 Question is from D. Printvale. What are the differences between a beginner, intermediate, or advanced lifter? Now, at first glance, this question seems pretty simple, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that. That's hard to answer. It is, right? Like, I would say a beginner is somebody who is learning how to move properly and learning how to do the right exercises for their body properly. Intermediate is somebody that knows those things. They know how to do the squats and the deadlifts and the presses and the rows. They've got good form. They know what the exercises do for the body. I think most people stay in intermediate for a long time. I think intermediate is a long phase. I was just gonna say, I feel like I could answer this really well for beginner and advanced. I have a hard time putting together the category that would fit all the intermediate people. And what I mean by that is, a beginner to me is somebody who is, they're very green to the gym. Most exercises are very foreign. Most of their mechanics are poor and so they're still learning the technique and what is it for? That's kind of like your beginner. And then somebody who's on the advanced to me is somebody who can intuitively lift. They understand form. They understand exercise. They understand programming. They know what their body needs to get to whatever goals they have. I think it just amounts to consistency. If you're an advanced lifter, you've gotten past the point of having those waves of momentum where it's like, I'm on, I'm off. I'm on, I'm off. You know what to do in the gym for the most part if you're intermediate, like you know the mechanics, you know how to kind of structure your workouts, but maybe you haven't fine tuned it to the degree. And maybe that's just because of the consistency, the frequency that you've been applying these techniques and you haven't really been succumbed by like, well, I don't feel like, you know, going for a few weeks to a months and then you come back and it's like this, this on and off kind of thing. No, I think advanced takes a long time to get to. I really do. I think it's advanced lifters. Well, it's probably like everything else. We talk about being a master, right? 10,000 hours. Yeah, an advanced lifter is somebody who can go by feel. So it's like, you know, it's like, like a black belt and a martial art. Like, you know when a movement is working for you, when it's not, you know, when you need to apply it more intensity or less, you know how frequency affects your body. You are in the unconscious, competent stage where you don't, it's like walking or breathing. Like I don't need to think about walking or breathing. It just happens. I take one step after the other and I can talk to other people and think about other things and it's normal. And that's what advanced lifting is all about. And advanced lifting, if that's the definition, it takes a long time. That's why I think most people are intermediate. Like in the past, I would have said, oh, you know, after about three years of consistent lifting, you're advanced. I think I changed that now. I think you could lift consistently and it might take you longer. It might take more like five years or six years before you really get to that place of really understanding how your body feels. I imagine it, I really like the 10,000 hour rule and it applies to most other things. I don't know why it wouldn't apply very well to this. I felt like it took me 10,000 hours to get good at being a personal trainer. I think it for sure took me 10,000 hours of training myself and others before it became intuitive for me. Isn't that funny too? Because if I went and asked, you know, Justin, Adam or Sal, five years into personal training, do you think you're a master of personal training? Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, I'm awesome. Now looking back, I was far from master of five years. It took me more like 10. I would say it took 10 years before I felt like I was. I like what you said. I think most people in their first year or so fall in the beginner category at least, like for the least the first year. And then after that, once you get pretty good form down and understand the exercise that you're doing, you probably move into the beginning stages of intermediate and then you're probably in intermediate for most of your lifting career until you've put that many hours under your belt. And just what comes with that experience is a lot of things that you learn along the way. And you probably are in that intermediate phase thinking you're advanced, a lot like what, if you would have asked me, five years into personal training and seven years into training myself. Yeah, I know it, I know everything I need to, but shit, looking back now, I go like, most of what I think I've learned came from years 10 and beyond. So, you know, it's- Well then, sure, but then what about those, people at the gym that have been there for like 20 years doing the same routine? You're stuck in intermediate. Yeah. You're stuck in intermediate. That's a great- But it's not the hours, you know, it's the education. It's the right hours. Yeah. What do they say? Perfect practice makes perfect, not just practice, you know? I think that's a great point. Now that being said, that doesn't mean that if you've been lifting for four years because you're not advanced, that doesn't mean you can't do an advanced program to work out. Because then there's recovery ability, there's your body's ability to adapt. Now that's totally different. Totally, totally different. If you've been training consistently, hard for two years, three years, you could follow an advanced workout. The problem is you can't write of an advanced workout. Yeah, right. But you can follow one. If you bought an advanced workout program and you've been lifting consistently for two or three years and you've got good and you're healthy, otherwise that's probably gonna be okay for you. You're just not gonna be able to create one for yourself. You're definitely not gonna be able to create one for other people. That's a good point because within beginner, intermediate, and advanced, there's different subcategories of what we're talking about. Right. And if you're just talking about- Like your body's ability. Yeah, your body's ability to train advanced lifts or to train an advanced program. If you've been lifting consistently for a year or two, you absolutely can train a... I mean, it's like the power lifting program we have right now. I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner, green first month in the gym. I would tell them to run like a MAPS anabolic and go through the three core ones that we originally created first. That's almost a years with the training. Then you would be, I think, in a great place to do something, move into that. I think the beginner, intermediate, and advanced really depends on what we're talking about.