 What's happening guys? Salah Mike, back again. Another Q&A answering your questions. Comment below any questions you have. Nutrition, lifting, life, whatever it is. We're going to answer them in the next one. Be sure to give this thing a thumbs up. Be sure to subscribe. Turn on notifications. New video dropping every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Let's dig in. So you guys are talking about using a weight lifting belt or a power lifting belt at what percentage of your one-round max should you use it and that's going to depend on how advanced you are. You know 80% for someone who squats a thousand pounds is a little bit heavier to start using your belt. 80% for someone who squats 135, maybe just right. So it'll kind of depend. If you're a beginner I wouldn't be afraid of throwing on a belt loose and learning how to breathe and brace into it a little bit earlier. It's going to be a little bit different for everybody. The routine is going to be a little bit different, but 50, 60, 70 percent somewhere in that range is going to be best for most. It also depends on the workout and the goal of that workout, the phase of training. So there's multiple things to answer. We did a very in-depth belt. How do you use a belt? When do you use a belt? Video with Alan Thrall. We can search it. I'll try to remember to put in the link in the description. But to answer your question around 60% for most people is probably good. 60, 65%. So what are my best lifts ever? A gym, competition, whatever. The best squat, just free raw squat, is 590 pounds in competition. My personal, what I think is my best set of squats, a little bit more subjective, is I squatted 550 or 545 for a really fast clean set of three. And I probably had, you know, maybe even two more reps in there. So that's probably my best squat overall. Best bench overall is 405 in the gym. Best set might be, you know, probably that. 405 is pretty cool. Four wheels on the bar, but I've done like 365 for four. Deadlift is 705 in a Deadlift exhibition. And I've done about 650 or so for a pretty fast three in the gym. That was one of my better sets. Clean and jerk. I think I did 135. I don't know if that's good. I mean, it's definitely not good. But for weightlifting for four months or whatever I did, clean and jerked about 405. I've overhead pressed strict 235. But I've never really focused on that. And I snatched 85 kilo. 135 kilo for the clean and jerk, by the way. Not pounds. So I don't know much about DMT. I listen to some like Rogan and stuff where people talk about that. Is that that's the drug that is like your death drug that that seeps into your brain as you're dying? I'm not much of a one to influence who I am by substances. I'll have a beer here and there. But beyond that, it's not really my cup of tea. So DMT seems like from having a beer every like every fifth the weekend with the buddies to DMT. It seems a real big stretch for me. If that's what makes you happy, I hope you're safe and I hope you're happy. But I don't know much about it. I can't say I'll never do it, but it's likely I won't ever dig into the DMT world. It's not for me. Oh, not a bad question. Can I or how can I become a personal trainer without having a good physique? Now, that's hard, you know, because you always want your coaches, your leaders, your mentors to lead by example. But there is a role of genetics and a lot of things. There's a role of, you know, performance enhancing drugs in our industry, to be quite honest, that allows certain people to look better or perform better without having the knowledge, right? Where we want our coaches to yes, follow by example, or lead by example, but you also want them to have the knowledge, the skills, the communication skills and experience to be a good coach. So I think that's very difficult because yes, part of your resume to sell yourself as a coach is people that you've trained and how you look and perform yourself. It shouldn't be the end factor. So if you work your absolute tail off on becoming the most knowledgeable, most experienced and best coach or personal trainer you can, you can definitely get around that. Like, look at me, for example, do I have some muscle on me? Yes, I've lifted very hard and worked hard for a long time. I've eaten pretty well for the last 10 years. I do the right things the right way, but I'm not the most jacked guy. I'm not the best looking guy. I'm not the strongest guy and I've still had a fairly successful personal training or coaching career. So it's definitely doable, but on the opposite is don't allow your experience, your knowledge, your coaching ability to be a factor in neglecting yourself. You should always look to improve your life yourself in multiple ways and taking care of your body, building more muscle, building more strength, eating better, being healthier to lead by example should be one of those goals to become a personal trainer as well. What do you do if your deadlift has stalled? Guys, we did 100,000 deadlift videos, probably 100,002 videos on what happens when you plateau. There's going to be multiple factors that we want to look at. There's going to be three main things that we look at when a single lift stalls. One, how is our programming? Are we handling enough volume to progress? How is our frequency within that volume? Are we deadlifting enough or more specifically the deadlift to work on our technique, which leads to number two, is our technique good enough or holding us back from improving? And then three is probably our recovery, which basically recovery, even though there's a lot of gimmicks out there, a lot of supplements, a lot of people preaching this and that, this and that, this and that, tools you need to buy you don't. It's food and sleep. Are you in a slight calorie surplus? And are you getting adequate sleep? So one, check out your programming, make sure you're following a proven method or have a plan with progression to get you where you want to go. Make sure your technique is sufficient and slowly improving. And then three, worry about your recovering. Most people for the deadlift in particular, they're just pulling too heavy too often, not handling enough volume and not focusing on technique, but a little bit of food or a little bit of sleep will definitely help as well. Talking bench press, why can't I, why can't I wide grip bench or wider grip bench without my shoulders coming untucked or my back getting loose, which is super common in any group of the bench. Yes, it's a little bit easier when your arms are a little more narrow to keep those scapulas retracted, right? We're trying to take those shoulder blades pinch them together, keep our shoulders down and into our socket with our chest up. That's going to allow stability in our shoulder for us to press off of. We need a solid foundation to press off of our shoulders very mobile. It's made to reach, it's made to throw, it's made to do all these things. But when you want to move heavyweight in one direction, we need to tuck that thing in and use it as stable as we can. That's why we're using our lats and our back to tighten that thing up. Now, when the grips a little bit closer, it is a little bit easier to squeeze for some, but for many, a wider grip will reduce the range of motion, allow you to press more weight long term. So what do you do? Well, you drop the weight, you worry about squeezing those shoulders and maybe for a couple weeks, if not months, you need to practice on doing a little bit less reps. A lot of times for a majority of people, they'll start to do sets of eight and 10, which are great for building muscle and building strength. But towards the end, you get a little bit lazy in that shoulder slowly becomes untucked and now you're pressing too much with your shoulder. Shoulders not stable and you're putting a lot of pressure right there on the front delt. So if you handle sets of one, two, three, four, five at varying loads, not always maximal, but you know, anywhere from 65 to 80% working on that form. Another thing that really helps me and a lot of people I've worked with are doing a ton of face pulls and pull apart. So grab a similar width to your bench, maybe a band and just start pulling apart, keeping those elbows slightly bent, but not leading with the elbows. You're really trying to leave with your shoulders and really squeeze those scapulas together just to get that mind connection. And then it's just about your setup, being repetitive with your setup, doing the same thing every single time you bench and then focusing on squeezing that back as much as you can. These are decent questions. I feel like sometimes we can get shit questions. Good job, you nerds. Proud of you guys. Would it be a more advantageous to a deadlift with a heeled shoe, a squat shoe, a weightlifting shoe if your goal is to be an Olympic weightlifter, right, the cleaning jerk and the snatch? And the question or the answer is probably yes, but hopefully you're not really deadlifting. A lot of times when you weightlift, what you'll do is called pulls and it's slightly different. Your hips may raise a little bit early because of your second pull and how you want to stay in position for the cleaning jerk and the snatch. So the actual motor pattern is a little bit more like that. That's why they call them a pull or a high pull or pull shrug or whatever variation that might do rather than just a deadlift. But in that case, yes, if your number one goal is Olympic weightlifting pulling in a heeled shoe or a weightlifting shoe is just fine. If your number one goal is powerlifting, just deadlift. I'd recommend a flat shoe for both conventional and sumo for 99% of people. Ladies and gentlemen, that's been another one. Be sure to leave your comments below, questions, ask me anything, life, nutrition, fitness, lifting, anything you want video games because we're on Twitch five days a week, maybe seven days a week. Link in the bio. Appreciate you all. Give this thing a thumbs up. I'll catch you in the next one. Silent Mike, I'm out.