In the Grand Scheme Of Fitness With Justin and Ethan
Welcome to "Coach's Corner with Justin and Ethan," where your health and fitness journey gets a simplified makeover! Join Justin and Ethan, two seasoned coaches with a combined 30 years of experience, as they navigate the labyrinth of health and fitness, unraveling myths from facts to guide you towards success.
In each episode, we dive headfirst into the vast world of well-being, shedding light on weight loss, dissecting diet fads, exploring diverse workout styles, and fine-tuning the often overlooked aspect of mindset. Our mission is to demystify the complexities surrounding health, making your journey not only effective but enjoyable.
Get ready for a lively and informative conversation that feels like a chat with your favorite fitness buddies. Justin and Ethan draw upon their extensive experience, sharing real-life stories from working with thousands of clients. No stone is left unturned as they break down what really works and what's just another fitness fad.
Whether you're a fitness enthusiast or a beginner taking the first steps toward a healthier lifestyle, "Coache's Corner" is your go-to source for practical insights, debunking myths, and embracing the joy of the journey. Tune in for a fun and engaging exploration of the truth behind health and fitness, and let Justin and Ethan be your trusted guides to a healthier, happier you!
In the Grand Scheme Of Fitness With Justin and Ethan
The Power of Consistent Programming
Programming transforms random exercise into structured progress, creating the conditions for measurable improvements in fitness results that random workouts simply cannot provide. The hosts share insights from their 20+ years of experience and explain how proper tracking leads to exponential gains.
• Variation in training is important but shouldn't be confused with randomness
• Effective programming means sticking with the same exercises for roughly 6-8 weeks to achieve progressive overload
• Most people either do the exact same workout for years or bounce randomly between exercises
• Decision fatigue is a real physiological process that can be avoided with proper workout planning
• Programming creates accountability and makes it impossible to ignore weaknesses
• Simple tracking in your phone's notes app can be effective—no fancy systems required
• Volume is key for stubborn muscle groups—sometimes you simply need more sets
• What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets improved
If you're not measuring your workouts through programming and tracking, you're leaving your fitness results to chance. Start writing down your exercises, sets, reps, and weights today, and watch as the same effort produces dramatically better outcomes.
What is programming in the context of nutrition? Because you can program nutrition in the context of your exercise, definitely can program for exercise. What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets improved. But if we don't measure anything, we can't expect to improve it. Welcome to episode 61 in the grand scheme of fitness. My name is Justin Scallard and I'm Ethan Wolfe, and we're your hosts, folks, the hosts with the most is.
Speaker 1:In case you don't know who we are maybe you're just tuning in We've been trainers, nutritionists, for over 20 years. We've worked with thousands of people I'm not being hyperbolic. We've actually worked with thousands of people. We've owned gyms together. At this point, ethan has a studio in West Hollywood. I have a business online, but we're still very much involved and working full-time as fitness professionals and we've come together with this podcast to just really have some fun and hang out with each other and talk shop about fitness and nutrition and try to give you guys like the real street level advice that you probably have heard. But sometimes the way we hear things, I think it matters a lot. Absolutely, what we're going to do is just take all of our information and bring it to you guys, but today we're going to be talking about programming Programs. So what is programming in the context of nutrition? Because you can program nutrition in the context of your exercise, definitely can program for exercise.
Speaker 1:And most folks just unfortunately don't do this and they're really missing out on so much potential. Absolutely, so we'll break it down. You're talking about your client, who you wrote a really nice program for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, this is kind of what sparked this. Yeah, basically he wanted to ramp up his fitness. He was getting some results and he was kind of getting buying in a little bit more and so he trained with me twice a week and he wanted to do four times a week because I think that's a nice sweet spot, especially for yeah, of course, resistance trades. It's great you get some nice a couple options for some good splits and that kind of thing. So, but it is a little more nuanced, meaning that, like, he trains with me twice, so those other two workouts are particular or specific in terms of he's got to do them on his own and they're, they're balanced, they are like they're, they're going to be things that he will do, that we will not do whatsoever, because yeah
Speaker 1:he did, of the way the split or the organization of the exercises are because when you're doing four days a week and now it's like you have a leg day and a push day and a pull day and then be like a full body day, and so he's on his own Upper body lower body or push, pull, push, pull.
Speaker 2:There's always ways to break it down, but fundamentally one of those we won't participate with all. So we do like the hard things for him. So we do like a push day and a leg day and then he gets to do like a pull day and like kind of like a single joint pump day. Yeah, but fundamentally we don't do any pulling because it's a little safer, it's a little easier to access, that you're on your own. But if he doesn't do that workout at all or he doesn't do it as prescribed, then he's kind of missing this whole chunk of his body, this whole balance to the no.
Speaker 2:When I look at the mirror man, it's my back and the thing was is that he was not that he wasn't doing a back day, he was showing up but he was kind of using the workout as like a general guide to what he should do. So he was kind of doing different things every time Classic, and just wasn't following this very specific program. Not that it was like fancy with bells and whistles, but this was a very specific program that I wrote for a very specific reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I asked him. I was like, well, did you do the four sets of weighted chin-ups that I have as the first like blowout exercise for you to do? And he's like, no, I haven't done them yet at all. I'm like it's been like six weeks since.
Speaker 1:I've been doing this Program's over dude, like I'm already about to write a new six-week cycle. You haven't done it once.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it just made me laugh to explain to him the benefits and yeah the challenge and the the ask and reminded him that it's there for a reason. I'm not happy. You're using it as a guide better than nothing, but you're missing out on so many benefits. You know like I I.
Speaker 1:There are so many years that I did not program and it would just be like a general push day or a general pull day or a general leg day and I would go in there and I'll be like all right, well, I'm gonna try this this time and like sure that is better than nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get a good workout. You get a workout like if, as long as there's some kind of structure, like but I was also a trainer so I had a little bit more knowledge than the average person and so like. But you see it all the time. I mean it's like it's endemic in the fitness space, where it's like people just go into gyms and they're just like I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yesterday I did this, so I guess today I'll do this I mean, in case you can't see, justin's like imitating a curl and like imitating like what would be like a tricep push down and it's really funny like a recent newer client would who came from working out but wanted to step it up. Same thing. I'm like so what? Literally that exact thing. I'm like what do you do on your own? He's like oh, I kind of like do these imitating curls? And like maybe something like these? Yeah, like no names.
Speaker 1:I just saw some guy do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did it, you know, I think that like it's like you go in and you're bouncing around.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think here's the issue. Here's an in CrossFit actually taught me this is like. Variation is important we all agree, but I think sometimes people misinterpret that as random. Yeah, and variation does not mean random. Variation means you know there's going to come a point where your body is adapted and acclimated to a certain routine and you're not going to get the same stimulus anymore, so you're not going to get any effect. So there's two camps. I think there's like people who just do the exact same work. They some trainer 10 years ago printed out a four-week plan for them and they've literally just done that for 10 years fast on mondays for a decade and they're like I don't understand why I'm not jacked like.
Speaker 1:And then there's the other camp that like they've never had it, and they just like, literally you're just imitating people throughout the gym. And so, on the one hand, we do need variety, we all agree with that. On the other hand, though, we need consistency, with a certain batch of exercises for a cycle, what we call like a mesocycle, and a mesocycle is somewhere between like four and eight weeks, typically, right.
Speaker 2:It could be 12 weeks, but like something like that right Somewhere in that zone. 100%, I like six to eight weeks somewhere around there.
Speaker 1:Anyways. So we want to hunker down, we want to pick a batch of exercises so that we can progress further each week for six to eight weeks or so within this framework. And so and this is, this is programming, this- is the whole reason, so let's say I wanted to have bigger arms.
Speaker 1:But then, like every time I worked out, I did a couple of sets of these, and then I get the barbell and I'm doing that. But I'm like, ooh, that guy, he's got big arms and he's doing this thing. Let me try that. Let me do pigeon curls now, and it's like any one of those are fine, but the problem is that the next time I go in the next week to do the same arm workout, I'm like, okay, well, let me do this now, let me do that. And so I'm just kind of like skipping across the surface of all these exercises.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of breadth but there's no depth, and so programming creates a container where we can sit with these exercises for all. Right, you're going to do two different bicep exercises for three or four rounds each, and then the next week you do the exact same ones. You're just going to add five pounds, and the next week you're going to do the exact same thing. You're going to keep the weight the same, but you're just going to try to push for one or two extra reps. Right. Then you do the week four, then you just keep doing that for six weeks for all muscle groups. And that is programming, and that is progressive overload.
Speaker 2:That is the backbone, is the progressive overload, is the witness of adaptation to what the stimulus is. Yeah, and it's necessary, and so it's either increase in weight and increase in volume. And it's like those achievements in performance are the key thing. They motivate you, it gets you psyched up and then you also know that the programming is effective. You know you can tell the accuracy of your work in terms of its effect versus, like you're saying, when you're bouncing around you have all this breath. You don't really know. Are you performing better on that curling exercise If you go from a machine to a cable, to a barbell?
Speaker 1:You haven't done it in a month, so how do you know? How do?
Speaker 2:you know Exactly. They're all effective exercises, but if you don't repeat them week after week, you don't really know if you're getting any better at them. And sure, I'm sure there's something happening. But when you can document it, see the difference.
Speaker 2:No you went from 10 pushups to 15 pushups in a month. That's factual progress, that is undeniable. There's no way around it Totally. And it takes out the guesswork. You're like oh, am I improving? Well, it's like, as long as you are in some way improving your numbers or improving your volume, improving your weight or your volume, you know it's working.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be complicated. I think everybody's just like what You're in headlights, like I don't know, like literally it could be pulling notes in your phone open and just okay, let's just say that you're. This applies to conditioning as well, but for the most part we're speaking kind of mainly on like strength and muscle growth, but this also works for like cardio and conditioning. But let's just keep it in the context of like strength because it's just easier to understand. I would agree. So let's just say, okay, I got three days to work out, that's it. Okay, cool, no problem.
Speaker 1:Let's just say we're gonna go monday, wednesday, friday great, we're gonna do a push pull leg split, the most basic structure of all time. Yeah, right, so there's a couple ways you could do it. I think we can talk about like different ways. You, you can do three full bodies, just fine. You can do, you know, upper, lower, upper, upper, lower, full. Like there's a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1:But let's just say, like we're going to do a push-pull leg, you can literally just take a notes folder out and you can just write push day one and then just pick a chest exercise, a shoulder press, five sets of tricep push downs. Great, yeah, you got something. And then every week you go in you open up that note folder and you, just right next to the bench press and right next to the shoulder press, right next to tries to push down, you just put how many reps? Yeah, you did. Oh, last week, with 135 pounds, I did 12 reps. I'm gonna try for 13 this week. Okay, that's progression. That's a program, the most basic, but it's a program, you know, and you're gonna get better results doing that, as basic as that is, versus every time we come into the gym to do a chest workout. You're just skipping to this machine, to that machine, to these dumbbells, to this, and you're just like there's no measurement, there's no tracking yeah, I mean I think sometimes I over complicate things myself.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was just reading about brian shaw. Who's this giant behemoth of a man? He's, you know, one world strongest man. He's like one of the biggest humans ever. He's like 350 pounds, not the mountain guy no, he's akin to the mountain, though he's like another version of the mountain he's just like a giant human.
Speaker 2:But I was looking at his workout and it was literally like standing overhead press dumbbell incline, chest press, close grip bench press, cable, tricep, push down. He literally just went vertical incline, flat, flat and then and then a single joint exercise. Literally three pushing exercises and one tricep exercise. That was his workout, like three to five sets of each and that really just speaks to like. This is a professional strongman athlete like who's?
Speaker 1:who's a monster who's a monster.
Speaker 2:His whole career. This is what he does, this is his profession but that but that.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing is because advanced people master the basics 100%. Because, like everyone's like oh, shoulder press like basic. It's like oh, shoulder press like basic. It's like you know, if you're shoulder pressing like 45 pounds, yeah, pretty basic, but if you're shoulder pressing 250 pounds, that's a real skill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're a skier, you're going to throw people around.
Speaker 1:Four sets of like eight at like 250 pounds. Shoulder press like watch out for that guy. 100%.
Speaker 2:That is a dangerous man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:You know, I think about programming is kind of like a roadmap of like. If you're just wandering around without you might even have like a compass. But if you don't have like a map of like the, the direct, like where you're supposed to be going, you might travel distance, you might put in some foot equity or whatever Sweat equity, yeah, and you also might get to your destination. But it might be way less efficient, it might take you a lot more wandering.
Speaker 1:You're hitchhiking, you're jumping on trains, you're walking. You're going the wrong direction. For a few miles You're going over here, you backtrack, you get lost, yeah.
Speaker 2:Whereas I feel like a program is like this very efficient roadmap that puts you on a trajectory that says you go this place, then this place, then this place, and by the end of your 48 weeks you've arrived at a destination in the most efficient way possible, which is being more fit. I think also we were talking about pre-show. It also holds you to like a standard, Because I you know, same with Justin Like there's so many years where I just didn't do a program.
Speaker 2:I would get a kick-ass workout in. But man and I was saying this to my client I was like as soon as I started doing programming, the results came so much faster. I couldn't believe it. And it was even in my performance, like you know. I'd go from like doing 20 push-ups so all of a sudden I could do like 40 and I was like, holy shit. This is amazing, because that was just part of my workout, was like a burnout set of push-ups and every week, totally I would test my maximum, especially calisthenics.
Speaker 1:I noticed like if you just do burnouts, like all right, just you know one set of chin-ups, one set of max push-ups, it's like wow, yeah, like it's just happening like I'm not even getting.
Speaker 1:I'm not feeling the the need to stop until I'm 20 30 percent more reps in than I was last week and like it's. It's almost like when you do that, yeah, the adaptation comes so naturally. Like bench press is such an easy example, but it's like if you're just sitting there under the bench every single week and you're pressing it, you just do more reps like you like. Whether your intention is to like all right, bro, I gotta fucking really push hard this week. Like that doesn't even have to be your mindset, I can just like. I'm just gonna do my best. Today you will find three, four weeks in you're cranking four or five extra reps out like and that might not seem like a lot, but that is probably a 50 increase in output than week one, 100%.
Speaker 1:And now multiply that over four different eight-week cycles over the year and five 10 years later. It's like that's how you put on 30 pounds of muscle. You know the right way, 100%, and yeah. But it's like that's just the thing. It's like you don't have to really try, you just stick. You just keep showing up in the same thing over and over again. Like you just stick. You just keep showing up in the same thing over and over again, like you just get better.
Speaker 2:You just get better at it A hundred percent. And I think it's like also things like look, we're all busy as adults, whether you have families or your job, and I think like efficiency of time is a big complaint or thing that people I don't have time to exercise and time is always precious and time can be scarce. But if you've got a roadmap and you know exactly what to do, and it's week three, four or five of six, and now you kind of know this workout well, you're gonna be able to go in and bang it out as efficiently as possible. You're not gonna be wandering around, you're not gonna know what equipment you have to grab, you're not gonna be like, oh, what should I do now? It's like, no, I'm gonna do my bench press, I'm gonna do my flies, I'm gonna do my lateral raises and I'm gonna get out of here whatever it is, and so I think it's one thing.
Speaker 1:It's like efficiency of time just goes through the roof, especially and also mental capacity, not having to sit there and think about it when you're tired at the gym and stress everyone's already there and it's busy.
Speaker 2:You're like right decision fatigue yeah, you know, it's like you're done from work, exactly like you didn't get that. You're after you forgot your afternoon snack. You're extra hungry, you're already bothered and now you're like your brain is going off. You know, it's really interesting. I was reading about decision fatigue and it's actually like a chemical process in the brain and so basically I forget. I wish I could remember exactly what chemical. But basically, when we make decisions, there's like a byproduct, a neurotransmitter sense, that gets flooded in our neurotransmitter gaps where all the actions happening gets flooded with this neurotransmitter byproduct, basically one of them from making all these decisions. And so, like decision fatigue, is literally our inability for our synapses to fire and catch the decision making neurotransmitters because it's bogged down with all like the secondary products that's kind of like the same idea as like atp or glycogen in your muscles, like it's just, we have a certain level of energy in our brain and like, once that shit's gone, it's it's, but it's like literally not even like the glucose.
Speaker 2:It's like because of decision making and they say it's like sleeping is where it clears out. So if you don't get a lot of sleep it doesn't fully clear out. And then caffeine is the thing that like basically blocks that. It's the same thing that kind of makes you tired?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you're talking about it. I read this I read a similar article as well, where it's like as soon as you wake up, your body starts producing this chemical and kind of once you hit critical mass, yeah, then you get tired. Yes, exactly, and so it's then.
Speaker 2:So decisions increase that same chemical and block it, and so the whole thing with the caffeine crash is the caffeine wears away, it all floods in or you're not getting enough sleep to clear it out, so you still have like leftover in your brain and you wake up and you already have trouble making decisions and and you're already tired because you haven't cleared out.
Speaker 1:So I think it's just like, in a certain sense, preserving our mental capacity and our efficiency, totally, you know you sit there for 20 minutes and you just write down a super like whatever days you can allocate for exercising, keep you know you can probably get chat gpt. Yeah, honestly, I've tried, honestly it's. It's. A lot of people have given me some I mean, I think, for a basic workout basic stuff.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's quite there yet. Like, trust me, if it was I would recommend it. But like I've been toying with it because so many of our clients like travel for summer and they want, and so I'm like, all right, well, let me just see if I go and like it's fine but then like it'll just be, they'll just throw some weird shit in there, or it'll be really redundant like yeah like there was one where it said it was five workouts.
Speaker 1:I was trying to get going and it gave me marching glute bridges and every single one of them, and I'm like, can we do something different? He's like, oh, thanks for catching that. Uh, you're right, that is redundant. Here's what we're gonna do instead. I'm like, okay, it's just not quite. I mean, it could be there for some people like.
Speaker 2:I think certainly there's also a thousand programs for free. I mean they're everywhere you just search out like basic weightlifting program basic body I mean they're out there yeah so, so there's a lot of them.
Speaker 1:But like taking 20 minutes or 30 minutes every six weeks to like just, or even like once a month, if you can even think about that way, like the next four weeks of my life here's, I'm gonna do the gym and then just get in there and do your best and then just at the end of the month, sit down for 30 more minutes and just write another one out for you. And the thing about it, too, is that what I know is we're right behind this. The camera right in front of us is my.
Speaker 1:We're in my office slash little home gym, which is just our spare bedroom, but like I have a squat rack of a bench press, I have dumbbells, a pulley system, super basic shit, but it's enough oh yeah and when I'm, when I write my programs out, as I'm finishing up, like week five or week six, I'm already starting to think of the next one, like, okay, like you know, here's what I liked about this last four weeks, here's what I didn't like about it. You know, and I'm, and like, as I'm working out, I'm like pulling my, my computer and I'm like kind of starting to like start to take notes and I noticed this pattern where, around the same week, five week anticipate the next one. I'm like I'm sick of this now. Like I've been doing this for six weeks already, like I'm kind of getting bored with these exercises.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm already like, oh, I haven't done that in a while. Like as, because when you're working out, you're thinking more creatively, your, your endorphins are running, you're in the flow. I'm like, oh, yeah, I could do that. I haven't done this. Oh, I should try that.
Speaker 1:And I start jotting things down and it's like brain dump, just not not like creating a program, but just brain dumping exercises that I want to do, things you could choose yeah and then I have, like this list of exercises that I haven't done in a few months, or that I you know that I just haven't done in a long time, or I just, or, I just really like it, just feel, even if I've already done it, it just feels good and I still feel like I'm getting a good workout exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you feel the goods from it and so then I'll just brain dump this whole list of exercises and then you know at the end of that six weeks, just like, just organize them and put them in the next cycle. And then boom, and so you find that you get yourself into this rhythm. Just got to get that first one out of you, even if it's the most basic thing you've ever written, like we were talking about, like incline press, shoulder press and tricep pushdowns. But that's a start, because then you do that for six weeks and then you're going to be like, oh okay, well, maybe instead of tricep pushdowns, I saw this one guy doing them overhead where he was pulling them over. That looks pretty cool too, yeah, and you start to build this autonomy, to start to start to build this like repertoire of exercises that you become familiar with, and you know it's the catalyst to just creating more dynamic programming for yourself as you go and it's also I think you know it's it can give you something to attack too.
Speaker 2:If you if the more intentional, like if you start getting this a little deeper, you can start to attack things and challenge weaknesses, because, let's say, you have a rotator cuff or a shoulder injury in the past and you should probably include some type of rehabilitative exercise, some external rotation. It can be one set like snatches like yeah, one arm, single dumbbell squat snatches, single barbell snatches, exactly.
Speaker 1:We used to do that shit. We used to do that shit, but it used to do that shit.
Speaker 2:But it's very easy to overlook those things without a program. But if you know, like I know I need to do it for my shoulder and I just like kind of have been like not putting it in my program. But I know, if I put it in my program I'll do it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And this next it. I was also noticing like my lower legs, I think, are weak, and I'm I went through this phase once, but I'm back at kind of looking at the shadows and I'm like, okay, I need to like put some training in my lower legs. And it's very easy to kind of not include those things because they just there's a million things that we could do with our body. I could do training for splits or sprinting, whatever, and so I think it's also a way to kind of one thing I took away from CrossFit right, it's like laser in on your weakest link and then just dominate it and then find your next weakest link and then just dominate it.
Speaker 2:And in that capacity. I think that's how these CrossFitters get so incredibly fit is that they leave no stone unturned. But they take these dedicated periods to master a movement or an exercise or an area of strength, and I think that programming kind of gives you that. It's like back to that compass of like, okay, if I'm aware that my lower legs are not where I want them to be, I can just hold my, I put it in the program and then look the other way, versus if I just kind of float around or you know.
Speaker 2:It's just like a way to create structure and what we might need, versus easy to kind of placate ourselves.
Speaker 1:Totally and like it it's. It's so true, it's like a form of accountability, because it's like we can all claim ignorance if we don't directly acknowledge something. Yeah, we're using this in the context of fitness, but it doesn't. It's not much of a stretch of the imagination to apply it to pretty much every aspect of our lives. Yeah, where, if it's like you know, I need to, I really want to improve this, this thing, when we write it down and then we schedule it and we're faced with it. To not do it now is deliberately choosing to not improve. But if you never write it down, you don't really acknowledge. You can still kind of like this plausible deniability we can be like yeah, well, you know, like I just haven't thought about it yet, but yeah, I mean, like you know, obviously you know I'm my, I'm.
Speaker 1:My arms are 10 feet long. Putting mass on them has always been a challenge for me. But uh, I got in this really weird rut where I was like just throwing three sets at the end of a workout for arms, you know. But classic and for a lot of the guys that would be plenty like if you did a back workout and you just kind of finish out with like three sets of curls yeah, like the shot workout yeah yeah, like they'd be fine for for most people, but for me, I'm like.
Speaker 1:Even there was a time I took a picture and she was just like wow, babe, your, your arms look so skinny and like. You know, if you ever want to just like, destroy a man's world.
Speaker 2:Deflate this like like got him from under the balls. You mean lean right sharp, no shredded yeah thin like skinny.
Speaker 1:I was just like that's it. So then, like I bumped it up to like six sets per exercise and then I put arms in front of all of the stuff yeah, while you're fresh, yeah right. So if pro tip, if you want to um, if you want to improve a muscle group, train it first while you're fresh, don't wait to the end of your workout.
Speaker 2:You know like it's kind of do the big stuff first, but so anyway.
Speaker 1:So yeah so that's what I did. I put, I put like five or six sets of biceps and triceps at the front of on my push and pull workouts for eight weeks or so and uh, then tanya was like wow, babe, your arms look bigger.
Speaker 2:I can see a difference in your arms, for sure.
Speaker 1:100 and I was like oh, okay because I look in the mirror.
Speaker 2:I'm like I look the same to me but like she's, you know it's nice to get to get that external validation. You look less skinny, yeah, you look.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your stomach doesn't look skinny anymore. Oh, it was my stomach you were talking about.
Speaker 2:What does it look like now? Oh shit, no, I got a client who's also super tall, I mean, he's like 6'6", I think, and we're working out six days a week, so working out a lot, but we were doing doing push-pull legs, push-pull legs.
Speaker 2:He was looking great, but his arms needed a little more juice. So I gave him a dedicated arm day, like a full-hour arm blast, no few sets, and he was like that did it Because we were working out arms, but similar, increasing his volume, but always within a workout. So I kind of flipped the script and gave him a pure arm day and like, not even like single joint, with like some glute bridges, just like pure arms and shoulders, all single joint, and his arms just blew up from it and he was like that he's like I'm seeing my arms get bigger. Finally, he's like they've never grown, yeah, and so it's just funny the volume, yeah, it's just, it's like the classic case if, like here, here's like just fundamental principles, right?
Speaker 1:Like people who say I've died and I don't lose weight, you just haven't died it enough, you just haven't brought your calories to the point to where you're in a spectrum. Oh, I'm a hard gainer, no matter what, trust me, there is a point where you will eat enough calories, where you will put on size. And if you haven't put on size yet, sorry dude, you just haven't eaten enough calories yet, and that might be 4,500 a day, dude yes, you know and like especially if you're like a young guy in your 20s, like it could very well be 4,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 5,000 calories before you're like, oh, I'm finally putting on weight. But trust me from a guy who's done this, I was at 4,800 calories a day for six months. That's intense Gross. I wanted to vomit every meal, but like that's what it took when I was 20 years old you know, and that's what it took for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think he took like 47,000, 5,000.
Speaker 1:He was like I have to order two dinners, like if he goes like, if you're training regularly like this, like your client, but like there's a muscle that's just lagging, which we all have, like I can do like four sets of squats and have huge ass that I can't even butt in my pants, but I'll do 10, 15 sets of bicep curls and I'll nothing changes. I'm just like but. But you know, there comes a point with volume that like eventually it's going to reach that critical mass point where it's like you're getting, you're eating protein and you're eating a calorie surplus or at least at maintenance, and you're trained like that you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna see some results.
Speaker 2:That's such a good example, because if you just kind of kept going without changing your program or giving the focus to it, you would have might have just continued down the road you know the same with like other client, but paying attention to what you need, changing your program, committing to those changes and then tracking progress hop on a scale every morning, like if you do, if your goal is to put on size or even lose inches.
Speaker 1:Like just do before every six to eight week cycle. Just do a belly button circumference around your waist, upper arm, upper thigh, yeah maybe shoulders and chest, but like, just do that once every eight weeks and then see, did that six-week cycle do anything for? Me right yeah no, I guess it didn't all right. So let's, let's. Let's either do something different, train harder, adjust diet, which is usually always, almost always the case, right?
Speaker 2:but it's still. That's like if your arm grows a quarter of an inch in two months. That's huge that's a lot, that's a lot or you know it's that measurable and now you can kind of see how it all ties together. It's like you have your training programs. You can use that for your body composition goal posts you know, take selfies and pictures and measurements.
Speaker 2:And you know, especially with the phone, like we all got notepads now, like I remember watching guys with their little book writing every workout down by hand, right, every set, every rep, every weight, because they didn't have smartphones with no pads.
Speaker 1:So imagine like this you know, like the modern day, conveniences are all around us, plus there's like a gazillion apps that just do it for you. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:So it's like we have less and less excuses. You know we have more and more time, probably in a lot of ways than totally, yeah, less stress. So well.
Speaker 1:Episode 61 on programming I. I hope that helped get you guys motivated to actually just start writing your shit down and tracking your numbers. What gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets improved. But if we don't measure anything, we can't expect to improve it. Measurement comes in the form of writing how much weight you're lifting in certain exercises, how many reps you're able to do at that weight, how many calories you're consuming, how many grams of protein you're lifting in certain exercises, how many reps you're able to do at that weight, how many calories you're consuming, how many grams of protein you're eating, and then measuring the outputs of that of like your morning weigh-in on the scale, your measurements around your legs. And if you're not doing at least a few of those basics, you're unfortunately probably going to be like the people we talked about in the beginning of the episode that can spend years training and just and just not really see any outcome. You're still wandering around the forest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just like yeah, you're moving, but you're zigzagging. You're not really getting anywhere. You know that same amount of effort can be channeled and directed and get really great results, and so I highly encourage everyone to just, at the very least, get a notes folder. Go on their phone and write some basics and you'll really see humans have a really hard time seeing numbers and not wanting to improve them. If you're having money issues, look at your bank account every single day yeah, I'll get you look at it every single day, see where every one of those expenses goes.
Speaker 1:I guarantee you you'll see improvement. Okay, team, we'll catch y'all next week for episode 62. Peace out.