The Art of Manliness - #302： My Workout Routine & The Benefits of a Strength Coach

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.200 Well, back in 2015, I had starting strength coach Matt Reynolds on the podcast to talk

00:00:22.340 about barbell training.

00:00:23.400 At about the same time, I started getting online coached by Matt for my own barbell

00:00:27.340 training.

00:00:27.680 A year and a half later, I've made some incredible gains with my strength and hit PRs I never

00:00:31.340 thought I'd be able to attain.

00:00:32.580 Thanks to Matt, I was inspired into my first barbell competition back in April, and I dead

00:00:36.600 lifted 533 pounds, squatted 420, and shoulder pressed 201 at the event.

00:00:41.560 And perhaps best of all, my body stayed healthy and I haven't been injured in the process.

00:00:45.400 Well, except for one injury that was not barbell training related.

00:00:48.360 We'll talk about that in the show.

00:00:49.320 Because guys frequently ask me about my training because I've been posting my progress on Instagram

00:00:52.680 every now and then, I brought Matt back on the podcast to walk listeners through the programming

00:00:57.080 and nutrition plan I've been following for the past 18 months.

00:01:00.120 We discussed how Matt's customized my programming throughout this time and why he started me

00:01:03.880 out with the novice starting strength program, even though I had been barbell training for

00:01:07.420 a few years.

00:01:08.160 We also dig into my setbacks and how Matt adjusted things to help me break through plateaus.

00:01:12.540 If you've been thinking about barbell training or are currently barbell training and are confused

00:01:15.900 about how to program, you're going to get a lot out of this episode.

00:01:18.440 Consider me your human guinea pig.

00:01:20.360 After the show's over, make sure you check out the show notes at aom.is slash Reynolds,

00:01:24.080 where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:01:39.080 Matt Reynolds, welcome back to the show.

00:01:41.860 Thanks for having me again, man.

00:01:42.800 We've upgraded out of your closet.

00:01:44.480 Yeah, we're not in my closet today.

00:01:45.700 You are starting a podcast.

00:01:46.940 So you're in Tulsa and you're doing a podcast yourself and you have this pretty fancy studio

00:01:52.580 here with fancy equipment.

00:01:54.160 So we are not in my closet.

00:01:55.860 Like last time, like you're a big dude.

00:01:58.360 Yeah.

00:01:58.640 I'm kind of a big dude.

00:01:59.960 You're a big dude now.

00:02:00.840 I'm bigger now.

00:02:01.580 Yeah.

00:02:01.760 So it was a tight squeeze, but great to have you back.

00:02:04.440 Thanks for having me.

00:02:05.480 I'd like to talk a little about where we picked off the last time.

00:02:08.780 Last time we talked, you owned a gym, like an actual physical gym in Springfield, Missouri,

00:02:14.160 one of the largest barbell strength gyms in the country, you no longer are an owner and

00:02:19.440 you've transitioned completely to online coaching.

00:02:22.000 Can you talk a little bit about, you know, you don't think go into details about the specific

00:02:25.640 transition.

00:02:26.100 Why did you, what was the transition like from coaching in person to coaching online?

00:02:31.200 Sure.

00:02:31.580 Yeah.

00:02:32.320 Yeah.

00:02:32.760 So I, you know, I sold my gym at the end of 2015 and December, 2015 and started online

00:02:38.300 coaching full time.

00:02:39.640 I honestly didn't know how well it was going to go in the beginning.

00:02:43.400 And so it was one of those deals where I had made enough money from the cell of the

00:02:47.540 gym that I had at least a handful of months that I could, I could do this online thing

00:02:53.280 and see if it worked.

00:02:54.200 And, uh, and so I, I had a pretty good, uh, number of clients already.

00:02:57.900 I, you know, we, I had been working with you, uh, since I think October of 15.

00:03:01.620 And so I, I had maybe 30 or 40 clients at the turn of the year.

00:03:05.420 So in January, 2016 and, and had enough, uh, you know, enough capital in the bank to basically

00:03:11.100 just put my time and devotion in this full time.

00:03:14.040 And so, uh, wanted to see how it would go.

00:03:16.380 And I poured into the online coaching and, and, uh, started doing that full time.

00:03:20.700 I, you know, I, I had, I had certain issues with online coaching, online coaching is different,

00:03:24.320 right?

00:03:25.120 And so, um, in-person coaching allows you to make changes or fixes or cues in real time

00:03:33.300 with your clients.

00:03:34.040 Um, and online coaching doesn't allow you to do that.

00:03:36.720 The, the degradation with in-person coaching versus online coaching is that it occurs.

00:03:40.780 I can make changes to your form, uh, in session to session from one session to the next rather

00:03:47.200 than from rep to rep.

00:03:48.560 And so there is a little degradation there.

00:03:50.100 And so I wanted to try to do it better than I thought it was being done and really provide

00:03:54.660 the best service I could.

00:03:55.540 And so I poured into that full time and it started to grow and, uh, it grew, it grew well.

00:04:00.860 One of the downsides of online coaching was the, was the platform.

00:04:04.120 And so most people that use online coaching, online coaching to this day is a, right now

00:04:07.420 is a, is a big, really probably multi-billion dollar industry.

00:04:11.500 And, um, and one of the problems is that most people use a platform that is some combination

00:04:16.100 of email, um, with, with probably spreadsheets, Google docs or Excel type sheets.

00:04:21.380 And, and I did that and did it for a while, but as it grew, I realized that, you know, I

00:04:26.020 would wake up in the morning and have 125 emails that all needed responding to and videos

00:04:30.540 to break down and whatnot.

00:04:31.500 And so I, I recognized that the platform wasn't very scalable.

00:04:34.220 And so in, in April of last year, April of 2016, I started to work on a platform that

00:04:39.660 would be scalable so that we could go from, from 60 or 70 or 80 clients to, to 200 or 300

00:04:45.320 or 500 clients without any loss of service.

00:04:47.900 I wanted service to increase.

00:04:49.440 And as the business grew, I wanted the, the, the personal back and forth between myself

00:04:53.540 and my clients that continue to get better while the administrative duties for both client

00:04:57.680 and coach got less.

00:04:58.680 And so that's really what I focused on.

00:05:00.020 And that's, that's really been the source of our growth over the last year.

00:05:02.480 All right.

00:05:02.600 Let's talk a little, let's break that down about online coaching a bit and how it's

00:05:04.920 different from in-person.

00:05:05.720 You mentioned a little bit with in-person coaching, you're a starting strength coach,

00:05:08.780 barbells and form is really key part of the starting strength philosophy.

00:05:13.340 You want to make sure you're doing the, the lifts correctly so that it's efficient.

00:05:16.720 You can lift as much weight as possible without injuring yourself.

00:05:20.320 And Ripito himself has always kind of bashed online coaching because as you said, you can't

00:05:25.440 get that in-person coaching where people can, you can get cues in real time saying you need

00:05:30.060 to lift with your butt more, shove your knees out.

00:05:32.560 So how do you get around that with online coaching when you're not there with your client?

00:05:36.860 How do you do that form breakdown and give those cues that they need?

00:05:39.920 Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question.

00:05:41.040 So first we'll even back up one step further.

00:05:43.600 Most people who do online coaching, what they call online coaching is in fact, not online coaching.

00:05:47.940 It's online programming.

00:05:49.080 You pay a fee and you get a, you get a printout of an Excel document and that's not really

00:05:53.380 coaching.

00:05:54.020 That's just programming.

00:05:55.200 And maybe there's even diet attached or whatnot, but, but for us, the thing that we really

00:05:59.340 wanted to bring to the table was the actual coaching portion, which when, when we define

00:06:03.340 coaching through starting strength, we say coaching is getting an, a lifter or an athlete

00:06:07.740 to move the way I want them to move based on a specific model.

00:06:11.780 So I've got a model that starting strength is set up.

00:06:13.820 We know the correct way to squat and the correct way to deadlift and to bench press and to

00:06:16.860 press, how do I get my online clients to perform those lifts as close to that model as possible

00:06:24.160 with the obvious drawback that I'm not standing there in the room to get them to do that.

00:06:28.700 Right.

00:06:28.980 And so what we do is we teach people one, how to video themselves on their cell phone.

00:06:34.240 So for, for all of our clients, all they need to do online coaching is an, is an iPhone

00:06:38.440 or an Android.

00:06:39.540 We teach them the angle to video themselves at.

00:06:41.680 So for example, for videoing the squat, we video from about hip height from,

00:06:46.860 uh, and kind of equal between the back and the side.

00:06:49.860 So really where a coach would stand and then they video their lifts.

00:06:53.480 So they, they get their programming on a, on a very clean, beautiful app called Fitbot

00:06:57.560 that we love.

00:06:58.220 And then they get their programming there and then they can upload their video and send

00:07:01.840 it to their coach.

00:07:02.600 And so they video themselves squatting and the coach has ways to look at, we, we look

00:07:07.560 at those on our computer.

00:07:08.520 We break those down with different, uh, photo editing apps.

00:07:11.440 We can, we can screenshot it.

00:07:12.820 We can point, you know, your knees are here and they should go forward.

00:07:15.040 And so, so there is certainly a difference.

00:07:17.080 The difference is that I can't do it in real time.

00:07:19.640 Uh, that is a, that is the, uh, that's a consequence of online coaching, but a benefit

00:07:24.300 of online coaching is that I can pause your lifts.

00:07:26.860 I can watch your lifts at 25% speed.

00:07:30.000 Things that the human eye can't see in real time because it's too fast.

00:07:33.920 Something like a power clean or something that's fast, where there's just a little bit

00:07:37.640 of knees sliding forward in the bottom of the squat that somebody might miss in real

00:07:41.480 time, I can watch your squat over and over and over again, 10 times, 15 times.

00:07:46.480 If I need to pause it, uh, slow it down, screenshot it, show you what I'm seeing.

00:07:51.360 And so the visual cues become actually far more important in online coaching that they

00:07:56.100 are than they are in in-person coaching.

00:07:57.780 In-person coaching is primarily an auditory experience.

00:08:01.000 I'm telling you to do this.

00:08:02.620 And I, I utilize things like cues, which are short reminders of something I've already taught

00:08:08.380 you.

00:08:08.700 So, uh, hip drive, middle of the foot, knees out, eyes down, things like that.

00:08:13.900 I will say in online coaching, or I will say in in-person coaching, but in online coaching,

00:08:18.160 I can actually use visual cues.

00:08:19.760 I can show you when your knees come forward.

00:08:21.860 And I can't do that in real time in-person coaching.

00:08:24.480 So they're both advantages and disadvantages to both.

00:08:27.100 Uh, and it's worked really, really well.

00:08:28.780 It slows down the form fixes online coaching will slow that down a little bit from what

00:08:34.700 you get in real time.

00:08:35.520 So if you come and see me, you drive to Springfield, Missouri and, and get a session with me in

00:08:40.340 person, I can really clean up your squad or your deadlift or any of your lifts quickly

00:08:44.440 in an hour session in online coaching.

00:08:47.160 That's going to be slowed down over the course of several sessions, you know, from, from maybe

00:08:51.220 four or five, six, 10 sessions.

00:08:52.800 But what we've seen from our experience is that, that people after, after they've worked

00:08:57.300 with us for several weeks have tremendous form in their lifts, just based on, you know,

00:09:02.260 you just take nice, clean, easy cues.

00:09:05.060 Uh, you give them something that's still assertive and easy to remember, something that's not

00:09:08.180 a lot of text, something they can walk into the gym on the next session and remember, this

00:09:12.940 is what I'm trying to do.

00:09:13.760 This is what my coach told me.

00:09:14.800 So that's the difference really between in-person and online.

00:09:17.040 Right.

00:09:17.160 So it just takes longer to clean up stuff.

00:09:19.460 Yeah, it takes a little longer to clean up, but it's at a fraction of the cost.

00:09:21.860 Well, yeah, that is like, because you're not getting that in-person session.

00:09:25.260 That's another benefit of online coaching.

00:09:26.900 Yeah, correct.

00:09:27.580 I mean, good coaches are expensive and depending on where you are in the country, starting strength

00:09:31.860 coaches are going to run anywhere from a hundred dollars an hour to $200 an hour, depending

00:09:35.760 on where you are in the country and online coaching for us costs around $200 a month.

00:09:39.720 So for what you would get only two hours of in-person coaching for, you get an entire

00:09:44.140 month worth of coaching through starting strength online coaching.

00:09:46.760 So it works very well.

00:09:48.280 All right.

00:09:48.560 How many clients do you guys have now?

00:09:50.560 So we're, we're running between three and 400.

00:09:52.920 So over 300, uh, under four and we're growing quickly.

00:09:56.840 So we, we grew, uh, about 20% last month.

00:09:59.520 We're up about 13% this month.

00:10:01.020 So, uh, it, it continues to grow quickly.

00:10:03.780 Uh, we have 35 starting strength coaches that work for us now all over the country.

00:10:08.600 And one of the other great advantages of online coaching at, at its most basic foundational

00:10:14.000 point here is that if you don't have access to a great coach in your town, and most people

00:10:17.600 don't, you have access to a great coach online.

00:10:20.560 We have about 30% of our clientele is international.

00:10:23.580 And so we only have three or four international starting strength coaches.

00:10:26.920 And so for these, these clients who are all over the world that have never had access to

00:10:30.480 an, to an in-person starting strength coach, they now have access to a starting strength

00:10:34.500 coach from the privacy of their own home, from their own gym, from their garage gym, they

00:10:39.080 can now have access to a starting strength coach at a fraction of the cost that it, that

00:10:41.720 would be for in-person coaching.

00:10:43.440 So, you know, um, you, you have a coach in Tulsa for the first time in, uh, in ever.

00:10:48.480 And so just this year, you've got a coach in Tulsa, but before that you didn't have access

00:10:52.120 to a coach, uh, Oklahoma city doesn't have access to a coach, uh, Cheyenne, Wyoming

00:10:56.440 doesn't have access to a coach.

00:10:57.480 Nashville doesn't have a coach.

00:10:58.500 So you've got some major cities in the United States that don't have a starting strength coach.

00:11:02.240 And so these people have now have access to a coach wherever they are.

00:11:04.780 And certainly people who live in rural areas who would never have access to a starting

00:11:08.420 strength coach now can.

00:11:10.180 Right.

00:11:10.440 So besides the form checks, you do do programming, but it isn't just an Excel sheet.

00:11:15.620 What I mean, just based on my work with you, it's very customized.

00:11:18.640 You, you take a look at the videos.

00:11:20.440 I give feedback, like how that session felt, and then you adjust things oftentimes on the

00:11:25.520 fly for my next session, right?

00:11:27.900 Yeah, correct.

00:11:28.400 So, you know, one of the things we, we wanted to really move away from cookie cutter, anything.

00:11:32.920 And so for us, when you sign up for our service, you fill out a pretty in-depth questionnaire.

00:11:37.240 Um, it's going to take 20 minutes or so to fill out that questionnaire.

00:11:39.780 You send that in.

00:11:40.720 And then I really pour over that questionnaire and try to pair you with the best coach possible

00:11:45.580 for you.

00:11:46.080 So I look at, at demographic and geography and what your goals are and how advanced of a

00:11:50.220 lifter you are.

00:11:50.860 And I pair you with a starting strength coach is going to work really well with you.

00:11:53.940 And then they start to work with you.

00:11:56.040 You'll do a test workout for us.

00:11:57.820 So we usually just have you do a basic test workout of working up to a moderately heavy

00:12:01.700 set of five on the major lifts.

00:12:03.720 We break down those videos and then your coach will start to program for you.

00:12:07.440 That program is done again on a, on an app called Fitbot that runs on your phone.

00:12:11.900 Um, you can take your phone into the gym with you.

00:12:14.320 You can see your program.

00:12:15.640 And again, it's specifically tailored to you, your needs, your advancement.

00:12:19.080 So we have clients from absolute beginners who have never, literally never touched a

00:12:23.640 barbell before all the way to advanced power lifters.

00:12:26.220 I mean, we've got a guy that squatted 850 pounds raw, you know, has over 500 pound bench

00:12:31.000 pressers.

00:12:31.600 So we have the entire gamut of advancement of lifters.

00:12:35.140 You go in the gym, you pull up your app, you see what the program is.

00:12:38.480 So it might say, Brett, you're going to squat today.

00:12:40.460 You're going to squat, uh, 365 pounds for two sets of five.

00:12:44.740 And you go in and you squat your 365 pounds for two sets of five, you respond back on

00:12:49.060 the app, how it went.

00:12:50.340 So I squatted.

00:12:50.960 My first set was easy.

00:12:52.360 Second set was harder than I thought it would be.

00:12:54.160 First three reps was easy.

00:12:55.240 Next two reps were hard.

00:12:56.400 And you complete that squat.

00:12:58.040 When you do, when you complete the lift and then when you complete the pro the complete

00:13:02.520 workout, it then pings my phone.

00:13:04.800 And it tells me Brett McKay has finished his workout.

00:13:07.140 Now I can go on and see what your workout looks like.

00:13:09.340 I can watch the videos from the workout.

00:13:11.160 And within 24 hours of your workout, your coach, which for you is, is me, will break

00:13:17.120 down your videos completely within 24 hours so that by the next time you train, you have

00:13:21.640 things to go into to work on in the gym.

00:13:24.360 So it's a really nice, it's a really nice service.

00:13:25.960 So yeah, we do complete programming, complete video breakdown, form coaching.

00:13:30.500 And then we also do a fair amount of nutrition work with our, with our clients as well.

00:13:34.500 And so it's really a complete package.

00:13:36.080 Yeah.

00:13:36.400 Let's talk about just online coaching in general, because some people might not who are listening

00:13:39.680 might not be interested in barbell training.

00:13:41.160 Sure.

00:13:41.460 Besides, you know, being an online coach yourself, you also consult other individuals who want

00:13:46.220 to be online coaches in other fitness domains.

00:13:48.600 Sure.

00:13:48.920 What do you, what should someone, if someone's looking for online coaching for say long distance

00:13:53.120 running, CrossFit, obstacle course racing, whatever it is, what, what should they look

00:13:59.020 for in a, in a, in a good online coach?

00:14:01.820 Sure.

00:14:02.240 Well, the first thing I would do is I would figure out who the best coach is in general.

00:14:06.020 Like I would just, the best in-person coaches are still going to be the best online coaches

00:14:10.280 if the platform is there for them to do that.

00:14:12.360 And so one of the nice things about the online world is that it's opened up the opportunity

00:14:16.200 for people to have access to great coaches who wouldn't already have it.

00:14:19.760 So if you've got a great triathlon coach who lives completely across the country on the

00:14:24.640 opposite coast, you potentially could hire this person to be your online coach.

00:14:28.500 That, that would be first.

00:14:29.380 I would, I would look for people who just are generally known as the best coaches in the

00:14:33.040 sport.

00:14:33.320 And then two, does that person offer true personalized coaching or, or what they do?

00:14:39.800 80% of online coaching out there is just cookie cutter programs.

00:14:43.760 So, so, you know, Hey, here's a, here's a program for powerlifting.

00:14:47.100 Here's a program for half marathons.

00:14:48.600 Here's a program for whatever it is.

00:14:50.600 Right.

00:14:51.140 Um, that's, you know, the, the, I guess there, for some people who are looking for a really

00:14:55.900 cheap price point, an entry point of maybe $30 or $50 that you just have to recognize

00:15:00.320 that's not online coaching.

00:15:01.180 What you're doing is you're buying a program and then I think ultimately coaching is at

00:15:05.860 whatever sport you're doing, whatever thing you're training for has to come down to form.

00:15:10.420 So if I was going to, if I were going to hire somebody to do triathlon coaching, I actually

00:15:14.400 want to be able to have someone who can watch me run, swim, bike.

00:15:19.200 I want someone who can actually walk me through what the form looks like.

00:15:22.240 If I, if I want to do distance running and somebody is trying to teach me how to do a pose

00:15:26.240 running, I want to make sure that I ought to be sending videos of what my feet, what my ground

00:15:30.720 striking looks like.

00:15:31.680 And so really that's, that's what I'm looking for is not something that is a, an Excel document

00:15:36.260 or a Google doc sort of sheet for $50 or even an auto pay of 25 or 30 bucks a month.

00:15:41.540 I want coaching, right?

00:15:43.220 So as long as we understand that coaching is different than programming and just getting

00:15:46.960 a cookie cutter program, the reality is, is if, if you want to train for a half marathon,

00:15:51.080 that's very different than a 19 year old kid training for a half marathon that's run

00:15:55.840 cross country at a school for the last four years.

00:15:58.220 And that's even further different from a 45 year old overweight mom who's trying to try

00:16:04.040 to train for a marathon or half marathon just to try to get in shape.

00:16:07.600 So, so a beginner marathon or training for marathon program is not going to work.

00:16:12.240 It just doesn't work across all fields.

00:16:13.960 And so one of the things we try to do at starting strength is we, we very much differentiate

00:16:17.700 between beginners, novices, intermediates, and advanced.

00:16:21.800 The programming looks totally different.

00:16:23.160 Uh, we want the programming to be simple.

00:16:25.620 What I, what I say is simple, hard, and effective.

00:16:27.660 It's, it's as simple as it can possibly be for that advancement.

00:16:30.840 And then we're going to get a little more complicated as we grow.

00:16:33.380 And so that would, that would, that would go across all sports.

00:16:35.980 If I'm hiring somebody to be a swim coach or a run coach or a bike coach or, or whatever

00:16:39.560 those things are, or a movement coach, or I want somebody who's got to actually coach

00:16:43.520 the movement patterns, not just the program.

00:16:46.440 Right.

00:16:46.940 Well, that's, that's awesome.

00:16:48.440 I thought it'd be useful to talk about my experience with you.

00:16:52.300 Sure.

00:16:52.580 While my coaching, cause I think it's a very addictive, cause I get a lot of questions

00:16:55.580 about it as well.

00:16:56.500 Yep.

00:16:56.800 People asking me, cause I, I've been posting stuff on Instagram and people ask me about

00:17:00.680 my training and they're like, what, you know, I did a deadlift at the starting strength

00:17:04.900 challenge, whatever it was like 533 pounds.

00:17:07.260 And I always get questions like, what was the program you used to do that?

00:17:10.040 Cause I think people think if Brett did that, if I did exactly what he did, I will deadlift

00:17:15.500 533 pounds too.

00:17:16.920 But that's, as you said, there's a difference between novice, intermediate, and advanced.

00:17:21.260 So let's talk about how I got to that point.

00:17:23.620 Sure.

00:17:23.720 So we started, I started working with you in October of 2015.

00:17:28.320 Yep.

00:17:28.640 Correct.

00:17:28.920 And what was the, the strategy, what kind of program when I was doing at the very, very

00:17:32.820 beginning?

00:17:33.280 Well, you did the, the novice starting strength, linear progression program.

00:17:36.880 And why did I start out with it?

00:17:37.740 Cause I've been, I'd been lifting.

00:17:39.040 Like, I mean, I think that's another thing people need to understand the difference between

00:17:41.380 like a novice, intermediate, advanced.

00:17:42.600 Cause I think a lot of people think when they see novice, they think, well, I mean, just a

00:17:46.220 rank beginner.

00:17:46.920 I've been lifting for five years.

00:17:49.080 Sure.

00:17:49.360 I don't need to do that.

00:17:50.200 So I'd been doing barbell training for a while, but you still started me with that.

00:17:54.400 Why is that?

00:17:55.320 Barbell training is the one place where you want to be a novice as long as you can, right?

00:17:58.820 Like what's ingrained in our instinct to not want to be a novice.

00:18:02.760 I don't want to be a novice guitar player.

00:18:04.200 I want to be an advanced guitar player.

00:18:06.200 The problem is, is in barbell training, novices make the greatest gains.

00:18:10.380 The very, the simple thing that novices can do that nobody else can do is they can add

00:18:14.680 weight to the barbell every single time.

00:18:17.240 And so when I first got you, I knew your form was decent, but not great.

00:18:21.200 We had some things we had to clean up in your form.

00:18:22.980 So what I did was I just backed off your weight a little bit from where you were.

00:18:26.060 So, you know, I took some of the weights that you were lifting for maybe one set of five.

00:18:29.900 I backed it off 10, 15%.

00:18:31.940 I made you start doing weights for three sets of five and we just added weight every single

00:18:36.160 time.

00:18:36.460 So you squatted three days a week.

00:18:37.980 You alternated your benches and presses and you deadlifted three times a week.

00:18:42.300 And we did that as long as we could, which wasn't that long, but as long, as long as

00:18:46.000 you can add weight every single workout, why would you do anything else, right?

00:18:49.340 So the person that makes the most gains is the person who is able to stay on a novice

00:18:53.480 linear progression program, like starting strength for as long as possible.

00:18:57.340 So, you know, we have, we have people that we see stay on this for four or five, six months

00:19:00.740 for you, it took two months.

00:19:02.100 So after two months, you couldn't add weight every single workout, right?

00:19:05.420 You started to, and most people will do this, you started to crap out on the press

00:19:09.040 first, right?

00:19:09.640 So you weren't able to continue to add two and a half pounds or five pounds to the

00:19:13.940 press.

00:19:14.320 We couldn't go up anymore on the press.

00:19:15.980 And then the bench press died out.

00:19:17.580 And then eventually the squat and the deadlift did, which was great.

00:19:19.880 So we got you to a point where you could continue to make progress adding weight every

00:19:23.540 single workout, every single workout.

00:19:26.060 I mean, literally you would do weight on Monday.

00:19:28.200 You would go up on Wednesday.

00:19:29.420 You would go up again on Friday.

00:19:30.480 You would go up again the following Monday and so on and so forth for two months.

00:19:33.100 And when that slowed down, we had to spread out your progression to weekly progression.

00:19:38.500 And that's where we introduced the concept of Texas method.

00:19:41.000 So you did kind of a, uh, what I would say, uh, kind of a, a little bit of a Texas method

00:19:44.920 bastardization.

00:19:45.600 You're, you're old enough that doing things like Texas method utilizes five sets of five

00:19:50.240 squats.

00:19:50.600 And I thought that was too much for the volume for you, especially, especially compared

00:19:54.680 to, you know, I look at the amount of work that you do on a daily basis and, you

00:19:57.620 know, I've come out and visit with you at your house.

00:19:59.900 I know like you're, you're a high stress guy, you've got lots of work to do and you're,

00:20:03.280 you're an ambitious guy.

00:20:04.360 You're, you're, you're running the website and an entrepreneur and business owner.

00:20:07.660 And so I knew that five sets of five for a guy, your age and with your recovery ability

00:20:12.460 was probably going to crush you.

00:20:14.100 And so we backed that off a little bit and we did a three sets of five.

00:20:17.300 One time we started alternating after a few weeks between upper body and lower body.

00:20:20.880 And we still made slow progressive progress.

00:20:23.880 And, and we did that for several months and we did that for most of the first half of 2016,

00:20:28.280 making progress there.

00:20:29.360 So that was the first two programs.

00:20:30.900 Right.

00:20:31.040 So what was that?

00:20:31.780 What would happen if someone, if they were a novice, right?

00:20:35.220 They went to immediately to an intermediate or advanced program.

00:20:38.300 Cause I think some people will see like five, three, one and it's really popular.

00:20:41.980 It's a great program.

00:20:43.120 Yeah.

00:20:43.720 And being like, I'm going to do that.

00:20:45.720 It sounds awesome.

00:20:46.460 Like why, what would happen if they did that?

00:20:48.740 Like what would they be missing out on if they went immediately to an advanced or an intermediate

00:20:51.900 program?

00:20:52.400 That's, that's, that's an easy.

00:20:53.540 So five, three, one is an excellent program.

00:20:55.700 It's a program that you make progress on.

00:20:57.480 And you basically hit fives the first week, threes, the second week, singles, the third

00:21:01.420 week, and a deload the fourth week.

00:21:02.780 So a backed off weight, the fourth week.

00:21:04.360 And so it's essentially a one month long program.

00:21:06.540 So you're making progress.

00:21:07.820 Essentially you're hitting new maxes once a month.

00:21:10.600 And so the problem with that is, is if you go in and say your squad is 175 pounds, which

00:21:15.460 would, we would consider for a normal weight male, somebody who weighs around 200 pounds,

00:21:19.340 that'd be an under body, body weight squat, 175 for, for, you know, a single, you are

00:21:24.420 still a novice almost, almost for sure.

00:21:27.020 If you ran the five through one program by the end of the five through one program, you

00:21:30.340 might hit, you might actually squat 185.

00:21:32.600 So you might've put 10 pounds on your squat in a month, which is progress.

00:21:36.400 The difference between that and linear progression is I could have had you squat 175 on Monday,

00:21:41.220 the first week and 180 on Wednesday and 185 on Friday.

00:21:44.860 So by Friday, you could have had the same progress.

00:21:46.480 And then 190, 195, 200.

00:21:48.300 By the time you get to the end of a linear progression in the same month, you're probably

00:21:52.840 squatting 225, 235 as opposed to 185.

00:21:55.460 So it just, an intermediate program slows down the progress.

00:21:58.900 Now to, to put things into perspective, I deadlifted 700 pounds for the first time in

00:22:05.000 2005.

00:22:06.480 My current max on deadlift is two, is 725 is 2017.

00:22:11.440 So in 12 years, I've put on 25 pounds on my deadlift, right?

00:22:15.420 And if, if I had to eat dog poop every day for the next year to deadlift 730, I would.

00:22:22.220 That's the difference between an advanced lifter and a novice, right?

00:22:25.180 Like a novice adds five pounds to his deadlift in two days.

00:22:28.640 An advanced lifter adds five pounds to his deadlift in two years or longer sometimes.

00:22:33.180 Well, why is that?

00:22:33.780 What's going on there with physio, with the physiology?

00:22:35.980 Why can't you, as you get more advanced, why can't you, why does it take longer to increase

00:22:40.200 your max?

00:22:40.960 Well, there's several, there's several reasons.

00:22:42.340 One is you, you develop an efficiency of your, of your motor pattern.

00:22:46.580 So in the beginning as a novice, you're not super efficient.

00:22:49.320 And so while you are certainly gaining contractile hypertrophy, like you're actually your muscles,

00:22:54.980 the contractile portions of your muscles are actually getting bigger and stronger and you're

00:22:58.960 able to adapt to that and get bigger and stronger, right?

00:23:01.240 You think about how long it takes to recover from deadlifting 225 pounds.

00:23:07.260 How long does it take to recover from 700 pound deadlifts?

00:23:11.960 Significantly longer.

00:23:12.700 How much muscle mass does it take to pull 700 pounds?

00:23:15.360 What does it do to your, to your central nervous system?

00:23:18.260 You know, you, you just did a meet, you competed for the first time.

00:23:21.260 You felt like you were run over by a truck for the first week, right?

00:23:24.480 Why?

00:23:24.680 Because you did nine really heavy lifts at the meet.

00:23:28.100 Now, most people don't do that every day, right?

00:23:29.740 So as you become more advanced, it becomes far harder to recover.

00:23:32.580 We look at this cycle, we call it the stress recovery adaptation cycle.

00:23:37.240 I stress the body with the workout, with the training, I recover from that.

00:23:42.800 And my body then adapts so that it can handle something bigger and greater and tougher next

00:23:48.000 time.

00:23:48.900 Well, when I'm a novice, that entire cycle essentially takes two days.

00:23:53.680 On Monday, I can squat, I can press and I can deadlift.

00:23:57.180 And it's hard for me, but it's ultimately, it's not that heavy.

00:24:00.040 On Tuesday, I basically recover from that workout.

00:24:03.340 And by Wednesday, I have adapted to that workout.

00:24:05.940 And now I can handle more weight than I did on, on Monday.

00:24:08.620 As an advanced lifter, that stress recovery adaptation cycle might literally take 12 weeks

00:24:15.340 to truly build up the fatigue and stress needed to be able to then recover from an intense

00:24:20.880 amount of stress and fatigue and then adapt to something that's going to take me from a

00:24:24.580 725 deadlift to a 735 deadlift.

00:24:27.340 So a 10 pound jump at that level is going to take a tremendous amount more stress, which

00:24:33.240 then is going to take more time to recover from, to elicit a very small adaptation of

00:24:37.560 only a 10 pound increase.

00:24:38.740 It's very, very difficult to do.

00:24:39.980 But for novices, it occurs in a two day period.

00:24:42.560 Right.

00:24:42.780 So this is why if you see some really super strong dude on Instagram, right?

00:24:47.720 Pulling 700 pounds like you, following their program saying, hey, what program did you use

00:24:53.000 to do that?

00:24:53.680 Like, it's not going to be really useful for that person.

00:24:56.260 As a matter of fact, most strong athletes get strong in spite of their programming and

00:25:02.160 in spite of their form, not because of it, right?

00:25:05.440 The reality is, is that genetics are incredible for some of these guys.

00:25:10.020 Sometimes performance enhancing drugs are incredible for these guys.

00:25:13.000 And the combination of genetics and potentially drugs are something that most 35 year old listeners

00:25:18.940 of Art of Painliness don't want to do and can't do, right?

00:25:22.160 And rightly so, right?

00:25:23.360 I'm trying to get normal people generally strong, right?

00:25:26.860 So there's also a difference between like where you're at right now.

00:25:30.160 You are, when you came to me, you were not very strong and you weren't in very good shape.

00:25:34.800 And I wouldn't say you were necessarily unhealthy, but, but as we've worked over the last year

00:25:39.380 and a half, you are now very strong and healthier than you've ever been.

00:25:44.020 You can tackle anything that life throws at you, but you're also at a point where now

00:25:48.040 you have to start to make a decision.

00:25:50.240 You are strong enough today to tackle anything that life throws at you, right?

00:25:55.080 And so you're healthy.

00:25:56.100 You're not, you haven't dealt with hardly any injuries over the last year and a half,

00:26:00.620 but now you have to make a, now you have to make a decision.

00:26:02.580 You deadlift 535 to deadlift 600 pounds to get even stronger.

00:26:07.980 Now that's going to push more towards the competitive side and less towards the health side.

00:26:12.040 So you might have to risk the potential of injury of whatever in order to reach 600 pounds,

00:26:18.660 right?

00:26:18.780 So there's a difference there as well.

00:26:20.160 And for most of your listeners, they just need to get generally strong and generally strong

00:26:25.200 is, is strong enough.

00:26:26.560 And at that point they can decide, do I want to keep getting stronger and potentially risk

00:26:32.240 injury or, or even, even health decline, right?

00:26:35.900 So deadlifting 800 pounds isn't, your body's not really made to do that, right?

00:26:40.820 But you should be able to deadlift more than 200 pounds.

00:26:42.920 If you're an adult male, like that's not enough.

00:26:44.920 My wife deadlifts 400 pounds and you've seen her.

00:26:46.960 She's a totally, totally normal looking soccer mom.

00:26:50.340 She does.

00:26:50.660 She's not big.

00:26:51.200 She's not strong.

00:26:51.940 She's, I mean, she's strong.

00:26:52.720 She's not muscular.

00:26:53.620 She's not even that into it, but she does 400 pounds.

00:26:55.760 So a normal guy to be able to deadlift 400 pounds, that's not a hard thing to accomplish

00:26:58.800 for anybody.

00:26:59.660 Right.

00:26:59.980 So let's say you reach that point.

00:27:03.220 You make that decision.

00:27:04.340 Okay.

00:27:04.700 I'm strong generally.

00:27:06.260 Yep.

00:27:07.240 What, what say you don't, you decide you don't want to lift anymore.

00:27:10.420 Like you don't want to get, what, what would be the program for that?

00:27:13.340 You, you, you get, you gain a basic level of strength.

00:27:15.680 What do you do after that?

00:27:16.480 So when you say you don't want to lift anymore, you, what you really mean is you don't want

00:27:18.840 to continue to get strong.

00:27:19.780 Right.

00:27:20.060 Exactly.

00:27:20.440 You don't want to like, you don't want to, you don't want to deadlift 700 pounds, but

00:27:23.500 you're happy deadlifting 500.

00:27:24.620 Yeah, that's totally fine.

00:27:25.480 We can just do a maintenance program that holds your strength where it is.

00:27:28.660 Maybe that's two times a week training, two times a week for most people will maintain.

00:27:32.520 It's difficult to make progress at two times a week.

00:27:35.600 We have some of our older athletes.

00:27:37.480 So guys that are maybe 50 years old and over, that's, that's a really blanketed statement,

00:27:41.100 but depending on what your recovery ability is, most of our, most of our adult males who

00:27:45.400 are 50 and over will only train twice a week because they just don't, they don't have

00:27:48.980 the hormonal capacity and just the, the wear and tear on their bodies, the shoulders

00:27:53.300 and the hips and the knees can't recover to be able to train three times a week.

00:27:56.540 So they might train twice a week, but for most guys, twice a week will maintain.

00:28:00.500 And so we're still going to lift relatively heavy twice a week in order to maintain your

00:28:05.120 strength.

00:28:06.260 And what we're going to do is add other stuff in that you want to do.

00:28:08.540 So like if that point, if you want to do, you know, if you want to do mud runs or you

00:28:11.900 want to play tennis or play golf, or you have more time to do those sorts of things.

00:28:15.800 If you want to, now that you've established this base of strength, one of the interesting

00:28:19.180 things about strength is the, to me, one of the most interesting things about strength,

00:28:22.780 is of all the physical abilities.

00:28:25.040 So if you think about all the physical abilities that you, that you can have, um, power and

00:28:29.440 speed and agility and mobility and cardiovascular conditioning and all those sorts of things,

00:28:33.920 strength is the slowest to build.

00:28:35.860 It takes the longest to build, but it also takes the longest to lose.

00:28:39.700 So you can get really strong.

00:28:41.020 Like you, you know, you, it took you the last 18 months to work with me to get pretty dang

00:28:45.560 strong.

00:28:45.900 It takes a long time.

00:28:46.860 You can't get this in a month, but if you didn't lift a thing, if you went on vacation for

00:28:51.420 the next month, you went down to Mexico with your family, didn't touch a barbell and came

00:28:54.620 back a month later, you're still pretty strong.

00:28:57.060 Like you might only end up with say a degradation of eight or 10% in your total strength, which

00:29:01.920 would still leave you far stronger than the average American male.

00:29:05.660 But cardiovascular conditioning is very quickly built and very quickly lost.

00:29:11.260 So if I want to get in really good condition for say, you know, you're going to go do a mud

00:29:14.740 run or adventure race with, with your wife, you can get in pretty good condition for that

00:29:18.580 in two or three weeks.

00:29:20.260 But then if you also go down to Mexico for a month and you go hang out on the beach and

00:29:23.980 you don't really do any exercise at all, you're going to come back and be really completely

00:29:26.900 out of what we call shape for cardiovascular conditions.

00:29:29.500 It's very quickly gaining, quickly lost because of that issue with strength, because strength

00:29:33.300 is so slowly lost that it's pretty easy to continue to maintain strength and hold it,

00:29:39.500 especially as we get into our older years and we get into our fifties and our sixties, it's

00:29:43.500 not that difficult to hold on to the strength that you have.

00:29:46.280 You might not be able to continue to gain strength at 62 years old, especially if you've

00:29:50.300 been lifting for the last 20 or 30 years, but it's not that hard to maintain.

00:29:53.840 All right.

00:29:54.000 So let's, I'll start off.

00:29:55.040 I think it's important to say, um, before I started training with you, my body weight

00:29:58.760 was like 180, 185, a year and a half later, I'm at, I peaked at the competition.

00:30:04.240 I was 226.

00:30:05.780 I weighed in at, so that's like 40 pounds of weight and I haven't gotten really fat.

00:30:11.340 No.

00:30:11.720 I mean, there was times where I did get fatter.

00:30:13.560 Yep.

00:30:13.740 Um, we can talk about the diet component of this part, the diet change.

00:30:17.140 Sometimes you would reduce my calories.

00:30:18.900 Sometimes you'd increase them.

00:30:19.920 Like, like I was, I think at one time I was eating 3,500 calories a day.

00:30:24.040 So how do you, as a, as a coach determine whether a client should, uh, increase or reduce

00:30:30.240 calories?

00:30:30.600 That's a great question.

00:30:31.760 It comes back to the stress recovery adaptation cycle.

00:30:34.460 If I can stress you enough that you can recover and adapt and make strength gains, then you're,

00:30:39.640 you're eating enough calories at the point that that stops.

00:30:42.380 Not stop for one day.

00:30:44.040 I mean, everybody has a bad workout or two, but stop for a week or two.

00:30:47.280 You're struggling to hit your numbers.

00:30:49.460 Then we've got to, we've got to increase your calories.

00:30:51.540 Your recovery is not enough.

00:30:52.700 Right.

00:30:52.900 And one of the hardest things about a coach is I can control your workouts.

00:30:56.400 And if you're honest with me, my clients are honest with me, I can, I can have a fair

00:31:00.440 control of their diet, but things like outside stress, family stress, work stress, lack of

00:31:06.040 sleep, sickness, we've been through all of those things with you over the last 18 months

00:31:09.420 that, that adds to that, that stress in the stress recovery adaptation cycles.

00:31:13.800 When I say stress, what I'm specifically talking about is the stress we in, we put on the body

00:31:19.060 during the workouts, but the body doesn't really understand the difference between the stress

00:31:24.180 of a 400 pound squat and the additional stress that's added to your life in those two days

00:31:29.040 between, Hey, I didn't sleep very well.

00:31:31.200 Hey, I've got a sinus infection.

00:31:33.260 Hey, my kids were sick and they kept me up last night because they were, they were sick

00:31:36.620 and whatever those things are, I can't plan for those.

00:31:39.580 And so I have to start looking at the stress is the stress recovery adaptation cycle working.

00:31:44.360 Am I stressing bread enough that he can recover and adapt, or am I stressing him too much

00:31:49.860 and I have to back off on the stress?

00:31:51.120 Or is he recovering too little and we've got to increase the recovery, right?

00:31:55.640 Some of those things were within my control and some of them are not.

00:31:58.240 And so we started to look at your training and while you were making progress, we, we

00:32:03.100 kept you at a pretty solid maintenance calories.

00:32:06.280 When you stopped making progress and you started to get achy and we would know like you'd get

00:32:09.920 lethargic and you, you would lose some interest in, and I really don't feel like training today.

00:32:14.380 My joints are hurting.

00:32:15.200 My elbows are, okay, we've got to bump up our calories a little bit and we need to actually

00:32:18.560 focus on making sure you get enough sleep so that we can continue to drive the progress

00:32:23.320 and the adaptation.

00:32:24.620 However, when things are going very well and you say, Hey, I keep, I keep checking my waist

00:32:29.480 measurement and my waist measurement is up an inch and a half.

00:32:32.200 A lot of people think that starting strength is a way to get you fat.

00:32:35.380 It's not.

00:32:35.920 That's what everyone says.

00:32:36.680 You're going to get fat.

00:32:37.860 Yeah, of course.

00:32:38.340 We're going to look like rip it till he has a belly.

00:32:40.320 Rip is rip is 60 and rip likes whiskey, right?

00:32:45.020 And so the thing is, and here's the other thing, rip's not really that fat.

00:32:48.640 Like his, his belly is as hard as a rock.

00:32:50.560 That's a guy who's lifted his entire life.

00:32:52.240 He's just got a, he's built an enormous amount of muscle.

00:32:54.040 But it also, when Ripito talks about gallon of milk a day sort of diets, this was made

00:33:00.140 for, for a 19 year old kid that weighed 155, not a 37 year old 210 pound listener of art

00:33:07.120 of manliness.

00:33:07.840 That's not who needs to drink a gallon of milk a day.

00:33:10.320 I've never had you drink a gallon of milk a day, right?

00:33:12.080 The entire time I've had you, and you've still gained 40 pounds of, you've probably

00:33:16.400 gained around of the 40 pounds or so that you've gained, you've probably gained 28, 30

00:33:20.820 pounds of muscle and 10 pounds of fat.

00:33:22.320 Now, if you think about it, if you gain 30 pounds of muscle and 10 pounds of fat, your

00:33:26.400 body fat percentage still went down, right?

00:33:28.980 Right.

00:33:29.180 So it's still because we added so much more lean mass.

00:33:31.340 So, so we just look at the stress recovery adaptation cycle.

00:33:34.680 As long as we're making progress, we stay the course.

00:33:38.080 When you get to the point where you feel uncomfortable with the waist size, you say like my waist

00:33:42.060 was, was here and it's up an inch and a half.

00:33:44.340 I go, okay, well, let's back this off a little bit.

00:33:45.900 Let's back off your carbs, especially back off your carbs on non-training days.

00:33:49.840 That's why macros kind of, you know, you get the podcast with, with Jordan Feigenbaum, good

00:33:53.620 buddy of mine, Dr. Gaines.

00:33:54.760 It really walks through all those details in that previous podcast you do with him.

00:33:58.020 And that's, that's really what, it's the same thing.

00:33:59.720 It's the same concept that I use for, for nutrition.

00:34:02.220 It's the same thing that Jordan does.

00:34:03.200 So we talked about, um, what we did for the first few months of my training.

00:34:07.220 We did starting strength, linear progression.

00:34:09.380 We moved on to a modified Texas method.

00:34:11.760 Then you, you switched me to this thing called DUP.

00:34:15.120 Yeah.

00:34:15.720 And I hated that.

00:34:17.560 It worked real well though.

00:34:18.640 It worked well, but I, I hated it, especially, especially deadlift day.

00:34:22.420 That was the worst.

00:34:23.480 So, uh, what is DUP and what's the thinking behind it?

00:34:26.920 Is it an intermediate or an advanced?

00:34:29.160 It's a good question.

00:34:29.860 So DUP stands for daily undulating periodization.

00:34:33.020 You can find lots.

00:34:33.720 I did not invent daily undulating periodization.

00:34:36.000 This is a, this is a type of program that's been around for a while.

00:34:38.960 It essentially, when anytime we're laying out programming, we can modify one of several

00:34:43.400 variables.

00:34:43.860 We can modify the intensity.

00:34:45.840 Now, most people think of intensity as how hard was it?

00:34:48.460 That's not what intensity means.

00:34:49.600 Intensity means how close to in percentage to my one rep max was it?

00:34:54.780 So really intensity asks how heavy.

00:34:57.540 So we can modify how heavy it is.

00:34:59.860 We can modify how much volume you do, and we can modify your frequency, how often you do

00:35:05.280 it.

00:35:06.120 DUP daily undulating periodization is a program that's very high frequency, relatively moderate

00:35:13.200 intensity or starts at kind of moderate intensity and works heavy over the course of the program.

00:35:17.780 And the volume is, is just moderate every day.

00:35:22.120 But when you consider the amount of frequency that you're doing, it's a lot.

00:35:25.500 And so I'll break it out.

00:35:26.560 It's real simple.

00:35:27.900 If we look at the four main lifts that we use for you, which is the squat, the deadlift,

00:35:31.460 the bench press, and the press, I essentially had you doing all four of those lifts three

00:35:35.600 times a week.

00:35:36.240 You were squatting three times a week.

00:35:37.500 You were deadlifting three times a week.

00:35:38.740 You were benching three times a week.

00:35:39.940 And you were pressing at least twice a week.

00:35:42.140 That's because at the time we were trying to drive up your bench press.

00:35:44.840 And what we'll do, the way we break each one of those down is one day you'll do those

00:35:49.480 very heavy for low reps.

00:35:51.400 So your heavy day is what we call power.

00:35:53.220 So you might do squat power work, and that's things like eight sets of two, six sets of

00:35:58.040 one, five sets of one.

00:35:59.000 We've got your strength work, which for squat would be things like three sets of five,

00:36:03.240 three sets of six, somewhere in that ballpark.

00:36:04.740 Then we have your hypertrophy work, so that for squat.

00:36:08.320 And it could be a variation of the squat, or maybe even it's a leg press or front squat

00:36:11.880 or whatever.

00:36:12.980 And that would be things like two sets of eight, three sets of eight.

00:36:15.380 So we're going to utilize different rep ranges to get different adaptations throughout the

00:36:19.860 system.

00:36:20.360 Now, to answer your question about, is it intermediate or is it advanced?

00:36:23.960 It's kind of between.

00:36:25.040 It's late, intermediate, early, advanced programming.

00:36:28.100 Because the program takes about 12 weeks to complete.

00:36:32.360 It's kind of a long three-month program, which would make it feel like an advanced program.

00:36:36.220 But really what we're doing in DUP is we're actually bringing up all facets of physical

00:36:42.520 attributes that we want to bring up in the gym at the same time.

00:36:44.680 So we're actually trying to increase strength and power and hypertrophy with all these different

00:36:48.640 rep ranges at the same time.

00:36:50.320 And that can be done as a late intermediate.

00:36:52.280 But when someone is a world champion power lifter, it would be very hard for them to do frequency

00:36:57.120 that's that high.

00:36:58.220 And even for you, as we got towards the end of the program, the amount of fatigue that you

00:37:01.800 built up on DUP was a lot, right?

00:37:03.880 And we have to start backing off.

00:37:05.080 Okay, let's get rid of the deadlift hypertrophy this week.

00:37:08.440 Let's back off your squat strength.

00:37:10.180 Instead of three sets, let's do two sets, right?

00:37:12.280 To just manage that fatigue to make sure that you could recover and adapt.

00:37:16.320 And this is where a coach would come in handy.

00:37:18.740 Because if I were to try to do this by myself, I'd have no clue what I was doing.

00:37:22.780 Like I would just be, I'd be trying to either try and do too much or do too little.

00:37:27.280 So a coach is sort of there to let you know, try to aim you for the sweet spot.

00:37:32.120 Exactly.

00:37:32.500 You know, one of the things that we use, a lot of coaches use is a concept called RPE or

00:37:37.020 ratings of perceived exertion.

00:37:38.860 And what that is, is basically, so I ask you every day, Brett, how hard was it on a scale

00:37:43.740 of one to 10, right?

00:37:44.700 You can look these up on, we won't go through the details.

00:37:46.700 But on a scale of one to 10, how hard was it?

00:37:48.400 One being ridiculously easy, like I'm sleeping in my bed easy.

00:37:51.320 And 10 was, I either missed it or is the absolute worst thing I've ever done.

00:37:55.020 I wanted to die, potentially pooped my pants in the middle of it, right?

00:37:58.480 That's a, that's RPE 10 and that's the scale.

00:38:00.380 And I use that not to program.

00:38:03.200 So some coaches actually use RPE to program.

00:38:05.700 I use RPE as a communication tool between my client and myself to make sure we're on

00:38:10.060 the same page.

00:38:10.920 So you do a set of squats, so you do a set of five and you do your set of five at 385,

00:38:15.760 which would be a heavy, heavy set of five for you.

00:38:18.060 And you come back and you say, that was an RPE 10.

00:38:20.480 And I watched the video and watched the bar speed of your squat.

00:38:24.580 And I say, actually, Brett, it wasn't an RPE 10.

00:38:26.400 It was an RPE nine or an RPE eight and a half.

00:38:28.360 It's my way of communicating to them.

00:38:29.920 Like it actually theoretically could have been harder.

00:38:32.300 Or I have clients do the opposite and they undershoot it every time.

00:38:35.500 They say, oh, that's an RPE seven and a half or eight.

00:38:37.340 And I go, no, no, no, no.

00:38:38.640 You might've had one more rep and it might've killed you.

00:38:41.580 So that was an RPE nine, right?

00:38:42.640 So we can use those.

00:38:43.980 And what, again, what we're looking at there is not the fatigue that is built up on a single

00:38:48.380 workout.

00:38:49.320 This is why a coach is so important because you would go into a workout after having,

00:38:53.660 say, three weeks of loading heavy fatigue that you're continuing.

00:38:57.720 Your fatigue is actually building up in your system over the course of not one day or two

00:39:02.640 days or five days, but multiple weeks of fatigue before I allow the fatigue to dissipate.

00:39:07.980 So you would go in on a Thursday and you've got a squat and deadlift and you already don't

00:39:12.200 feel that you're like, man, I already feel beat up and I've got to hit these numbers.

00:39:15.760 And you're like, coach, do it.

00:39:17.020 And I go, yep, you still got to do it.

00:39:18.380 And then we get to a, a deload week where I, where I would actually incorporate an entire

00:39:23.400 week of recovery-based training.

00:39:25.140 And during that week, all of that fatigue would go away and recovery would kick in and

00:39:30.460 then you would adapt.

00:39:31.380 So remember, we go back to that stress recovery adaptation cycle is not a one day cycle or

00:39:35.660 a two day cycle for you anymore.

00:39:37.600 It's multiple weeks at a time.

00:39:39.240 So it might take three entire weeks to build up your fatigue before I would give you a deload

00:39:43.860 week and let it dissipate so that you could recover and then hit new numbers.

00:39:46.820 I always liked those deload weeks.

00:39:48.460 Yeah.

00:39:48.560 Everybody loves the deload weeks.

00:39:49.900 So after DUP, why did you decide to transition me from DUP?

00:39:53.580 If I was having so much progress with it, I made some incredible gains with that.

00:39:57.440 Why did we transition to something else?

00:39:59.200 Because you signed up for a meet.

00:40:00.660 Okay.

00:40:01.060 I mean, you know, the best thing anybody can do for their own lifting is sign up for a

00:40:05.600 competition.

00:40:05.980 Or even if it's not a barbell lifts, I mean, if you sign up for a triathlon or you sign

00:40:09.980 up for a mud run, like your training gets better that day because now you're thinking

00:40:14.120 and also rightly so, right?

00:40:16.100 You're Brett McKay and you people who know you in the starting strength community and you're

00:40:19.520 like, man, I don't want to go and like ruin this and then, you know, ruin my name and my

00:40:23.960 reputation.

00:40:24.720 Ultimately, like probably people don't care, but like it makes it better that when you get

00:40:29.460 to lift in front of other people, it makes your training get better.

00:40:32.820 Right.

00:40:33.000 Performance.

00:40:33.360 Performance helps improve performance.

00:40:35.580 Absolutely.

00:40:36.140 Right.

00:40:36.360 So what I did was I put you on an eight week program after DUP before your, before your

00:40:40.820 competition is a program that we just call the high low.

00:40:44.720 And it really stands for it's a, it's a high intensity, low volume program.

00:40:48.280 So you had done all of this frequency and volume on DUP and built up a tremendous amount

00:40:53.020 of work capacity.

00:40:54.480 And then all of a sudden I dropped your volume to the floor and we got really, really heavy

00:40:58.860 because I needed you to get used to heavy weight on your back for squats, heavy weight

00:41:03.300 in your hands for deadlifts and press.

00:41:04.980 And we prepared you for the meet, which is a day where you're, you basically, the competition,

00:41:08.940 you had three attempts at your squat, three attempts at press and three attempts at deadlift.

00:41:13.620 And they take the heaviest one of each and combine it for a total.

00:41:17.240 And that's how they determine winners and your totals and whatnot.

00:41:19.580 So I knew that I needed you to get used to I, on that Saturday, you were going to have

00:41:24.020 to do three heavy squats, three heavy presses and three heavy deadlifts in the same day.

00:41:27.340 And that's difficult.

00:41:28.380 And you remember, it's a long day.

00:41:29.580 It's an eight, nine, 10 hour day.

00:41:31.860 And a lot of people do fine through the squats and then they get to the press and they start

00:41:34.920 to go, oh man, I'm getting tired.

00:41:36.120 And by the time they get to the deadlift, it's like, I don't care anymore.

00:41:38.660 I just want the day to be over.

00:41:39.780 And so a lot of it is mental toughness and the ability to be used to handling heavy weight

00:41:43.840 over and over and over again.

00:41:44.620 So that's, that's why I transitioned you out of DUP and into kind of a very heavy max effort

00:41:49.420 sort of program.

00:41:50.020 So I was doing things like one heavy rep on like shoulder press and then I would back

00:41:56.420 off with like sort of a, I don't know how much weight, like you back drop sets.

00:41:59.860 So you might, you might drop 10 to 15% and do some drop sets for AMRAPs or a couple of

00:42:04.100 different drop sets.

00:42:04.800 And then we also started to work supplemental lifts.

00:42:07.120 So we started to look at like where you would miss your lifts.

00:42:10.100 So for example, on the press, we would do things like press starts where you would take,

00:42:14.100 so when we say press, first of all, for your listeners, we're talking about like a military

00:42:16.940 press, what most of your, what most of your listeners would think of as a military

00:42:19.280 press.

00:42:19.720 So you would do a press.

00:42:21.200 And so you're pressing around 200 pounds at the time, 185, 190, 195, somewhere there.

00:42:25.880 I would make you put 210, 215 on the bar, take it out of the rack and attempt to press

00:42:31.000 it so that you could get used to handling heavier weight in your hands than you were used to

00:42:34.920 actually pressing.

00:42:35.820 And you would press it up and it would, you know, it would stop about your forehead and

00:42:38.740 you would grind on it for a second or two and it'd come back down and we rack it.

00:42:41.100 So we would, that would work the bottom of the press.

00:42:44.280 And then we would also do lifts on the press where like we would put the bar in the squat

00:42:48.720 rack at the safety pins, maybe an inch or two above your head where it was, what started

00:42:53.520 there and you would do press lockouts.

00:42:55.340 You would just lock out the press.

00:42:56.520 We also work the top end of the press.

00:42:58.280 Now, again, this is an advanced or late intermediate sort of thing that we would do.

00:43:01.520 I would never do this with a novice.

00:43:02.920 There's no reason to introduce the concept of a supplemental lift, which is a lift that

00:43:07.160 looks like the main lifts, but it tacks at just a certain range in the lift.

00:43:10.960 And so we would start to do that.

00:43:12.220 We do that with all the different lifts, right?

00:43:13.400 We would, we do things like pause squats and box squats and rack pulls and deficit deadlifts

00:43:17.480 and things like that to attack your specific weaknesses, which again, is another reason

00:43:21.840 why a cookie cutter program doesn't work because like on a deadlift, some guys have no problem

00:43:26.480 pulling the bar off the ground and then they struggle at the top.

00:43:29.400 And then some guys are the exact opposite.

00:43:30.740 That's you, right?

00:43:31.320 You can pull the weight off the ground and then it's, the lockout is slow.

00:43:34.960 So we got to get you better and better.

00:43:36.260 Gotcha.

00:43:36.580 Gotcha.

00:43:37.080 So now after the competition was over, did the competition.

00:43:40.440 Now I'm trying, like my goal now is to lose some body fat because I gained a lot during

00:43:45.260 that because I was eating a ton.

00:43:46.360 Yep.

00:43:46.760 Wasn't really doing any cardio during that time.

00:43:49.060 Sure.

00:43:49.240 So we were just really working on recovery.

00:43:50.820 What sort of programming are we doing now?

00:43:53.100 Yeah.

00:43:53.320 So really it's a program that is going to just allow you to fully recover, right?

00:43:57.980 So even though you are, you were peaked for the meat, the meat itself is a tremendously

00:44:03.080 stressful day on you.

00:44:04.380 And it took, you know, a week or 10 days to even feel back to normal after the meat.

00:44:08.140 And so, so we incorporate right now we're doing a four week program.

00:44:10.940 That's really a hypertrophy specific program, higher reps, lighter volume, building up work

00:44:16.260 capacity, doing more circuits.

00:44:18.140 So, um, you know, I'm, I'm not a big fan in kind of traditional cardio.

00:44:22.320 I mean, if you, if you like that stuff and you enjoy it, there's nothing wrong with it.

00:44:25.620 But as far as, uh, accomplishing the goals that were set out to accomplish, which is to

00:44:30.000 continue to get stronger and to lose some body fat.

00:44:32.560 I'm not ever going to put you on a treadmill for 45 minutes.

00:44:35.160 It just doesn't work very well.

00:44:36.380 And so instead we're going to do barbell lifts.

00:44:38.360 We're still going to stick with the main barbell lifts and some dumbbells and kettlebells.

00:44:41.780 And we're going to do lighter weight stuff for, for four weeks and higher reps and allow

00:44:45.580 you to just recover and feel better and, you know, full range of motion movements.

00:44:49.320 And then we're going to take your accessory movements and we're going to put those in

00:44:52.400 a circuit.

00:44:52.840 So for upper body, that might be, you know, pull-ups and dips and curls.

00:44:56.280 And rather than doing all of your pull-ups and moving to dips and then doing all your

00:44:59.740 dips, moving to curls, we'll do a set of pull-ups or chin-ups, a set of dips, a set

00:45:03.700 of curls, and back to a set of pull-ups or chin-ups, dips, curls.

00:45:06.700 And we'll do that, you know, three, four times through, and that's going to get your heart

00:45:09.440 rate going really good.

00:45:10.140 And that's going to accomplish both the accessory work that I need to accomplish and conditioning.

00:45:14.900 And it's going to do it in far short time because there's no rest, because ultimately

00:45:18.400 what I'm trying to do here is burn some fat, allow you to recover, build some muscle,

00:45:22.980 some hypertrophy, and prepare you from a work capacity standpoint for your next actual strength

00:45:29.060 program as we move into it.

00:45:30.360 And, you know, we'll pick your next meet and we'll start to push that direction.

00:45:33.540 What do you mean by work capacity?

00:45:34.820 What is that exactly?

00:45:35.900 Just the amount of work you're able to do in a given day, week, month, et cetera, right?

00:45:41.780 So a lot of powerlifters, one of the reasons that powerlifters will get a bad rap, especially

00:45:45.480 powerlifters, say, in like the 90s when powerlifters all weighed 370 pounds or big fat guys

00:45:50.640 that nobody wanted to look like, then we get to the point where they just lifted really,

00:45:54.820 really heavy, but they didn't do a lot of additional work.

00:45:57.900 And so a lot of times they would just go in, like there's a famous powerlifters named

00:46:00.720 Mark Chalet.

00:46:01.860 He's famous for basically going in and his workout, like his deadlift workout would be

00:46:05.240 go in, deadlift for a max, leave.

00:46:08.260 That's the whole workout.

00:46:09.700 One rep, right?

00:46:10.760 Work up to one.

00:46:11.400 Now he could deadlift over 800 pounds, so he's really strong.

00:46:14.320 And then he would do squat day and it'd be the same thing.

00:46:16.280 Work up on squat to one heavy single.

00:46:17.840 Well, how much work capacity does this guy have?

00:46:19.740 I would have loved to have seen Mark Chalet, and I could be wrong, but I would love to

00:46:23.220 have seen him at a meet that took 12 or 13 hours to get through.

00:46:26.920 That's a long day for a guy that doesn't have much work capacity.

00:46:29.560 So what I'm trying to do for you is build up the total amount of work you're able to

00:46:33.380 do and do it in a way that doesn't super stress you out.

00:46:36.580 So if I do a lot of volume, which is really what work capacity is, and I do it really heavy,

00:46:42.060 so it's heavy plus volume, it's going to beat you up.

00:46:44.560 Your elbows are going to hurt, your shoulders are going to hurt, and you're not going to be

00:46:47.760 able to do all of that.

00:46:48.440 Instead, I want to lay the foundation of you being able to do a tremendous amount of total

00:46:53.260 work, and then as I start to transition you into a power program, into a strength sort

00:46:58.220 of program, I'm going to pull some of that volume and let the intensity go up, and you've

00:47:02.460 already built this foundation of, I can accomplish a lot of work and it doesn't beat me up anymore.

00:47:07.200 So you can adapt to work capacity.

00:47:10.420 And so a lot of our coaches for starting with online coaching that work with advanced lifters,

00:47:14.420 we've got a coach, his name is Austin Bracky, he works with Feigenbaum, he's a doctor of

00:47:19.020 internal medicine, super smart guy.

00:47:21.320 The primary metric he uses for his clients, and mostly he works with advanced lifters,

00:47:26.880 is tonnage, total tonnage.

00:47:28.800 So you take the amount of weight that you're going to do, times the reps, times the sets,

00:47:34.620 and you get your total tonnage.

00:47:35.860 Then you can get high tonnage from high volume, or you can get total tonnage up from high weight

00:47:41.820 and a little less volume, and they can both come out to the same tonnage.

00:47:44.600 And we're just trying to figure out what adaptation are we trying to get right now?

00:47:47.360 Are we trying to build strength, or are we trying to build recovery and work capacity?

00:47:50.620 And for you right now, we're trying to build recovery and work capacity.

00:47:54.260 But even with, okay, it's supposed to be recovery and work capacity,

00:47:57.220 like my squat sessions, I hate my squat sessions right now.

00:48:00.480 Because even though it's like, I did 420 at the meet, we're doing things like,

00:48:05.800 my last one was 310 pounds, but it's like three sets of eight.

00:48:09.520 And I seriously, I want to die.

00:48:11.140 And you're sore.

00:48:12.320 I'm sore, I had DOMS, delayed onset, muscular soreness, for the first time in like, I think a year.

00:48:19.660 So what's going on there?

00:48:20.860 It's supposed to be recovery, but I don't like it.

00:48:23.420 So here's the difference.

00:48:24.560 The difference is recovery between, we have to pick and choose our battles.

00:48:27.520 Which one do we want to beat up?

00:48:29.000 Do we want to beat up muscle and get like muscle fatigue, which is what we're doing right now?

00:48:32.940 And what's funny is, is that you've done this now for two weeks,

00:48:36.340 and your second week of squatting three sets of eight, you didn't get DOMS, right?

00:48:40.360 So it just hits you this first week.

00:48:42.020 Because DOMS comes in when you, it's something you haven't done before.

00:48:45.560 I don't know if you've ever been roller skating with your kids.

00:48:47.240 Have you ever gone roller skating?

00:48:48.080 I've been rollerblading.

00:48:49.380 Okay, and you never, and you do it rarely, I'm assuming, right?

00:48:51.860 And when you do, and you do it for a while, you get real sore.

00:48:54.740 Like your adductors, your groin gets sore because you're trying to keep your feet from sliding apart

00:48:59.700 because you've got wheels on your feet, right?

00:49:01.680 Why did you get DOMS for rollerblading?

00:49:04.000 Well, because it was just something you're not used to.

00:49:06.000 Why do people get DOMS and do straight leg deadlifts?

00:49:09.160 Because they're not used to stretching their hamstring.

00:49:10.980 So you're not used to doing three sets of eight.

00:49:12.860 That's a bunch of reps for you after coming out of a high-intensity, low volume.

00:49:18.080 However, the muscular fatigue that you're receiving from the workouts right now are not really contributing to systemic fatigue.

00:49:27.580 It's not fatiguing your, I hate the term central nervous system.

00:49:31.420 That's kind of a buzzword we use for people when they, but sometimes it doesn't beat up your joints.

00:49:36.420 It doesn't make you feel like you're in a car accident.

00:49:38.700 Like all these, it just is, it's in the first week or 10 days, it creates some muscle soreness because you're not used to it.

00:49:44.560 And by three weeks in, you're going to be knocking this stuff out.

00:49:47.640 You're like, this isn't that hard.

00:49:48.860 And even when you were doing the workouts anyway, you weren't hitting in that first week, you weren't hitting RPE 9, RPE 10.

00:49:55.120 You weren't grinding out your squats at three sets of eight.

00:49:57.800 You were like, man, this is a lot of reps.

00:49:59.780 I was like winded.

00:50:00.740 I was winded.

00:50:02.200 It was conditioning.

00:50:02.960 Yeah, exactly.

00:50:03.760 Yeah, that was not good.

00:50:04.620 But yeah, it did get better last or this week, much better.

00:50:07.680 Even though the weight was heavier.

00:50:08.940 Sure.

00:50:09.520 So we'll do this for four weeks.

00:50:10.520 What will we move to next?

00:50:12.880 Well, it depends on.

00:50:15.540 So what we have found with you is that you tend to do better, a little heavier weight and a little less volume.

00:50:22.780 I just like less volume.

00:50:23.980 Yeah, I know.

00:50:24.360 So my plan for you is I have another.

00:50:27.480 I don't even want to say it.

00:50:29.100 I have another style of DUP sort of training that is less reps.

00:50:33.860 It's a lower amount of volume, total volume.

00:50:36.820 It's a little bit less frequency, but it's heavier.

00:50:40.220 And I think that will work better for you.

00:50:41.900 And so it's just a variation on the kind of standard DUP.

00:50:44.760 So to put that in perspective, we won't ever do hypertrophy work in DUP in the 8 to 12 rep range.

00:50:51.580 We'll do your hypertrophy work in the 5 to 6 range.

00:50:54.240 We'll do your strength work in the 3 to 4 range.

00:50:56.360 And then we'll do lots of singles and doubles for your heavy stuff.

00:50:59.100 And so in order to get volume, it would be more sets and less reps.

00:51:03.280 So you think about you could do two sets of eight or you could do eight sets of two and have the total amount of volume.

00:51:07.760 So it would be more like eight sets of two for you, six sets of three, rather than two sets of eight.

00:51:13.600 Because I think you'll just recover better that way.

00:51:15.480 Okay.

00:51:16.220 And so I'm at the point now, too, I have to make the decision.

00:51:18.420 Do I want to get stronger or just kind of maintain?

00:51:21.520 Correct.

00:51:22.200 And I think I want to get stronger.

00:51:23.360 Yeah, that's what everybody wants to do.

00:51:25.680 I'm young.

00:51:26.540 Because it's addicting.

00:51:27.240 Yeah, it's addicting and it's enjoyable to be like, I deadlifted that much.

00:51:30.560 It's fun.

00:51:31.300 And you've got a coach to watch your form to make sure.

00:51:35.000 You know, one of the reasons is for the last 18 months, you haven't injured yourself.

00:51:38.420 You've had almost no injuries.

00:51:39.620 Remember, the only time you've injured yourself is when you decided to go run sprints.

00:51:43.680 Yeah, on Thanksgiving Day.

00:51:45.340 So, yeah.

00:51:45.680 Okay.

00:51:45.860 So I was doing some like, you know, for those of you, we're trying to launch this thing called the Strenuous Life.

00:51:50.240 And I had to do, there's a sprinting aspect.

00:51:51.960 There's like a badge.

00:51:53.400 We'll talk more about it later on.

00:51:54.820 But there's a badge that requires you to sprint 50 yards and 100 yards in a certain amount of time.

00:51:59.540 And I hadn't sprinted in years.

00:52:02.160 Right.

00:52:02.520 And I just went out there, did a little bit of warm up.

00:52:04.760 Not on your program from me.

00:52:05.900 Right.

00:52:06.160 Not on your program from me.

00:52:06.580 I was like, I didn't even tell Matt that I was doing this.

00:52:08.640 No, until after you had hurt yourself.

00:52:09.580 And yeah, I jacked up my hamstring.

00:52:12.560 It's like, I think it's like I did something to my tendon.

00:52:14.660 Yeah.

00:52:14.980 And it still hurts.

00:52:15.840 I'm still, it's still bothering me.

00:52:17.320 I didn't have that problem until now.

00:52:19.100 Yeah.

00:52:19.240 As a coach, what I told him was, look, man, if you, I'm not in the business of dream crushing.

00:52:25.660 So I told Brett, I said, look, had you come to me three weeks ago and said, hey, I'd like to do some test sprints for this strenuous life thing we have coming up.

00:52:33.080 I mean, no problem.

00:52:33.760 I can, I can get you there where you can sprint three weeks from now and you're not going to tear up your hamstring.

00:52:38.020 The problem is you went from cold and untrained and because you were actually testing times, you sprinted at a hundred percent intensity on the very first day you had sprinted in 20 years.

00:52:47.940 And so that's just asking for an injury.

00:52:49.740 Right.

00:52:50.020 But here's the thing though.

00:52:51.600 I ran as fast as I did in high school.

00:52:54.620 Right.

00:52:54.860 Like a little bit faster.

00:52:56.660 And it's barbell training.

00:52:58.160 Because you're stronger.

00:52:58.740 I'm stronger.

00:52:59.240 Right.

00:52:59.460 People like, yeah, power, strength leads to power and power can lead to speed.

00:53:03.880 Yeah, if I, you know, I was a, I was a big five, a high school strength, strength coach for 10 years.

00:53:09.420 If I had a sprinter kid come to me and he wanted to get his, like his 40 yard dash time down or a football player or sprinter, I, you know, in the first two weeks I can clean up his form on a sprint form where he's 90% of correct.

00:53:22.120 Right.

00:53:22.740 Some of that is, you know, Charlie Francis sort of stuff.

00:53:24.800 So I've got good 90 degree angles at his elbow.

00:53:27.000 His face is relaxed.

00:53:28.240 I can teach him exactly how to set up when on the line to make sure he takes the least amount of steps possible for the 40 yard dash.

00:53:34.320 That's about a two week system.

00:53:36.240 Right.

00:53:36.580 And that might actually make his 40 yard dash, you know, I don't know, two tenths of a second faster.

00:53:41.800 And then what?

00:53:43.240 Now I've fixed his form.

00:53:44.720 A vertical jump.

00:53:45.380 So same thing.

00:53:45.780 I can teach you how to do a vertical jump and clean up your form on a vertical jump and maybe get some benefit out of that.

00:53:50.580 I mean, I would get some benefit out of that.

00:53:51.800 But then how do I get any benefit?

00:53:53.720 The only way possible is to make you stronger.

00:53:55.480 So here you are, you know, a decade later, having not sprinted in many years at significantly higher body weight, I'm assuming.

00:54:04.080 Like what did you weigh in high school?

00:54:05.340 Actually, I weighed more in high.

00:54:06.520 I was about the same.

00:54:07.500 I was like, I was a lineman.

00:54:09.120 But I was a fast one.

00:54:10.220 Yeah, you were in good shape.

00:54:11.500 And so now you're, you know, now you're years and years later.

00:54:14.260 35, yeah.

00:54:14.840 Much stronger, right?

00:54:16.000 So, and you're able to run just as fast as you did in high school, which is, you know, most 35 year old guys can't say.

00:54:20.820 Yeah, that was, that was enjoyable.

00:54:22.200 Yeah, but now I'm still struggling with this sort of this, I think it's a tendon in my hamstring that it's jacked up.

00:54:27.340 Well, Matt, this has been a great conversation.

00:54:29.660 Where can people learn more about you and your work?

00:54:31.920 Sure.

00:54:32.200 Our website is startingstrengthonlinecoaching.com.

00:54:35.240 You can also find us through Google.

00:54:36.320 It's really easy.

00:54:36.720 We've got a great website there.

00:54:38.000 You can learn about all about Starting Strength Online Coaches and see the team and read all about what we do.

00:54:43.360 We've got a great FAQ.

00:54:44.500 And, of course, anybody has any questions, feel free to find me.

00:54:47.800 I'm on the website.

00:54:48.580 Shoot me an email.

00:54:49.400 And I do lots of Skype calls and just answering questions for people if they have any questions at all.

00:54:53.580 Cool.

00:54:53.840 Matt Reynolds, thanks so much for your time.

00:54:55.180 It's been a pleasure.

00:54:55.940 Thanks for having me.

00:54:56.360 My guest there was Matt Reynolds.

00:54:57.520 He is my online barbell coach.

00:54:59.360 He's also the head coach at startingstrengthonlinecoaching.com.

00:55:03.160 You can find out more information about the training program there and the coaching there.

00:55:06.840 And also, Matt has offered an exclusive discount for podcast listeners.

00:55:10.220 If you use AOM at checkout, you'll get $50 off your first month.

00:55:14.500 Also, make sure to check out our links on the show notes at aom.is slash Reynolds, where you can delve deeper into this topic and find out more.

00:55:27.700 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:55:31.040 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.

00:55:35.280 If you enjoy the show and have gotten something out of it over the years,

00:55:37.500 I'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

00:55:39.920 That helps us out a lot.

00:55:40.820 As always, thank you for your continued support.

00:55:42.720 And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

00:55:45.560 We'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#302： My Workout Routine & The Benefits of a Strength Coach

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