 You know when I was in college I could stay up all night long most of the night I could yeah, I could whatever and then I'd train the next day. Yeah now like I don't sleep I drink I'm like I can't train at all. No, I don't know how you how you handle that, but You're listening to barbell logic brought to you by barbell logic online coaching for each week We take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship Welcome to the barbell logic podcast. This is Matt Reynolds. I'm here with Nikki as usual and I don't know if you've heard but the world has essentially closed down since March wait what and it's just It's true. It's true. It's a true story And it's just starting to open up and we have one of our amazing coaches Mac McGregor. Yeah in Scotland Who's gonna do like a training camp? Yeah, so it took him a long time to be able to open his gym back up And he has a gym called Capricorn Fitness. He's in Scotland And he posted pictures to his Instagram of them cleaning their gym and it was Amazing was like NASA level cleaning So they're really excited to be able to open again They're hosting what he's calling an all-in and lifting camp on Saturday the 24th of October And that just means he's gonna go over all four lifts and it's a really small group There's only three spaces open, which means it's gonna be nice and intimate weird way to say that but it means that it's gonna be very personal And you'll get to go through all four lifts So if you've just been like lifting in your cave and haven't had anybody look at your lips Probably a good idea to go get him checked out and Mac is an amazing coach. He's Well, everybody in Scotland sounds the same, but if you're an American getting coached by Mac, it's awesome It's great It's like being in bright. I love I love listening to the guy. Yeah, that's right So you can go to the events page on barba logic comm yes And you can find the link there to sign up for that training camp. It should be fun October 24th Cool and a side note. We're working on just a little teaser. We're working on a little bit, too Trying to set up our next couple. We're trying to do it You know very carefully and responsibly and figure out where the locations are gonna be for both the next just a fun Lifting seminar as well as the next ppc seminar. And so stay tuned those should come out very soon. We're honing in there Yeah, that's exciting So Matt, do you have any fun stories? Just get us started with As you'll recall our last conversation we had the melatonin vape story I Have been keeping this sort of list on my notepad on my iPhone for the last couple weeks I have like 17 stories that are ridiculous It's so bizarre it's it's essentially I'm George Costanza is really what it is There's I just have things like happened to me like George Costanza. So Rachel's parents Probably 10 years ago bought a hot tub and they use it for a little while then they kind of stopped using it They've taken they're kind of people take a really good care of everything And so they've been asking us for a couple years like do you want our hot tub? And you know like yeah, but it's just that's it's not like a you know It's not like getting a chair it's a kind of a big ordeal and So I've been kind of pressuring a little bit because I think they want to rebuild their deck and stuff in the backyard So okay, so so we decide yes, let's do it We get a bid from a contractor to pour concrete slab and stuff in our backyard and build our deck around it And then of course we have to move it well an empty hot tub Is about 800 pounds and it's you know, it's seven feet by seven feet. It's good size And so it's not an easy thing to move. So we've got a higher professional movers to move the thing So we had professional movers move us a year and a half ago and moved into the new house They did a really good job Movers are and first if you're listening and you're a mover, I apologize for what I'm about to say But they're sort of like carnies. I feel like there's a lot of crystal meth Smoking that goes on with movers At least in the Springfield, Missouri area and so I have interviewed a handful of them And these are not the sort of people you would want to take your daughter out on a date They're rough. They're rough guys and and so this company that I chose Were a little less rough than some of the other companies and and they did a good job moving us and moving our house And so okay, so I set up this They're supposed to move the hot tub and they're like, you know Hey, we're pretty booked out for the next several weeks but we think we can get it as early as Saturday and as late as Tuesday and So we'll call you. Let you know, you know later on this week as we get closer a kind of problem No phone calls. I text. I call ghost me. Don't answer the phone hell I'm like, what is going on? Nobody answers the phone And so then on Thursday of the following week It doesn't get delivered on Saturday or Sunday or Monday or Tuesday on Thursday of the following week I call they find the answer and I'm like, hey, you're supposed to move a hot tub for me and they're like, oh Yeah, what's your name again? And I was like, oh my god Awful and customer service is terrible everywhere, you know, and then the guy's like, oh, you know I had a funeral to go to and then I'm like What can you say to that? You know, yeah, I don't even know if he's being honest You just kind of came out later. But what are you supposed to say? You know, like I'm sorry for your loss He's like, yeah, we'll go ahead and get you on the calendar. When would you like that delivered? I said Between last Saturday and last Tuesday when he told me you were gonna deliver it And so that wasn't like a dick that I was just like, you know, as soon as possible because I thought it was getting delivered last week Mm-hmm. And so it's like, all right, you know, Wednesday, we can deliver it 11 a.m. Wednesday. Okay, got it So Wednesdays, as you know at Barbara logic pretty busy. Lots of we have lots of zoom calls on me on Wednesdays Yeah, and so I'm here and professional movers Professional truck this hot tub is going from a concrete slab at my mother-father-in-law's house 15 minutes away to a concrete slab at my house Seems pretty simple. So I'm like, well, I don't have time to go out there They're gonna pick it up and I'll be here and kind of make sure they get it in place here And so I am on I wanna I happen to be on like a business sales call with the CEO of a pretty big company who's Looking at potentially Bring in block on for his employees and my phone starts going nuts Oh, my mother-in-law who never calls me. I was great, you know And so I get up finally off the call and I should try for you. So the movers have stood up this hot tub on its edge and cart wheeled it Down across the entire yard on the side of the hot tub No into the truck and then when they get to the truck, there's three guys there They can't get it in it's too heavy to get so I have to call three more guys and while it sits on its edge Oh as opposed to You know having some straps and put it underneath the hot tub and picking it up and keeping it, you know, right side up So and then I have another business meeting with actually in town with somebody in Springfield and I tell my wife I'm like, hey, I know this is sort of out of your cover zone, but I need you to sort of manage this hot tub situation I've got these super important meetings that I cannot break today and she's like, okay, you know, the best I can So anyway, I go to the meeting I come home Open up my garage door and there's a hot tub standing on its side where I'm supposed to park Not on the slab in my backyard that's sitting there And I'm like, oh my god And the frame to the thing is you know busted up and not in great shape Which is why my wife made the call you can't put it on the concrete slab We now have to rebuild the frame to this hot tub and God knows if they're like the fiberglass inside the hot tub and stuff Has been cracked and probably yeah, so Because I needed another project to do we had to rebuild the frame of the hot tub and now I have an 880 pound hot tub standing on its side in my garage and I'm like, how do you move an 880 pound hot tub? It took six professional movers. Yeah Guess what we did rational. I went to a hardware store and we bought three eight foot long four inch diameter PVC pipes and We lowered the hot tub on the PVC pipes, which by the way was very difficult because that's real heavy to lower And then we rolled it on the PVC pipes right side up, right? So three PVC pipes it beyond to the third one would come out We take my kiddos would take it out the back bring it to the front put it on and we roll it across Well, it took about 12 minutes and we got it right on the concrete slab perfect and that's perfectly built base. Yeah Yeah, so the moving company hasn't invoiced me yet, but when they do They got we got a talking to coming. It sounds like you should invoice them. I Know I want to be like are you literally cart wheeled it down? I I hired some members wants to move everything out of my apartment and they I had this really nice mattress and Only one person showed up and I have requested more people show up It was just like one dude showed up and he like I had this narrow entryway This was when I was living in San Francisco and this like $3,000 mattress. He did the same king size He had it on its side and he just cart wheeled it down my alleyway and then up some stairs I'm just like, oh my god. Please stop like the only thing Right By the way, how would you like to be in the $3,000 Mattress business these days when mattresses only cost $300 now. Yeah, right Yeah, bizarre like it's China's like, oh, we're gonna get in this business and all of a sudden mattresses are 10 I remember when you when I first got married. I was like, oh, we can't buy a mattress like we can't That's what a car that's what a car costs You know, I think it's the same company eight years ago I think it's the same companies make the $3,000 ones and they make the $300 ones and it's the same mattress. Yes Yes, although there are still some $3,000 mattresses that you can get for the boomers who don't know better Mm-hmm, but in another 10 years those won't exist because everybody our generation's figured out But you can just go on to Amazon and buy a super nice memory foam mattress for 300 bucks And so we bought all the mattresses for anyway, so that's my just so you know There are 16 more stories almost identical to like just as bad and just as ridiculous that I'll just you know We'll just tell one every Ridiculous life stories with Matt Reynolds So what are we talking about today? Okay, so popped in my head that we could talk about Ways that you could be sabotaging your own training Maybe you don't even know about it, but it's little things that you're doing Maybe little habits you've picked up ways that you're holding yourself back Because you and I have had a lot of experience. I know with myself I probably sabotage my own training and then we have between the two of us just coach thousands and thousands of clients So we see little things that people do that end up sabotaging their own progress So I think we're gonna go we have like we each Matt and I each have our Lists ready, so we're gonna kind of go back and forth. I bet there will be some similarities We're gonna play a little sabotage tennis here. Yeah But I thought it might be a good idea to start with defining What they're sabotaging themselves from accomplishing so kind of defining what successful training is And that might look a little bit different from person to person, but what is successful training? What's your definition of that Matt? I think if I narrowed it down to the simplest definition it would be that Session by session Or week by week you are consistently moving towards the goal So if the goal is to get stronger, which for most of our people it is but not for everybody But if that's the primary goal, then you are consistently setting PRs That doesn't mean that you don't have a bad day or a couple bad days Or have some fatigue built up and we can talk about some of those even later in the podcast But if you look over time week to week month to month you are clearly moving in the direction of Progressing towards your goal Whatever that goal is. I think that's successful training I think as long as if the goal is to get stronger and you're able to keep it and wait on the bar Then you're fine. Mm-hmm, right? And there may be some things that you can still continue to fix and clean up and make better progress But I think in general if that's what you're doing then you're doing just fine But if you're at this point where you're like man, I'm really struggling to hit PRs where I'm really struggling to reach the goal I'm really struggling to maybe your goals to lose four inches off your waist and it's not coming off Like at some point you have to go. What am I doing to sabotage the goal? Yeah, that's the way I look at it Yeah, I'd say successful training is something where you are Driving progress exactly what you just said it could be all the different ways that we can achieve PRs And also it's still adding value to your life. Like there might be, you know, just acute days where you're just like, I hate training I really don't want to do this set of squats, but like on the larger scale. It's keeping you Strong so you have more muscle on your skeleton. It's giving you a habit that you regularly perform that Leads to something bigger and I think sometimes that's missing in people's lives bigger small It's just like you need like some things that every little thing you do leads to something bigger that adds value Yeah, that's good gosh that emotional side of adding value is such a huge piece to what we do I can remember I remember the first time I really saw this when I went strong and we had a really good Group of power lifters who were, you know in the power lifting world There's not really much money But if there was such a thing as professional power lifters these guys were it and it wasn't me I mean this was these were all guys that squatted over a thousand. These were like, I mean really strong guys and I watched them train and Nine months out of the year it appeared that they absolutely hated training. Oh, wow because they approached it like a job Yeah, it was a job for them. Yeah, and I remember thinking myself. I don't want to do that I don't remember ever feeling that way when I was when I was a professional strongman. I liked to train I always loved training. I've had times in my life I'm like, I don't like the style of this training like I you know, I was doing DUP and getting really strong, but I was also like I hate this So I have had times like that but for the most part I enjoy training. Yeah, and I enjoy what it gets me I enjoy the way it makes me feel so you're exactly right You want to be able to make progress towards the goal, but you also want it to bring your life Value successful training. Yeah So what is you want me to go first? I think we're doing the same thing you go first Yeah, we're about to try to okay So I'm gonna start with the easiest one. Okay, so if I'm considering if we're because obviously the goal matters But let's say for the vast majority people the goal is to get stronger Mm-hmm I think the first place you have to look is you have to make sure you're getting enough calories In order to get stronger So if you are we have lots of people that actually try to mix those goals, right? They're like I want to get stronger but I also want to lose six inches off my waist Mm-hmm, but those aren't odds with each other They might not be the first two weeks or the first month or maybe even the first six weeks But you are going to bonk at some point. So you have to make sure you get your calories. I want to be very clear They're you know our community and this sort of niche has developed a bad reputation Not necessarily at Barba logic for just like making people fat. We don't want you to get fat. No, that's a bad deal, right? But at the same time if you're not getting enough calories to fuel the sessions and repair You are sabotaging your training. Yeah, so you can't come in and go like hey I would like to get 20% stronger But I'd also like to lose 10% body fat at the same time. Mm-hmm, but that will save a train and those goals are Totally valid like of course you want to be stronger and of course you want to have a good body composition But it's like we need to be really realistic with like, okay Let's maybe work on one a little bit more than the other for now because if you try and accomplish both really hard You're probably gonna fail up both and then you're not adding value Yeah, that's a really good one. That's a great point. We will fail at both So there is a chronology that needs to occur there Mm-hmm in our world everybody wants to get stronger and everybody wants to look better and that is okay Mm-hmm, but it is hard to do both at the exact same time It's certainly hard to like put the pedal to the metal on both. Yeah at some point that'll come back to bite you So yeah, so that's my first okay. Good one. Are you getting enough calories? Are you eating enough to accomplish the goal? Yeah Okay, what about you mine is and this I think is maybe a little more common in beginners is you don't plan to train I Say the word plan because I mean you can't just say I'm training three days a week like no You have to determine which days of the week you are lifting you have to know what time you're gonna go in So that you can kind of create your day around it not trying to disrupt your life But it's like you have to pack your workout clothes or you have to have a place to train in your house You have to eat for it. You have to make sure you sleep for it like you have to actually Walk the talk of being a person who trains and by that I mean you put it in your schedule and you protect that time That's it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, because if you don't do it, then you don't do it That's right. This is one of those where I want to be clear I'd the last thing I want to do is be hypocritical here but this has been a big struggle for me as The businesses that I have owned over the years have continued to grow. Mm-hmm. I have learned that I have to train I don't necessarily enjoy training early in the morning But I have trained early in the morning or too many things can happen to derail training So I've had my executive assistant go in and my schedule on my calendar from now till Jesus comes back is blocked For all my training days, and I actually have blocked it out I blocked mine out minor blocked out six days a week Because we've tried to develop the habit of doing something so on days that we're not actually like racially I aren't actually squatting and deadlifting. We might just get up and do a walk Yeah, a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood. It's really good. It's good time for us. We get to talk It's good quality time for us Mm-hmm. Maybe it aids in recovery But mostly it just like it develops the habit for us and for those of us at block You know, we live using things like Calendly where people can go in and then schedule a phone call with me I have to have it blocked out or somebody will schedule a phone call during that time or something And so that's been big for me and it's made a big difference Recently another thing that I that you said that I really like is you also plan for the flexibility Because for this to work you else you really have to be able to adapt to your life so you block it for six days a week and Maybe like you only lift four days a week But you still have created the space for yourself to be flexible when you need to and I think that's important for people Who lift three days a week or four days a week is like you kind of to go into the week like no matter What I am lifting three days per week and you just know that you might like swing them around between the days But by the end of the week you've lifted three days and that's awesome. So planning and then planning for the flexibility Yeah, I've told my clients lots of times where they I don't care sometimes you'll they'll send you on our software They'll send me a DM and they'll be like, I'm so sorry. I missed Thursday's Workout is it okay if I do it tomorrow on Friday and what yeah, of course Like all I really care about if you're scheduled for four days or if you're scheduled for three days Is that you get those in if they're if everything gets pushed back a day or push for today? It's it's typically it's okay. So that's a good one I have a client right now who is similar to the issue of not eating enough calories Another thing that I see with a lot of people is over exercising Mm-hmm is sabotaging your training now. This isn't exactly fair you do that yet. You're an over-exerciser. I'm bad You know, I see a lot of people who potentially have some body dysmorphia Will almost always struggle with either Some sort of eating disorder or an over-exerciser Mm-hmm. Those are the two places that I see it most predominantly now I have a client that I'm thinking about who he is not this way at all He is training for an iron man right now for an iron man triathlon and Dude, it is every day We go into the gym and we're just trying to pull weight off the bar as slow as we can. Yeah He's bonkin because as he's ramping up into competitive season, he just can't get strong now Here's the deal his primary goal is to perform well at triathlons not necessarily be strong He understands the value of strength for triathlons But when I get somebody like that who's really like a competitive Endurance sport athlete you can really see the impact that it has on their strength training In the gym, I mean, you know, this guy he's probably lost. He's lost about 20% of His weight maybe 25% of it. I mean, it's a pretty Significant and with with not much change in body weight You know, he's maybe lost five or six pounds from all the all the exercise and again for him Very tough to eat enough calories do all those sort of things But if you're a chronic over-exerciser if you're the kind of person you want to get strong But you also need to run five miles every morning to feel like you did something That is sabotaging your training and it's very much related to the previous ones. We've talked about. Yeah I had something like that written on my list and it's actually something I was doing on yesterday I uploaded my workout to Matt yesterday I did like a million bench press sets But like my arms were just like destroyed from all the non-gym stuff I was doing and your response is perfect It's like good. You're doing fun stuff. That's exactly what you should be doing. But like, yeah You're like I went kayaking now. That sounds cool. I live in Southern California. It's gorgeous all the time Like you got to go and do that. Yeah, but like you have to remember that it's the only thing That's right We've got mountains fire and stuff, you know But okay Matt has no idea where I live Not True she lives in the one area of California the only area of California that doesn't have homeless people shooting up heroin in front of children We just have rich people do that area between LA and San Diego So I had programmed you I've done this a little bit with you lately on bench press to say rather than programming your sets and reps I say give me a total of 30 reps at this weight, right? And I don't care how many sets it takes and you would have normally gotten that taken care of in like four sets Yeah, or five sets and it took you like seven or eight sets yesterday and you're like, yeah, but I did this and I act a bunch I was like cool. That's fine. Like you're out and it's nice and who cares. Yeah, awesome So like the way I summarize that up for how you could sabotage is if you're really kind of narrow minded and what your Expectations are so like if I went in to that date of bench yesterday. I was like sweet. I got to do 30 reps 140 I'm gonna knock this out three sets of 10 and I was just like my arms are too tired to do that So at that point I could have either been like like this program isn't working Like I'm supposed to be getting stronger so that I can be better at all the things that I do outside the gym Clearly it's not working like this is terrible or I could kind of take a full survey of the circumstances and be like Oh, okay, I'm tired because of this and you know, I'm still able to complete my workout I have flexibility in what the accomplishments are and what my expectations are. That's fine So that's a real important mindset sabotage there is like keeping a full awareness of what the circumstances are around What you actually do and around what your expectations are or else like like you might think that strength is gonna cure everything and like I was even chuckling as I was kiking because it was like really hard I thought I was strong enough for this and I was like, okay, this is the second time I've done this like it's okay So yeah, you can you just have to be really careful not to have like really Like bipolar expectations like this is yeah I'm failing all over the place or I'm succeeding and I'm the best ever like you really have to like Keep yourself in check. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah Yeah, you have to think about too like when it's programmed. I program it that way for you right now for that very reason perfect You know, you know, there's some flexibility in the programming No, if you were supposed to hit three sets of five and you couldn't it's a little more like okay Why didn't you it's three sets of five? And you know, I talked to my clients about this all the time like well, let's talk about what's going on like Oh, I hi act for eight hours yesterday. You're like, well, it makes sense. And that's fine. You're fine Yeah, and so but the way you had it like I don't care if it takes eight sets right now or four sets That's all that's the same. So I will piggyback off of that and say I think one of the biggest problems I see especially for people who don't have a coach is Program hopping Something doesn't work for a day or two and they change the product. They're like, it's the programming, right? It doesn't work No, it's probably not it's probably not the program, right? There are some bad programs out there, but we've talked about it many times on the podcast that is so far secondary To consistency and technique and so some of it is People are Inherently pessimistic and when they have a bad day or two bad days, which might it could be outside stress It could be fatigued from the program like there are lots of things that could be occurring and They're so pessimistic. They're like, well the program is the problem It's I need to change the program But more often than not I actually see people who are addicted to variation Like the world this is one of the things about I really am very thankful for CrossFit And what CrossFit has brought us in the fitness world is exposed millions and millions of people to barbells But it's also sort of gotten a lot of people millions of people probably addicted to constant variation. Yeah, and Good training we say it's simple hard and effective. It's well another word for simple Which is not as good of a marketing tagline is boring, right? It's kind of boring. It's kind of monotonous It's kind of do the same thing that you did last time But add a little bit of weight this time or add a little bit of line this time and when you hop programs You are sabotaging your training almost every time even when you hop from a good program to a good program You're sabotaging your training because they hold on each other, right? So we did that podcast just a couple weeks ago about you know When when the small increment isn't the minimum effective dose Occasionally like once every few years you have a client that's done this and sort of done the grinding thing for so long and made the Little incremental change and the little incremental change and the little incremental change for years And they're like they just need sort of a completely new program They kind of need to change their goals and move a different direction and every once in a great while every several years That's perfectly okay. It's perfectly acceptable But I see people all the time that read the new workout in muscle and fitness I mean read the new thing on T nation calm or whatever, but I'm gonna try that thing Well, like you they don't give it enough time to work or not work or really matter And so yeah program hopping is not a good thing. Yeah, and that's I feel like that's something We're really aware of since we've been doing this. I've been doing this now for I don't know 12 years You've been doing this for like 60 years Just kidding A whole lot of years you're much younger than that, but like you can really see the value of being 23 years 23 That's awesome. That's really cool. Yeah, 23 years. Yeah, coach. Yeah Actually, this just came up in jujitsu this morning We've been working this certain guard pass and they're like different ways that you can make this move work and Our coach said in a really nice and like eloquent way You just got to try harder sometimes and not give up and keep trying And he was saying like, you know when you're actually drilling at someone like it might not work the first time Try it again the second time try harder Don't just abandon it and go to something different because then you're just like Doing a lot of different things that aren't working versus being persistent and actually adapting to the situation of making it work So you have to like yeah, give it consistency to get any real feedback as to whether it's working or not Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, this is my biggest frustration as a parent With my kids is that somehow and I was never wired this way They are wired with the I can'ts Like, you know, you're doing your math homework. So I can't do it And they shut down and I was like I was never that way Like well, we got to learn how to be a problem solvers guys. You got a problem So yeah, like you don't want to always do whatever the thing is but Stay with math Like what good is it to just do math? Like I don't want to sit down and do an entire sheet of paper that's like single digit edition four plus four is this five plus six is that like Like you want to do math just above your reach just a tiny little bit above Your reach and you're going to fail and you're going to fail several times in a row And maybe you're going to fail lots of times in a row, but eventually you're going to get it And that's how you step up and get better on training is exactly the same thing Like we do this thing that that's what we're doing. We're stressing our body in a way that it hasn't been stressed before And forcing our body to adapt but and it's the same thing as you're trying to like pass guard and you haven't done it before And you're like, I screwed it up. I screwed it up. I screwed it up And eventually like you develop the motor pattern you do the thing right And then it's late and you and you've done it now you start to work on the next more advanced thing And so this is the problem with the program hopping is that you kind of get into the I can'ts Well, Texas method didn't work for me. Well, five three one didn't work for me. We'll blocked and well hold on The common denominator of all these programs not working is you Which means it probably wasn't the program was it being narrow-minded again. Yeah, mm-hmm. Okay. That's good. That's good Okay, my next one is that you don't track your progress So with and by that I mean you need to track prs You need to track the date at which you hit certain prs one three five rep maxes whatever two and four three but three sets across like prs at certain body weights Because you're gonna have lots of moments where your question like is this even worth it? Am I even getting better? Is it time to program hop? And you need to have actual data to draw you back to that reality And that's one of the great things about lifting is that there is reality because we know the weight on the bar So if you don't track your progress if you're not watching your metrics or keeping a workout log Or giving yourself any realistic concept of how you're doing You're going to convince yourself to believe that nothing is working Especially if you have that that mindset already. We're just like, man, this isn't working. This is rubbish Like no like look at the data look at Where you were last year look at where you were two years ago Whatever give yourself some sort of progress to to be mindful of Yep. Yeah, I've said this lots of times of the single greatest metric That we track is prs. It's the personal record And it used to actually bother me especially when I was a really intense competitive power lifter Where I really just tracked like my one rep max squat and my one rep max deadlift and those things Used to bother me a little bit when I'd have a client that'd be like, oh, this is my squat pr In knee sleeves and this is my squat pr and in knee wraps And this is my squat pr and hole four on my belt and hole five on my belt and I actually like that stuff Yeah, um, I mean, it's a little neurotic I don't do that But it doesn't bother me at all when a client when a client does it Because you know, they're like, oh, this is an under 40 pr. This is a pr for my 30s This is a pr under 220 pounds or over 200 like whatever the thing is like perfect like chase prs But you can't do that if you don't track What you're doing so prs matter you should know that one rep max the three rep max the five rep max At all the different weight increments that you know, whatever those things are and because it's so valuable to go back and look When you hit all those prs You'll go and training is like this right you'll go months at some point and not hit a single pr And then you'll get to a point where you'll go A couple months and you'll hit a ton of prs and you want to be able to go back and look and go What was I doing? To be able to hit those prs like it really makes helps make sense of the programming. Yeah, yeah that tracking is Incredibly important. I would totally much rather hang out with someone who Has like a long list of prs even if they're like kind of creative prs Then someone who's just like nope my one rep max has not gone up ever and this is the worst. Yeah Yeah, sounds like a much more fun to start I did that Yeah, for sure. I don't Like I said, I I don't keep you know I don't keep like oh this were I had a pr in my blue knee sleeves And this is my pr in my black knee sleeves and I don't do that necessarily But I did change quite a bit when I started doing west side style training because west side does so many variations on the lift So yeah, for example, so you would obviously have here's my deficit deadlift pr my rack pull pr So let's use those so deficit deadlift I had a deficit deadlift pr a one inch deficit a two inch deficit and a three inch deficit And a rack pull pr at every individual hole on the rack, you know, I have clients all the time We talked about this in our press podcast last week week four last about, you know, pin presses like they do press lockouts You know from the mouth from the nose from the eyes from the eyebrows from the top of the head from two inches above the head Like obviously you should keep prs for all those It's way easier to do a press lockout from two inches above the head Then it's to do it from your nose, right? And so be able to track those things so that we can go back and revisit and we want to be able to We want to be able to go back and do that exact same thing again so we can test I don't want to just go back and do a press lockout six weeks later from two inches above the head And not really have the same setup. I did last time. I went the same setup So I can see that I actually made progress or didn't yeah Yeah, it makes a big difference for sure I like that because then you're actually tracking what you're doing because you don't go for 135 rep max very often. So now you're keeping a record of the way that you're actually training. I like that Yep, I am going to change. I'm going to change directions just a little bit I'm going to give you a maybe my first bro science one So I'm going to go back to nutrition um If it fits your macros has been really popular for the last 10 or 15 years now and it works fantastic It's tracking nutrition. Just like we talked to just like tracking prs, right? It works great and it makes it a science But from what I understand most of the literature has said that if you If you get your macros the way you're supposed to it really doesn't matter Where you get them from or the quality of food and you see a lot of people that eat their macros and they You know, the the carbs come from pop tarts and they you know, whatever, right? There's too much alcohol and and My experience both as a lifter and as a coach tells me that quality food matters and if I If I get my macros, but I have Too many of my calories are coming from alcohol or I hit my macros just perfect and I'm eating bacon double cheeseburgers from McDonald's I feel like Mm-hmm And when I eat high quality food high quality protein lots of greens Lots of water, you know, lots of no calorie drinks Even if the calorie total calorie consumption From day to day is the same. My training is significantly better With high quality food and I I can't prove that Maybe there's some stuff that's starting to come out in the data But i'm telling you my experience has clearly shown that it makes a difference totally feel a lot better Less bloated sleep better. Feel better. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, total digestion I'm sure I'm sure it's on another level above bro science. Yeah, I think there's probably real science on it But I'm totally with you. I always notice the difference of like if it's just eating calories for calories or if I'm eating nutrients For nutrients, you know, totally different That's right And I'd be the first to admit too that even though there is probably some real science behind it I understand that there's also probably a significant placebo effect that occurs That when I'm eating Healthy when I'm eating that way. I'm thinking of myself as an athlete I'm thinking about eating for fuel for the training. It just sort of feels better And so whether it's actually true or not actually doesn't matter, right? It's it's kind of some of those things when we talked about like well does Massage really help this foam rolling really help does russian stem really help the ice baths really help You know what if you feel like they make you better Even though there's no data to support that like why that's do it. That's great. You know, you're taking care of yourself That's right. I don't know if asana makes you live more weights tomorrow But if you feel like you're taking care of yourself and you're acting like an athlete It's kind of that act as if I think that's a big part of it. I think nutrition plays a big role there for sure That's a good one Okay, I have one more and that is When you compare yourself to others You can really make yourself feel bad about yourself like I have a lot of lifters that I look up to or that I Respect, but if I start comparing my numbers to them or if I compare my body to them Or anything like that it really can let you just go down these rabbit holes of your own insecurities So I think it's good to kind of celebrate other people who might be a little bit better than you But don't compare yourself to them because you are on your own journey sounds really southern california of me, but like You know, you're coming from somewhere different you have your own mindset You have your own genetics like mom and dad gave you what you got and their parents gave them what they got And they had their totally own history So don't don't fall into that trap of thinking that you should be As good as someone else. So you should look like someone else like you have to Enjoy your training for you and what you're doing. That's a big one. That's good. That's good One of my last ones would be and this is another really obvious one But I want to make sure that it's mentioned is you got to have good sleep hygiene Oh, yes sleep is so important. It might be more important than nutrition Certainly as important and it's not just about, you know, we've gone from this sort of old adage of well You need eight hours a night, which is probably true and probably really good But sleep hygiene I think the concept of going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time And everybody knows that I'm kind of early to bed early to rise kind of guy But I don't think it has to be that I just think it needs to be if you go to bed at midnight every night and get up At 8 a.m. Every morning. I think it's perfectly fine. Let's say you got your eight hours But there's something about finding that schedule and doing the thing and then having good sleep hygiene Right. So yeah, not checking the phone in bed and making sure it's cool in your room and making sure it's start We have an entire podcast episode on that in the past. It's made a big difference in my life You know, I have a c-pap. That's another one that for you mostly for the males, but certainly my mom lots of people have C-paps that are they're not males Um, it has changed my life. My sleep is so much better And there's an app that my c-pap uses that tells me what the quality of sleep was the next morning So very first thing I do I wake up Like anybody else I got to go pee I'm completely blind as I've talked about in the podcast in the past I walk into the bathroom and I sit on the toilet because there's no way I could hit it without my context in So I sit on the toilet, but I what's it called? I'm nearsighted, right? So I can see the things that are near but I can't see things that are far So the first thing I do is I sit down and pee and I pull up my sleep app And I look at how the quality of sleep and it tells me How long I slept and it's awesome because it knows really how long I slept It knows based on my breathing pattern how long I slept How many times I adjusted my mask in the night? It tells me the number, right? How many times I took it off so it also will know like how many if I got up to the bathroom But now I've heard of people who struggle with sleep And I've never really struggled with insomnia Occasionally I've had you know like crazy stuff going on in my life And there's just your brain's going nuts But you can get obsessive about those things and then if your sleep is not great You get a little more obsessed about well This thing will score me on a score of zero to a hundred and so I'm like, uh, if I'm in the 90s I'm great and I was like, oh is it 87 last night? I don't know what's going on Then occasionally I'll have like a bad night of sleep For me if I see that I had a bad night of sleep It doesn't like wreck my day it actually tends to tell me like hey, I should probably take a nap Today I should see if I can get a one hour nap in mid afternoon But that good sleep hygiene has changed my life and as I get older You know when I was in college I could stay up all night long most of the night I could drink I could whatever and then I'd train the next day and I'm yeah now like I don't sleep I drink I'm like I can't train at all I don't know how you how you handle that but I'm a total total wreck like there's yeah I'm in a really bad state if I stay up past 11 And then I'm on a really bad state if I go to bed on time But if I drink too much and then if I drink too much and go to bed past 11 Like I just need to go to the hospital like it's so bad. I cannot handle it. Yeah Yeah, I've seen that out of you a couple times at this point I'm kind of the same way. It's sort of weird that I don't feel good if I get like five hours of sleep four hours of sleep I most people don't And I don't feel good if I have a little bit too much to drink But if I don't get enough sleep and I have a little too much to drink It's so bad It is awful and it doesn't it's not you know again There were times when maybe I've you know, I'd been hungover when I was 22 And you're recovered by 3 30 in the afternoon the next day. Yeah, right? Yeah now in my 40s My hangovers last six days. My training is ruined for the week. Oh, yeah It's like and I remember being hopeful during hangovers when I was younger But now there's no hope. It's just like, okay. Well if this is how life is like, I don't know No, maybe maybe I should just put myself out of my misery. That's right. So You know, some of those are obviously super obvious, right? Yeah, you don't stay up Overdrinking and not sleeping But I'm still surprised at how many people You know, look at their phone all night in bed check their text several times or the emails in the middle of the night Have that have that cell phone light in their face watch tv in bed Go to bed at all kinds of different times of the night You know that and so just even so if it's not if you're somebody just like I don't And that's not us either like what's not common for me to drink too much and not sleep That's right. That's a once a year that I drank a little too much and didn't sleep enough But it's been very important like I go to bed early right now. I run a date the other night And I remember it was like I was like, man, it's about time for what time is this week? I'm we got on this like nice restaurant had some drinks And I looked at I was like, man, I'm sleepy. It was 6 47 p.m You know what we did got in the car drove home Went upstairs and at 7 17. I was in bed Now I didn't go to sleep. You know, I read a little bit A three little wall street journal or whatever and then yeah, but by 8 p.m. I was out and it was glorious I love it. It was glorious We could talk about sleep for a while Yeah, we could we could so So those are there's a big handful of things that you could be doing to sabotage your training some are Probably more obvious than others things like over drinking not having enough calories over exercising But also making sure that you're doing those things we talked about about making sure that training adds value to your life That you're dedicated to the thing that you're not a Program hopper that you all of those things those are the ones that tend to sneak in and get people Especially the ones who have trained for a while That know that they're not supposed to obviously we're not supposed to have seven glasses whiskey before we go to bed But if you've done a program for three weeks, you're like, I don't really like this program And you switch programs you do it again four weeks later Things like that are the things that'll sneak in and get you and really sabotage your training And so I think that's really important and the last one off of this and I really don't mean this to be a commercial but If you don't have a coach or you don't have someone see you lift at least on occasion You are sabotaging your training. And so this is not a plea to get you to join barba logic online coaching Um, you know for us. I've talked about this lots of time one of the things I've really missed about 2020 with the year of covid Is I haven't been able to get in person coaching From you and from andrew and from cody miller and those people that I respect That I love going into these seminars because I get good coaching for me. It's really enjoyable Um, and so even if you're somebody who doesn't get online coaching from us And we would love for you to do that and get coaching every single day Somebody needs to get their eyes on you. I like being coached by my wife. My wife is a good coach And she'll be a little bit hesitant about it But if I ask her I'm like, you know, please watch this and let me know she's got a great eye And so it's yeah, you need to have somebody watching what you're doing So, you know, even if that is just videoing yourself doing your workouts Checking your form occasionally posting form checks go into experience things like that You've got all those options. You've got to make sure that the form is right If it's not you're sabotaging your training Yeah And I get Cool. Cool. That's your list. Yes. That's everything. So Hope you may be connected with something in there that will lead to more success towards whatever successful training means to you I know it's a little bit different, but I just want training to really Be a good part of people's lives. Yeah Cool. Yeah, yeah, it's different, you know, it's different We've talked about this before where some people that training is like a spoonful of medicine And some people need it Saturday, I think it was Saturday My wife and I trained we had a really good session with squad and deadlifted and then I've got all these you've seen it I've got a kind of a line of Lower body accessory equipment now, right where I've got all these, you know Leg extension leg curl and a reverse hyper and a glute ham raise and a echo bike and so we'll we'll do the main lifts And then we'll go out and we'll just hammer some circuits on the stuff And after I got done training She said she's like god, you're like a different person. Oh, she's like before training this morning She's like you were an asshole. She was like you're kind of like biting your bike's head off And uh and then you trained and she's just like you're just like Fun and you're telling jokes and you're relaxed and so for me I need that and I you know I think if you're not careful It's certainly another way that to sabotage training is is if the external stressors in your life are through the roof Then that will absolutely sabotage your training. That's the I am constantly looking at that As a coach for my clients trying to pick up on if they are overstressed it is imperative That I make training enjoyable for them Absolutely If they are super stressed and then I'm trying to make them chase pr's and then they miss the pr's in the gym That is so bad. It just is a snowball effect of it's bad. So bad And so instead I'm like, hey, let's go what you and I did this not that long ago It wasn't really stress external stress. It was injury. You had enough sort of things that built up That then I'm programming you and you're going in and because of your injuries You can't hit the numbers that I programmed or the things that I'm I'm asking you to do and you're like everything hurts I'm like, whoa, hold on Let's figure out a way to make training more enjoyable again. And let's let's just do that for a while So you and for me that's a huge it's Training is the thing that I need That will help me process that stress and be the Husband that I need to be the father that I need to be the ceo that I need to be those things And training is so much better than whiskey or strip clubs or cocaine or I don't do those the whiskey. Yes, but Whatever Yeah, I hear those. I mean it sounds like an awesome weekend, but But again, those will derail your training and training is a great de-stress or for for me for sure. So Yeah, yeah, you got to keep those things in check for sure. And sometimes you can't do anything about the stress Sometimes you get sued and getting sued is stressful and I know from experience and training makes you be able to process that better Yeah, and so it is but you can't be in the middle of a divorce Or losing your job or getting sued and also Training for a powerlifting me that is not going to work very often. No, your body. You gotta make training enjoyable Yeah, you can't it can't because like you said it all comes from the same place It's all the same account. Yeah, and you get that budget. So think about that budget Yeah, so many things we talked about were things that you do outside of training that actually prove that you're taking care of yourself So if you maintain the habit of really training then you start to maintain habits of Eating well sleeping well and so that when you go through these difficult times I'm not going to say like training fixes everything like You just are a lifter and you can handle whatever like no shit's going to get really tough But it's like if you can maintain some good habits when you're going through those really stressful periods Like it's only going to help. Yeah. I'm on a soapbox. Okay. I'm going to give a quick shout out as we wrap this up So I think I'm going to mention this one other time But uh, dr. Jonathan Sullivan has recorded a podcast series for us That'll be coming out here in just a couple weeks on barbell health barbell prescription And god, it's it's I listened to the first episode yesterday and it was so free I'm so excited. He and Noah Hayden did it and it's just you know, it's that that idea of training to not be The sick aging phenotype but to be the healthy like we're all humans But you can look at two different people and they've lived life completely different ways And I want to be one of those people who are training to be Healthy to be that athlete of aging that dr. Sullivan talks about and so Super excited about that series coming out in early october sustained tune for that and it really just builds on this Is like how to have that lifestyle that kind of holistic Oh, holistic lifestyle of training is part of this thing I do to be healthy and have a great quality of life. So I like it So we told you what not to do today And coming up soon Sully is going to tell you about what to do. Awesome. I love it. All right. Uh, I'm going to go do some cocaine and Shut the show down The strippers are waiting for me Yeah, actually in fact the contractors in my backyard installing the hot tub right now bullet true true story So he's actually back there right now Hey, this has been another episode of the barba logic podcast. Thank you for listening. We love a five star review Again, we are so close to a thousand five star reviews We'd love to have a five star review on itunes and you can catch us anywhere that you listen to podcast Share us with a friend or family member co-worker. Yeah, we have a lot of fun doing the show So thanks for doing the show with me today. Yeah, Nikki and we'll see you next monday. Bye everybody