 Are you trying to get leaner and hit new PRs in your lifts? Watch this. Our first caller is Helen from Colorado. Helen, what's going on? How can we help you? Hi there gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. It was a little bit of background in a real fitness and life funk in mid-2019. I joined CrossFit on the premise that all I needed to do was turn up and the coach would make something happen and it worked. One and a half years later I am in a consistent habit of going to the gym 45 days a week and no longer under duress. During this time I've been on a journey of discovery for strength and I feel like that's my M.O. So in the last year and a half I've gone from belly knowing what a deadlift is to pulling 300 pounds conventional and then I scored a 245 when I last tested my one right max and most of those gains have come while I've been in a calorie deficit and CrossFit so strength wasn't the main focus. Realising CrossFit wasn't the right fit for me. I've now moved to a regular gym so that I can really focus on strength and see what I can make happen. So I'm regularly working out four to five days a week. I'm running a three-day lower body, two-day upper body split and then in terms of nutrition I'm a wee bit fluffy right now so I'm on a cut trying to get down about 10 to 15 pounds. I'm on 21 100 calories getting me about one and one and a half pounds a week and working really well with kind of being flexible and whatever fits my macros. So all going good on that part. My question is in 15 months I turn 40 and with the right training and focus how far can I take my strength training in that time? Could I hit a 400 pound deadlift in 15 months and what magic can you guys share to help me go on the right track? Yeah okay so I have no idea if you can hit a 400 pound deadlift. That's more than Justin just so you know. But no I have no idea if that's where you can go. I'm sure there's some potential left there especially because you train so long with CrossFit which isn't exactly the best type of programming for pure strength. You're saying you're doing upper and lower body days powerlifting or strength training tends to focus on lifts not necessarily body parts. So if your number one and then you said you want to get leaner so we got to pick one right now. What's more important to you right now getting leaner or getting stronger? Probably leaner first only because I'm not really in a position that I want to do maintenance or bulking calories till I've addressed that. Realistic drop 10 pounds in like I don't know six eight weeks. Okay so I'd focus that on that first so go and get leaner and you know still focus on strength but don't expect huge strength gains. Not in a deficit. Not a deficit when you're done with getting lean then I would go in a surplus and I would follow a powerlifting specific yeah maps power type program. I was just gonna ask do you have maps power lift Helen? I don't. All right we'll send that over to you follow maps power lift in a surplus when you're done with your cut and you should see some pretty significant progress and changes. Now I will say this your lifts are pretty damn strong now yeah so adding a hundred pounds to your deadlift is I don't know that's you're looking at you know a third increase you know adding an additional third to the total weight that you lift. That would be impressive for somebody who's never deadlifted and then begins deadlifting that would still be impressive. Somebody who has been training crossfit and deadlifting for years now adding a hundred pounds is now that doesn't mean it's not possible no no it's especially with a targeted powerlifting routine because you know there's muscle that's gained but a good powerlifting routine is really good at technique getting you good at the lift and strength is as much of a skill as it is just muscle so I that would be the best direction to go I would say. Helen do you practice mobility quite frequently do you have a ritual around that? I guess what do you mean by mobility? What I mean by that is you know if you're constantly kind of checking in on your joint health and stability and support so to go through like some of these mobility type stretches and things like you know post or even priming before your workouts can make a substantial difference also when you're on you're on the this you know aggressive pursuit of strength you know the last thing you want to do is to you know get get you know a bad response out of your joints. I know we're not the biggest crossfit fans but I feel like that's one thing I really have taken away is is I do really good priming I've had really good I feel like I've had really good coaching in terms of technique and more importantly I've kind of been very in tune with if I'm not if I'm not feeling it like if occasionally I'll get a tight right hit I back it off and I focus on that before I you know put the weights back on again and I feel like that good starting point that I whilst I say I'm being aggressive I'm also being very smart about it and then obviously listening to you guys there's no point lifting if it's not good technique yeah awesome no you're on the right track but yeah the biggest thing I'd say is when you're trying to cut don't expect your strength to to explode so it's going to be with a surplus with a calorie surplus so I'd go ahead and cut first there's nothing wrong with that and then go into the surplus and then chase the strength and then follow maps power lift and that'll be the best that'll be your best chance it'll ask you yeah it'll set you up really nice I actually think that would be a nice little cut to lean out in a deficit and then the surplus with the changing of the programming if you're if you were doing more of a kind of body part focus program and then you move specifically to a strength base program like power lift which is the main lifts and you're also moving back from a deficit now into a calorie surplus I mean I think that's going to set the table for some PRs for you for sure I think 400 is a very lofty goal but hey why not set it up 400 and you know we'll be happy if we hit 350 you know I like it and the number for me is pretty arbitrary well it's arbitrary it'd be nice to hit but it's more about the process and what could I really get in that time I don't know if I'll ever get there but it's it's it's fun to dream are you are you conventional or sumo lifter conventional conventional none of the no crap doesn't count if it's sumo I tell that to lane north all the time awesome well no thanks for calling in Helen I think you know the advice we gave you give that a shot I think that's your best bet awesome thank you so much thank you Helen cheers thank you yeah I think one of the takeaways here is the conflicting goals that people tend to have yes I want to build the most amount of muscle but I'm trying to get shredded be shredded or you know I want to be able to run a marathon in you know under two hours but I also want to be able to you know squat three times by body weight or whatever so competing goals you're better off going after one unless your goal is to kind of be okay at everything but if you want to do really good at one thing focus on that one thing and then when you're ready to move out move out and focus on something else you're you're going to be you're going to be better off doing it that way that rather than trying to do everything all at once because peeing in a deficit and trying to add 100 pounds to your deadlift after already getting up to a pretty damn good deadlift I mean that's gonna be really really hard thing to do yeah a 300 pound deadlift is a very impressive deadlift already so at 30 39 year old woman that's not bad at all yeah I know I mean honestly I would be super happy if we added 25 pounds to that in the year I mean 25 pounds to 300 yeah so 400 but I like it you know you never know though dude I swear I've worked with people where they were pretty damn strong but they never did a targeted powerlifting program right and then they saw huge I mean when we ran I ran our pounds yeah I mean mass powerlift was my last like maps program that I ran and was consistent with sticking to the program and because I had and why I was so excited about that when we did that I have ever I've never ran like a pure powerlifting program and I saw a big difference from that so I packed on some some muscle and got strong and a lot of that I think is just the practicing of the technique of it skill more than anything else I got I don't think I was built the most I definitely wasn't the most muscular I was I've been more muscular in the past it's just that I don't think I'd ever followed a program where the desired outcome was just purely to get stronger in those four lifts and I'm just gonna get better and better and better and it's it's programmed very well 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