 First question is from Bear Bowen. What's the difference between practicing a squat versus performing a squat? And how does that contribute to overall better physique, better mobility and longevity? Okay, so I'm assuming that what he means is practicing the squat versus performing in the sense that you're doing the squat to feel it in your legs, get a good workout, burn your legs out. So one of them you're practicing the technique in the form like it's a skill. The other one you're you're aiming for a really hard leg workout. It's mostly mindset. What's the difference? Yeah, I would say like a maxing out as you're referring or like you're going for a workout versus I'm just gonna make sure I do this well and practice the skill. Both of them have their value. The one that has the most value long-term is practicing the skill of squatting. I'm just going to the gym, getting into the bar and you're not necessarily aiming for any type of intensity or burn or feel, but rather how can I keep making this a better and better and better squat? I feel like that's got such incredible long-term benefits in terms of- Yeah and it too, it helps to kind of reinforce like your body's comfortable in that movement. It's very versed in that movement. So any sort of inconsistency or you know, something that's going to throw you in a different direction, like you know how to react and respond appropriately before you then really add more of the intensity, more of the load to it. So it's very important to do more of the practicing portion of it and then you know, intermittently throw in, you know, the really intense times. Well, when I think of performing the squat, I think of somebody who is following a program that is, you know, either they've structured it or a program structured progressive overload and last week they squatted X amount of weight and so this week they're going to add five pounds to the bar or they did X amount of reps last week and so this week they're going to do this many more reps this week and so they're progressively overloading over time in their program. To me, that's performing a squat, practicing a squat, those are all arbitrary numbers. None of that matters. It doesn't matter how many reps you do. It doesn't matter the weight, the load on it. You're going in there with the idea that I just want to get great at the movement and so what that means most of the time is reducing the load dramatically. It's not kind of like- because sometimes people think like, you know, when you go to practice a squat, like okay, you don't- obviously you don't want to be doing a max load while you're trying to practice so you back off the weight a little bit but you're still really pushing. Now like when I practice a squat, I'm like 50% or less of the weight. It's a lot less. I mean, it's such a light weight that I could pause at portions of the squat. I can hold at the bottom for a long time and think about the position of my feet and my knees and my chest and my shoulders. Like it's such a light weight that I can break up the squat. I can break- while I'm doing it. I'm getting ready to do 10 reps but I can make 10 reps take me five minutes because I'm stopping at certain portions. There's more flexibility there. Yeah. In the practice mode versus yeah, coming in with a very rigid, I'm going to get through these amount of reps in this many sets and I'm going to, you know, do it at this weight and it's like very much like this is what I have to do today. Yeah, practicing it also allows you or gives you the ability to unlock the total value and power of the squat or other exercises for that matter. So for example, let's imagine you've never thrown a baseball before. So you have no experience throwing a baseball and I hand you a baseball and I say just throw it as hard as you can, right? You would be able to throw it farther by throwing it as hard as you can initially than if you practice technique and skill at first but not for long. If you continue to practice skill and technique over time, then you'll be able to far surpass your hardest throw before because you've unlocked the maximum potential of the technique of the throw. The same thing is true for a squat. Practicing the squat, especially when you're new to lifting or even intermediate, practicing it allows you to unlock all of its total value for when you do push it because if you push it too early and you don't have good technique and skill, you're only going to go so far. Well, I also, another example where I think, you know, squatting for performance versus practice looks like this. Like, so if I'm performing and I'm following a routine, it's like, okay, today I have four sets of squats at 80% intensity with rest periods of 90 seconds between. I've already done all my priming or warming up and I get right into the sets and I'm watching my time between the sets and I'm going through and I'm adding weight, whatever, and I'm done. That's what performing looks like. Practice may look like this sometimes for me. I get into a set and I do one set and then I notice that, you know, my shoulders aren't being peeled back very well. So then I go over and I do like zone one and I'm priming for another five or 10 minutes and then I go back to the set and then I do the squat again and I evaluate, was I able to keep my shoulders back? Oh, I noticed now that my feet are pronating a little bit. So then I go in the next set, between the next set I'm doing, getting down and doing combat stretch and maybe some foot exercises in between and then I get back and do a squat again. So when I'm practicing a set of squats may take a half hour, you know, 45 minutes. I'm going in there with the intention to improve the movement of the squat and so I will break it down like that. I'll do a set and I'm watching myself in the mirror or maybe even videoing sometimes. There's great apps for this too, by the way, to kind of like break down to show if you have an excessive forward lean or looking at my feet to see if there's any break down there, see if there's any break down in my knees collapsing and I'm assessing it and then I'm going back and I'm doing priming movements to improve it and then I'm doing it again and then paying attention. So that to me is another example of what practice versus performing the squat. The difference between me as an early trainer versus a later trainer, training clients. I initially, when I had to get to clients, it was all about the sweat, the hardness of the workout, the burn. Later on it was about practice. People would show up and we'd practice movements, practice movements and get better at them, get better at them. The results they got were far better with the second option. They still moved, they still got good workout, they still built some muscle, but their form continued to get better and then over time we were able to push the workouts, minimize risk of injury and just maximize the results that they got out of those exercises. So in my opinion, practicing, especially if you're new to intermediate should be where you spend a lot of your time. Later on when your form is great and you can get in the bar and do a great squat, no problem, then it's okay to push performance more than anything.