 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Mind Pump. In this episode, we give you 10 actionable steps that you can take to hit a deadlift PR. All right. Enjoy the show. Check this out. Most of you can hit a PR in 30 days, but you have to follow the right protocol. Yeah. Of course, it's not going to work for everybody, but for the most part, you should see some improvements in your numbers. All right. Let's talk about what I like about this is that what you listed out, I think really applies to everyone. I do think that beginners tend to see PRs more frequently just because they're beginners and it's the novelty of it. Yeah. And in fact, they often see PRs in spite of doing things wrong. That's my point. Right. So I think that new begins, you might, because you might have someone who listens like, oh, I don't do all those things. I had a PR last week. Well, you know, if you haven't been lifting for a very long time and, you know, all a lot of the stuff that you do is novel, your body's reaping out of those benefits. I'm glad you said that because what we're going to talk about is for somebody who's kind of stuck for somebody who wants to hit a PR, they've already been working out for a while. Now, what does that mean for the newbie? The newbie, if they apply this, yes, if they don't, they may still hit PRs because those newbie gains come almost no matter what. But if they apply this, they'll hit even better numbers. They'll maximize the potential. So in other words, this is kind of applicable to anybody. And we organize this around specifically around the deadlift. And you generally, you can apply this to other lifts as well. But there's some specifics in here that apply mostly to a deadlift. And I've applied this to myself. Every time I do this, I don't always hit a PR because I've been doing this for so long. But every time I apply this, I'll definitely get to that upper limit. And it's very predictable. It works almost every single time. No, the very first one that you go to, I think is a really good place to start because it's probably one of the most common mistakes that I see is you get somebody who is dieting to lose body fat, and then they also want to hit these PRs in this lift. And so what they don't realize is that you're living, you're feeding yourself in a calorie deficit, your body's in a catabolic state. So it's breaking down. It's not building and adding in that state. And so the likelihood of you hitting a PR that doesn't mean it's impossible. And we talk about newbies, right? So if you've, if you just started squatting and you're only squatting for four months of your life, and you're in a calorie deficit, there is a potential that you could just because there's so much technique that goes into being a good squatter that your technique could improve so much that even in a calorie deficit, you may get stronger at that lift. But for the average person who's been stuck in a plateau or been lifting or been squatting for a long time, they can't break through that. One of the first mistakes I see is I look at their diet. I'm like, Oh, well, you're eating to lean out. And yet you're trying to increase strength. Increasing calories or bumping your calories for maintenance will almost, I mean, it's pretty consistent that it will raise your strength just generally. I mean, literally work out like you're doing now, change nothing, add, you know, 400 or 500 calories on a consistent basis. That's important, by the way, because people typically think they're bumping calories, but don't track and end up making up the difference on a weekend or something like that. So it really doesn't turn into be too much of a surplus. But if you're consistent, like I'm going to eat 500 more calories a day, you'll get stronger, regardless, for the most part, there's all there's almost always this like strength boost. And if you combine it with other factors, you can make some huge gains. But this is key because generally speaking, this will just make you stronger. Yeah, you want to adequate reserve of energy and to have that to be able to tap into I think too, if you want to kind of add in a little bit of nutrient timing with this as well in terms of like, you know, cycling your carbs or like doing it in a way where you're actually like deprived a bit and now we're introducing it before you're going to, you know, attempt a lift that's like a PR lift, you know, you could kind of play around with that and it does make a fact. In fact, we get more specific with that later on. Yeah. But with this here with the calories is a couple points I want to make one an easy way to do this is if you don't feel like tracking or whatever, but you normally eat kind of the same all the time. And you know this about yourself, all you have to do is add an extra meal. So it's kind of an easy way to bump your calories as long as everything else stays consistent. And then the second thing I'll say is through experimentation with myself and with clients, the calories should probably come from proteins and carbohydrates. I don't typically see the same strength bump when we add the extra calories with a lot of fat, unless the person was eating too, too low fat to begin with. And then we see this huge bump in strength. I mean, I'd like to add to that that I would for the for the most part for most people, I would go protein first. And yeah, the reason why that is is just because a majority of clients under consumed protein, or they weren't even they weren't at the upper threshold of the maximum amount for the max benefits for proteins and cysts and building muscle. So I would tend to push them in that direction. Now that being said, if you're eating a ton of protein already, then I think carbohydrates are going to benefit the most. But I think that's a more rare case. Maybe someone like you, right? Like I think that you eat a lot of protein on a very consistent basis. So you could probably potentially just add carbs to your diet. Even I add proteins and carbs. Yeah, I go proteins and carbs with the extra meal. Like you guys have seen me and I did this recently. And all I did was add an extra meal. My extra meal was steak and potatoes. So carbohydrates and proteins. Some fats came in the steak, but it was, you know, protein rich. And that's usually where we see the benefit. The increase in fat here can help if your fat and take is really low. And I don't know this is not common. But when I did see this, it was with female clients who ate too low of fat, we bumped their fat and give them get them healthier. But proteins and carbs right here proteins being most important, car carbohydrates to make up the difference. Now you didn't list this on your list. But I know that personally, one of your favorite thing and why you probably did the steak is because you like to increase cholesterol at a time like this too. Now, what are your thoughts on that? I know you didn't put that on this list. Controversial. Yeah, I specifically did it because it's a little bit more controversial. And I guess I don't know nuanced because it doesn't it's not as important as the proteins and carbs. Like it's not going to make as big of a difference as just extra calories, right? Proteins, carbs. But yes, studies will show that if you do the short term bump in dietary cholesterol, your CNS tends to fire a little bit stronger. And I do this all the time. If I go from eating, you know, six whole eggs a day to 12 whole eggs a day, which that's just me. I'll notice a bump in strength, even if my calories all the same. We saw old time strongmen used to drink a lot of like heavy cream and things like that to really aid in their performance. Yeah. So that's just a little bit more nuanced. But I mean, for everybody, bump your calories, be consistent about it, proteins and carbs, that alone will get you generally stronger. Alright, this next one's interesting. This next one's interesting because people always dismiss it. And this is probably one of the is probably one of the most consistent ways to get yourself stronger. And that's literally to aim for eight to nine hours of sleep every night. Now notice how I didn't say seven to eight, right? Seven to eight is the normal target. I found with myself and with clients that when I aim for eight to nine, I almost always fall at least at eight. When I go seven to eight, I tend to sometimes go seven. That extra 30 minutes to an hour, even in one day, even if you have one night of good sleep, you'll notice that you're stronger the next day. But over 30 days, this one makes So is that the thought process of saying eight to nine hours is because we know that most people if you tell them eight to nine, they're probably more likely to hit seven to eight, and they're going to fall a little short. Yeah, it usually results in more eight hour nights than saying my target is seven to eight. So I'm saying aim for it, right? So you're like, Okay, I'm going to wake up at eight AM tomorrow, then I'm going to bed by 11. So that's my nine, right? And then if I'm off a little bit, I tend to hit it. Usually what people do when they go seven to eight is they tend to veer towards seven, you know, a few nights a week, right? Oh, you know, seven hours is good. That's supposed to be good too. And you end up losing a little bit of sleep. That extra 30 minutes to an hour makes a big difference. Yeah, I used to I mean, I talked to a power lifter that was like a real competitive power lifter real good at the sport, who would literally like swear by naps in like, yes, just like, he's like, as much as I can emulate a baby as possible, like this is what I'm my goal is to increase my strength. I was just like, always sleep in was like getting eight, 10 hours of sleep, but then also napping throughout the day. So what do you think is the most what's what do you think it is the most there? Is it the stress? Is it the actual rest? Is it the recovery? Is it a combination of all three? What do you think is is so valuable about the the amount of time that you give yourself rest every day? It's all those things. It's the the management of inflammation so that it's appropriate. So you get the inflammation signaling, but you don't get too much inflammation to where So that's the Managing stress, managing stress hormones, you get more growth hormone release IGF one more primed. You're more primed for testosterone. You're not going to get your cortisol is more appropriate. In other words, you get the spike of cortisol in the morning, but then it goes down nice and low and evening allows for recovery. It's it's very, very nourishing on the CNS. The CNS needs breaks. Okay. And if you're training hard, especially if you're lifting heavy, you know, that's stressful on the CNS, you're cranking that amplitude to its max capacity. So to be able to give it some adequate rest is important. You know what? Think of it this way. It's like you have an iPhone, right? There's a battery in your iPhone. So that's like your CNS or your body. Well, imagine if your battery needs, you know, eight hours of charging and you always give it six hours of charging every night, you're only going to get so much of that battery output. Well, that's like your CNS. So that sleep charges your batteries and a full charge is going to give you more power than an almost full charge. So sleep makes a huge difference and studies will show the opposite to effect. If somebody loses sleep, you notice an immediate drop in strength almost every single time. What's up, everybody? Today's giveaways maps strong. This is the strongman inspired workout program. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below this video within the first 24 hours that we drop this video. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on the notifications, do all those things. And if we declare you the winner, we'll let you know in the comments section. Also, we got a sale going on this month on a at home workout program bundle. So here's what it is. Maps anywhere, map suspension, maps prime, and the no BS six pack formula, all of those combined in this bundle for only $99.99, which is the price of basically one program. So you get four programs for the price of one. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below to get set up. All right, here comes a show. All right, so now let's get to the more specifics with the deadlift. If you're trying to bump your deadlift strength, you should definitely deadlift heavy at least once a week, or I should say stick to once a week, you're going to deadlift more than once a week, but heavy once a week, more than one day a week of heavy deadlifting tends to be too much for most people. Heavy is very relative, right? So what would you say is a heavy deadlifting session for somebody like how what? And I know percentage we're going to Yeah, well, I know in our powerlifting program, we use the RPE model. And I know that that's like people like want to hear a percentage. What's a more general way that you would recommend the audience like, okay, I'm going to start deadlifting heavy once we what's my heavy look like? Okay, so I'll change the terminology and say deadlift hard or intense once a week. So stop about one or two reps short of failure and keep the reps low. So you're looking at doing sets of one to three reps. And let's say it's one rep, or it's something you could do two or three with, or if you're doing three reps is something you do, you know, four to five with. And that's your training set. So it's hard, heavy, and keep the reps low and the intensity is high, but we're not lifting the failure. You're not trying to max out your deadlift until you get to the 30 day mark when you're trying to hit your your PR. So basically practice with that heavy weight. So it's like someone like me, if I if I could max out at 500 pounds, I'm probably going to do, you know, singles and doubles with 400 for, you know, five, five, six or no, maybe even more 450, you know, something like that. Yeah. Okay. So you're getting close, you're getting close, but you're, you know, you're still 50 pounds off your list. So it's something challenging, but you're like, I could add, you know, 40 pounds of this if I wanted to really, you know, type of push it. And you're practicing that heavy lift and you're keeping the reps low. And the sets should be relatively high, you know, four to five sets type of deal. Next up is the one extra. So nothing's going to get you better at deadlifting than deadlifting, right? But there are exercises that have carry over. And my experience, the squat has the most carry over to the deadlift. If your squat goes up, your deadlift tends to go up. So squat heavy once a week. Now here's the key with this. During your week, the squat should happen before the deadlift. So in other words, if you're training Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Monday is your heavy squat day. Wednesday is your heavy deadlift day. I don't like deadlifting heavy in the week and then going to the squat that tends to is that your problem is your theory on that, because the deadlift is so direct on the back and then that fatigues and then doing something like a heavy squat, which you need some core and low back strength to support a heavy squat that you don't want that to be fatigued from the deadlift. This is mostly risk management. So in my experience in training clients, I don't know if you've got any experiences where you go, try and squat heavy a day or two after you deadlift heavy. Doesn't feel too good. Doesn't feel very safe. Versus if I squatted heavy, even if my legs are a little sore, I can still pull it. Well, anytime my back's a little fatigued and then trying to brace and make sure that that mechanism's in place when I'm going to squat, you know, that's a consideration. You got to make sure that you're not going into it with fatigue otherwise it's going to put you susceptible. It's funny that we're talking about this because one of my things that I have never been able to put together is the times I've hit PRs in deadlifting, I actually squatted pretty heavy earlier in the week and I was kind of sore a little bit. Like I wasn't I didn't even think I was fully recovered from my squat already, but I was I was lifting heavy on squatting and then I at least had a day or two recovery and then I went into my deadlift and I pulled some of the best weight and I remember still feeling it a little bit from my squats, but then still having this incredible deadlift. So that's a good ending for the recruitment process, right? With the legs and, you know, obviously with deadlift, like if you get more leg drive, that's going to contribute quite a bit. You know what else I kind of contribute to it and I don't know if this is true or not, is that I'm a little tight and stiff. Correct. And that that actually favors you helps in a deadlift because a deadlift is more of a rigid lever movement versus a, you know, squatting down. And so the fact that I just lifted heavy squats, I'm still a little pumped and tight from the two days later going into the deadlift kind of stiff and rigid like that. So this is an interesting anecdote. I don't know if there's data to support this, but I agree with you. So I always will hit a PR in deadlifts if I hit close to a PR in squats two days before. You'll see. That happens to be every every every PR I've hit. That I've correlated that. I'm like, that's weird. Well, and the tightness thing is interesting because because with the deadlift, you don't have the, I don't know, benefit, I guess, of lowering the weight before you lift it. With a deadlift, you're lifting it off the floor and how tight and tense you can be at the start makes a huge difference. Whereas if you're with the squat and you're lowering properly, you're kind of naturally having to be tight because you're lowering into the hole with the deadlift. If you start loose at the bottom, you're losing a lot of power. You have to create that all before you get into it. Yes. Yeah. And to, you know, really getting the lats engaged is something that people like don't consider. If you can really kind of set yourself in that position and, you know, direct it more to the legs, you're going to have a lot better lift. Yes. Now with the squatting heavy, this would be similar to what the deadlift you're doing, you know, singles, doubles, triples, you're working at a high intensity, but you're not going to failure. You can even substitute this for box squats. I found box squats to be just as effective. The reason why you may do a box squat instead of a traditional squat is if squatting heavy and deadlifting heavy just is working the hips and low back a little too much. Then you can do that, but squat heavy once, then deadlift once, heavy in the week. Now the next one is a different exercise that have also noticed good carryover to the deadlift. And that is the hip thrust. You also want to hip thrust heavy once a week. Now here's what it looks like in the beginning of the week, you do a squat, a heavy squat session, then you do a heavy deadlift session. At the end of the week, you do your heavy hip thrust session works out great. And the hip thrust has got really, really good carryover, especially as the weight gets above, you know, it starts to get past that last bit, right? Yes, that lock extension lockout of the hips. So if you're programming that you just need three days a week where you're doing these these kind of heavy compound lifts, where is the auxiliary deadlift type stuff going on? Like where are you fitting that in? So you can do light deadlifts on the hip thrust day if you want. And there is just technique, technique, form. You're you're looking at, you know, really staying in the whole staying tight. The people that I would have do this are people who really need to work on the their biomechanics and their feel for the deadlift. If you're deadlift, like for me, deadlifting is very second nature. I get right into it. I usually don't even deadlift a second time a week. But if I'm working with someone and I notice like, we really need to work on getting the bar in the right position, staying tight, they either get too low or too high at the beginning of it, then I'll have them do a light deadlift session. So what my routine looked like around this time when I hit my PR was I had a day where I was doing like light deficit deads and then I would be doing light speed pulls. Yeah, combined with one heavy load day. Yeah, I like that. And then I would put those on this. So like if I was squatting really heavy, I would I was still probably deadlift like deficit deads, but really light, be really light, full range of motion going really deep, controlled squeezing the top. It was just like a maybe eight to 10 reps higher rep range and a lot easier weight. And then on the tip thrust day, I might be doing like speed. I like that. I like that. Now I want people to, you know, as they listen to this, you're we're giving you, you know, lots of different options. Air on the side of less, not on the side of more. Yeah, you're already doing one taxing day. You've already you're saying to me that you're you're pushing weight that's close to a PR. That's more than enough to to elicit some some growth changes. I still want it in the tank, you know, yeah, they're ready to go. Right. I noticed with strength, even more so than hypertrophy with hypertrophy. Now strength and hypertrophy super closely related. So what I'm about to say is a little bit like not quite splitting hairs, but it's getting there. But that is that training less tends to get you more strength and pushing your capacities a little more than that tend to give you more hypertrophy. So in other words, part of strength is your energy, how good you feel, how fresh you feel, how good your CNS is. Whereas hypertrophy, there's a little bit more stress damage, you know, we're kind of pushing the limit a little bit, we're getting, you know, building muscle. But when it comes to strength, it's like, you know, if you hear all the things that we're talking about, you're like, I'm going to add all of it, you're probably better off doing less when it comes to trying to hit a PR rather than doing more and more and more, you know, smallest things. No, that's a good point. All right. And the last one or not the last one, the next one is on that third week, because this is a 30 day process, right? So we're trying to do four weeks to get to a PR. The week before the week, you're going to try to hit your PR. This is when you go light. Yep. This is when you lift light practice in the lift. Yeah, you want to get into your lifts. You want to train at much lower intensity. You just want to feel tight. You want to feel good. You want to feel strong, because what you're trying to do is allow your body to really recover and be fresh for that following week. Now, so is light considered still relative to the day that you like, so let's say you still have a heavy lifting day. But now when you said before, I might be doing 450. If my max is 500, I'm doing 450 singles and doubles or whatever. Now I might do 350 or 400. Yes, 350. Okay. Yeah, I'd go way down. Oh, even down to 350. And I'm just, yeah, I'm just going through the technique in the form. And you know, feel it a little bit. I mean, you're still, you know, you're still lifting, but you're not lifting with anywhere near the intensity. And the idea is to come out of that week. Really recovered. Fresh. Yeah. In fact, some people, this is not true for everybody, but some people take it off, take a week off and come back even stronger. Now, this is not going to happen for a lot of you. For a lot of you, you still want to train that. But the lesson that you're you're you're trying to teach right there and the point you're making is that you you can easily overdo it. You're less likely to underdo it in that final week. So if anything, air on the even lighter side, you know, and just go through the motions and not you do not want to be getting sore from those workouts, getting ready to lead into the no, in fact, studies show that, you know, because some people will call this this would be similar to what they call active recovery week or what is it the term that they use for the week where you train? Deload? Deload, thank you. A deload week studies show that the deload week is where the majority of the muscle and strength things happen. So like people train, train, train, train, train. They get some progress and they do a deload week and then the body's adaptation just advances like crazy during that deload week. If you like to work out a lot, you'll probably have noticed this yourself when you do something like going on vacation, you want to vacation for a week, you don't work out, you expect to come back and be weaker and all of a sudden you're stronger on all your lifts. So that's kind of what's happening here. And with this, you want to set yourself up for that fourth week because your goal that fourth week is I'm going to hit a PR on my deadlift. So you basically want to lift light that week and just kind of go through the motions, feel the technique in the form. Now what is okay, that's specific to the deadlift. Now, what about everything else? Everything. Okay. Yeah, everything you're going, you're going, you know, relatively light in comparison to how you were training the week before. So you're still doing a workout, but you're not really training that hard. You're feeling super good, super fresh. At the end of that third week, you should feel like like ramped, like I'm ready to go. I love really getting into the like nitty gritty and the nuances of everything with the grip and just, you know, really setting my entire body up mechanically to. So it's like you go to step into the heavy weight, but you've done it so many times and repeated that process that it's like an automatic response going into a heavy. This is where I practice the little things that make the deadlift more efficient. So like I'll practice pushing my legs through the floor. The feeling of that versus, versus rip, you know, pulling the bar off the ground really bending outward with, with my hands, yeah, I'll activate my lats, drop my shoulders, activate my lats. I'll practice that pushing my legs to the bar through the floor. I'll practice taking the slack off the bar before I lift, meaning I pull up on the bar just enough because you know, when you first lift the weight, there's a little bit of slack on the bar in terms of, you know, maybe where the bar bell is in the, in the plates or whatever. So I pull up on it a little bit, create a little bit of tension, activate the lats, bend the bar, push my legs through and drive my hips forward. And this is when I'll practice that, that technique so that when I go for that heavy lift, the final, final week, it's like it's on. Now what you guys are kind of alluding to that I think is interesting and probably why Justin, I think enjoys this part of it so much is almost the sport of it. Oh, very much. Yeah. And you create a ritual out of it. And what that reminds me of too, you know, I shared a while back, the research on this that I thought was really fascinating where they had the three different case groups that shot the free throws and then a certain amount that didn't shoot as many free throws and then the person who did nothing but visualize shooting the free throws and actually the person who visualized shooting the free throws as much as the person who actually shot the free throws saw almost the same percentage of increase. Yeah. Something I also remember during my PRs of any lifts was the lead up in this time of this month. I'm thinking about it a lot. Yes. I'm like, I'm all I'm constantly I'm thinking about tomorrow I'm going to deadlift. Oh, I'm going to focus more on this. Like you're talking about the grips and these things like that. Like I was so into deadlifting and I really remember this because it was when we all first got together and I really for the first time in my life was trying to see if I could get my deadlift up really high never up before that and cared to do that. And so I was thinking about it all the time. All my lifts, all my workouts, every time I approached the gym that day when I was OK, I'm going to deadlift today. But when I do it, these are the things I'm thinking about. And I was processing that through my my head even when I wasn't going through it. I think that has a lot of the chalk the same way. I'm like stomping my foot to dig. So I'm getting a good anchor point there and like all those things we talked about with, you know, how we we really focus on bending the bar and we get our body like really set up to be as rigid as possible. Oh, yeah. I mean, 100 percent, you know, that's that's all those things. And then some I mean, I'll walk up to the to the bar and I'll visualize that I need to rip something off the ground to save somebody or I'll grab the bar and I'll make this angry face and try to elicit a feeling of anger. And I'll practice that because then it gets me in the in the zone. A lot of people don't know this, but strength is so much a skill and so much your technique and so much how your ability to elicit the right emotional response that the difference between a PR and just being lifting kind of heavy is there. I mean, you can add 10 pounds, 15 pounds to a lift just by, you know, manipulating your technique by one percent or tension or feeling or the right emotional response. So it actually makes a difference. And that's the goal. The goal here is to hit a PR. So our goal here is to use everything we can to squeeze out every single pound. All right. Next is really in reference to the rest of the body. And that is to train with moderate intensity for the rest of the body. So a big mistake that people make when they're trying to hit a PR in a lift is they try to hit a PR in every lift at the same time. So they're going through like the strength cycle. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. And you can definitely increase your strength across the board. And this is why I think people get confused is when they get stronger, they tend to get generally stronger. But if you're trying to hit a PR in a specific lift, it can be really hard to push your body and also hit a PR and overhead press and bench press and rows and pull ups and stuff like that. So you want to train everything. And you want to train everything good, but your goal isn't to go crazy on everything else. You want to leave that for the dead. I think that this tip is so important. When you're so back to my point of I'm thinking about the dead lift all the time. So when I'm doing other exercises, I'm I'm constantly thinking about how it's going to affect my dead. Yeah, how it was going to complement the support. You're what I'm doing. That's right. Or right. And so I would I would consider my programming and my choice of intensity on other exercises based off of what I wanted to do from the deadlift. So if I knew I'm going into a heavy deadlift day tomorrow and I'm excited about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm gonna see if I can do better than what I did last week. And then today I'm doing like chest and shoulders and some other exercises. I'm thinking about ways that when I do this this chest stuff today or I'm doing this and that like I only want to go this heavy or I only want to train this hard because I want to be really ready to go tomorrow. So I think that's such an important point to make that everybody kind of just kind of goes through their normal routine and they're kind of crushing the weights at everything. And what they don't realize is even if they're list following the tips you're giving, but then they're they smashed, you know, the lap pull down the day before like lots of pull ups or they did show and then they don't think that's going to affect their heavy hamstrings or something. Right. Right. Yeah. They were leg curls really hard the day before and then they're going to go over and they're going to do deadlifts the next day and not think that's going to affect it like absolutely it's going to affect it. And so making sure that you're modifying not only exercises, but the intensity of exercises leading up to your everything I built around the week was around the deadlift. Yes. And what I wanted to do that week in the deadlift. Yeah, good way because you are training heavy with the hip thrust and the squat which have carry over but everything else you still want to work out. So I'm not saying you go in there and don't work them out, but you're not trying to hammer them and push them too hard. Now, this is different for everybody, but I noticed the most detrimental effects for my deadlift when I over fatigue and this again can be different from anybody, but when I over fatigue my forearms and how can this happen when I hit my arms really hard and I noticed this just training over the years like when I'm trying to hit a PR and deadlifts I get in that mentality of just overall strength and I'll train and hit you know, heavy curls and heavy tricep extension and all kinds of heavy everything. Then my forearms get a little tight and sore and then where I'll fail is in gripping the bar. I can't hold on to the bar. Now for someone else this may be too much hamstring work. I actually had a client who hammered their calves and it hampered their deadlift because of the stability in the ankles. So yeah, you want again I think you put it beautifully Adam, the idea is to center because we're trying to hit a PR on the deadlift is to center everything around that and not take away from your strength in that particular lift. All right. Now now some fun, right? Let's talk about the pre workout supplement stack. And I'm going to be honest with you. This actually has the least amount to do with you hitting a PR, but it'll do something. It'll give you a few percent. Well, I would make the case that it gives a little bit more than you think so long as you haven't been already abusing it heading into. Oh, so good. So like this is where, you know, you hear us talk on the show all the time about cycling off of caffeine for a while. Like if I want to PR I'm coming I'm coming off of a week or two where I just cycled off and now I'm starting to ramp up the usage of it. That way I'm reaping the max benefits from it. Yeah. So the first compound is caffeine. Now here's how I like to do it based off kind of, you know, just to piggyback off what you're saying, Adam. You have three heavy workout days. Your your squat day at the beginning of the week, your deadlift day and then your hip thrust day. So that's three days a week where you could take a nice dose of caffeine. The rest of the week your caffeine intake should be low or ideally none. That keeps it fresh enough to where when it's time for you to do your PR you take your caffeine and it hits you. The mistake people make is that take the caffeine every single day and then it loses its effect and you have to take more and more and then what you end up getting is more side effects and less actual results. Yeah, and obviously you don't want to take too much to where you get that shaky feeling. That's not going to aid in your benefit either. So it's like, you got to know the right dose. And I know you didn't you didn't add the the smelling salts in there. But I feel like that that would be like obviously that's a like a professional yes, kind of way to handle it. But like it's not for everybody, but it does. It does stimulate that focus, which is really what you're trying to do is just channel all of the focus and direct, you know, that recruitment all in one center. Yeah, the reason why I didn't put smelling salts here is because that's that's like too advanced is what I was trying to get here. It just hit or miss. Like you never have somebody doesn't like practice with smelling salts. Use it. What did you do? Yeah, but I mean, it did. It definitely helped when I did it. It does for me. I always use smell. I never show them in my videos, but right before I hit play, if you're watching me hit a heavy lift, there was smelling salts involved. Yeah, but caffeine has been shown in studies to reliably increase strength in people who have a, you know, sensitivity to it. And what I mean by that is not like they can't have caffeine. They're sensitive. What I mean by that is they were off caffeine for a bit and then they took a dose of caffeine and you see this strength boost from it. Now you mentioned something. And I'm going to I'm going to talk about a second compound here in reference to what you said. You said you don't want to take too much caffeine to where your jittery or shaky. Okay. This is why we add theanine. Theanine is an amino acid that when combined with caffeine makes it a smoother stimulating effect. Now someone may think like, why would you want it to be smooth? Aren't you trying to be angry and edgy? And don't you want all this power? Think of it this way. It's like having it's like having a magnifying glass that you shine a light through it, right? And the magnifying glass where I position it will focus the light and make a point. There's two ways I can make that the point that I'm making with the light hotter or more powerful. One way is to increase the light behind the magnifying glass. That's your caffeine. The other way is to focus the point even more. That's the theanine. Combined, you get this loud signal, which is the caffeine, and the theanine really focuses it so that when you're doing your lift, you don't have all this energy coming out of your body in other directions. It's focused to the lift. That's why you want hype with focus. Hype by itself is exhausting. It actually results in energy loss. You end up results in less strength. It's a chance for it. Absolutely. So the theanine with the caffeine makes a huge difference and you want a two to one ratio. So you want however much caffeine you you you took, I like to take twice as much theanine. A lot of people think one to one is good. In my experience, two to one seems to be best. And when I give you guys caffeine, theanine, that's what I do. I give you guys two. I mean, the biggest point, I think for all the supplement talk is that the key is actually to have refrained from using too much of it and then adding it into your routine is when you're going to really reap the benefits when it comes to chasing a PR. If you've been taking it every day and you're consistently taking it like this is where this is really going to matter very little. But if you did a good job of pulling caffeine out of your diet for a while and then reintroducing it because you're trying to use utilize like this, then I see huge benefits. Totally. And now one more compound. By the way, this is all about 45 minutes before you're going to go do your deadlift. You want to give yourself 45 minutes for all the stuff to kind of kick in and ramp up your CNS. The last compound I'll say that you can add and this is my own anecdote. It's called agmatine. And this is a compound closely related to argonine, the amino acid, but it has interesting pain relieving effects in the body to where I notice when I take it, I feel a little bit more invincible when I work out. I feel like I can just generate more force because I have less stiffness and it is a real nice combination with the caffeine and the anion. You'll find it in some pre workouts but a couple of grams of agmatine with the caffeine and the anion about 45 minutes before you're going to attempt your lift. Next up is something that you would do two hours before you're going to attempt your deadlift. And that is to have a nice meal and a lot of water. I like to have a good 50 grams of carbohydrates, 40 grams of protein, and then I'll make sure I have maybe 30 ounces of water with this meal two hours before. So I have good carbohydrates, good glycogen, good fuel and my muscles are hydrated. And that's two hours before I do my. And you want to kind of go through this so you know what that right amount is. Yeah. Because you don't want to have any kind of sluggish. I've added too many carbs before and actually went away from me in terms of like, I just felt a little bit sluggish going into the lift. And so finding that right balance is everything. So if you can do that, obviously the week or two before and kind of work your way up to what that perfect meal is, that's ideal. You know, how individualized do you think this part is? Oh, it can be very individualized. Yeah. Justin hit the nail on the head too. Like it could be too much, too little, the wrong foods. I mean, I mean, I really got to a point where because the opportunity to track for as diligent as I did for as long as I did. Oh, you had it down to the ground. Oh yeah. I had it down to the ground, the time, everything. Like I had to eat two meals before work. Just because my bar, I needed that much calories to support that kind of my size and that kind of a workout. Plus you were training so high volume at that point, right? So the workouts before too. Yes. So I, and then the, and I had my stand which is very similar to like what we, the creatures that have it oatmeal. I used to make my own homemade version of that. That was my first meal. And then I'd have a second like large breakfast and it was like steak, eggs, potatoes. Like that was the meal. And I wanted it a good two hours before. So it was fully digested by the time I got to my workout. And then also I had to be really hydrated too. So I had to have at least like a half a gallon of water, half a gallon of water, the combination of those which was about 75 to 80 plus grams of carbohydrates plus the big meal steak, which is probably the eggs which is the cholesterol to your point. That meal, there was nothing like it. There was no, I couldn't. There was no supplement. There was no other supplement. There was no other combination of me. And I did so many different, I played with stacking pancakes and doing all kinds of like higher carb, like nothing compared to that combo meal. So I can't stress enough how powerful it can be to kind of play with those combinations and become aware of, and this is again, back to why I like tracking so much is that because of that, I learned that. I learned that like if I ever wanna really, if I want a crazy workout, I know the foods that I need to eat. That PR meal. Yeah, and even just to have great workouts. Like so obviously I'm not always chasing a PR when I was competing, but I always wanted a great feel to my workout where I felt pumped and felt energized and there is a combination of foods that, and I couldn't support the science behind why that was so good for me. I was eating out too. I'm eating at a restaurant. I was at a cafe. It's not like I was having like the most ideal, perfect. I'm sure there was some extra butter that was on the steak and things like that that they cooked it in oils. Like so I know it wasn't the most healthy option that I could have, but boy it sure was a great combo for me for eating. For me it's 40 grams of carbs about 30, 40 grams or 50 grams of carbs about 30, 40 grams of protein. And some fat like nine to 10 grams and then 32 ounces of water. That was, that's mine about two hours before. And I just have the best workouts, I'm stronger. That right there, I've actually got it down to the pounds. It'll consistently result in a good five to 10 pounds more in my workout with whatever exercise. I'm just, whatever that is, five to 10% stronger I notice in my workout. And then definitely more stamina. So this isn't really a stamina thing because we're talking about PR, but if I'm gonna do a long workout, man does it make a huge difference if I have that meal two hours before. All right, now right before you do your lift, how you prime is gonna make a big difference. This can be pretty individual to the person based upon movement and balances they have or tightness or issues that they have. For me personally, soft tissue work is really good for PR day. And I'll typically foam roll my lats right under my armpits, my hips, just because of those areas seem to be pretty involved in the deadlift for me and they tend to be tight. And then from there, I'll do body weight hip thrust just to activate my glutes. And then I'll do some moderate like intensity suitcase holds or carries just to activate my QL, right? The kind of lateral stability because if I hurt myself, it's cause that's off. And then I get into my deadlift and I do a few warm-up sets working up to my PR. Do you guys have priming specifically for yourselves? No, a hundred percent. And I actually think that there, not only is there an individual component here, but then there also is that sport ritual component here too. And like, so I kind of, I prime for all my workouts right now and I have like a couple of things that I do that gets me my general priming. And then when I recall back to like my heavy deadlifting days and when I was chasing numbers like this, boy, I had a very, I mean, down to the carry my bag up, drop it down by the platform, you know, unzip, get all my stuff out that I need, my different shoes, all the stuff that I want. My music is already playing that I need to hear to get myself all amped up. I get down, I do my kind of easier stuff like my 90, 90s and my combat lizard with rotation. Then I get into my leg swings. And I'm like, it's like this 10, 10, 15 minute like just really slowly warming the body up starting to get ramped up with the music. The pre-workout starting to really set into my body and stuff like that. And then get into the first real light, light rep of a warmup where I'm just feeling the bar and the weight. And I can normally tell by that first, you know, 135 pounds, which is nothing to pull off the ground how it comes up like what kind of day it's gonna be based off of the way I primed and set myself up of like, okay, I'm gonna be able to get after today or knowing, which by the way too, I think is an important thing that we didn't really talk about here is that I had to learn that when the way I felt and set one would actually steer and dictate where I was going for that day. So even though if I said today is my heavy 450 pound day, if I got out of there and it just didn't feel right if some of the other components, the sleep was off if something was off, then I would scale back even more than that. But then other times I'd get in and it's like, oh, I hit everything. I mean, that bar felt like it had no weight on it pulling it up. And it's like, today is gonna be one of those days like you can feel it. I feel like you can. And part of that is how well you prime into it to get into it and get ready. And the first time you touch that bar you have an idea of what kind of day it's gonna be. Yeah, for me, if I prime right and I do a good job I go up to the bar and start with my warm-up set and I feel zero, I don't know for lack of a better term, hitches in my form. So I don't feel like it's like a two-stage deadlift. Sometimes people with deadlift or hips come up to a little too fast or they're too low and they're pulling the bar into their shins, it feels super smooth. I also don't feel any stiffness or tightness. I do feel tight, but I don't feel the kind of tightness that feels limiting. I feel tight in the sense that I feel strong. And that's what it feels like right off the gates. That's how I know I prime properly. As I get in the bar and I lift and it's like a piston, whoop, bar moves up and everything feels smooth. And you've alluded to like all of those like secondary muscles that are helping to stabilize everything. I'm focusing on a lot of times when I'm going into prime, making sure QL, making sure, you know, like I'm getting my shoulders fully retracted. I'm getting myself so I could brace and get as rigid as possible. And one thing too, like so in this category, like before I even go to the attempt to lift, like I'll take like a stick and I'm just like driving it as hard as I can into the ground because I'm just, I'm literally ramping up my central nervous system as loud as possible. And that's the way that I can do that without like completely fatiguing it right away. But I'm able to drive and then get everything ready so that when I get to the bar, I can emulate that and I can really kind of like enhance the amount of recruitment I can get. You know, it's funny. So one of our friends, Lane Norton, great deadlifter, right? He's a natural deadlifter. I think he holds some records in the deadlift for his body weight. Drug tested, this guy's a beast. You ever seen him when he walks up to the bar? He stomps down, stomps down, reaches out with his arms real tight and then he goes down. What he's doing, I don't know if he realizes this or not, I know it's his ritual, but he's turning on a CNS. When he reaches out like that, he's like, oh, he's tight, like he's turning on. I do something similar, but I don't grab a stick and drive it to the ground. When I walk up the bar right beforehand, I do this with my teeth and I tense up my whole body. And what? Grind it. Yes, because what it's doing is it's like, it's turning on my CNS to be, to feel like I'm gonna turn it on and really maximize its power output. So I do something similar, except for my, I actually go high, like Lane does this kind of out in front, I go all the way up, but I'm actually activating my lats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the challenges that I had was always bending the bar and locking my lats in and tightening them up. So me, it's this quick activation of, okay, there they are. So I can feel my lats, so I stretch them real quick and then I get in the bar so I can intensify them and then lock in. But yeah, I think that the priming, the routine, plus you alluded to your isometric cold you do, I got on a kick for a while there after you taught us the dump fee squat. And I think that's a really good one to prime for a deadlift or a squat before. So that was something that I did for a while that I really liked. And when you've done a good job of knowing like how to prime the position you get into, one of the things that's cool is that you can get right into that position and create a good isometric. And that's sometimes- That's what you want. Yeah, that's a really good warmup right before you get in in itself. Yeah, you're not trying to go loose, heavy deadlift. You wanna get, grab the bar, get tight, activate everything and then go. That's gonna give you more power and it's gonna take the slack off the bar, reduce energy loss and maximize your lift. And if you follow these steps, your odds of hitting a PR in 30 days are pretty high. Look, if you like the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump, Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump, Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump, Sal. This one's really important and that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps, but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets, at the end of that year, you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out. And less injury, that's another thing. You'll see less injury as well.