to take a step back and figure out what direction. wanted to go. I've since figured that out. I got the new gym. I got the new brand, got the new colors, and I feel pretty confident in the direction we're going in. So now we are getting the show

back. We got a new name. Notice I didn't say we got a new show. We don't have a new show. We have the same show, but it's going to evolve as I evolve, as the brand evolves and as I learn new things or remind you of old things. So we haven't gone anywhere. This was never me quitting. That was never even on the table. I like coming on here. I like talking to you.

I like bringing on guests. You know, we're going to have more of those this year. Some that you're familiar with, but hopefully some new faces. You know, new faces are very important to me. So I want to get some new people in here in parallel industries too.

So we could get some different perspectives on things, people that have no exposure to what I've done or what we've talked about here. but value the same outcome, you know, being strong and sleek, essentially. So, yeah, lots of things to come. I haven't disappeared. I'm going to be back on here in a week or two. The goal is to have this every week.

I don't want to put anything in stone yet because I'm just kind of getting warmed up again. But this has always been a bi-weekly show. I tried to get it to weekly earlier this year. Stumbled, ran into some roadblocks. at some point it's going to be weekly. I will promise you that. But we're at least going to go back to our every other week schedule at the bare minimum. So anyhow, I want to thank all of you for tuning in all these years, those of you who are still tuned in.

If this is your first time, thank you for tuning in this time. We got more to come. You can find me at www.strong and sleek.com on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana and we'll have additional links for social media and YouTube for the brand. We're still changing handles and whatnot. So you'll hear that you'll see those in the description at some point or I'll start announcing them at the end of future episodes. But thanks again for tuning in.