 Now a little bit behind the scenes context for this one, this podcast is so well thought out because it was literally a thought that I had in my training session earlier on this week that we've taken three episodes. No, not even that three, three attempts to record this intro. Sometimes the best polished machine team. Well, the thing is, Jaco, like often our best podcasts are the most unscripted and you can tell while being upfront and honest. That is what is going to happen today, but we're going to try and talk around something which I think is both on my mind and Jaco's mind around training in a way which makes you happy and fulfills you with enjoyment, but then also finding peace and contentment with the physique that you get as a result, as opposed to making your training about looking a certain way, but then actually not feeling very good about it. Not very snappy, but lots of meat on there to discuss. Jaco. For sure. And I think it's something we've talked about for a long time, ever since the start and we can go back to the archives a little bit as we get into it around just like, train so your body can do something rather than how it looks or something we said before and we're probably going to a few layers deeper than that in the session today. And when you said about what you wanted to talk about on the podcast today, when you told me that last night, it made me happy just that we were going to even have that then conversation. So I'm looking, I'm looking forward to it. Before we get into the podcast, though, we'd have to remind you of the Spartan race opportunity that's coming up. Thanks to the sponsors of the movement, strength and play podcast, Spartan races, where you've got the opportunity to join us and the team in a Spartan race. Well, essentially you could join our one, but you could use your free code to take up any of the Spartan races on the website that you want to do, but there's a Midlands one close to us, all different lengths and sizes, I think 5K up to 21K on the 16th, 17th of July. Is that right? Yeah, July and yeah, but you have to do a little bit of something to get you can't give away. There's 50 free spaces. And I think even the top is it worth it was like 80, 90 quid or something. These yes, 800 quid. Yeah, exactly. So you have to go on your Instagram and take a photo or video of you training, preparing for your Spartan race. Now, we've had some already people have secured their free, free codes already, but we did ask for a bit more like a bit more Spartan, a bit more speed, a bit more something. Whereas it was very they've so far been they've ticked all the boxes, they've tagged Spartan, they've used hashtag Spartan race, they've tagged school classes and then sent it us so that we can see and validate it and give them the code. That's what you've got to do, but we're looking for a little bit more je ne sais quoi, you know, if it's possible. Pizzazz, Tim loves a little bit of something extra, just a little bit of spice on top, a little bit of something. Well, we've got it. I would also say that Midlands one, there's two reasons Jack and why I think that one is good one, we're going to be there. And the second thing is July, the potential for a nice run out in the sun is high. I'm excited about having some good weather for it. So anyway, what you need to do is take a photo of yourself training for the Spartan race. You've got a tag in Spartan race. I'm looking at Jack and I because he's going to qualify with I'm giving the right instructions or not. You also need to use hashtag Spartan race. Do you want to do this bit? The tag, the tag is Spartan. So Spartan's Instagram handle is Spartan. Okay. You need to tag Spartan, tag us with school class the next and then the hashtag is Spartan race. You've got to do those three things and then send it to us and we will validate that you've passed all of those criteria and hopefully add a little bit of spice, make us laugh basically and then and then you get your free code and you can enjoy any of the races. But ideally come and enjoy it with us. Marvelous. I think let's go. I'm going to segue from that, Jacko, into the podcast topic for today. I don't think Spartans generally were that bothered about what they looked like. I don't think physique was a primary goal if you were a Spartan, if I'm being honest. No, it's not really just survival of life. I was going to throw something out there. I don't know if it's possible because I think there's a 5k, a 10k and a 21k, something like that. And maybe there's another one, whether they're all at the same time or so that no one misses out. Like, can we just do all of them? You can. Just try it out there, Tim. I said, can we do all of them? Yeah. Well, let's we'll leave that for later. Otherwise, this is going to be a set to Jacko. We're going to do a short intro today. We haven't been short intro. We failed miserably. Anyway, let's get into the main belly of the podcast today. The six pack of the podcast. And enjoy talking about, yes, the Spartan six pack of the podcast. We're going to talk about physique and training and being content with all things. Jacko. Roll that jingle. Listen, players. You're listening to the movement, strength and play podcast by the School of Calisthenics. Here are your hosts, Tim and Jacko. So, Tim, let's get let's get into this belly into this into the six pack of the of the episode. You having a thought or this this thought springs to mind about this. And I would dare to say this isn't the certainly the first time we've had this thought. I would say you've you've probably had this thought for as long as I've known you when we're talking about training. Probably true. To some degree, yes. It's been probably does float around. And this is probably like, I think for most people, I was chatting to somebody else about this in the week, who's also sort of well-trained, got a good training background, works as a coach. We often find ourselves kind of like undulating around different types of training. And we do one thing and then we kind of like we go over there and then we see this other shiny thing over there. We think I should really be doing a bit of that. And it's just kind of like for that. We go and often fall into the trap of wanting to do all things. And it's quite difficult for other people to kind of balance that training program if you're not somebody who's potentially going to have six or seven days a week to train. So there has to become a decision-making process about how we are going to structure our training. And ultimately, like I'm always been really focused probably from the sports performance background of just going, what are we training for? So I'm not really somebody who just kind of goes into a training block and going, it's training for training sake. Sometimes I'm like that if the batteries are low, but ultimately I'm kind of like trying to achieve some kind of physical adaptation within my training program. So there's phases which I enjoy. So like, let's kind of like, we're going to talk about physique. So we're going to talk about hypertrophy, which is effectively for those people who maybe don't know, is the development of skeletal muscle mass. So we're trying to get bigger muscles as a result of hypertrophy training. And there's various sort of sets and reps which you would normally use to elicit that. So we can work anything from roughly sort of six to 10 repetitions to get kind of like a high tension response or building this new tissue. But there's also value of hypertrophy work or doing hypertrophy work targeted around 20 repetitions. So the science is starting to kind of emerge. We're not going to get bogged down in reps and sets today. But a major thing, a major driving factor of it is you need to get volume in. So it's about a cumulative number of sets across a week on a muscle group is going to at the right intensity is going to stimulate muscle growth. Now, we also need to play into a little bit of consideration within that things around nutrition. So we might need to we need to be in a calorie surplus if we're going to improve or grow muscle mass. The body is not going to grow muscle if we're in a calorie deficit. So we need to put into eating a little bit more, not a lot, but some a little bit more. And we also going to be mindful about protein intake throughout the day. So there's a nutritional kind of element to consider as well. What sometimes happens, and I'm going to get to my point now, Jack, I'm going to pass it over to you, is I've just done a block of hypertrophy type work. So I've done four weeks, four, five sessions a week, look at the reps and sets I'm targeting, trying to get like between 10 and 20 sets per body part across the week. What then also happens is like you because that is the focus, you then often sacrifice another type of training because I can't get all of it in. And also if you're trying to build muscle mass and stay in a calorie surplus, like it then becomes quite difficult to then go and do more like metabolic or fitness kind of conditioning work because you then burning lots of calories, which is potentially going to mean that you get into a you breaking down proteins as muscle, sort of fuel sources, all this kind of stuff. So often the biggest way or the best way to get big is just to get big training, like not to go and confuse it with other things. So loads of people have done this in the past. You go on a hypertrophy block, you generally pretty lean most of the year around. You start eating a bit more, you train a certain way, you start feeling sluggish, you kind of kind of get a little bit like fluffy around the edges because you're eating more, not moving quite as much as you might have done. And then four weeks and you're like, do you know what? I don't really feel great. So I'm going to go over and do this other thing where you've not really kind of given yourself enough time to go down that hypertrophy phase to really get sort of significant improvements in gains. So we end up kind of just jumping around. Now, here we go, Jaco, coming into land, five minutes in. The thing that just occurred to me this week was like, and this is like, I thought I've had a long time, but I need to remind myself of it. This is often like our podcast is a therapy session, is why don't I just find happiness and joy in the training in the way that I like to train and that I feel good and let them, and then find that contentment within the physique that I get as a result of that. Because otherwise I'm in a training phase or where I'm trying to look and feel a certain way from a physique perspective by doing training which doesn't make me feel my best self. So for example, loads of hypertrophy work, less conditioning, go into a conditioning workout and just feel horrible because you just not, you've ignored that side of your training program. So I'm just kind of like, that's kind of just on my mind this week of going, how do you stretch your training program? So you get the things that you want, so I'm gonna get some hypertrophy work in there, but it's not all in on that, but I can also do the other things and just like, what physique am I gonna get from doing that? If it's a well-rounded program, you're probably gonna get quite an athletic physique. I don't want to look like a bodybuilder and I don't want to train like a bodybuilder, but I sometimes get pulled into that mindset of thinking that I need to based on what other people are doing, largely in comparing myself to other people. Yeah. There's me and Troy. Thank you for sharing so honestly. It means, you know what I mean, I love an overshare, I cannot hold it in. I think that there's a couple of important things. One, being that know what you've finished on around, like how getting distracted or just seeing other stuff and being like, oh, no, actually, should I be like that because that person's over there, and then there's also then going back to going like, what you said right at the beginning around, what's it for? What's the purpose of it? What am I training towards? Not to shoehorn the Spartan race thinking, but there's a date that someone could train for something and give themselves some reason to do a block off training. And that's why events and stuff work. So I wanna just touch on those two things. The first one then around like, I think previously, like for example, when I went back in the day, literally before, when Facebook was, probably Facebook didn't even exist when I first started, when you're like an adult, but you're playing rugby. I remember being at uni, MSN Messenger, and maybe Facebook just started, but there was no such thing as like Instagram and no one was posting training videos. It was like, the closest you got to it, you'd see someone else doing something in the gym and it's like, oh, like I might try that. The join, that might be the closet, I might try that, or that's the closest thing you'd get. Whereas now. You know when you're at uni though, just on that one, I feel through to remember like in 1980, 1999, 2000. 1980, when were you at uni, Tim? 1999, 2000, 2001. I really think back, I didn't know that many Jack people, even at the gym, there wasn't that many, there was a couple of guys on steroids, but they were like the anomaly, but I train at power base, lad. I train at power base. Was everyone Jacks? Well, not me, everyone else was. It was like, if you couldn't bench a hundred, it was like, what are you doing here, lad? Get off. Sorry, I can talk to you then. So, yeah, just now though, if you want to, and if you let yourself be destroyed, you can scroll through and see as many different crazy training things as you want and feel like you're constantly missing out on doing all these things. And then it's like, that's just, I think, an additional challenge that we just never used to have. It just didn't really exist. You couldn't see whatever other people were doing. And ultimately, because what does it matter? What does it matter if there's like John over in Mexico doing something with his ear to pick up a rock or I don't know, it's whatever. I mean, I don't train my ears, like maybe I need to train my ears more. But I think some of that is around community, isn't it? Because if you're in a running club, you look around and you go, do you know what, I'm quite jacked in my community. Like I'm the biggest dude in my running club, which is like... Why is he got started running? Yeah. But then if you go to a bodybuilding gym, I remember I saw something about Nick Mitchell, and he's got people in the industry who know him, but he's got a big history and background in bodybuilding. And he was growing up, he was the biggest dude. And then he went to like Gold Gym and he was like a complete stick. So the people around you that you're kind of, your community will dictate how you feel in these sorts of conversations, but our community in inverted commas now is social, so we can actually expose ourselves to people that we would never normally come in contact with and compare ourselves against them or to them. Little anecdote for you, hence why the story goes, Tom Cruise will only allow them to cast people that are either the same height or smaller than him in films so that... Can't be true because he did a thing with Nicole Kidman and she's about six foot five. But you know what, that's just that, someone mentioned that the other day to me, but that notion of the other people around you. Now, ultimately what matters is none of it matters. Right, that's it. No, but as in what all these different people are doing, because actually all of that can just be put to one side when you go back to your first point of going, well, what am I doing it for anyway? What do I want out of this? And if it's about your training for everyone, like our training must be about us. Our training can't be about anyone else. If you're training for an event or a competition or it's your sport or something, then it's like, that's like some framework to work with him, but it's still for you doing that thing or that competition or that sport. And so if we think of it as just take that truth on board, like, well, it's just about me. So it doesn't matter what all these other people are doing. You might, some other people might be able to give you some help and some advice so you can enjoy what it is you're doing more, but it doesn't matter what they're doing. And I think that trying to let that resonate can help free us from some of that. And so like looking at what is it, like what is it? Like what you mentioned doing a hypertrophy block, like what was it for? I think this was, and just this was, you don't necessarily have to answer them, hoping, asking people to ask that question. And if I go back to just from my own experiences, I found it really difficult when I came away from a sport and it was like the reason to train, it was just like, what is it? Why? Yeah, so why am I doing it? Oh, just to, and then it's like, oh, is it just to get jacked? Or is it to, and you know, with calisthenics it found a way to it be, for it to not be about how we looked to be more about how we feel or what you, not how you feel, what you can do with your body. Whereas I think now, for me, it's definitely transitioning more towards, well, how do I feel? Not just like what I can do with my body. And I think that's an evolution of things over time. And I don't know, you know, like we've had Mark Smellybell on the podcast. You look at like the, some of the insane stuff that he'd done from a strength, power lift thing, sorry. And body burning perspective, then you look at some of the stuff that what he's doing now, and he ran, did he run a half marathon the other day? And he's, you know, he's doing his knees over toes stuff because he needs his knees to feel better. Like he's, I think in time, a lot of people will move towards a state of, I just want to look after my body. But yeah, to go sort of full circle around to like, what you mentioned around the very start of this, of why don't I do what I enjoy? Like honestly, when you sent me that message saying, that's what you want to talk about in the podcast, it literally did fill me with some joy. I was in the back last night when I read the message and I was like, and I smile because I was just like, literally like what I did yesterday for training is you can't even call it training. I was just in the garden in the summer shining and I was just moving. I was literally just moving. And I almost reminded, it was reminded me of Santana, Santana. It wasn't as far out as what she might do, but it was funny because I was really enjoying it with them as part of me was like, but is this building strength? And then I was like, shut up. Just just, it's just nice what you're doing. You're enjoying it. Just enjoy doing it. So yeah, it was a timely message what you sent last night around like, do what you enjoy. Like I'm running more now. Like I enjoy going out for a run. Is it helping me with my flexibility for a pancake? No, but will I work on that as well at a different time? Like maybe yeah, if that's what I want to do, but it's trying to, I'm definitely tapping into more of that, doing what I just like doing. And then when my, and then like the body and mind going together, like you feel better when you're enjoying your body, but yeah, the two things are linked. But it's a constant challenge, right? Of like, I'll flick on, I'll be on Instagram later and see someone doing something. I'll be like, sometimes it's like, oh, I wonder if I could do that. There's a bit of that. But then the other bit is like, oh, yeah, no, actually, actually, no, I'm looking a bit skinny. Do I need to do a bit more? Like I was running down this mountain yesterday, or the day before, and I was like, why were you doing like, whatever like shoulders? Like I was doing, whatever I was doing around like upper body last week, I was like, or the last few weeks I was just like, that's not only helping you now right now, is it? And like, yeah, you might like the biceps and triceps look a bit bigger, but that's not helping you run up this mountain. And I was like, yeah. So these are the types of conversations that go on in my head as well. I think the part of the danger is like, if you're a relatively sort of type A person and you kind of, you want to look and feel epic, like the interpretation of that I've going like, well, I want to do, if I'm going to do this kind of like, if I'm going to run up mountains, I'm going to really good at running up mountains. And if I'm going to do a high purchase here, I want to see some results for the work that I've put in. But it's like, I'm just trying to find much more peace and going like, just be comfortable as a generalist. And I sometimes find that people don't want to hear this message because we kind of get fed mantra of like, you just got to be the best all the time. Like you've got to be constantly pushing forwards. But like, what if you're just a really good generalist? So, and like, so for me now, like we're going to do another podcast down there in a couple of episodes around just sort of what our training looks like and where our philosophers have kind of moved to. But like I've started training in a CrossFit box for a number of different reasons which I will talk about later. And I do some CrossFit sessions now and there's a number of like elements to that. But I still, like my focus is actually just the gymnastics. And I call it inverted commas, the gymnastics element, it's not really gymnastics, it's calisthenics. But I like the pull-up stuff. Like it's the mirth kind of workout which is running body weight squats, push-ups and pull-ups. Like in a relatively sort of like volumous format it's coming up on like the second of June. Like I'm looking forward to that because it's kind of like it's a body weight focus workout. I'm not really putting much time into Olympic lifting because it takes a lot of the session time to get better at that. And I don't really kind of enjoy it that much over the, and what am I sacrificing? It's always opportunity cost, right? I've got three or four hours a week to train. Like how am I going to spend that time to get the best results for what I want to do? And I think that's like, if I want to stay like in body composition to be in a certain way, I do like some of that strength type cluster work and what would typically fall within hypertrophy. I like calisthenics and body weight stuff. So I've got a mixture of kind of like body weight and barbell stuff in my workouts at the moment. I'm doing some pretty kind of like full out conditioning type work. And it's this kind of like, what's that going to mean? And bringing it around to this physique conversation. Like what am I going to look like from that? Well, I'm not probably going to be the biggest guy in the gym, but I'm probably going to be able to, if you said to me, Tim, do you want to go for a run? We're going to do 15K. Like I'm not going to be as good at you that 15K, but I can come and hold my own and probably we can get round it and have a nice time. Like whereas if I'm not doing any conditioning work, that is going to be miserable. So I'm not going to enjoy it. And this is the thing of like going, can I be ready to kind of just go and do anything that I really kind of want to enjoy? I can jump in that session with confidence and still get some enjoyment out of it rather than you going, Tim, let's go for a run. And me hating it from like 3K in because I've just, body is just not in a place to be able to go and do something like that. And I kind of like to build that into a bigger picture. Like trying to look a certain way. And I've talked about this before around like what is my genetic potential to look a certain way? Like how able am I to kind of build that body mass? Versus like just playing to where your strengths are in terms of the things that you are generally going to be quite good at. And I think your point around like moving well, being pain free, having a decent level of like metabolic conditioning so that you can one, from a health perspective, but two, you can also do the things that you want to do. Like just rock up to Spartan race and attain care and go, I can finish this. I've got no doubt that I can do a 10K Spartan. No doubt. Like could I do the 21? Like that running up distance would probably be difficult for me because I don't, I've probably run that far in my life. But if you said, come on, let's do it. I mean, pace isn't an issue. I'd be like, okay, well probably could get around that. And the other shot of that from a physique perspective is, I'm going to look pretty athletic. I'm going to be lean. There's going to be some muscle mass on me, but it's not going to be like the extreme of it. And I guess the whole kind of my takeaway from this is not too far on final points and you can wrap it up is can I find peace in doing the training that I like, which gives me the physique that I get as a result of that training rather than thinking I've got to prioritize what my physique is and then steer my training program in a direction which then potentially excludes things that A are good for me and B that I like doing. So it's kind of, I think we sometimes put this physique up on maybe too much of a pedestal and too much of a priority because of this comparison to other people. And we also forget, like no one goes, here's my Instagram post today. Before you look at my picture, remember that I've been training like this for 10 years or 20 years or however long. And this is that I've done this form of training for this long and therefore my body looks like this because of the training that I enjoy doing and have enjoyed for 20 years. I mean, there's so many people that just don't have that training background and then compare themselves to people that do. And that's actually from a mental health perspective, not great. So find peace in where you're at, find peace in where you've been before, what you've done in the past, find a peace in the charts of training that you like doing. And if you do those well, you're gonna look good. And hopefully you'll feel good because you've got that rounded, generalist approach to the things that you wanna do. And if that is bodybuilding, crack on. Like the whole thing is like, enjoy the training. It's different with the physique is the objective and the outcome. But hopefully that point has come across. Yeah, but just making sure that it's like, it's what you actually want to do, not just what you're doing for some other reason that you actually want to do it. You actually enjoy it and I like the phrase that you said, like finding peace in that because like, ultimately, we've talked about this before around like, your body is like your, maybe we didn't describe it like this, but someone said it to me the other day, it was Sally Bell actually. Like your body is like your vessel in which your soul experiences like the world. Like the physical world, like your physical body is that. And being able to like, you have to get around in your body. You can't transport yourself outside of your body. Now, if your body don't work very well or is in pain or is injured all the time, then it stops you being able to actually go and enjoy life. And we've talked about the whole notion of training should enhance our lives, not like overtake it or diminish it or reduce it. And like being able to go and do things, like that's the key. And I think that the other thing that was, to sort of wrap it up on that was from me that was just going through a mind you were talking then was that ultimately if it's about, if it's too much about how you look and in the short term, like looking better and feeling better, like mentally that helping with you feel better, like that's great, but there's going to be a time, hopefully there'll be a time, hopefully you don't die too early. Hopefully there's a time when you're old and you're wrinkly and you're saggy and it ain't whatever you're trying to, however, I just, I've absolutely no doubt in my mind that when I'm lying on my death bed, I'm not at all thinking about, oh, should I have done some more bicep kills? Oh, what are my biceps looking like? Like it's just not going to be in the conversation. And so I think taking a wide, for me personally taking a wider view on it, can certainly help with that perspective. This is an interesting thing that the listeners were here that Jacko still lives, he was living, currently living in a house where you have a landline, which I think is a foreign thing these days. Do you hear a landline ring? I'm like, what's that? What's going on? I don't know. And an answer machine as well. Currently a mum of Jacko's house, yes, that is correct. Absolutely well put by Jacko. I think we've, I'm going to, I can't, because you were talking at the same time, so I'd have to get the, chop you off the bottom. The production support. Production team anyway. Production team anyway. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's not labour the point anymore, just think we've made it. So just our kind of take home messages, go and think about that. And if you are somebody like me, who probably over-obsesseses about what they look like and compares themselves to other people too much, stop doing it. Because I'm finding that actually at 41 years old, these things are less important. And I would rather have that option to not feel like there's a, I would rather be in a place where my athletic abilities, physical capacities are of a place where I can say yes more. So I can, and those things are going to be like, can you move well without pain? Yes. Well that opens the door up to being able to go and do a Spartan, because I know I can get round it because the body's going to be pretty robust and nothing's going to break down. Have I got a level of conditioning which means I can go out and do these kind of things? Yes. Have you got a level of strength where you can get over walls and all that sort of stuff? Yes you have. That's why I think these kind of obstacle course racing and to a point like this functional fitness sort of space is of benefit because it does push you into this generalist approach. Have you got a few calisthenics skills in the locker because that's kind of fun and it's a good way to train? Yes you have. I just think it's like sitting in the middle, being comfortable with that and going right okay, well if I now want to kind of tweak or lean towards a particular one of these things for a period of time, we can just keep things kind of, these other plates spin in pretty well. So go have a think about that and find some peace with it. Yeah. And if that resonates or if you've got anything to your own experience to share, we'd love to hear from you. Catch us over on Instagram at School of Calisthenics or Tim, you are Dynamic Shoulders on Instagram if you want the sort of personal accounts and I'm jacko.davidjottjaxson recently made a change to be just more David Jackson. Saw that. Yeah, so. More you, do you jacko? Do you. So yeah, get in touch, let us know and we look forward to hearing from you and also seeing those of you at the Spartan Race and seeing your training for the Spartan Race on Instagram too. So don't forget you've got a chance to be one of 53 places. All right, we're going to sign off. Until next week, keep exploring your physical potential with movement, strength and play. Class dismissed.