The Art of Manliness - From Novice to Advanced

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast i've been barbell

00:00:11.760 lifting for seven years in that time i've hit some personal records that i'm really proud of

00:00:15.520 a 615 pound deadlift a 225 pound shoulder press and a 465 pound squat the last couple of years

00:00:21.620 though i haven't notched these kinds of big milestones for a combination of reasons including

00:00:25.600 dealing with injuries having less time and experiencing a shift in motivation a lot of

00:00:30.340 lifters as well as amateur athletes of all kinds will follow a similar trajectory as they move from

00:00:34.620 first starting out to getting deeper into their fitness journey here to walk us through the phases

00:00:38.460 of that journey is my own strength coach matt reynolds who's the founder of barbell logic

00:00:42.160 online coaching matt talks about how the things his lifters focus on change as they move from

00:00:46.220 beginner to intermediate to advanced and why it takes longer to get stronger the longer you've

00:00:51.000 been lifting we then discuss how to rediscover your motivation for training once progress and

00:00:54.860 your one rep maxes slows down by finding new prs to chase and learning to enjoy the process over

00:00:59.900 the outcome we also get into how to stay consistent with your workouts when life gets busier as you get

00:01:04.020 older as well as how to deal with common injuries both the injuries themselves and the mental game of

00:01:08.680 working through them after show's over check out our show notes at awim.is slash lifting

00:01:12.700 all right matt reynolds welcome back to the show hey man thanks for having me i'm excited to uh be on

00:01:29.300 it so you are the founder and owner of barbell logic online coaching where you help people from

00:01:34.300 all walks of life get stronger through barbells you're also my personal barbell coach have been

00:01:40.080 for coming up on seven years now right that's crazy yeah it's wild seven years and you're one

00:01:45.260 of my good friends so we had you on the show back in 2017 we had you on previously in 2015

00:01:51.080 to discuss barbell track yeah it's been a while it's not like me that much no well you did such

00:01:57.500 a great job on that those episodes kind of walking through so i don't know what else to say so yeah

00:02:02.480 like since that time i've things have changed well one thing i love about those episodes i love

00:02:07.560 getting letters from from listeners saying hey listen to that that podcast about barbell training

00:02:12.400 with matt reynolds and because of that i started barbell training and it's it's i've gotten really

00:02:16.680 strong and for some of these guys it's become they found a hobby that they really enjoy and it's brought

00:02:21.960 a lot to their lives and some of these guys who started barbell training with barbell logic they've

00:02:26.340 gotten super strong i was looking at this one guy eric doll we're gonna give eric a shout out

00:02:30.900 yeah shout out to eric so he signed up with barbell logic after that 2017 episode

00:02:35.740 and this guy's a beast now he's he's squat i was looking he's squatting like 535 for reps

00:02:41.660 he's pressing 285 and maybe he got even more than that this was a long time ago i was thinking he

00:02:46.960 hit a 300 press recently so yeah super strong presser so this guy got strong in five strong five years

00:02:53.220 so shout out to eric eric i'm proud of you so i thought i wanted to bring you back on the show

00:02:57.340 because i've been working with you for so long and i've noticed in that time my training has changed

00:03:04.780 as i've been become like an advanced lifter and i hope we can talk about your experience working

00:03:09.500 with people who've trained for a long time how training changes the challenges you you face when

00:03:15.060 you've been doing this for a long time because i feel like a lot of stuff out there about barbell

00:03:18.940 training it's it's geared towards beginners which which makes sense right you gotta if so if you

00:03:23.960 don't know more of them yeah there's a lot more of them and if you don't know stuff you need to you

00:03:28.320 need to know a lot to get on board there's not a lot of stuff out there for people who've been doing

00:03:32.180 this for five six seven ten years so i want to talk about that but before we do elevator pitch like

00:03:38.240 why do you think everyone should be strong this is something you love to talk about why why do you

00:03:42.300 think everyone should be strong yeah that's it's definitely one of my favorite things to talk about i

00:03:46.520 by the way i will say the art of manliness clients are some of our best clients over the years

00:03:51.400 your listeners are outstanding clients they're they're consistent they they focus on technique

00:03:58.260 and so for strength for us like strength certainly isn't the only thing we do it's not the be all end

00:04:03.200 all it's where we start and we start that because we if you think about all of the different physical

00:04:10.760 abilities you can have think about so strength being one of those cardiovascular endurance mobility

00:04:17.140 agility power speed all of those things strength is the only one that makes all of the other ones

00:04:24.260 better certainly if untrained and all so for the untrained individual just getting strong makes

00:04:29.460 everything else better not to the not to the nth degree right you can't you can't just squat and

00:04:35.140 deadlift and get strong and go run a marathon that's certainly there's some specificity there but for

00:04:39.980 the person who's trying to get the biggest bang for their buck in the least amount of time

00:04:43.000 strength training and specifically barbell strength training with the big heavy compound lifts

00:04:47.640 is going to give you the best bang for your buck you think about the person who's been sitting on

00:04:51.080 the couch watching netflix all day and all of a sudden they start to do full range of motion squats

00:04:55.780 they don't not only get more strong but they also get more mobile

00:04:59.420 but this this is not a two-way street if we go to yoga class and there's nothing against yoga class i

00:05:04.920 think that's perfectly fine to to do that you'll get more mobile but you will not get more strong and so

00:05:10.060 what we're trying to do is we're just trying to get better at as many things as we can as quickly

00:05:14.020 as possible as a beginner there is a thing that occurs for beginners for novices where they get

00:05:20.980 much better much faster and this isn't just the case in strength training right i remember when i

00:05:25.540 first started playing ping pong as a kid i had a ping pong table growing up i don't know if you had

00:05:29.060 anything like that grant i had a little brother we went on summer vacation one time to my aunt and

00:05:34.320 uncle's house and they had a ping pong table we didn't have one yet and we played ping pong they lived up in

00:05:39.500 chicago there wasn't much to do in their little suburb but they had a ping pong table in their

00:05:42.940 basement and we played ping pong like six seven eight hours a day and we were as you might imagine

00:05:48.640 horrific the first we'd never played but by the end of that vacation you know eight nine ten days later

00:05:53.940 we were decent at ping pong because we played so much so so the the amount that you get better at a

00:05:59.640 short amount of time as an absolute beginner is tremendous and so we want to utilize that we don't want

00:06:06.160 to waste that on something that gives us a low return on investment we want to use that on something

00:06:10.780 that gives us a high roi and that's what strength training does more than anything else the strength

00:06:14.940 training is just simply creating the ability or building the ability to produce more force more

00:06:22.400 force against the barbell more force against the floor the athlete that can jump the highest or has

00:06:27.060 the highest vertical jump produces the most amount of force in the shortest amount of time against the

00:06:30.680 floor that's why we do strength and it carries over and then the other part of this is for us

00:06:35.420 our primary demographic that we train are really it's guys like you or or middle-aged people who

00:06:41.740 are really trying to do this to improve their quality of life not necessarily to become world

00:06:45.780 champion power lifters and so again strength does such a great job of the return on investment there

00:06:51.540 for just getting them strong quick and then as time goes on and they become more maybe the goals

00:06:55.740 change they decide they want to do you know mud runs with their with their wife or something that's

00:06:59.780 totally fine let's get that base of strength in first and we'll see all those other things improve

00:07:04.900 and then if we need to kind of veer the ship five degrees ten degrees we can do that and we've laid

00:07:10.680 this foundation of strength which is why we love it all right so strength improves all facets of your

00:07:16.540 life before we talk about the challenges of someone who's been training for a long time let's talk about

00:07:21.200 the biggest challenges that you see in beginner lifters when someone signs up with you what are the

00:07:26.660 stuff you have to focus on with them in those first few months yeah it's it's it's actually really

00:07:32.120 simple it's consistency and technique that's it in the beginning somebody's new so so it's not

00:07:37.800 it's not a habit to them right so at some point a lot of our strength training clients again somebody

00:07:42.480 like an eric doll strength training for him is as part of his daily activity is putting on his shoes

00:07:47.780 as eating breakfast and consistency is tough for a beginner because it's it's a it's a paradigm shift

00:07:53.480 it's a lifestyle change again we're not doing this for 10 weeks to look good for the mexico

00:07:59.120 vacation we're doing this for life and so consistency is huge and along with consistency

00:08:04.380 is is technique the technique for lifters for beginning lifters is often atrocious they just

00:08:10.360 don't know how to how to do it there's nothing wrong with that that's why you need a coach that's

00:08:14.000 why you need a good coach is a good coach provides a good eye for technique and accountability for the

00:08:20.980 consistency and you know you've done this for seven years i'm let's let's be honest you don't really

00:08:25.040 need me to technique coach you anymore but there's something about when you so for us to for your

00:08:30.320 listeners we are an online coaching company and so i've coached you a handful of times in person but

00:08:35.320 i've literally coached you thousands of times online and to this day every single workout you do you have

00:08:41.880 to hit record on your cell phone and upload those videos of your heaviest squats or your last squats

00:08:47.240 or deadlifts or whatever and upload those to me every single workout of every every single week right

00:08:52.380 four times a week and then i break those down within 24 hours and so something happens from an

00:08:56.820 accountability standpoint when you hit record it's like all right coach is going to see this

00:09:00.640 and he's going to give me feedback on it that it sort of raises the ante a little bit and so for the

00:09:05.380 beginner that technique refinement if you imagine you're making these massive changes in their technique

00:09:12.520 early on right so maybe they're 50 correct or 60 correct in their squat and we can make changes

00:09:17.700 really from session to session that might improve their squat by 10 or 15 or 20 percent at the point

00:09:23.260 where you're at i'm improving your technique by literally one percent a half a percent a percentage

00:09:28.500 of a percent i mean that's that's the thing so in the that's one of the major differences between

00:09:32.620 beginners and advanced lifters is that for beginners it's all about consistency and technique programming

00:09:37.700 doesn't matter i mean look we follow linear progression we put a little weight on the bar every

00:09:43.060 single time we think that's the best way to do it but the reality is that programming piece

00:09:47.680 is so far secondary or third whatever you want to call it like it's an entire strata below

00:09:54.220 consistency and technique for the beginning lifter yeah i think one issue a beginner lifter because they

00:09:59.220 don't know a lot they think programming is the most important everybody reads the magazines and

00:10:04.260 reads the articles and sees what people argue about and they argue about programming they rarely argue

00:10:09.180 first off nobody argues about consistency because we just know it's true and then we like to geek out

00:10:14.960 on this thing about technique is that high bar squats or low bar squats is a sumo deadlifts or

00:10:19.240 conventional deadlifts and so they think that's the most important the reality is it's like hey

00:10:23.380 we've got to get the lifts generally correct we've got to get moving like you're supposed to move like

00:10:27.880 you were really created to move or evolved to move or what like those things that you look at the way a

00:10:33.360 two-year-old moves and we want to move in those ways that we're just made biologically to move and so

00:10:38.220 that's the goal is to kind of get back to those days of of moving like we're supposed to move

00:10:43.960 you know years and years decades and decades of sitting in in office chairs and cubicles

00:10:48.880 really pulls us out of that and so to be able to to get back to those things i think are really

00:10:54.180 important for the beginner so yeah technique and consistency are number one programming is i mean

00:10:58.100 we we see high school kids all the time follow ridiculous programs and they make incredible progress

00:11:03.900 even though the program you would look at the program be like that's not or the program's made for

00:11:07.240 professional football players or high level division one football players you're like yeah

00:11:11.420 but we're talking about 14 year old mid pubescent kids and they still make incredible progress why

00:11:16.040 because they get in the gym and they all train together and there's like this team atmosphere

00:11:20.020 and they're high-fiving each other and maybe they're even their technique might suck but their

00:11:23.960 consistency is good and they get better the program just doesn't matter that much in the beginning

00:11:27.680 so i say all that to say like still almost everybody that we start at barbell logic starts with a basic

00:11:33.820 linear progression so that that linear if you think about a line graph it's just adding five pounds or

00:11:39.260 so to the bar every single workout that works great for programming okay so as someone transitions

00:11:44.020 from a novice lister they've honed in on their technique they've made training a habit they're

00:11:49.260 consistent what are the challenges that you see with an intermediate lifter yeah so you'll start to see

00:11:55.220 this transition for the intermediate lifter where technique becomes a little less important because it's it

00:12:01.360 should be on point and consistency as well like if you're now again there are times we have

00:12:06.040 intermediate lifters who are not super consistent but if you've trained consistently if you've trained

00:12:10.460 let's say over 90 of the time you're supposed to train and your technique is you know 90 correct

00:12:15.920 plus then that's where programming starts to become more important i think the accountability still is

00:12:22.680 super important with a coach and but the programming becomes really important and so

00:12:26.520 for several years ago back in 2000 maybe 17 or 18 my my original podcast partner scott hambrick who's

00:12:33.960 also been on on your show we started to work through the idea of what we call minimum effective dose

00:12:39.780 programming so the idea of changing a single variable or the least number of variables for the

00:12:45.580 for the greatest return on investment so little small changes to continue to make progress for the long

00:12:52.300 term again because we're not doing this for 10 weeks or six weeks or 12 weeks we're doing this for

00:12:56.520 20 years or 20 years and so programming becomes really important as you become more of an intermediate

00:13:02.220 so i think you go from the programming doesn't matter that much as a beginner to the programming

00:13:06.880 matters a whole bunch as an intermediate and advanced lifter and the accountability so becomes

00:13:12.160 more important even than consistency it's not now about making sure it's not that you know coach is

00:13:17.340 looking over my shoulder making sure i'm doing my workouts it's what that gives you by hitting record on

00:13:23.180 your phone or or if you're seeing a coach in person by having that coach wait for you that you know 11 a.m

00:13:28.780 monday wednesday friday morning you know that they're going to be there and so that accountability

00:13:31.660 matters and so i think that's where we start to see the transition from technique and consistency to

00:13:36.100 programming and accountability for the intermediate lifter so let's talk about the advanced am i considered

00:13:41.960 an advanced lifter at this point yeah oh for sure yeah you're definitely advanced and by the way

00:13:45.400 advanced doesn't necessarily mean how strong you are although it almost always is accompanied with

00:13:50.200 that it's often more of how long does it take between say pr's right in the beginning you're

00:13:57.080 hitting pr's as a beginner literally every workout literally every single workout and as an intermediate

00:14:02.380 maybe you're hitting a pr is a personal record a personal record i personal best some people call it

00:14:07.280 and maybe you're hitting that as an intermediate lifter once a week somewhere in there maybe even up to

00:14:12.240 once every couple weeks and as an advanced lifter you know you you've deadlifted 615 pounds how long

00:14:19.580 how many sessions does it take how much time does it take even even if the emphasis were on the

00:14:24.740 deadlift for you to hit a 620 pound deadlift at this point i mean a long time right not not a month

00:14:30.740 not two months probably three to six months maybe a year like it takes a long time and so that's really

00:14:36.820 what identifies an advanced lifter how long does it take to go through that that stress recovery

00:14:43.260 adaptation cycle what we call the sra cycle to be able to accumulate enough stress recover from that

00:14:50.600 stress and adapt to that stress to be able to hit another personal record well okay so yeah my last

00:14:57.900 deadlift pr was last march well no it was it was 2020 yeah it was two marches ago so 615

00:15:05.980 and to get from my previous one was 605 to get from 605 to 615 it took a year and a little bit more

00:15:14.280 and then the reason why i haven't had a pr in a while we'll talk about this one of the challenges

00:15:18.140 injuries i've been having to deal with we'll talk about that but why is it as you as you get stronger

00:15:23.820 it takes longer and longer and longer for you to hit pr like what's going on physiologically

00:15:30.320 yeah again it comes back to that stress recovery adaptation cycle so if you've done nothing you can

00:15:36.980 literally again get off the couch stop watching netflix and go ride your bicycle around the

00:15:41.160 neighborhood once and your body will respond to that like it will adapt to that that is a stress

00:15:47.000 that you have not exposed your body to and so i would rather expose your body to squats and deadlifts

00:15:52.020 i think i'd be but look anywhere you want to start is fine at the point that you are doing things like

00:15:57.740 you know three sets of five squats with you know 385 pounds or 400 pounds and you know five sets of

00:16:05.760 three or four sets of three on deadlift at 525 that's a lot of stress but your body's already

00:16:12.300 adapted to that stress so now you have to take the stress even further you have to do even more stress

00:16:17.320 to your body and so and not just the stress of a single session but the the additive piece of

00:16:23.900 multiple sessions accumulating stress over a period of time over a period of weeks or even months to get

00:16:29.720 enough stress accumulated to be able to adapt to that stress and get better and so it's just like

00:16:35.580 i mean it's anything anybody who's incredibly proficient at anything goes through this it takes

00:16:41.100 at some point the stress has to constantly get become it's got to be more and more and more over time

00:16:46.740 and so for you the amount of stress it's going to take to get to a 625 deadlift is a tremendous

00:16:53.440 amount of stress in fact so much stress that i would argue that one of the reasons you haven't

00:16:58.140 hit a deadlift pr the last couple years is that you were not willing to go through that amount of

00:17:02.820 stress to hit the deadlift pr because that wasn't a priority in your life which is fine by the way

00:17:06.960 right if you're like hey i'd rather have the stress of like let's go rucking let's hike let's do mud

00:17:11.880 runs with my wife let's hang out with the kids let's go to like let's those are those things are

00:17:15.860 fine at some point the pursuit of strength becomes at some point you get so advanced that the amount

00:17:21.900 of stress that it takes to keep hitting prs is a tremendous bolus or dosage of stress to be able

00:17:29.740 to recover adapt and hit a pr and that's why it gets harder and harder and harder because that

00:17:35.340 amount of stress gets greater and greater and greater than the length of time needed to get that

00:17:41.460 stress grows and thus takes longer and so you can't hit prs every workout or every week or even

00:17:47.320 every month it becomes once a year sort of thing for most most really advanced lifters that's they

00:17:52.660 kind of they kind of train for once or twice a year prs that's the goal and i think this principle

00:17:57.860 applies to not just weight lifting i mean you say that you see it in running as well like really

00:18:02.400 hardcore runners they're thinking in terms of months sometimes six months where they're just

00:18:07.760 accumulating stress so they make make that adaptation but you can see this in other areas

00:18:12.280 like the world of business if you're if you own a business right if you have when you first start a

00:18:17.560 business it's pretty easy to get those gains right you're making for making big wins but then once you

00:18:22.680 reach a level proficiency to eke out like a one percent increase it just takes a massive amount of work

00:18:29.280 yeah i can remember when i used to compare literal days of the month so you know it's it's august 10th

00:18:36.040 i'm going to compare august 10th to july 10th and see if we have the same amount of revenue

00:18:40.260 on the 10th of the 10th that's that's a bad game to play six or seven years into a business and even

00:18:46.460 month to month even if i look at revenue or net profitability or whatever in august compared to

00:18:51.140 july that's like we've been a business too long you have to start looking at quarter to quarter even

00:18:55.020 year over year what did this august look like compared to last august and i think training is the

00:19:00.000 same we you just can't have you can't have those blinders on or be so narrowly focused that you're

00:19:05.080 looking at well what did i do monday now it's wednesday like no no no you're an advanced lifter

00:19:09.340 you've got to start to think you've got to pull way way back and see the forest through the trees

00:19:12.920 and really look at those things from a 30 000 foot view and you're exactly right business is the same

00:19:17.540 way really anything that you're pursuing consistent progress over time is going to be exactly the same

00:19:23.220 way right losing weight is another one you can lose a lot of weight really fast but then once you

00:19:27.120 want to if you want to get you know brad pitt fight club like shredded that's gonna that it gets

00:19:33.560 harder and harder and harder as you get closer to that yeah that's exactly right so yeah to go from

00:19:38.420 say 30 body fat to 25 body fat is pretty easy to go from 10 body fat which is already really hard

00:19:46.080 to 5 body fat or 6 body fat is i mean you essentially have to give up your entire life to do

00:19:52.560 that i mean you almost can't be a husband and a father to be that level lean you have to eat you

00:19:59.020 know things you don't want to i mean it's it's chicken breast and broccoli all day and most people

00:20:02.440 don't want to do that by the way i think most people shouldn't do that because again for us

00:20:06.500 it's about quality of life improvement and that's not if your ultimate goal is to be a very successful

00:20:11.080 bodybuilder and stand on stage and be you know five percent body fat or four percent body fat like okay

00:20:15.740 more power to you but the reality is is that 99 of your audience is listening they just want they just

00:20:20.520 want to be strong they want to look strong they want to look healthy they want to look relatively

00:20:24.140 jacked and they want to keep up with their family and have have this longevity piece right this this

00:20:28.420 piece of health that improves their quality of life that's for the vast majority of people that's

00:20:33.340 the goal and that's the thing that doesn't change from the beginner so you talk about early in the

00:20:37.940 show we talked about well everybody's a beginner almost everybody's a beginner and there's very few

00:20:41.760 people who are advanced but almost everyone who's probably listening to this podcast really wants to do

00:20:48.080 this thing to improve their quality of life and so improving your quality of life as a beginner

00:20:52.800 via strength training and fitness is pretty easy continuing to improve your quality of life brett

00:20:58.480 mckay's quality of life as an advanced lifter as somebody who's super active who goes hiking all the

00:21:03.320 time who goes up in the mountains with his family and hikes and rucks and whatnot like that becomes much

00:21:08.420 more difficult to continue to improve quality of life at an advanced level but it's still the goal

00:21:13.580 the goal is to improve your quality of life not i i can't imagine you in a pink thong bikini

00:21:19.120 standing on stage oiled up with other dudes i don't think that's what you're going for i think

00:21:23.420 i think you're going for quality of life improvement maybe i am picturing it right now everyone close

00:21:29.400 their eyes everyone's picturing this right now that's right that's right we're gonna take a quick

00:21:33.240 break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show so you said as you become advanced

00:21:40.180 lifter program became becomes more important because you have to accumulate enough stress to make that

00:21:44.920 adaptation so i mean just big picture it's going to differ from athlete to athlete

00:21:48.540 but how do you program for an advanced lifter yeah again it's just minimum effective dose

00:21:54.840 programming changes so there really is just this systematic approach to programming where in the

00:21:59.660 beginning we can just add a little more weight to the bar for as long as we can and as long as i can

00:22:04.160 add five pounds to the bar every single workout why would i do anything else right i i am showing that

00:22:09.400 i have no discipline if i get bored with adding five pounds to the squat every single where i love

00:22:14.440 adding five pounds as long as i can do that that sounds awesome i mean imagine imagine that right now

00:22:18.400 being able to do that for another two years just adding five pounds to the bar every single workout

00:22:22.840 that's great and that's what beginners are able to do so intensity is how heavy so that's that adding

00:22:28.820 five pounds or adding two and a half pounds to the bar and then at some point that stops or otherwise

00:22:32.640 we'd all squat a thousand pounds and so at some point you can't add weight to the bar anymore

00:22:36.740 you have to start manipulating other variables so you start thinking okay well now potentially in order

00:22:42.020 to increase stress i have to add a little more volume i can't do three sets of five anymore

00:22:46.860 which is say 15 total work reps maybe i have to do four sets of five or even four sets of four which

00:22:52.520 is 16 it's one extra rep it's actually makes a pretty big difference and so i can do that i can

00:22:56.940 add more frequency right i can go from three times a week training to four times a week training i can go

00:23:02.180 to an upper lower split so two lower body days and two upper body days i can start to manipulate

00:23:09.220 the sets and reps i can move you know if i want to get more volume i can go from sets of five to

00:23:14.740 sets of six up to sets of eight maybe someone or even higher for somebody who's pursuing hypertrophy

00:23:19.460 or i can also go the other way around i can go instead of three sets of five on something like a

00:23:23.860 bench press or press i could flip it and go five sets of three and keep adding weight to the bar for a

00:23:28.340 little bit longer it's you know it's more tonnage which is just the amount of weight you're lifting

00:23:31.780 times the reps times the sets and so those are things that you do and you just keep making those

00:23:36.260 systematic one change at a time variable changes in order to keep making progress if you do that

00:23:41.780 right you know powerlifting for years has had this concept of what they call the deload which is where

00:23:47.460 you accumulate so much stress you can't you can't recover from the stress so you have to take a deload

00:23:52.020 week or a deload couple weeks and that doesn't mean typically no training it means you back off a

00:23:56.520 training a lot and allow the stress to dissipate so that you can recover well i i would argue that if you

00:24:03.320 program correctly you really rarely need to deload you just continue to make sure you add a little

00:24:08.260 tiny bit of stress each time let the body keep adapting and you keep moving down that systematic

00:24:12.260 line and so we can manipulate those variables of intensity which is how heavy volume which is how

00:24:19.100 much frequency which is how often or even density which is how much i'm doing in a period of time

00:24:25.100 so if i only have an hour or only have 45 minutes can i get more work done in that in that amount of time

00:24:30.180 we can even look at things like you know total amount of work done in in the session or tonnage

00:24:35.700 in the session or force production in this in the session we can do all of those things okay so that

00:24:40.620 kind of answers my next question so one challenge that i've seen as i've been doing this for a long

00:24:45.140 time is yeah the prs get further and further apart and the thing about prs is that they're really

00:24:50.760 motivating it feels good it releases that dopamine and it makes you want to keep training to get that

00:24:54.860 next pr and so when your pr comes a year maybe two years if you have an injury how do you help your

00:25:02.280 clients stay motivated when the pr stop coming as frequently or even they just stop yeah yes it's a

00:25:09.420 great question actually we just did a podcast episode on this on on barbellogic you know you

00:25:14.760 just have to have a paradigm shift about what a pr is a pr is not just a one rep max it's it's there

00:25:21.260 are all sorts of pr so there are all sorts of strength prs so most of us can chase prs in in

00:25:27.800 different rep ranges you know maybe or maybe it's a you know a 225 for reps on a specific lift or 315

00:25:33.440 for reps on a specific lift you can chase that uh at some point if you've trained long enough and you

00:25:39.360 get old enough you'll no longer hit any of those prs and at that point you have to start to change

00:25:44.740 the metrics or change what the prs so you get an over 40 pr or an over 50 years years old pr or uh

00:25:52.060 you know your body weight was at 250 and now it comes down to below 225 and so you have an under 225

00:25:57.060 pr or a 200 pound body weight pr you start to look at health metric prs like can i consistency prs

00:26:04.040 waist measurement prs body weight prs heart rate pr sleep pr so i track my sleep every night i use a

00:26:11.260 sleep app that i love attached to my one of my wearables and i track it on on our app how much

00:26:18.120 total sleep did i get how much deep sleep did i get and i track that as prs i mean i really do

00:26:22.700 i think those things become important and that paradigm shift again from you know i was a i was

00:26:28.840 a fairly high level power lifter i was a professional one of my pro card and strongman

00:26:32.640 that's not me anymore i'm 43 years old i'm in my mid 40s i'm i can't pick up 1100 pounds on my

00:26:39.900 shoulders and run down the street anymore with a 1100 pound yoke or flip a thousand pound tire that's

00:26:44.460 just not this is not going to happen and so so you have to have a little bit of a paradigm shift and

00:26:49.200 you have to start to pursue fun and different metrics or prs in in later in life or as an advanced

00:26:55.660 lifter or as as my old podcast partner calls it post-advanced lifters people who have been advanced

00:27:00.960 but are maybe no longer there they're not they're not going to pursue this 625 pound deadlift anymore and

00:27:06.460 so you know we just got back from a family vacation out in colorado we did tons of hikes at

00:27:11.380 10 000 to 12 000 feet and just tracking the distance or you know what my you know what my

00:27:18.100 mile time was which is not very good when you're at 12 000 feet and you're hiking lots of elevation or

00:27:21.920 what my heart rate is or you know my pull socks like those are just fun things to gamify

00:27:26.720 and that works for some people and some people they don't want to have anything to do with that stuff

00:27:30.560 that's okay so sometimes then you just you make it more about just like daily living and so we you

00:27:35.360 know i do think and we've talked about this a lot as well on our podcast that idea that i originally

00:27:40.160 you and i talked about years ago you hear this idea of discipline over motivation all the time

00:27:44.720 discipline over motivation discipline over motivation is what it's all about and and i think

00:27:49.300 you wrote an article for your site i just don't think that's sustainable long term i think i think that

00:27:54.100 there's times when you're trying to change something that having discipline for a couple weeks

00:27:58.680 over motivation is absolutely important but if at some point you're not motivated to continue that

00:28:05.720 change that is not going to be a sustainable change and so at some point if and i can remember going

00:28:10.460 through this as i was as i was transitioning from mostly competitive lifter to coach and business

00:28:16.440 owner i struggled with this for about six months to a year where i was trying to pursue other prs

00:28:23.960 but what i really wanted to do was chase after an 800 pound deadlift and eventually you get to the

00:28:30.320 point where you have the paradigm shift you're like look at 800 pound deadlift is not going to

00:28:33.420 improve my quality of life anymore i'm 40 years old i'm married i've got kids i've got a business i've

00:28:38.140 got employees i want to pursue other prs and we can do that because i've walked through the refining

00:28:44.160 power of strength training and i think that voluntary hardship piece of strength training is huge

00:28:48.000 i think for your listeners if they haven't done that they should do that they should pursue that for

00:28:52.120 several years get strong first and then once you're strong you can make that decision i remember

00:28:58.640 having this conversation with you for the very first time that you did this probably back in

00:29:02.240 i don't know 16 17 somewhere in there and i said okay brett you're strong enough for

00:29:06.420 anything that life is going to throw at you do you want to keep getting stronger do you want to

00:29:11.380 change the goal and at the time you said i think i want to keep getting strong i want to keep

00:29:14.480 getting stronger okay perfect and we did and we keep but i think if i asked the same brett if i asked

00:29:19.500 you today i think you would say you know what i just want to be like really healthy and enjoy life

00:29:23.420 and have quality life i think i don't want to is that would that be fair or do you know like hey i

00:29:28.000 really want a 700 pound deadlift at this point i'll do anything i don't get it does not does not

00:29:31.800 appeal to me it's interesting too how that how that changes happened so it was last it was actually

00:29:37.320 last year when i was at the the the event you had were at the block party where we um and there's

00:29:42.400 like a lift off it was really fun it was like it was friendly competition

00:29:45.520 and i pulled 585 which was like the heaviest i had you know pulled in a long time and i remember

00:29:51.980 afterwards i thought that didn't i didn't like that that that that didn't feel good and right and i

00:29:58.460 reminded me that okay if i wanted to get a 625 i'm gonna have to feel bad and i don't know if i want

00:30:04.780 to do that anymore and so it's been it's been interesting to see my mind shift on this stuff it's

00:30:10.560 been gradual hasn't been like one day i woke up and decided this is how it's going to be but for my

00:30:14.980 training it's it's you know you hear this cliche about you know process over outcomes and i'm like

00:30:19.040 oh whatever it's outcomes you need an outcome but it really when i go down to train i i don't have

00:30:25.480 like a a goal in mind like i'm this is for a 700 pound deadlift or whatever it's just i enjoy going

00:30:31.320 down to my garage i put earplugs in i don't even listen to music anymore i just enjoy getting under

00:30:37.420 the barbell and and just doing it i just i really do enjoy the process now that's not to say if if i did hit

00:30:44.280 a pr i would i would love that i would be i would be happy with it but it's not like i'm i'm not

00:30:48.940 grasping for it like i'm not dedicating my entire life because when i was getting those like heavy

00:30:53.560 deadlifts and heavy squats you you really do have to shift your entire life around that like you can't

00:30:59.520 well i can't do this because i won't recover and i got to eat this food and and it does become tiring

00:31:04.840 it's been nice not have to do that yeah for sure and of course that's not the case at all for

00:31:08.680 beginners and intermediates i mean you can get your first 300 pound deadlift and your first 400 pound

00:31:13.280 deadlift and really change your life not at all other than introducing training into your life

00:31:17.540 and so at the point that you're now pushing a 600 plus pound deadlift things have to change your life

00:31:22.600 you can't continue to pursue prs and and other things are going to you know it's like a budget

00:31:28.720 you only have so much stress you can deal with and so the amount of stress it takes to hit those prs

00:31:33.700 means that you have to pull stress or pull some weeds from your life in other places and for most

00:31:38.580 people when they get in their 40s and they're again they're businessmen or or you know husbands

00:31:43.640 and fathers and those things become more important and so yes i have always enjoyed the process of

00:31:48.800 training even when i was a very competitive powerlifter when i was a very competitive strongman

00:31:52.920 i just didn't enjoy the powerlifting meets and the strongman competitions as much as i did the process

00:31:58.740 to get there and and i i've always loved to try i love to train now again i have we have lots of

00:32:04.800 clients that they consider training a spoonful of medicine that's what it is and it's still about

00:32:10.440 quality of life improvement and the way it makes them feel and what they get out of it you know not

00:32:14.560 not for what they get out of for the pr three months down the road but what they get out of literally on

00:32:18.620 a day-to-day basis and they don't enjoy it i hate that for them i i want to try to continue to

00:32:24.020 find some motivation for those clients to have them it's funny what often the clients that are

00:32:30.240 that consider training a spoonful of medicine they're often the most consistent which is surprising

00:32:35.560 right the most compliant for me though i just i enjoy it i i enjoy training i train my wife

00:32:40.600 and she's pretty strong she's certainly not nearly as strong as i am but this is quality time for us

00:32:45.060 we go in the gym and you know our kids are you know 17 year old and 12 year old they're old enough

00:32:48.660 to take care of themselves they're you know they don't have to we're not changing diapers and feeding

00:32:52.060 bottles and so we can go in there we can get a good hour session in together as a as a couple we walk

00:32:56.880 around the neighborhood every single morning i really enjoy that we hiked in colorado

00:33:00.220 every single morning together i enjoy that like i love that process and same thing i'm not pursuing a

00:33:05.080 a pr necessarily for me it's about pursuing quality of life and health and and so maybe the pr is you

00:33:10.880 know waist measurement or body weight i've spent a lot of my life as a competitive lifter closer to

00:33:15.020 300 pounds to try to compete at that level and now it's the other way around i'm trying to push closer

00:33:19.740 to 200 pounds more you know closer and closer so the prs just have to change the paradigm shift has to

00:33:25.180 occur where you go well i'm just not looking for the single max effort thing that i can

00:33:30.100 do and so you know and as you get lighter for somebody like me i i can probably still hit prs

00:33:34.680 on something like a pull-up as my body weight goes from 285 or 290 to 225 i might be able to hit an

00:33:41.140 all-time pr pull-up right pull-ups for because i weigh less and so or whatever that is and so the

00:33:47.160 key there is to change or have some sort of perception change about the types of prs that

00:33:51.840 you're pursuing and and find things that are motivating and fun and that's what i think we've done

00:33:55.960 for you as well yeah another thing you've done too is we stick to the main barbell lifts for my

00:34:01.340 training but you've also incorporated some bodybuilding stuff to keep things fresh i'm

00:34:05.660 doing stuff with dumbbells like high reps getting a pump and i i enjoy that it just it mixes it up

00:34:11.860 and it keeps things fun yeah you just makes you feel good right i like it too there's nothing wrong

00:34:17.800 with those things it's that again for the beginner the beginner often does those things in lieu of the

00:34:22.640 barbell we want to spend our time pay our dues under the barbell first and once we get pretty

00:34:28.780 strong we can bring those things back in and and i think there's nothing wrong with some more of those

00:34:32.500 isolation movements or hypertrophy specific movements and so yeah you do a lot of like curls

00:34:36.960 and rolling dumbbell extensions and dips and a lot of body weight stuff you know chin ups and i do that

00:34:41.160 with a lot of my clients glute ham raises and and different things like push-ups and things like

00:34:45.200 that they just because it's enjoyable at the end and they've already accomplished some level of

00:34:48.720 strength and so the other thing that for the older lifters you start to get older in your

00:34:52.480 middle age it's for me it's much easier to accumulate volume and tonnage on those movements

00:34:58.620 than it is the barbell movement so older lifters are intensity dependent and volume sensitive so

00:35:05.620 volume just wrecks older people and when i say older people i'm talking about in their 60s i'm talking

00:35:11.240 about you you're listening right now you're 41 years old you're old that's sorry that is

00:35:15.960 you're volume sensitive you can't do five sets of five on squats anymore i dude i have no desire

00:35:21.300 to ever do five sets of five on squats ever now listen everybody needs to go through a period of

00:35:25.820 their life where they do that five sets of five like when they're 21 or 25 or 18 or whatever

00:35:30.760 now i do one set of five or two sets of three and then i get my volume in on those other things so

00:35:37.480 you know i've got a leg extension leg curl machine a glute hammer raise reverse hyper an echo bike

00:35:42.140 all of those sort of things that's where i'll accumulate my my volume and my tonnage because

00:35:48.220 it doesn't beat me up it doesn't beat my joints up anymore i've been a competitive lifter since i

00:35:52.000 was 19 years old i you know it's 20 years of competition or my belt i don't want to do five

00:35:56.860 sets of five on squats let me let me do the heavy squat it's still still a pretty heavy squat because

00:36:02.180 i'm intensity dependent but i'm volume sensitive and most older people are and so i'll get the volume in

00:36:08.880 with those accessory movements and i love them feels good heart rate gets up i'll do them circuit

00:36:13.120 style so you know heart rate will get up to like 155 160 feel good big both a pump in the muscle and

00:36:19.300 a pump in the heart and uh i just like the way it makes me feel and i've found that it does the same

00:36:23.640 thing for most of my clients okay so declining prs um not decline well the pr shifts you have to you

00:36:29.480 have to have a shift in process or shift in uh goals and focus more on the process and just learn

00:36:34.840 to enjoy it and that's i've made that and i don't think there's anything you could tell someone to

00:36:38.180 like this is how you make the shift it just i think it just happens naturally another challenge

00:36:42.640 that i've noticed in my own lifting experience and this might be unique to me but when i started

00:36:47.540 training with you my kids were little gus was five scout was two yeah and when your kids are little

00:36:53.720 they don't really do much they just eat and exist i mean i mean really they don't they don't do a

00:36:58.940 sleep and poop that's what they do poop and then they go to school and then they come back

00:37:02.520 well now my kids they're older so they're doing activities like they're playing sports i'm a coach

00:37:07.860 for a flag football team they're doing church activities i'm an adult leader for the teenagers

00:37:13.120 at our congregation and so i feel like a lot i've just like i have less time sure or time just you

00:37:19.280 know i don't so like in my afternoons i'll get down like man today i got this thing i gotta go to

00:37:23.800 i've got 30 minutes yep is that is that a challenge you see with you know particularly like late 30s to

00:37:29.820 40 year old trainers yeah for for sure i mean i i think that's just that's life in the western world

00:37:35.000 right is that we we get really really busy and so i think you know the question is then if i only

00:37:39.780 have 30 minutes or only have 40 minutes or only have 25 minutes do i just skip the workout or do

00:37:44.080 i yeah that's the question i always have like do i just skip or should i try to get something in

00:37:47.300 i should train okay and you just focus on density of training again density there's nothing don't don't

00:37:52.160 let that word like fly over your head it just means how much work can you get done in the amount

00:37:55.440 of time that's it right so if you have programmed three sets of five but you can't get in three sets of

00:38:00.320 five but you can go in and hit one set of what we call amrap as many reps as possible so you're

00:38:06.800 supposed to do three sets of five one squad at let's say 315 you're like well i don't have time

00:38:09.860 to do three sets of five but i can do one set of 315 for as many as i can do and you hit 315 for

00:38:14.440 eight or nine and you're like bro that was so hard that was that's great work in a short period

00:38:20.180 of time and the same thing on that except that accessory stuff that's why i circuit that accessory

00:38:25.480 stuff that's why i don't do all my sets of you know barbell curls and then all my sets of rolling

00:38:30.720 double extensions and all my sets of pull-ups like you just go a set of pull-up set of rolling double

00:38:35.040 extensions set of curls set up and you can do you know 30 seconds on 30 seconds off and in nine minutes

00:38:41.380 you can do nine sets three rounds of three exercises that's a bunch of work in nine minutes and so

00:38:46.760 i i watch my time again because i track it on a wearable and so i know how long my workouts take i i can

00:38:54.160 remember making this transition a few years ago and and training with some of my co-workers and my

00:38:58.660 some my c-suite we'd travel and do seminars together and they would go in and they were still used to

00:39:02.740 doing you know that hour and a half long workout they enjoyed the hour and a half long workout and

00:39:06.400 work and i would you know we we go to some fancy taj mahal globo gym in some city and i i get my entire

00:39:13.820 workout done like 32 minutes and i'm like i'm done i'm gonna go sit in the sauna and they're like what

00:39:18.580 you're done i'm like yeah i've done 12 sets in 32 minutes i'm done and so you know for me it's just

00:39:24.620 about how much can i get done in a short period of time i'm a ceo of a company i've got wife and kids

00:39:29.020 and same leadership at my church and i just i don't always have an hour hour and a half by the way i don't

00:39:34.320 want to give an hour and a half anymore i've done that for 20 years and so yeah i would say you still

00:39:39.060 get in the gym you get done what you can i do this all the time for my clients for for vacation one

00:39:43.260 of the things i love about online coaching is that because they're not coming to see me in person

00:39:47.420 so one of my clients that you know they go to i don't know mexico on vacation i say hey as soon

00:39:51.560 as you get there walk into the gym and take a 30 second like 360 degree you know video of the of

00:39:56.460 the hotel gym which isn't very good and i'll program for them and i'll say hey let's just do like 20

00:40:02.680 minutes in the morning you wake up you know you wake up half an hour for your family 20 minutes for

00:40:06.340 your family for breakfast and you're not wasting family time on vacation go down there you get a real

00:40:10.180 good workout in in like 20 minutes and it's just exercise it's not training it's not heavy squats

00:40:14.560 and deadlifts because most hotel gyms don't have barbells but it's something and it keeps the

00:40:18.520 habit up you feel better at the beach you feel better when you're eating the breakfast and the

00:40:22.560 you know and the all-inclusive food and so i think it's perfectly fine to focus on density of training

00:40:28.040 in those in those times of life where everything is just busy and crazy you can get a lot done in 30

00:40:33.900 minutes you really can and so don't use that as an excuse to not train yeah in my experience i'll just

00:40:38.980 skip accessory work if it's programmed and i've done that a few times where if i have

00:40:43.020 three sets of five but i only i'll do a set of five and then a set of five of the exercise and

00:40:48.300 that's it and it's basically i just want to get the consistency in and i don't know how much there's

00:40:52.600 this idea of detraining but i'm you know just keeping that stress accumulating the muscle as

00:40:57.260 much as possible yeah it's actually very real yeah not doing anything is not what we want to do and so

00:41:04.300 again when we go on vacation i don't necessarily want my clients especially my clients are like really

00:41:09.980 older like in their 60s i want them to go on vacation and just not do anything just go enjoy

00:41:14.160 especially if they train consistently now for most of us in our 30s 40s and 50s doing something

00:41:19.740 will avoid detraining and detraining just is a word that just means going backwards i just don't want

00:41:24.380 to go backwards i'm not going to get stronger on vacation i'm not going to get stronger on a

00:41:28.400 business trip but i can go in and do something and i can keep the habit up and i can keep the

00:41:32.000 consistency and the compliance up even if i don't if i'm not able to put a heavy barbell on my back and

00:41:36.760 squat i can still get into the hotel gym with dumbbells and kettlebells and body weight stuff

00:41:41.540 and knock out a pretty good workout and feel good get a good sweat on and and maintain the habit which

00:41:45.960 is really what i'm trying to do i'm trying to maintain a sustainable habit that lasts for life

00:41:50.560 and so that's that's what i'm doing it's just again takes a paradigm shift you can't do that when

00:41:54.980 you're competing for the world's strongest man that's you can't go down and do a hotel workout and

00:41:58.800 probably get anything out of it but for most of us we can for sure and i think the other shift there

00:42:03.280 is just don't freak out about it too i think that's one of the hard things to do when you're

00:42:06.840 transitioning from a beginner or intermediate lifter to this more advanced lifter you freak out

00:42:11.880 and you get all down when your workout sucks you weren't able to get a workout in the way you wanted

00:42:15.900 at a certain point you know what in the long run it's not going to matter that this workout was bad

00:42:21.140 just get it done and move on that's exactly right yep yeah yeah the type that type a person really

00:42:26.820 pursues a lot of time they're just like it's a check if i can't check it off the list then i get

00:42:30.760 depressed about the thing and and again this is about seeing the force of the trees this is about

00:42:35.320 a thing that lasts 20 30 40 50 years not 20 30 40 50 days and so when you think about it that way

00:42:44.240 like what's what's one workout gonna matter it's not it's not it's about the process all right so

00:42:48.680 let's talk about another challenge that i faced uh since i've been lifting for so for so long if

00:42:52.540 you've been training long enough you're likely going to encounter injuries it's like any activity you do

00:42:57.800 it long enough you're gonna there's a risk involved and what's interesting the injuries

00:43:02.540 i've had are not catastrophic they're not acute they're not like i was under the barbell and my

00:43:08.100 knee gave out sure the injuries i've had to deal with are tendon injuries yeah why is it that and i

00:43:14.500 think in your experience too with working with clients those are the most common injuries it's just

00:43:18.100 issues with tendons etc why is it why why do tendons get cranky when you train

00:43:24.140 yeah well those are what we call overuse injuries so overuse i mean that's what it is

00:43:30.220 and you know people first off everybody gets injured non-lifters get injured all the time

00:43:34.740 right so people like you know how many times have you heard your dad or your neighbor throw their

00:43:39.000 back out and then they don't throw their back out dead lifting they throw their back out dropping

00:43:43.240 their keys on the floor you know and so that injuries happen to anybody you're exactly right big acute

00:43:49.440 catastrophic injuries big muscle tears or like you know knee blowouts torn acls torn mcls that

00:43:55.900 sort of stuff almost never happens in the weight room as a matter of fact there are incredible

00:43:59.680 published studies on this you think about everybody's seen that kind of fail videos on on instagram you

00:44:04.860 look at how many people lift with incorrect form and they just do stupid stupid stuff and even in

00:44:10.280 those fail videos most of them don't actually get injured that's what's crazy if you're lifting with

00:44:14.720 good form with proper form with you know you're being coached the chances of a catastrophic injury

00:44:20.180 is very low but but the chances of an overuse injury is very high something like a tendinosis which is

00:44:25.740 just where it's just a it's it used to be thought of as an inflammation of the tendon it's actually a

00:44:32.020 degradation of the tendon for the most part and it's just where the tendon is overused there's not a lot

00:44:36.200 of blood flow to the tendon right you think about like an old high school or college anatomy class you

00:44:40.340 know the muscles are red the tendons are white and the tendons are white because there's not a lot of

00:44:44.060 blood flow and so there's not a lot of blood flow there's not a lot of nutrients being carried to

00:44:46.960 the tendons therefore when they start to become overused or injured it's very difficult to rehab

00:44:51.740 them and so we deal with tendinosis or what most people would call tendonitis more than probably

00:44:58.760 anything else and for younger lifters we see it a lot and as a matter of fact i think the first

00:45:02.700 article i wrote for art of malus was on how to deal with bicep tendonitis not the elbow what would be

00:45:07.100 called distal tendonitis right the the low end of the bicep down the elbow our older lifters often have

00:45:12.420 bicep tendonitis up at the shoulder right though a lot of people might not know the bicep actually

00:45:16.760 crosses the shoulder we see elbow tendonitis on the tricep side as well right we see adductor

00:45:22.260 tendonitis you dealt with that right in the groin tendonitis in the knees so the knees do hurt it's

00:45:26.680 not a catastrophic failure but they just you know patellar tendonitis like the patella and those things

00:45:31.480 are man they're just such a pain in the butt they really are because you can train around them but

00:45:37.300 they're not going to get better unless you really aggressively rehab them and so for tendinosis or

00:45:44.060 tendonitis or this degradation of the tendon we have a system that we've used it works pretty well

00:45:49.020 we've used it for you several times what we do is really a three-part system where you do an

00:45:55.980 isometric hold in the shortened position now i realize i just said a bunch of words that probably

00:46:00.700 a lot of people don't understand exactly but for example when you're when your groin was you had

00:46:05.860 not a strain in your groin but you actually had tendinosis in your in your groin which is the

00:46:11.300 tendon that attaches to the inside of your thigh to your adductor muscles right we had you make two

00:46:16.580 fists we might even put this maybe a picture or something in the show notes and two fists and put

00:46:20.740 your fist together and put them between your knees and you squeeze your knees together against your fist

00:46:25.960 and held it as hard as you could for about 30 seconds and so that is an isometric mean it's not

00:46:31.940 moving a not moving hold where you're contracting in the shortened position so we don't want to stretch

00:46:37.980 the tendon i had the same problem i would have achilles and plantar achilles tendonitis and and

00:46:43.560 plantar fasciitis and it wraps around the bottom of your heel and i thought oh i just need to stretch

00:46:47.540 my calves more i was getting when i was i was walking and hiking a lot the more i stretched my calves the

00:46:52.620 more they hurt and then i realized wait a minute i need to go up and do a calf raise and hold myself in a in

00:46:58.540 the high position of a calf raise for 30 seconds as tight as i can and then just come back down to

00:47:04.020 the floor i don't need to stretch the tendon it's a it's a degraded tendon i need i need to actually

00:47:09.320 let it get stronger in that isometric hold and so that'll turn some of those pain receptors off but

00:47:14.960 it'll also start to strengthen the tendon in a way that doesn't stretch it and continue to

00:47:19.560 aggravate it right and then once we've done that for a while we slowly increase the range of motion

00:47:24.360 and so we just start to move the range of motion a little more not a full range of motion a little

00:47:29.220 more so now maybe i'm doing calf raises from the floor but i'm not stretching my calf so i'm just

00:47:33.940 going up calf raise come back down on the floor go back up hold come back down go back up come back

00:47:38.140 down and then eventually i start to titrate up to full range of motion and then i start to titrate

00:47:44.080 the weight up and we did the same thing with you we did this with your adductor with your groin we

00:47:47.980 held the position we did shorten range of motion squats we made it a little better we

00:47:53.640 increased the range of motion on the squat nice and light eventually got to full range of motion

00:47:57.360 squat and then titrated the weight up and you were fine it just takes a long time there's there's no

00:48:02.920 way to fix the tendinosis problem in like 10 days it just doesn't work very well so it takes you know

00:48:08.380 this is a four week to six week process a lot of times yeah and uh yeah and the reason why it takes

00:48:13.780 so long is again there's no blood flow going there so it just takes a long i mean there's very little

00:48:17.660 that's right so it takes a long time for your blood to get stuff to the tendons to start

00:48:22.700 start strengthening it yeah that's right so you know we have seen people tear muscles i mean big

00:48:27.740 time strength athletes tear biceps and tear path torn a pec pretty bad and when you tear the muscle

00:48:32.980 itself it bleeds a lot like you gotta get the bleeding stopped you gotta ice it and that's a

00:48:37.400 that's a matter of fact i've written an article for your for your site there as well about the bill

00:48:40.520 star routine which is specifically for muscle tears muscle belly tears we've seen people tear

00:48:46.380 like i've seen i've seen guys tear their bicep tendon you know strong men do this all the time

00:48:51.300 doing the stones the heavy stones when people deadlift really heavy with an alternate grip so

00:48:55.420 they have that underhanded hand on the deadlift they'll tear their bicep tendon it doesn't bleed

00:49:00.580 at all like their whole bicep ends up in a ball up by their shoulder and there's no bruising it is so

00:49:06.660 weird to see that well it's because they didn't tear the muscle fibers they tore the tendon and you can

00:49:12.000 really see that there's just no there's no blood there whereas i i one time i had a partial

00:49:16.340 tear in my right bicep doing chin-ups and i actually tore a portion of the bicep muscle

00:49:22.160 itself it bruised awful so what you tear or what you heard or what you injure certainly depends on

00:49:29.700 how you rehab the thing and how you rehab a torn muscle or which is the same thing is just a muscle

00:49:34.820 strain it's just a minorly torn muscle versus a tendinosis versus a you know a back joint issue or

00:49:40.500 a knee joint issue something like that is is completely different the way you rehab those things

00:49:44.480 but tendinosis is certainly the most common thing so again isometric holds first slowly increase the

00:49:48.780 range of motion once you're at full range of motion titrate the weight up a little bit at a time just

00:49:52.760 be patient don't get greedy and that's how you get rid of the tendinosis yeah and we've used this

00:49:57.320 process i've had different so i had the the adductor tendinosis i also had an impinged shoulder for a

00:50:04.160 little bit there yeah how long ago was that that was like two years ago yeah it's been a little while

00:50:08.100 for sure yeah and then what we did there is there's really i don't we didn't really do any

00:50:12.240 isometric stuff but what we did do is we changed the way i bench press so instead of holding your

00:50:16.600 typical bench grip right we moved to dumbbells so i could have a neutral grip correct so an impingement

00:50:24.280 if you think about an impingement it's really just like it's sort of like early osteoarthritis

00:50:28.640 an impingement like there's something getting impinged between bony structures and so that's

00:50:32.700 different than a tendinosis and so we the first thing you have to do and it's really similar to the

00:50:37.680 tendinosis is you got to stop aggravating the thing and so if every time you bench press or every

00:50:42.040 time you press you're continuing to kind of rub the you know what it was essentially the head of

00:50:46.420 your humerus of the upper arm into your ac joint and you're you're kind of grinding that away

00:50:51.540 that's a problem so we have to stop that so we've got to stop we're going to stop because it's

00:50:56.140 irritated it's inflamed and it hurts and so we got to stop aggravating the thing and so you have to

00:51:00.240 make some adjustments often to the movement or to the range of motion but we didn't stop lifting

00:51:04.880 right like that's really important too that when you stop you don't get better like we continue to

00:51:09.980 lift through it because a strong back is a resilient back it's a back that's less vulnerable

00:51:15.620 to injuries everybody that's listening to this has got a hurt back you've got disc degeneration in

00:51:20.100 your back like you've got an old bum knee from so you're like well i can't squat yes you can

00:51:24.300 the more you get the muscles around the knee strong the less the less sheer force there is on the knee

00:51:33.100 itself because the muscles are able to handle that all that moment force that rotational force

00:51:37.000 around the knee i want the i want that force on the muscles i don't want it on the bony joint that's

00:51:43.160 a bad place for it to be and so anytime you have those injuries to say like man i'm just going to

00:51:47.240 sit around do nothing how did you get better you just got weaker and you just got more vulnerable to

00:51:53.520 a future injury and so we figure out we've got to figure out a way to work around it motion is lotion

00:51:58.220 it makes things better but we've got to do it in a way that's intelligent here's the thing with

00:52:02.820 injuries though maybe we can walk this through there is a mental game that goes on with injuries

00:52:06.080 you you i had these phone calls with you where i would just be like despondent like man i can't squat

00:52:10.920 this sucks how do you manage the mental game of injuries it's a whole nother podcast i mean it's

00:52:17.700 it's debilitating right the reality is is that we know if you do nothing and you've tried this we've

00:52:23.380 all tried this you do nothing and i mean nothing for two weeks nothing for three weeks nothing for a

00:52:27.140 month and you come back and do it the injury's still there so it doesn't go away by doing nothing

00:52:31.960 and so the frustrating part is trying new things and having a different tool in your toolbox every

00:52:37.880 few weeks you got to give it enough time so you can't do you know use the tool for three days and

00:52:43.240 if it doesn't work no no you got to use it for two three weeks okay we're not really seeing the

00:52:47.600 sort of improvement that we want so now we're going to change the tool so you rehab the thing that hurts

00:52:51.640 and you pursue prs that are reachable in areas that aren't injured that's what you do and that's how you

00:52:56.260 keep it going so and people do this all the time too right they they have surgery or they you know

00:52:59.920 whatever they've got an ankle injury and so they can't do it like yeah you can bench press with

00:53:03.460 ankle injury and you're seated presses with an ankle injury and you can do all kinds of upper body

00:53:07.100 stuff with an ankle injury and so yeah it's frustrating that you can't hit squat and deadlift

00:53:10.620 prs with an ankle injury but you can hit other prs and so you train what you can and you rehab the

00:53:15.520 thing that's hurt and you know we are very rarely in a position where we are systemically injured

00:53:21.100 right where we're like our whole body again like somebody's somebody's going through you know

00:53:24.960 radiation treatments or chemotherapy or like that's a that's a systemic thing they've got to

00:53:29.500 work through the whole thing by the way i we've had lots of stories of clients who have trained

00:53:32.980 through cancer and gotten strong and and would attribute a lot of the muscle mass and the strength

00:53:37.780 that they had built over the years to to their really their healing process through the through

00:53:42.320 the cancer treatments but for most of us those injuries are are acute enough they're they're in a

00:53:47.220 specific spot and so we can try to rehab that spot and hit prs and other spots and and that's really

00:53:53.480 how you fight the mental game is you just keep training and training through it and pursue the

00:53:57.880 prs that you can well matt this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about

00:54:01.900 your work yeah man barbell logic i mean we're barbell logic as a matter of fact the best place to go

00:54:06.520 for art of manliness listener is actually barbellogic.com slash aom and we have a specific landing page

00:54:12.080 there specifically for art of manliness listeners one you can answer a few short questions to get

00:54:16.140 matched with a coach online coach it's perfect for you in just a matter of seconds your first

00:54:20.880 month is free for online coaching there is no contract there's nothing to lose you can cancel

00:54:25.400 anytime and you can train just like brett does which is pretty cool and then the other thing that

00:54:29.540 we have on that landing page is there's a free ebook called lifting for the long haul which will help

00:54:34.280 you start thinking of strength training as a foundation for long-term health and give you a simple

00:54:38.320 approach to really strengthen nutrition that will make your doctor and your family happy so

00:54:44.300 barbellogic.com slash aom is a great place to start again we've got the podcast we got the youtube

00:54:48.540 channel i always tell people to consume the content first before you spend money with us i think that's

00:54:52.400 a great way to do it and and see if you like what we put out and uh man thanks for having me on the

00:54:56.640 show it's been a blast to coach you for the last seven years almost and oh yeah i'm excited for future

00:55:01.780 here's the seven more that's right i'm excited for future different prs i'm excited to coach gus in a

00:55:06.940 few years he's almost there yeah i know i'm always asking when are you gonna start training

00:55:10.300 right well yeah but i think the pr i'm working on right now is i'm i'm at a lower weight than i'm

00:55:14.300 usually i'm at 206 yep i'm i usually was at like 215 217 so i'm trying to get prs at this lighter

00:55:21.260 weight yeah that's a great way to look at it right so and you're 40 right you're 40 or you're almost 40

00:55:25.940 i'm turning 40 in december okay so it's coming so then we're gonna have the post 40 prs so everything

00:55:30.980 that you hit in january it's a new pr pr it's a new pr that's right it's a new lease on life thanks

00:55:35.560 matt i really i appreciate it well hey matt thanks so much your time it's been a pleasure

00:55:38.860 thanks brother my guest today was matt reynolds he's the founder and ceo of barbell logic online

00:55:44.000 coaching you can find more information about barbell logic at barbell-logic.com also check

00:55:48.700 out that free ebook lifting for the long haul it's available at barbell-logic.com slash aom

00:55:54.280 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash lifting where you find links to resources

00:55:58.140 we delve deeper into this topic

00:55:59.400 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:56:42.760 into action

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

From Novice to Advanced — The Weightlifter's Journey

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