 Last block, block up, block up. Third Street Barbell, Salah Mike, welcome in. Deadlift PR is on the horizon, four week block. I guess you would call it the taper, all comp lifts, volume's a little bit down on the squats. Welcome to our squat day, secondary squat day. Yesterday I pulled 485 for six dubs. Today's a little like, what do they call it? Like the alley to the hoop. The big deadlift is Saturday, today's Thursday. So we're just gonna kind of move around. I think I got like a three by two on squats and some leg extensions and shit. Got meetings all afternoon, we're gonna bang this out. It's about 11 in the morning. Just finished laptop work, let's get it. The day I test my One Wrap Max Deadlift, should I do that only on that day? So much has depended on your goals and what your program looks like, so I can't really say. But often, you know, you could probably get some upper body work and it's just so variable. What's your ultimate goal? So are you just trying to test your deadlift? Then yeah, test your deadlift, go home, who cares? But are you trying to fit in a, you know, conservative test that doesn't take away from your rest of your training and continue your training the next couple of days? Then I probably wouldn't max out. I'd probably hit like a RPE nine. You know, save a little in the tank. You'll understand where your strength is. You don't need to know your exact, it's not a competition. You don't need to know your exact PR to the dot. You need to know kind of a ballpark or where we are. And then you could do your accessory legwork or hamstring or rows or RDLs or upper body, whatever you have that day. Now, if you're, you know, competing and you may go balls of the wall, you'll just be exhausted from testing all three lifts. Yeah, man, that's it. We'd probably chill out for a week or two. You can go to the gym, catch a pump. You can not go to the gym after an actual meets much different. But if you're just testing in that day, doesn't really matter. You're kind of overthinking it. You know, where do they say majoring in the minors? Mike, I'm 40 and I'm fat and things hurt. Having trouble sticking to a plan due to pain. What do I do? I mean, I get this kind of question a lot too, where, or like I think about a lot where people are like, man, deadlifts are so bad for your back. Every time I deadlift, my back hurts. I'm like, well, what hurts worse? Like, we're gonna hurt. But I guarantee the pain from being like sore from deadlift squats, et cetera, is not as bad as the pain of like not being able to walk up the fucking stairs without getting a low back pump and being out of breath. Sitting on the couch all day and trying to roll off of the couch. I've been there. You guys seen the before pictures when I wasn't training shit? I had to roll out of shit. My back was stiff. I was overweight. All my strength was gone. I'd be rolling out. I'd be doing one of these to get off the chair. You get a little fucking momentum going because you're not strong enough to just do a fucking one of these and walk off. Look, I've been there. But I guess the more applicable stuff is start with walking, start with exercises that won't hurt. You can do some cable work. Cable work almost never hurts. Yeah, it's not optimal. In my opinion, not to do compounds. You're just doing ISOs on a cable. But to start, you just have to start. If you have the funds and the means about it doesn't take away from your family or your life. Find a trainer. Find a good coach. Find a physical therapist if you're in that much pain. But I guarantee if you start moving in lifting weights, deadlifting, squatting, leg press, whatever for four weeks, that fifth week you're gonna be in a lot less pain. Just moving your body through ranges of motion with load will fix 90% of the issues out there. If you're injured, go to a doctor. I ain't a doctor. But if you're just having pain, we're all gonna have aches. We're all gonna be uncomfortable. It's part of life. Mind as well, make those aches and pains productive and leads towards getting stronger and healthier. You know, people are like, do you like the beach or do you like the mountains? Do you like the sun or do you like the snow? My dude asks, working out in shorts or working out in sweats? Now for life, I like sweats and hoodies. I like being comfy and cozy. And I don't mind cold weather. I like a little gloom. I don't believe in like zodiac shed or anything weird, but I was born in Portland, which is known for being like gloomy and rainy. And I do enjoy the gloom and rain. Like some of my favorite cities are the Northern California coast, where it's like always overcast and kind of gray skies and like the mountains meet the ocean, which is much different than like Mexico, Florida, even the East coast, where it's like a beach, right? It's like more tropical. I don't know if y'all know, I'm a geography fucking genius, but America's kind of like tilted. So the East coast, especially Florida and shit is way closer to the equator than up here. Like we're way North in Northern California, which people don't think about. So those beaches are obviously a lot more tropical. Even the Carolinas, Atlanta, all that shit, right? That's why it's kind of swampy down there, where we don't really have even swampy like San Diego. Yeah, it's a little more tropical and a little bit more humid, but it's not like that, because it's not as close to the equator, right? So the Carmel, you know, the San Luis Obispo's, the Big Sur's, the Santa Cruz's, I love that weather. But when it comes to training, my favorite thing is Sacramento in July, when it's 95 degrees, wearing shorts and sweating my tits off. Like my joints feel good. I ride my bike instead of driving my car. I feel good warming up. I get a little sweat going. I'm chugging water, the music's blaring. I love training in a heavy, big t-shirt and some shorty shorts. So it reminds me of basketball. It's just what I did all the time in basketball. And obviously when you're indoors in the winter, it's insulated and they got the heat on or whatever, so it's more climate controlled. But in summers in basketball, I've mentioned this before, any gym you go to, like they don't give a fuck about basketball players, obviously, and so most of the schools are closed. So like it's just gym doors open, 100 degree summer weather, playing basketball for five hours. Like I love that. Straps, are they cheating? Just kidding, that's not the question. They're not cheating, you bitches. And let's use them in competition where there's rules against it. Now they're cheating. Do you think that using straps on deadlifts might take away tension in the body? I don't really know what you mean by that. Like it's not taking away musculature use, it's impossible to do that, but or what muscles are being used, but for some people, they may not be able to find the tension and pulling the slack because it's unfamiliar. But that's like everything. You throw a belt on them for the first time. It's so uncomfortable. You're not automatically gonna lift more weight and feel more comfortable, but as you learn how to use a belt, it easily allows you to lift more weight and feel more comfortable and rigid. So I would say straps are a tool that sometimes have a bigger learning curve for other people. They've always felt easy and natural to me, but I know many lifters that feel like they lift less weight or their form changes so drastically with them that they've thrown them out. If that's the case, just don't use them. I mean, it's that simple. You don't have to use them. I use them because I don't compete and I prefer setting up that way and keeping my hands double over or not wrecking my thumbs or twisting my arm. But the truth is, it's up to you. There's majority of power lifters. I would actually suggest not using them. Obviously, if you hook grip, it's hard to hook grip a bunch of volume. It's a lot of work. And then if you hook grip your top set, you don't wanna go double over or sorry, over under because it's such a different lift because the difference between hook grip and mixed grip can also change your form a lot. So you wanna be as specific as you can to what you're gonna pull on a max, but you gotta find what works for you. So yeah, a lot of hook grip people have adopted using straps for their downsets, but I find the majority of people that probably hook grip are used to being double over and it's not gonna mess you up. But if you're used to mixed grip and now you go double over with straps, sometimes it may feel a little funky with hip placement and getting your shoulders in the right place. But trial and error, reps on reps. 10, 25, on the 17th is a blustrous morning, slightly cold, overcast and a bit nippy. Hence the beanie. It's time to deadlift, buckle in, grab a snack. I'm opposed, 605 pounds, swiftly, come with me. I think we'll be right on par, man. Like the goal was a deadlift conventional PR, which is anything over like 675. Really in my head, I wanted seven. Based on last week, 635 for a paused single. That's probably sitting out of RPE, what, eight? You know, I think that's not being crazy. We're probably at around a seven. So hopefully this taper works a little bit. I fucked up this week and squatted hella heavy Monday, even though it was supposed to be like a mini D-load. So squatted a little heavy, but I don't think it'll affect today's 605 for a quick single. Supposed to be five, RPE five. I'll try not to have that many expectations. I think there's a slight difference between like expectations and hope for some reason, or like goals. Expectations sit more into like hope, where I like to set goals and build a plan for that. Where like expectations, to me at least, I don't know the exact definition, but expectations seem that things are out of my reach. Like I have no control over it, but I have full control of this. So for me, it's just a goal, and the goal remains the same. Conventional deadlift PR and 705-ish. So yeah, I think we're on pace. I don't know what coach thinks, but I think we're on pace. Hopefully more vlogs and shit. Things been just a little tight. It's a holiday, obviously, so everyone's running around. Puts a clothing launch, but hopefully new year, a little bit more traveling, a little bit more content. Also getting bogged down. Bogged down sounds negative, but it's not by the meat coming up. So we're about six weeks out from our big meat, so just gotta kinda stick around home until that goes. Couple things in the worst that we might be able to announce soon, but when that's rolling, then we'll probably be back on the road, making some content and hopefully getting shredded. I think we're gonna do a 30-day challenge. Probably mid-Jan to mid-feb, 30 days as diced up as I can get. Y'all can join with me if you want. We're gonna do it as healthy as possible, but also like, truth is you're getting veggies and shit in, you're gonna be okay. You know, people talk about like, losing weight, not being healthy, but like, you'll probably be fine. There's not, you know, if you got a health issue, go to your doctor, but if you ain't got no health issue, you'll be all right. So we're gonna do a shreds live. We're not gonna be just eating lettuce. I'm gonna get my protein in and shit. See if we drop a quick 15, maybe, 10, and then ride in the springtime getting shredded. Yeah, it'll be all right. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm actually kinda looking forward to it. Lifting heavy is fine, man, but I don't think people understand like, I got miles on my body. I'm almost 35, I've power lifted for 12, almost 15 years. 15 years. I stopped playing basketball full-time, full-time when I was about 21. Since then, I've just been training deadlifts and squats. So I'm about to be 35, so throw the math together. Yeah, I took that break because of, you know, a little bit of mental stuff and building the gym, but besides that, there'd been no break. And before that, it was 365 basketball. So there's just miles on my body. There's just miles on it. The reason you don't see a lot of naddies at my age, we'll just put it that way. It ain't easy. You don't feel good. Progress is real fucking slow. You don't look as dope as everybody else looks, you know, shit just gets harder and harder. So I'm not here for the pity party. I'm just telling you guys, there's a reason you ain't seen a lot of 35-year-olds that are natty. Like actually, natty, not this TRT being natty, I'm on this dose or I stopped taking it yesterday, so I'm natty today or whatever the fuck they're talking about. All right, talked to coach. He said he was happy with it. So we'll take it. I didn't feel great. I don't feel asleep or cold or a little bit of stress, but high as lows, high as lows. Felt really, really confident going last week. Not so confident this week, but we go again is what they say. So overall good. Finished up with some stiff leg, a little bit of abs, nothing crazy on the accessory. New videos, what do we got? Monday, Thursday, 3SB.co. Shout out to the Seabass for Hustling. We got some shorts coming up. So if you guys could show love on that. In between the big videos, we're gonna throw some shorts, some inspirational bullshit, some clips, some lifting, et cetera, et cetera. If you guys can show love on that and share it, appreciate a lot, 3SB.co. We over me, so I'm out of here.