 Our next caller is Pam from Oregon. Pam. What's going on? How can we help you? Hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. I actually have three, but we can take them one by one Just to make sure the timing works out. Okay So quick background I started working out seriously about two three years ago And I've been rock climbing for about three four years now and I always hated cardio with all my heart My goal for now is just getting stronger mostly to assist my climbing skills So listening to your podcast it felt very liberating to understand that's not a necessity for better health However when I go on hikes and backpacking and everything I can feel the lack of androids hard to keep up with my friends who are much better So I'd like to keep some form of cardio just for that Right now. I usually finish my workouts with just a 15 minutes high intensity training cycling session Um, however, so from what I've learned from you guys the signals leveraged by strength training and cardio are kind of antagonist So my question is Am I impeding on the outcomes of my workouts when I wrap it up with a short high intensity cardio session? Yeah, probably not. No, okay So here's I want to be clear here with that with that message of the competing signals If the cardio is improving your health and if it improves your ability your work capacity It can actually help you build muscle. Okay, so if you got like a let's I'm gonna paint a picture This is not you but let me just paint a picture you got a dude only interested in building muscle All he does is lift weights and feed himself a lot of food and as a result his stamina goes way down He starts to suffer in his workouts He's breathing hard just when he's bench pressing but he doesn't want to do any cardio because he doesn't want to Prevent himself from getting muscle. Okay in that case a little cardio would improve his health and would actually Help him build a little bit of muscle So it does depend on the individual now You did mention that one of the reasons why you want to do this is that you notice when you go hiking and stuff with your friends You're losing some stamina the best thing you could do if you want that kind of stamina is to practice more of that So I would do the hiking as part of your routine if possible To give you that endurance and stamina Otherwise what you're doing on the bike is probably absolutely fine Of course, we have to look at everything so if you're on the border of overtraining and you throw that in it Might be too much, but if you're fine and you're noticing that you're recovering fine. I don't think it's a problem It's fine. It's fine, but it's not really gonna help what you're trying to do right if you go for a hike I'm assuming you don't with your friends Sprint for 30 seconds and then walk with them and then sprint for 30 seconds well And then you guys stop at 15 minutes like so your body's gonna get good at whatever you do So if if that's the only form of cardio and then you do these Long, you know Three mile five mile hikes or you're rock climbing for two or three hours and you're getting gassed and fatigued Well, it's because you haven't trained the body to get good at that And so actually dedicating, you know a day or two a week to a you know Longer lower intensity type of cardio session is going to benefit that and like Sal said it's It's such a hard thing for us to communicate on this podcast because we come off like we're anti-cardio It's just that it really depends what the main goal is your goal is very specific here You want to be strong and you want to build muscle But then you also need to be able to go on these long hikes or long bouts of climbing And so as a trainer who's programming for you I've got a program in it even if it means we get you know one-tenth less muscle building this month It's okay because I you also are doing this other thing if you were that example Sal said and you all you cared about was I just want to add muscle add muscle Well, then maybe I'm a little more reluctant to add cardio in there But for someone who who needs it for what you're trying to do I'm absolutely gonna program something that mirrors what you want to do obviously the most Ideal would be get out and go do a hike that would be just like the hike You're gonna do with your friends once or twice a week otherwise you can try and Imitate that inside the gym doing it maybe on the stair master if it's a performance thing if you can emulate it around like what you Actually want to you know have endurance for that would be the ideal situation, but yeah to to that point It's You need a gas tank in order to kind of fuel you for a lot of these other extracurricular activities So there's a way to kind of incorporate that and train that and so It in terms of competing you might you know compete You know a little bit in terms of just like focusing directly on building muscle, but you know for for that reason There's nothing wrong and you know be a good workout program for you MAP strong I think MAP strong would probably give you work capacity Yeah, that would give you that would give you some of that because the work sessions and MAP strong are They do require some stamina for sure So if you if you don't have that program we can send it to you and you can give that one a try I like that but that one that one's gonna help you across the board I think and then just just make sure you do a good job like I love to get Some good liquid calories before I go on like like if a bout of cardio like this because your goal Isn't about leaning. You're not you're not doing cardio to get leaner or drop way You're doing cardio for performance reasons and so make sure you're you're fed well, you know Make sure you go into those bouts of of cardio with a good amount of calories I like to do some liquid calories about 30 minutes in before I go into it and then make sure that I replenish right away So as soon as I'm done with that bout I'm replenishing with some calories Right away that will also help mitigate any potential, you know muscle loss from from the reduction or the increase of in of movement and intensity Yeah, that's it. I'm very curious about the MAP strong to that's I definitely want to check it out Cool. You said you had some other questions Yes, so the second one is completely unrelated So I said I was rock climbing and I noticed consistently that after like a two-hour session I can do My max is about eight pull ups Pretty easily and whenever I go to the gym, and I try to repeat that just to make sure I get The pull ups reps in I can never reach even half of that. I get so weak even though I I do some of the Upper body workouts before and I can never figure out how what it is I thought it was maybe activation like I tried to do some hot pull downs It doesn't really help. I'm just And it's very consistent. I don't think it's like a negative role So do you have it? Do you have an experience with that? I do you know what I can do to make sure that I max out every time I go to the gym? Yeah I mean it boy this could be so many different factors, you know What did you do the day before are you working out your about your strength training your upper body before you attempt? some of these pull-ups but also generally speaking if you want to get better at pull-ups both at the gym and When you're rock climbing one of the best things you could do Pam is to practice pull-ups every day now You said your max is seven to eight at the rock climbing gym at about three or four at the gym gym when you're working out I would say do like two pull-ups You know every three hours I get a pull-up bar in your house and do like one or two pull-ups just easy Practice them every single day. It's the fastest way I've ever seen people improve their strength in a specific movement. It literally it works really quickly But the intensity needs to be low So, you know, if you could do four or five to you just get up on the pull-up bar Do two reps jump back down go about your day a couple hours later Try it again do this every single day, you know maybe four times throughout the day and you'll notice You're how much stronger you get and then don't increase those reps until after like six weeks Even if two now feels super easy. Just keep practicing. I say stay with the amount of reps increase the tension So in terms of like quality of reps and being able to kind of like I know a lot of times with pull-ups Sometimes there is a leak in performance So if you know, you have any kind of body part that's loose, you know, you got any swing that you have to address I mean isometrics in general to for, you know rock climbing is gonna be hugely beneficial But to really be able to have that ability to tense your entire body your core and stay tight and controlled And just try to rep it out as you know, the best quality reps you can possibly do You're gonna add, you know, a lot of benefits to that in terms of technique To add on to Justin's advice something you can play with it It'll be fun for you to try out if you've never done this before is find a weight That is heavy for you to deadlift like five reps a really heavy Deadlift weight and do one to two reps of that for two to three sets before you go into your pull-ups And then go to your pull-ups and see what you notice That's a good idea. But so when I do the pull-ups every day, I really don't chase that T great It's just no, you're literally practicing them. Literally. You're just jumping up doing a couple come back down go about your day Okay, okay And then the last one It's kind of relate to some of the things I've learned on your podcast Which is switching up tempo and with them in general to try to break plateaus and I was wondering if there is any advantages of Switching up also the tempo and a number of reps and the load also across sets within a same session or those variations should really be kept for Breaking up plateaus after maybe a few weeks of doing the same. Yeah Physiologically doesn't really make a difference. Your body's gonna adapt while doing both psychologically Doing one particular style for three weeks and then switching tends to work better because You know shorter rest periods for example or faster pace It's a different mentality. It's a different Psychology go into your workout when you're lifting heavy and you're resting long versus when you're doing super sets or versus when you're doing bodybuilding versus when you're doing powerlifting and switching the mentalities quickly from set to set often results in Subpar results it often results in like well I'm kind of I like one better than the other so my mindset's in there and I'm gonna get this one done because I need to Versus three weeks I know because he's what I what happens to me when I'm in a particular phase of training for three weeks The first couple workouts. I'm not fully in it Psychologically and then after that I really into it and I get really good at that mental part of the training But physiologically really no difference studies will show that doesn't make that big of a difference Either way it also it also makes it more difficult to measure Which tempo or what rep range or what rest period is benefiting you the most at that time So if you're kind of like mixing it all up in a single workout or changing it day to day It's hard to see that. Oh, wow I notice when I do these rest periods or I do this now Was it the slow one or the fast one right? It's it's really hard for you to measure That's really because they've done studies where they have people mix it up every single day And then people stay very consistent for two to three weeks and the results are very very close I mean it's splitting splitting hairs is the difference But we always talk about the psychological piece or the behavior piece and when we're coaching and training clients It's just easier to stay focused on one tempo or one rep range for an extended period of time So that you can just better evaluate it You can look at at the end of the week and go like oh, wow that I could feel the difference from changing my tempo to this To that versus if you're doing that every other day or in a workout The exercise it's really tough to to measure that I just think the psychological benefits of like being able to see or feel Yeah, change helps out totally Makes a lot of sense Thank you guys so much. Thanks for calling. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's You know, there's a theme oftentimes with certain questions and one of the things that comes up often for us Is like I want multiple things, right? How do I train for multiple things now? This is a general statement, but it's I think it's true kind of across the board which is If you focus on one thing one goal you get a lot of that goal And you get a little bit of other goals that you're not focused on if you focus on a lot of goals You get some of all of those goals, but you get you don't get a lot of any of them, right? So and that's a compromise and that's okay, and that's the mental piece like okay I'm gonna train for strength and endurance. I can't go into it thinking I want my strength to be my PR all the time I think that's the wrong mentality. I also want to be better at cardio Yeah, it's just like it's just not gonna work and then as far as cardio is concerned again If it improves your general health, it can have an a benefit beneficial effect on muscle building When we talk about cardio and some of the ways that we do We're talking to the cardio fanatics. They overdo it or that's the cornerstone of the routine And they just want to lose body fat in which case. It's not a great long-term strategy That's what we constantly communicate, but we're not anti-cardio All of us do some form of cardiovascular conditioning or training at some point or another to compliment our strength training and improve our quality of life So we got to be very clear and I really think that if that she was just trying to improve the quality of her life And you know have some sort of you know Cardio Abilities the 15-minute high-intensity thing is a great way to do it after your workout, but she has something even more specific She's rock climbing or she's hiking go like yeah for an extended period of time and Training that way isn't gonna help that that much. You'll help it a little bit But not that much because it's not specific enough to what she's doing. I tell you what This is so true, right? It's strength is very specific stamina can also be very specific like I remember Personally when I was really heavy into training jiu-jitsu Sometimes rarely we would cross train and we get a boxing coach in there or a Muay Thai coach And I could roll for an hour with different people on the ground and I would build all the stamina And I have no problem doing it then I'd go hit the pads and I'd gas out after 15 minutes Not even 15 minutes 10 minutes Yep, and I remember thinking what the hell and I'm like, well, this is different completely different monster Yeah, it's a different monster. I mean, it's a very similar example But like running lines on the field where it's everything's flat and controlled versus now I'm running uphill Yeah, that was a complete different experience and yeah, it's very specific to what you're doing totally Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe