 Question is from Taylor Dinkel. What are your thoughts on powerlifting for aesthetics? Well, this is similar to a question that I had. Someone asked me of what I thought is a better place to start either bodybuilding or powerlifting. And my response to them is I actually said I would lean towards powerlifting first. As a base. Yes, as a base, but I could also make the case for the other way. So this is not a, for sure, one way or the other. I think there's value of somebody training for aesthetics or the mind-muscle connection, bodybuilding technique of training that is extremely valuable from that perspective and what that benefits. Then there's a ton of value for somebody who's to build a really solid foundation, like from powerlifting and what you get from that. Yeah, let's say somebody is completely brand new to working out. Like would you guys prefer them to start in a powerlifting routine versus a bodybuilding routine? Now, you're not talking about competitive powerlifting, right? No, no, no. Just training like a powerlifting. Just stretching your capacity. Here's why I would lean, believe it or not, more towards powerlifting. And now this is granted the person that we're working with is free of major muscle imbalance. Exactly, because I'm gonna challenge that out because I can challenge either way very easily. But let's say somebody's free of major muscle imbalance. Because if that's the case, you have to focus on corrective exercise regardless of where we're gonna go. Which falls in the aesthetic bodybuilding. It might be, right? More connected to muscle. Bodybuilding if there was issues. But let's say everything's fine and they don't have major muscle imbalances. Here's why I'll make the argument for powerlifting because powerlifting is so movement focused, they're more likely to learn biomechanically sound, squatting, deadlifting, and bench pressing. You know, the core lifts and movements. Later on, once they've really got good at those lifts and they can do them well and they know how to maximize leverage and do it in a way to where they don't hurt themselves because that's what powerlifters do. They maximize leverage and efficiency so they can lift the most weight. Which means, believe it or not, reducing risk of injury. A powerlifter benches in the safest way possible that can lift the most amount of weight. Bodybuilders don't do this. Bodybuilders lift to feel it in the muscle. Now, powerlifters tend to hurt themselves more but it's not because of the way they lift. It has more to do with the fact that they're always maxing out and pushing their limits. But it'll teach sound technique and form and movement. Then from there, when they have that base, then I can say, okay, focus on your glutes, focus on your quads, focus on your lats and do those kinds of things. Yeah, if, like say, we're taking this out, like if nobody has like these pre-existing conditions like going into it, like otherwise, I would probably lean more towards bodybuilding because now we can isolate and get a better recruitment, like joint by joint. But I've found in my experience in coaching people that, if I were to train the movement like you're talking about, you know, like taking them from there to bodybuilding was a better transition versus the opposite where now like taking a bodybuilder and trying to teach them like overall, you know, gross motor movements, like what's challenging because like certain parts of their like joints want to kick in like individually and they're gonna like pull like a deadlift with their biceps. Well, now imagine we have somebody because we're also like, there's so many different roads. There's so many ways to skin a cat. But let's pretend we've got a listener who has got, you know, years of experience, three, five, more than two years of experience lifting so they're not brands making new. They see all the maps programs, they see there's a powerlifting program, they see there's a maps aesthetics, they so they're like, okay, where would I start? What would I do? You know, do you think that your powerlifting program is good for certain? So here's, if I had a year with you, powerlifting for sure would make its way into that training, right? So I would for sure use our maps aesthetic, our maps split program and our maps powerlifting program and probably even strong. Like those four I would use for this person. If you came to me, you said, I want to build the most aesthetic physique you've got me for one year, Adam. I'm gonna use all four of those programs because there's gonna be massive carryover for your overall goal. Totally, now the question is about aesthetics. Okay, now again, it depends who I'm talking to. If I'm talking to the person that's been powerlifting for a while, bodybuilding's gonna give them better aesthetics. If I'm talking to the person who is a relative beginner free of imbalances, they're gonna get great aesthetics from powerlifting. Focusing on the movement's gonna give them the most muscle mass gains, general muscle building. Now bodybuilding, the strength of bodybuilding is they can isolate muscles and focus and sculpt on different parts of my body. The strengths in powerlifting are I get really good at these gross motor movements that work everything anyway. So when it comes to aesthetics, it really depends who I'm talking to. It does, because here's another person, myself. Powerlifting contributed to my pro physique more than bodybuilding training did. I train like a bodybuilder most of my life. I always wanted aesthetics, and so I neglected powerlifting as I just never identified with, oh, I don't need a deadlift in my max. I don't need to do squatting for my max. I never drop below five reps. It wasn't until I started powerlifting did my physique grow to the next level. So I would even say somebody who is like me, who has always done all the cable exercises, measheen exercises, isolation stuff, bodybuilding type of movements for most of their life or most of their training career, absolutely would benefit extremely from powerlifting for their aesthetics. It's what grew my back. It's what grew my legs. It bulked my shoulders. Like those thing, it put on a lot more mass onto my physique. And then when I peeled down, it was very obvious that that served my body. You know what powerlifting works phenomenally for aesthetics? Typically for me, I saw it be super effective with my female clients who were very body focused. The ones who were very aesthetic focused, who'd been going to the gym for a while and it's all about, I gotta change how I look. I gotta change how I look. They watch the scale, watch the scale. I'd switch them to powerlifting because I knew that it would get them to focus on performance. I knew it would get them to focus on how strong they were. I knew it got them to move away from the small isolation movements where I gotta feel every little muscle. And I'm like, no, no, no, forget all that. We're gonna get you really strong at some of these core lifts. And they would get these phenomenal aesthetic gains. They'd come to me and be like, oh my God, my butt never looked bigger and better. My hamstrings look round. I have better posture. Then we would go back to the body sculpting bodybuilding routines and they would get better results. 100%, if you have somebody who is, and that's another great example. If you are a superset chaser, 15 to 20 reps, low-rest period person training, and lots of plyometric stuff, and that's the stuff you love and you're also trying to sculpt this aesthetic physique, switching your mindset over to a powerlifting type of routine is going to build incredible amounts of muscle on you. So this is a depends question as always. But it really, who I'm talking to would be where I would push this person, but absolutely powerlifting could benefit aesthetics tremendously.