 The question is from Jake Parker, health and wellness. What are the benefits of very low rep ranges on major lifts like bench, squat and deadlift? Oh man. Yeah, you know, for a lot of people who work out, they less so now, but for a long time, people avoided the really low rep ranges. Me forever, for most of my career. Yeah, mostly, and the funny thing is that they're really, it's not funny, this is the truth. They're missing out on a lot of the gains that you can get from training in the low rep ranges. Low rep ranges build muscle just like moderate or higher rep ranges. They all build muscle. They really build muscle and are effective when they're new, when it's a new stimulus. That's why I think it's one of the, I mean, again, I've shared this on the show many times that part of one of the most compelling things when I first met Sal and read Maps Anabolic was that he chose to start people in that phase in phase one of Maps Anabolic. And the brilliance that I thought was in that was that I had, at that time in my career, I was just coming to realize this of training so many people going like, you know what? How many people are just like me where they've been told that the best rep range to build muscle is eight to 12. If you want to burn fat, you want to do 15, 20, super set circuit type stuff. Very few people that want to change their physique, right? To look better or lose body fat were being told lift five times. That was only the power lifter, guys. Like if all you cared about me was strong, so maybe if you were a football player or you cared about your bench press and squat, you did those type of repetitions. Otherwise, the message to the majority was if you want to lose fat or you want to build muscle, these are the best rep ranges for that. Staying them right home. Right, and two, it was very intimidating for a lot of people to jump into that style because you really had to know what you're doing. You had to know the mechanics. You have to go through the process of learning those exercises to where you're not gonna have that little bit of discrepancy that could lead you to energy, injury. I'm all tripping on my wrist. I actually think that, I think there is a portion of people like that, but I think that a majority were probably even more like me, where I wasn't afraid. You just thought it was worthless because we're not that valuable. Yeah, I just didn't think it was that valuable. The risk versus reward to me wasn't there. It was, if I go really, really heavy, I could potentially hurt myself, and I'm probably, it's not the best place to build muscle, it's not the best place to burn body fat, so it's not for me. I don't identify with it as a power lifter, so I neglected it for many, many years. And remember when you finally really started to implement it? I mean, I really attribute that strength training and in that rep range to the way my physique looked like at the amateur level, to the professional level, to me was really that big. I mean, it really packed on more muscle on my body than I had in the last 15 years, consistently lifting. And it was something that I missed out. Now that comes with some risks, like to Justin's point, like, I mean, I do notice that my joints were more achy and I did notice those things that, but I also know that I fell into the same pattern that I coach and talk to clients about is don't get stuck in something because it starts to show you the results. And what happened, I introduced strength training more than I'd ever done in my life. I saw the benefits, I became addicted to the benefits, so I kept training that range and then here comes the achy hips, the achy joints. And besides that too, like I think like the actual benefit too, a lot of people that don't do it, like don't know your capacity, you can increase your capacity to produce more force. And that's a big part of strength and to have more strength at your fingertips when you want it, like right away, is such an advantage then going into any other mode now. Right, it carries so much into that. And that is the thing that I think I missed big time was realizing, oh shit, like even if I don't want to be a powerlifter and I don't want to strengthen all the time, just at least running a block or a phase of that, how much that contributed over into my hypertrophy training. Oh yeah, being able to summon your strength for a heavy load is a skill. And it's a very important skill that has carry over to all the other physical skills or especially all the skills related to strength. Now you have to do it appropriately, just like any other rep range or any other training modality, it's got to be done appropriately. So one thing that we always, and I learned this later on. So when I was younger, my low rep training was improper. It was maxing out, that's improper. Yeah, like every time. Yeah, low rep, this is actually a big misconception. People think training a low rep ranges means maxing out. That's actually not training, that's maxing out. That's something totally separate. Low rep training done appropriately is practicing lifting heavy loads for low reps, but you're not maxing out. So what I mean by that is, let's say I'm doing sets of squats for three reps. That's the weight that I pick is a weight that I can max out for six reps or five reps. That's the proper way to do three reps with a heavy weight. I'm not doing three reps with a weight that I can only do three reps with. I'm not maxing out. You almost fail on three. That's a terrible way to do it. And I learned this later on. I remember reading about the old-time strongmen and old-time bodybuilders and how they trained. And then it led me to a book called Dinosaur Training, which I've actually referred to before on the podcast. And there's some interesting, there's some valuable information in that book. And what the guy writes about is practicing your lifts. You go out there, you pick up a heavy weight that you could probably do three or four reps with, but you just pick it up once. It's still heavy. You still gotta get used to lifting something heavy. You still have to summon a lot of strength. Well, to that point right there is something else to this question. Why do it and what it's contributing to that? Again, what I was neglecting is the central nervous system. That was a piece and I love, and we've talked on the show so many times about your analogy of it as the amplifier to your muscles or your speakers. And I was putting so much investment in my speakers and having great speakers, bigger speakers, better looking speakers. But I was putting very little energy into improving the amplifier that actually puts out all that energy into the speakers. And so think of it like that. When you're training those singles like you're talking about or those low rep ranges, is you're investing in getting a better amplifier, a better CNS that is going to then contribute to all the other pursuits. And it also makes you, practicing training in this way appropriately makes you more comfortable handling heavy weight and it makes you more comfortable exerting yourself at that level. Now I would experience this oftentimes with clients more often than not, it was my female clients where they were afraid to exert the effort that was required to lift heavy weights. Now again, I'm not maxing them out, but they just were afraid of pushing themselves that way because they just had never been used to it. Once we would train in these low rep ranges, they felt more confident and functional with their strength because they understand how to control it. They understand what they're capable of. So there's a lot of value in training in very low rep ranges and all of this contributes to a better physique. Now, if you get stuck in this phase, just like if you get stuck in any of the phase of training, your body will stop responding. But if you never train in low rep ranges, try doing it for three to five weeks. Just watch what happened. This is my prediction. If you've never done it before, over the next three to five weeks, you'll get significantly stronger every single week. Every single week, you'll get stronger in some of these core lifts. What do you think that's gonna do to the way your body looks? It's obviously gonna be reflected in your aesthetics.