 Welcome back to the 21 convention guys. Our next speaker has been involved in the pharmaceutical industry for many years. He's attempted to better the nation's health through the use of pharmaceuticals. However when he began to improve his own life through diet and exercise he began to see an incongruence between what he was doing in the pharmaceutical industry and the way he was leading his own life. So when he saw an opportunity to partner with efficient exercise in Austin Texas he sees that opportunity and he's been very successful and effective ever since. Please welcome to the stage Keith Norris. What's up guys just want to say and ladies just want to say that how excited I am to be here speaking with you guys and just want to thank Anthony and Herman, Steve for putting this on. Good good stuff here. To go into a little bit a little bit deeper of why I can stand here in front of you and speak is that is an expert on physical culture. It's been a long long learning experience. Just to quickly dive into to my youth at about 12 years old. I'm really gonna date myself here but at about 12 years old I had a number of things happen in close proximity to one another. One of those was meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger and at an opening of a sporting goods store. This was in 1975 right about the time of the 75 Olympia. Also at that time Pumping Iron if any of any of you have ever seen that documentary that was just about to roll out. Also if you can remember at that time also 76 Olympics were gearing up and as a young kid I was really following Bruce Jenner at that time and the first Rocky movie came out. So all of these things kind of came together to a kid who was just getting into playing football in Central Texas which is huge. It's a religion in Central Texas. I was also involved in martial arts and AAU track and field and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by coaches who were forward thinking enough to show me and to teach me that one I could better myself through physical training, through training for these different events and not just rely on any kind of any kind of inherited talent that I might have had which was I will say limited because I continued on in the physical culture and in the pursuit of working out to better myself so I could compete on a higher level knowing all the time that my the talents I came into this world were rather limited so I trained myself to be better but anyway those three things meeting Arnold face-to-face and I can say that at that time he was an enormous human being enormous and as a 12 year old kid I was just starstruck but also at that same time I remember following Bruce Jenner and thinking that guy's a phenomenal athlete but he's did does not look anything like Arnold so what what's going on here obviously obviously we train for two different things we train for aesthetic purposes hypertrophy we also train to better ourselves and in an athletic environment and I was trying to piece this together as a 12 year old kid and that's what started my my path to physical culture I knew there had to be there had to be something there on top of genetics obviously certain people are geared genetically towards hypertrophy and towards aesthetic ends there are also people who are geared genetically towards an expression of this in the more athletic realm and there's a whole lot of people probably everyone in this room including myself who's somewhere in the middle what gets neglected normally when we talk about physical core culture are these people in the middle most everything you read is geared towards a high-end athlete so then it's up to you to try to figure out if the high end athlete is doing this what do I do I don't have that time I don't have time to spend four or five six hours a day on the track in the gym I just don't have time to do that so what am I to do and what generally happens is what I see happening is people try as best they can number one either to emulate that as best they can while they're working while they're going to school it won't happen it can't be sustained for long you can't do that so what generally happens is after that people just drop off the face of it if that's what it takes for me to be athletic if that's what it takes for me to be healthy I can't do it I don't need it I'm gonna have to find some other pursuit I'll just let it go but I'm here to tell you that that's not true you can you can do quite quite a bit even though you're not a professional athlete even though you cannot put that time or dedicate that time into that pursuit what I'm gonna draw up here in just a second is kind of the 30,000 foot view of what I term physical culture everybody needs a roadmap and everybody's roadmap is gonna be a little bit different but everybody's roadmap the template is gonna look the same the trick is finding your place on that map to find your place or where you are now and where you want to be and then plan a route of how to get from A to B and that's what we're gonna talk a little bit today how to do that you know how do I put that together how do I even start we start with a roadmap okay this is what that roadmap looks like real quick first thing we want to look at is health okay health as opposed to performance and I'll split performance up into aesthetics and sporting performance because those are two totally different two totally different directions health whenever we start whenever we start on a training program health and I'll get into what I what I term health because that's wide-ranging health winds up looking like this once we start training obviously our health goes up then we hit a gray area right around in here that gray area continues on over to another area here and I'll explain these points here in just a bit then a curious thing happens as we go along as we continue to train as we continue to increase intensity as we continue to increase the time that we're doing this as we start ramping up ramping up ramping up a curious thing happens to where eventually we fall health takes a big time plunge let's let's put on top of that what I'll call performance it's going to be up to you to determine what performance is whether we're looking for aesthetics or whether we're looking for sporting performance and like I say the two aren't necessarily the same as we begin to train our performance obviously if we do it right it's going to follow a trajectory that looks like that yes my health is increased my performance is also increased either I'm putting on more muscle mass or in the case of a 93-year-old client that I had that means she can get out in and out of her car without help that means she can even drive her frigging car to the club that means she can fall and get up and not break a hip so all of this this whole chart here is going to be determined upon you it's going to be n equals one all of us here we're born into this world with certain genetic gifts and limitations as well the key is to take those gifts and limitations and do the best you can with them so that you can then project a phenotype onto the environment that is the best that it can be so I don't necessarily compare myself to you or to you or to you I compare myself to me the best that I can be I can look to other people that have the same general genetic predispositions as I do as it gives me an idea of where I can't go but I can't compete against them in that way so that's the first mindset thing that you have to get in here this is an internal an internal challenge but it's also what makes it a lifelong pursuit that's why I can have done this for oh god now 35 something years and still every time I go into the gym every time I touch a weight I can be jacked about it okay because I'm looking at it from a different point of view the workout itself is not an ends to a means to an end okay really I'm pretty much tapped out as far as what I'm going to do physically in fact right now I'm probably doing what I can to hang on but that doesn't matter I get a lot more out of the workout mentally spiritually even than just chasing numbers we'll get into that in a little bit so performance as I go along here my health and I'll define that here in a minute it's going to kind of do it's kind of in a gray area here kind of an unknown area we know we can maximize health performance pretty quick without a whole lot of time spent in the gym on the track but I can continue this performance curve in this performance curve will kind of creep creep creep I'm getting better I'm getting more muscular better performance better athletic performance and then there comes a point out here I'll call see where the competitive athlete lives the competitive athlete lives in this area out here old cartographers in the old world whenever they mapped the end of the known world at that edge at the border that map they put there be dragons because they didn't know what was out there they didn't know what light what lay out there right here guys there be dragons we don't know I know I continue up like a Ferrari you can be a high-end well-oiled machine come competition time but know this at that point when someone is competing their health is down here and it's getting ready to crumble you can't stay in this zone for long no matter what kind of competitive athlete you are even bodybuilders out here you can't stay at competition level for long something's gonna crack something's gonna fly apart some peace part is gonna is gonna come apart and I can tell you from personal experience having been a competitive athlete my weak link was an ACL and MCL okay that's what put me back over here it happens gonna happen if you're competitive athlete so training like a competitive athlete is not where we need to go so performance will come out over here for the competitive athlete as long as he wants to compete let's hope it stays right here but eventually something's gonna fly apart let's say it's an ACL or an MCL and then that goes down as well let's define a couple terms here real quick health what is health and what is health as it relates to performance which is even more interesting question because these things are interlaid just like this when we talk about health when I'm talking about health we have internal and external indicators of health an internal indicator would be things like inflammatory markers triglycerides blood pressure things of this nature we know as we train we get somebody who's untrained and start training them all these indicators start leveling out internally they're much healthier much healthier organ size organ function even become much better all of these indicators go right along with their performance and again think of this chart is an astrological chart of sorts astrological charts and I want to get to woo here but here we go okay the template for an astrological chart is the same across the board what's different about it is when you were born where you were born and all these things that's how that gets filled in this is going to get filled in in the same way when you come in with your genetic profile so this is an n equals 1 chart it's going to be different for everybody the same template will work for everybody though so as we go along this performance tracks with health to a certain point then we kind of get into a gray area this gray area now we want to look at the performance curve here and we want to say well how do I define performance aesthetics athletic endeavors as that goes up my health really doesn't improve if you talk to coaches or people more on the fitness end of things they will tell you that that a healthy person well what is the definition of health and fitness the most basic definition is that person's ability to perform a task dependent upon you that task might be withstanding a fall for an older person for a younger fit person a task might be how much power can I produce instantaneously or how much power I can produce over a long period of time if we want to get into kind of a crossfit definition of it it would be who can move the most load the furthest in the shortest period of time it will define load distance in time whoever can do that and I would also add per pound of body weight ratio it out that way I can say is the most fit person the question then becomes yes that person is most fit but is he most healthy that way don't know because what it takes to be able to move that load a certain distance in a certain a certain short period of time may have affected him internally now his bio markers for inflammation may be through the roof now his cortisol levels may be through the roof all of these negatively affect health so can we say he's actually the healthiest person I don't know maybe maybe he's genetically gifted he can withstand that kind of workload and continue to go right on along maybe he can't maybe he's a ticking time bomb yeah he can move a large load a far distance in a very short period of time but he's setting himself up for a crash here pretty quick so all of these things have to be in one determined between each of you each of you out here everybody doing this has to find their place on this curve first question is where do I want to reside I use myself as an example where I want to reside is I want to push the envelope and be right here I know because I've looked at my blood markers basic things like blood pressure vo2 max things like this I can say that internally I'm pretty healthy I'm not over here where I once was performance wise but you know what I'm not in danger of blowing out an ACL over here either right here I'm doing pretty good this is where I want to reside now the question becomes how much time per week does it take me to stay there okay I work at a gym I've got the time to put into it what I'm gonna tell you is this as we go along here the time requirement increases exponentially the time it takes for me to hit this point pretty much across the board doesn't take much at all talking 30 minutes a week if you have the right tools and I'll get into tools here in just a second if you have the right tools we're not talking long at all to get here at some point in my life I may very well want to shift over here because I don't have the time that time pay off the return on investment on time to me at some point this may not be worth it to put in that kind of time on the tracking in the gym right now it is right now it's cool you know it's a good it's a hobby of mine I enjoy it I don't mind putting in the time at some point I may want to drift right back here into this a zone to be as healthy as I can be and have a little bit of performance but that time requirement may be the overriding factor what I'm looking for and there have been periods of my life shorter periods of time where I have done this in the corporate world projects come up I don't have much time to devote I know in my mind I'm gonna have to drift back over here but since I've got this whole template in my head I know where I'm at I know where I want to get back to you now I have a roadmap I know how to get back there so let's talk about let's talk about phenotypes the phenotypical expression real quick let's talk about physical culture what does all this mean so you come into this world you're born like I said with certain genetic traits certain certain markers certain strengths certain weaknesses the key is and the definition of physical culture is to take that clay that genetic lump you've been given and to optimize the output as it's seen on the environment that's your phenotype the whole objective of physical culture is to optimize that phenotype as it's played against the environment that's the whole goal it's an individual goal if any of you are aspiring athletes all right this is where you're gonna want to be come competition time this is where you're gonna want to be if you were somebody say I kind of joke around and say I'm the trainer to Austin's lawyers to the attorney community because these guys and gals they don't have the luxury of this but they are type a personalities who want to be as healthy and as fit as they can be with a small investment of time they're mostly hanging out right here but they know that and because I train them and because we talk about this kind of stuff they know that they can hover around here and if they ever wanted to turn up the intensity a little bit try to push the envelope yeah we can get you there no problem at all I can definitely get you there I'm gonna have to have a little bit more time and we can move you right over here everybody see that can I go ahead and get rid of this everybody kind of get a got a picture of what what I'm talking about here real quick so just kind of keep this in your mind because this is kind of be the backdrop of everything I'm gonna talk about this is your roadmap let's talk about the resources we need big resources time technique tools in the big one the overriding one is tenacity let's talk about this one first and all these are interrelated let's talk about tenacity first I would love to stand up here and tell you guys that the pursuit of optimum physical culture is is easy I can tell you it's not it's it is definitely not it is tough it's hard work it takes a certain doggedness determination stay with itness ever how you want to define that even back there at that low time investment that time you put in is still it's hardcore it's hard stuff there's no easy way around it I could make a lot of money by coming up with a new gimmick is saying you know this is a new easy way to do that and in fact you'll see that every week come about it doesn't happen it never happens this is the biggie right here because without this it doesn't matter what you have here and I can say that if someone comes to me with with this it doesn't matter what we have here I can turn in I can turn in a damn good athlete or someone with good aesthetics but this is a moneybreaker right here you got to have tenacity you got to have doggedness you got to have a desire to do this it's not easy it's not easy at all technique and tools so as you go along and you kind of look on the internet you read magazines you you look at the different protocols that people champion all of these different protocols I would call techniques the thing about techniques is they all work they all work for some people some of the time for the guy who develops a certain technique obviously it works for him that he came up with it it works well for him will it work for well for you I don't know you're not him you don't have the same genetic makeup you're not playing against the same environment that he's playing against you don't have the same hormonal milieu that he does or she does all of these things all of these things must be taken into account so to say that one program one technique one way of doing things Bill Stars five by five technique fantastic program will it work for everyone know will it work for a lot of people yeah pretty much that's a great place to start in fact a lot of kids I coach I mean that's that's the go-to thing five by five and just keep throwing weight on the bar and roll on till you stall then you stall then we'll talk about something else but you cannot latch on to a technique and think that it's going to be the golden bullet because it won't be it's not going to be for you unless you just get extremely lucky you roll you roll craps first time out bam you happen to land on the right technique that works for you God love you man roll on but I'm going to tell you most of you are not going to be that lucky most of you are going to flounder around searching for the perfect technique and it's not going to be there what it is what in what it takes we got a drop back down here to tenacity and you have to mentally look at this technique and figure out if it will work for you try it for a while see if it will some some techniques you can look at and obviously no that's not going to work for me that comes to knowing yourself that comes to operating out of your base camp and I'll get to operate out of your base camp here in just a second but just know that for the purposes of right now a technique is just that it's a technique that we might use at a certain point some aspects of that technique I might incorporate into my own program while I use the entire technique no I don't use anybody's entire entire technique program I take bits pieces and parts put it together to form what works for me tools I'm lucky enough at efficient exercise where I have some very very unique tools that allow me to severely reduce time requirements spent in the gym we'll look at one of those tools tomorrow the ARX ARX equipment but again it's only a tool all it is if you want to use a carpenter analogy all right I've just got a super duper super duper saw in my kit that's all it is if you're not lucky enough to live in Austin come train with us hey it doesn't matter I can do the same thing with a rusty barbell and dumbbells it's gonna take a little bit longer time that's in that's all the differences yes I can I can really I can use much more advanced techniques if I have the proper tools but that shouldn't limit me as far as my expression of my phenotype that comes into my environment if I've got the tools great if I don't I'm gonna just keep right on rolling do the best I can with what I got you know my wife is a chef and what's interesting about that is to see we're talking about technique if anybody's seen a good chef operate they have a recipe she'll kind of glance at that recipe set it aside then she rolls all it is is a blueprint all it is it's a little bit of a roadmap to tell her how to get to A and B okay a good chef will produce a fantastic meal not by following that roadmap not by following the techniques per se but by being able to ad lib and knowing what that meal requires at this altitude at this temperature all these other all these other things that play into this if she went just by the recipe it'd be alright but it wouldn't be spectacular like most of her stuff is the same way you need to be about physical culture you need to look at these different techniques take the bits and pieces of them that are fantastic and they work for you under your circumstance and cobble together good program and roll on then we come to time everybody's bugaboo again remember how this chart was set up down here fact of the matter is if you want to pursue goals that are over at the right end of that chart you're gonna have to put in a little bit more time whether that means you're looking for bodybuilding pursuits and that means you're spending time particularly in the gym or if you're more on the sporting side of things maybe it's a combination of gym time and outside practice time if you're a cyclist that means time in the saddle now we can do different techniques to reduce that time in the saddle one of which increasing your strength and we can train in the saddle differently where we do higher intensity intervals as opposed to dislodging miles but that doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna have a big time requirement if I want to pursue those goals anybody have any questions right now before I go on before I lose anybody here because I don't want to lose anybody because all this kind builds it builds on itself yeah what's the five by five five by five it's it's simply five sets of five reps of a particular exercise it's more of a linear progression if you're familiar with this so every time I come into the gym or every so often I'm adding so many pounds to the bar in a particular lift which works great starting out the problem with linear and I'll get this in whenever I set up whenever we talk about auto regulation here in just a second it works great for a while the problem is you can't continue to do that forever obviously everybody be a champion powerlifter and you just can't do it so what are you gonna do now okay you've tapped out on squats or deadlifts say now what are you gonna do five by fives played out you got to go somewhere after that but yeah basically it's five sets of five repetitions at a certain weight linear progression as we go along say every week we're gonna add five pounds to the bar whatever that might be and we're gonna keep rolling on keep hitting that keep hitting that keep hitting that base camp again everybody comes in with certain genetic traits one problem when we look at certain certain techniques certain programs weightlifting programs is the impression that you're given as it works across the board again that's it's simply not true not true at all one quick aside I don't know if you guys remember back in maybe the early 90s Bill Phillips who had muscle media 2000 magazine he ran a contest there for a few years and I cannot remember the name of the contest it was body something body for life there you go thanks and not to hate on bill at all I mean he's a fantastic marketer but here's the thing he ran this contest the impression that you were given if you followed along in the magazine was he ran it in a contest style so whoever whoever was had the best-looking physique so long so you know and it kind of whittled down from the top I don't know what it was 50 then it whittled down to the top 30 and you know it kind of kept going progressively but the impression that's given by doing that is that everybody across the board is making progress and these are just the top 50 in fact they might have been the only 50 that got any benefit whatsoever out of it but the impression was given because you see these you see these people you didn't see the fall-off you didn't see the thousands of people who took it before and after picture and you're like huh it's no change at all I don't see any change so my point is is not to slam on on bill for a fantastic marketing device and it was it was a great marketing device but I only bring this up to point out to you that none of these programs work for everybody and you have to be very cognizant of that and don't go into it thinking that they are but you can go into these things with an open mind and think I'm going to try it out if it looks like it might work given my my genetic predisposition but don't go into it thank you and don't go into it thinking or don't be totally discouraged if it doesn't work for you so going along base camp if I have a guy you know just pick on Patrick real quick okay obviously more more of an endurance type of guy okay in good shape fantastic shape more slender build is there any way with in any way what I put him through a powerlifting program it would wreck him it would totally wreck him it would destroy his sporting performance I mean it's just a no-brainer that is not his base camp his base camp is an endurance in endurance events he knows that he can use certain strength techniques to enhance those endurance events but if he were to train like a powerlifter it would ruin him he knows this intuitively I know this intuitively you guys need to find your base camp and know where your strengths are intuitively and go out and find programs that will enhance that some guys are fantastic powerlifters some guys are built that way some guys are very sturdy short they have them the genetic predisposition to be powerlifters they don't need to be doing the Vince Garanda German volume training 10 by 10 why they're not getting anything out of it or they're not getting much out of it their base camp is low repetition high weights that is their base camp my reason for bringing this up is we want to operate from a base camp so again just real quick performance health competitive their base camp is going to be say powerlifting right here but the thing is they do need to splinter out from that going different directions in an applied way so as sometimes yes they are doing more high repetition work sometimes they are doing very explosive more athletic work but they know where their base camp is this is the this is the root of where their workouts are going to take place so again on this map each and every one of you if you're looking to to perfect your your phenotypical expression into the environment you need to figure out what your base camp is what do you operate best for example I know in myself real quick if we look at velocity force some of you may know this curve force velocity curve right really really high speeds I perform an action at a really really high speed say a bench press at a high speed I can't produce a lot of force it's just not there other side of the corn very very high force production that bars not moving very fast they can't physiological physiological property power production template on top of that looks something like this my how highest power production right in here some of you well let me say all of you your strength is going to be somewhere in here some of you are going to be better over here the power lifter type some of you are going to be better over here high high high technique rapid rapid movement golfers baseball players all right they might not produce a whole lot of force they don't need to right they're operating over here I just happen to know through my training my best point is somewhere right in here my base camp sits right up in here my ability to produce repeat intense power in the one to three repetition range short duration I know that's my base camp that's what I excel at I operate over here for long I get crushed I do a power lifting routine if I do a power lifting type workout very high intensity high force production low low velocity I'm friggin crushed and I know it but I do need to venture out here every now and again to be a better athlete on the other side I just can't operate here for long this is my base camp most of my workouts take place right here high power production very very quick bam bam bam I can do this all day long repeats I get a lot out of it but to be able to enhance this I still need to be able to produce a lot of force and I still need to be able to produce very very ballistic movements but these are augments to my base camp which sits right here all of you guys have a certain base camp you might not know it yet but you do you might not have found it yet but you will if you keep looking for it it's somewhere along this line somewhere along this power curve somewhere somewhere here is where your base camp is if you find that base camp then you can find techniques that will naturally play to that base camp strong suit once you know that once you hone in on that base camp then you can start making forays out from that to enhance to enhance your overall health and fitness any questions there yeah just my question is you might be just about to go into this so my question is what what about the techniques what do you what do you look for that is skewed towards one or the other and how do you how do you find how do you yeah I mean you can do a simple thing like look in the mirror number one right tall skinny guy all right he's not gonna be a power lifter per se okay we're talking more endurance type so let's so let's say I know you know I'm talking again skewed towards one sure yeah how do I know what tech what tech how do you know what techniques okay so let's say let's say we have a more endurance type person who's who's base camp is more of a high repetition type of thing right because just his joint structure he can't handle a whole lot of weight bearing high force stuff it will wreck wreck him kind like me okay I just can't handle that for long because it just tears my joints up only that it tears my central nervous system up so if I know that I can play I can play to that strength some of the small joint structure someone with a more of an ectomorph build okay now I'm starting to gravitate away from this area more back over here and the opposite side and the opposite side of the coin so I have somebody with very very robust joints very stocky that type of build and I'm just talking very very general here I mean it as you go along you continually refine continually refine continually refine I'm still refining I still have to check myself here you know am I still this athlete is just still where my my golden zone is I mean it's a daily it's a daily check and it and it always has been because I do fluctuate back and forth here yeah I still get crushed over here I work out with some guys this is where they live that is their base camp work out with them yeah murder move them over here they're murdered over here so it's a continual process continual fuel out process which was another great thing about this endeavor you're never at the end never that's a fantastic I mean you're never at the end you're always learning new things about yourself all right so I was going to ask how do you determine your base camp sure sounds to me like what you're saying is it just kind of learn as you go trial and error you just got to try it is I mean you've got it's totally it's totally trial and error but you have certain clues along the way it's not a total just fishing expedition you have certain clues along the way okay but it's a but it's always being refined it's always being refined sure and I guess sure so are there any resources for let's say smaller small bone I guess ectomorphs sure yeah is there like are there sites online where they kind of say okay these are the ideal I guess base camps for you is there like a kind of generic plan of action or is it all just no no there's really no generic plan and that's another thing there's really no generic plan of action here and I guess that's what my overriding message is it can't be you know there can't be a genetic plan you guys have to go along have a vision chase that vision but along the way you can have that roadmap like I drew up at the first you have an indication of where you want to be on that health performance spectrum where you want to fall along there for instance an ectomorph bam right now I know that I can't handle a whole lot of weight I can't operate over here for long my joints can't support it so me looking at Louis Simmons powerlifting conjugate system that it's not going to work for me no right right so okay so there I have one clue that's that's not going to work for me so then I have to start going along well let me kind of look around and although I don't want to to say precisely emulate what this person does who might be built similarly to me but at least I've got some clues he's found a similar path it's worked for him I can take some of these clues and now I can start bringing them over and trying them out myself but the thing is I'm not married to exactly what he's doing I have to keep in my mind that's worked for him for him even though he might have the same structure as me he's got a different hormonal profile probably he's in a different environment he's able to devote a lot more time to that pursuit than what I do so I can take some clues for him from him and run along with it but I can't be married to his particular program and I have to be open-minded enough to be able to shift gears on my own and kind of learn this process and and and go along from there but that's kind of how you get started doing it yeah the reason I asked it is it's because there's a lot of information online I mean it's just everybody's trying to sell you something and so I guess our own roadmap is like our filter you know for what we want to achieve you just kind of like it is just is it like intuitive you kind of know I guess when you it is intuitive in a lot of ways okay it's an intuitive process it's a self-learning process just like just like any other pursuit it's just a physical self-learning process but just you know you just know that there is no there's no silver bullet out there okay I can take I train in this area that's my base camp okay and I look at athletes who train this way it just so happens this is more of a track and field application so I can look at athletes who are hundred meter sprinters who are shop putters this discus type athletes that just kind of happens to be where I fall in right there I can look at those type of workouts and see what those guys are doing I can take clues from these type of workouts and cobble together my own workout program okay but I'm not competing here I'm not a competitive discus throw I'm not a competitive javelin throw I'm not a competitive sprinter but I know my genetic predisposition kind of pushes me in that direction so I can take clues from that type of from that type of athlete from that then I cobble together my own workout program and so in so in your case you would look around and kind of try to find either athlete physique type person who kind of fits your same mold start getting clues there apply those giving your your circumstance your time the tools you have the techniques you're able to employ and then you start from there and you start gradually coming up and just realize it's a never-ending process and that's the biggest thing to get across to you this isn't if you think you're getting into this game and you say when I get to be 250 pounds and can bench press you know 400 or whatever it's never gonna be there because if you do get there you're not going to be satisfied there's always 405 there's always 415 there's always 260 there's a you know you're never going to be satisfied in a lot of ways that's fantastic I mean that's what life is all about is is a continual strive but if you're getting into this as a means to hit that you'll never stay in the game for long there's got to be much more it's got to be more of a almost a spiritual pursuit and a self-betterment pursuit and that's just the tool the lifting the working outs just a tool it's a meditation is what it boils down to it's a meditation using physical culture as a tool if you can get to that point you'll stay in the game forever and you will naturally then gravitate towards these things that make you better because you've been in the game for so long now you know now you start gravitating you're building the bigger toolbox you take another step bigger toolbox another step bigger toolbox better techniques as you come along let me talk real quick because i think i'm probably getting near out of time let me talk about one technique that i like to use real quick something that just about anybody can employ all right let's talk about auto regulation real quick it's a very easy technique to employ so the gentleman here asked while i go about uh just for instance bill stars 555 program okay the difference between a linear periodization program and an auto regulatory program is this linear periodization says that as i go along in time for a particular exercise let's just say deadlift just pick one as i go along in time i should be able to plot as i go along my weight increase for that particular lift as i go along week to week to week throughout the different mezzo cycles of a program i should be able to know 10 pounds bam bam here another 10 i'm going right along going right on up that's linear periodization to some extent to some extent linear periodization does work it works for people who are just frank beginners right out of the gate it works for those people because pretty much everything works for those people you can push your car in a driveway it doesn't matter you're going to get stronger and better and it works for athletes who are very very very dedicated in their life is driven towards that end of pushing a big weight of excelling on in track and field that that is who that works for for most people that is not going to work you don't have the time to dedicate towards that you don't have the time to program you've got a life right you go into school you got a job you just don't have the time to dedicate to a linear periodization program so to say linear periodization doesn't work is not what i'm saying it does work for a select few people i would venture to say that most of you in here well if you're here you're not a professional athlete so i mean if you're here listening to me you're not a professional athlete you've got you've got a coaching staff right so auto regular auto regulation overcomes that problem let's talk about what things can derail you from using linear periodization what kind of things can come into your life that would disrupt that bam bam bam pattern anything any kind of stress any kind of job stress any kind of relationship stress um money stresses you name it the body senses stress as stress it doesn't matter if it comes psychological it doesn't matter if it's if it's if it's physical stresses stress if i come into the gym on a day where i'm supposed to deadlift 450 because that's what my linear periodization program calls for and i can't do it what then i can't budge 450 off the ground i'm supposed to be able to pop it right on off what do i do then well linear periodization is very soviet style very bam bam bam bam well i don't know i couldn't get it off the ground what am i going to do that's where people stall throw linear periodization to the side and either quit lifting or jump on to the next whatever the next program is they latch on to and they just sit there chase their tails let me tell you a way to get around that real easy and i still use this to this day still i've used it for a long long long time i still use it auto regulation let's pick that deadlift example again let's say that i'm just going to use a round number here so it's easy with i went to texas state right so i can't use my math skills are a little lacking 400 pounds okay 400 pounds we'll just say six reps knowing my base camp knowing where i'm at my base camp i know that for strength applications i'm better off operating in this six rep range okay just for starters you don't need to get this deep into this but i'm just just explaining why i use six reps six reps is a good strength building program for me because of my genetic predisposition going any lower than that if i do it too often i get crushed if i stay around six seven eight repetitions with a pretty heavy weight with a with a slower tempo more of a force production tempo okay i'm all right i can operate there let's say that last time i did deadlifts i was able to hit 400 pounds for six reps now i'm coming along i want to hit another deadlift day here okay say we're into the next week i want to go deadlift linear periodization if i go back to that say 410 i was supposed to hit 410 i'm not going to do that what i'm going to do is i'm going to say i did 400 pounds for six reps last time i did it my goal is going to be increase reps with that same weight here's how i'm going to go about doing that first off i'm going to lead in we're going to have about four or five different sets here and you can do this you can do this with any with any exercise it's better to do it with a compound exercise okay if we're just talking barbells dumbbells okay which everybody i'm assuming everybody has access to uh to barbells dumbbells it's pretty much ubiquitous that's why i kind of pick the deadlift here this can be done on machines it can be done on any any apparatus but what i'm going to do is i'm going to lead in at 50 percent of my weight i'm going to come in at 200 pounds and i'm going to hit 12 reps with it second set i'm going to take 75 percent of that i'm going to do six reps with it okay so what i've got going on here is a little bit of a warm-up this is no different really than a five by five program with a little different spin on it third repetition or third set i'm going to come up here now i'm at 400 pounds now this is a money set i'm going to go all out how many repetitions can i get at 400 pounds if i'm feeling good if my stress is well okay got low stress everything's going well hopefully i'll beat 400 pounds let's say i get eight reps as an example i beat my last time out i'm going to come down here i've got two money sets okay so i'm going to come down for another another crack at 400 but now i'm going to jack the weight up a little bit and this is where being chef of the gym comes into play how much weight am i going to add to it how did i feel when i did that last right i got eight repetitions but was it an ugly eight or was it a good solid eight all these things i have to consider i have to take into account let's say i felt pretty good yeah that eight came up pretty easy i'm going to jack this up 420 and again i'm going to see what i get out of it let's say i got five repetitions with 420 this weight is now going to carry forward to the next time i do a dead lift okay now i start this cycle all over again but instead of instead of six reps it'll be 420 for five and i start this cycle all over again and i continue on two things about this i'll probably do another set maybe a knockdown set we call it i'll knock down the weight maybe do a higher repetition set here if i'm feeling really really good if i knocked out 420 for five and said damn i'm feeling super strong here 430 okay let's give that a shot let's see what we got there this is kind of a feel-out process a couple things about this number one i go into this with the mentality that if i don't do well here on that first money set i cut myself a break it's not the end of the world it's no big deal as long as i bring every bit of intensity that i had when i walked into the gym that day as long as i bring that tenacity from back of those first the four four things we talked about earlier if i bring that tenacity and doggedness in here and i just didn't get six repetitions i gave it my all that day it's a totally different mindset than linear periodization i know i gave it my all whatever that is still my maximum right there next time it comes up we'll try it again what will happen what always happens with this is progression after you get out of being a rank amateur or uh very very new to the weightlifting game what you'll find is progress doesn't come in steps progress comes in one big step so what happens is i might sit there at 400 pounds and i might just kind of hover at 400 pounds for quite a long time i'll go one day i might get seven repetitions with it next time out i might get five and i'll just sit there hovering around hovering around hovering around one day i'll come in and it may be a day that i feel like you know hey i probably don't have it today but i might go ahead and give it the old uh give it the old college try we'll see where we're at bam 430 comes off the ground like nothing you cannot predict when this progress is going to happen you just can't do it that's the breakdown of linear progression the other breakdown of it you can't predict when these things are going to happen i've been in this game 35 plus years i can't predict when i'm going to have a good day really it surprises the hell out of me sometimes when i come into a gym and i better my progress on a certain lift i'm like that you know i traveled all my way you know i'm feeling like crap you gotta go through a list of excuses come in and the weight comes off the ground i can't explain it but what auto regulation allows you to do it allows you to keep the table set and the door open for opportunity and that's exactly what you want to do every time you go into the gym i set the table i keep the door open whenever operate to that opportunity and i don't know when it's going to be i can't predict that if i could i wouldn't be here i'd be in vegas you know what i mean if anybody can predict that with any accuracy it just can't be done keeping the table set the door open for that opportunity that's what auto regulation is all about and that's that's why i use it as the basis of my workouts i don't use it all the time i don't use it for every exercise but it forms the basis of my workouts and it's and it's easy to it's easy to track too which is another thing when you've got all these other all these other time requirements all these other pressures on you and you want to try to squeeze squeeze a workout in i know i can go to my workout log i can pull out that deadlift i can see what i've got there bam and i can roll with it i know what weight i ought to be hitting i've got a repetition scheme and i'm off to the races no worries about linear periodization no calculations to have to worry about no mental anguish if i didn't hit my projected weight and i can continue on forever this is a never-ending thing so as i go along throughout throughout a training year certain exercises naturally come into my wheelhouse and then leave my wheelhouse too for instance during the during the spring summer and fall i'm either on the track sprinting or i'm riding a bike quite a bit and to take one exercise for an example when i'm doing those things i don't squat i don't squat during that time period because it just trashes my sprint trashes my cycling ability but when the fall comes in the winter and i'm not out so much then i can bring that particular exercise back into the back into the mix i look back at my logs i see where i was squatting last fall that puts me in the ballpark in here here i am auto regulating again bam right from that this is like i never missed obviously i'm not going to be as strong i haven't squatted in a while but that gives me a good ballpark indication of where to where to jump back in the game and then i'm right back running right back running with it any questions about auto regulation how to how you can incorporate that into your so your max weight can change with breaks and periods of time sure absolutely like you know if you're not hitting 400 for a month do you then stay with it you stay with it yeah but if you take like a six-month break or something or a season what'll happen for for instance let's say let's say that the squat we'll use that as an example if i haven't squatted in in whatever eight months and that's seriously there's sometimes i'll go eight months without hitting a squat i'll flip back through my workout log now i've got to wait let's go with that same 400 pounds i know that's not gonna have haven't touched i haven't done this what technique you know i did eight months away from a certain technique you know i'm not going to be able to do it well but it gets me in the ballpark and two i'm not wigged out by it oh my god i didn't hit 400 pounds in the squat you just you know i let that go it'll be there and i know it'll come back but it gets me in the ballpark it saves me from coming into the gym going i want to squat today where do i start you know what i don't know you know messing around with 225 and just kind of doing that whole build up period i can jump right to it all right 400 400 pounds seven repetitions let's go the 400 on the bar i might get two i might get three but i'm still in the ballpark and i know where to go from there now this is where the chef part comes in right because that is the recipe now let's call the chef part into it 400 pounds seven repetitions i know that's not going to happen it's not going to go when i knock it down to 375 okay i'm still in the ballpark 375 it's probably a little bit more manageable then we'll shoot for six okay then i'll go from there that's where being we're abiding strictly by the recipe or being the chef that's where a little bit of time under the bar comes in let's say you don't have any time under the bar none you're not prepared i can kind of make that call because you know i've been in the game for a while i kind of know where to go with this if you don't if you haven't you stick with 400 and you roll on bam auto-regulate it and the thing is if you don't have a whole lot of time under the bar the chances of you falling off much of that max you're not going to be far away from it and if you are down from it's going to take you long to get back to it okay so this might be a two-part question sure so um okay so part of the auto-regulation talked about changing the weights or yeah for one way to adapt uh would another way if you're well for lack of a better word plateauing sure uh would be to like change technique yes yes okay good segue into the next portion here okay so what are some things we can change okay changing technique is one thing changing exercises always fantastic my overall workout program and what i and what i give my clients a lot of times is a little bit different than what i give myself because again every client is an individual every i treat every client is an n equals one a study of one okay when we are when i'm talking about changing techniques i'm constantly rolling in exercises as i go along in rolling out exercises once i think they're tapped out if i go along in an auto-regulation way let's just again go back to deadlifts if i go on for a long period of time and deadlifts is a constant throughout my routine and i'm not i'm not seeing a whole lot of change here i will let that i will let that particular exercise slide out for a while and i'll go on to a different exercise it might be similar to a deadlift but not exactly not exactly a deadlift so i might then jump to good mornings say for instance similar exercises work is works a similar structure but it's not not exactly the same and i'll hit on that for a while again that's part of being a chef annoying not you know when to quit beating a dead horse okay now i can say keep the table set leave the door open for opportunity if opportunity doesn't come in after eight months you know i need to kind of rethink things here i need to shift focus and a lot of times that's what it takes so i go along for a while if i don't see any good if i don't see any good increase i'll shift that exercise out go to a different similar exercise i'll come back to my old mainstay the deadlift and a lot of times that's what it takes to to bump me back up and get me going again so like i say just as if you were reading something on the internet in a magazine don't take what i say is it's got to be this way so you've got to be able to play in the gym and be intuitive use these as techniques but but i'm telling you now you're going to have to put your own personal spin on everything i say everything let's talk real quick about since you brought up changes in technique let's talk about tempo real quick and tempo is something that that people really don't look at when they're talking about weight training it's very very important tempo let's look at how tempo is written first just use this for an example when we talk about lifting a weight and you break it down what exactly what exactly is going on take a bench press real quick for an example there's a lowering eccentric phase there's a pause at the bottom there's a concentric move to the top there's another pause and again going back into the lowering when you think about this when you think about that there's a hell of an opportunity for change just in that one simple movement that one simple movement a bench press can be changed to be a totally different exercise it can affect you totally differently remember again velocity right force power look something like that i can change this exercise just a normal bench press one exercise i can make fit anywhere anywhere throughout this curve by changing tempo and by changing the load accordingly one simple exercise and i can float or i can surf anywhere along this curve and in fact i will tell you is you need to change tempo you need to float throughout this curve to surf this curve up and down to get full benefit from working out to to stay in one spot remember we talked about base camp my base camp is here but if i were to only work out in this zone i wouldn't get it i would never get any better i have to i have to be able to fluctuate side to side i do that by changing tempo first number tempo this is the eccentric or the lowering portion of the exercise these are seconds what this represents right here is a lowering a three second thousand one thousand two thousand three pause at the bottom explode on the way up one second pause then i'm right back into the right back into the three second negative so when i'm writing in my in my my workout journal i don't just put bench press for instance i put bench press i've got my load my parameter if i'm auto regulating i've got that but i also put tempo but because tempo tells me where i'm at along this curve between tempo and load i know where i'm sitting on this curve i can change this simple bench press and make it a ballistic bench press by dropping this to fast as possible or one or whatever so now quick explode right back up now i've changed this from being over here somewhere now we're talking to bench press it's lying over here somewhere now it's a much more ballistic exercise totally changes the exercise totally changes the physiological result from the exercise so when you talk about changing techniques don't just think about changing exercises but changing tempo as well and tempo can be changed on any exercise whether it's a machine based exercise whether we're talking nautilus machine whether we're talking uh barbells dumbbells whatever in any exercise do it totally changes um like i say it totally changes where you reside on this curve so i can change i can change this tempo and i can ride this tempo for a while again auto regulating it under this tempo and now i've got a whole other set of parameters that i can change so there's a lot of overlay let's let's say you were let's say you're normal auto regulating let's say you're bench pressing in the normal tempo and what i what i say everybody's normal tempo the perfect repetition for people just starting out this is why i always tell everybody in this works this works across the board the perfect tempo is this three o x one a three second negative nice and controlled three second negative no pause explode fast as possible on the way up pause a second right back into the three second negative this is that's money right there that's perfect that's a perfect place to start your initial auto regulation should start with that tempo now as i go along say i have deadlift or listen let's go back to bench press just for sake of argument bench press under that tempo auto regulated and then i roll on i can have a totally different different portion of the the velocity force curve and it's a different exercise this could be bench press one now i can go to a ballistic bench press that's a whole other thing it's a whole other exercise it affects you totally different it affects your physiology physiologically different and the thing about that is as you float up and down that velocity force curve as you hit these different points they all play onto one another my ability to do a ballistic bench press affects positively my ability to do a bench press under this tempo my ability to bench press under this tempo allows me to do a ballistic bench press with more weight they play on one another if you do it right so getting back to my base camp where's my base camp it's this kind of stuff here ballistic stuff fast high power production okay that's my base camp i come out of my base camp to hit a bench press under this tempo i'm not as good at it i'm just not genetically predisposed to be good at it but i do it now and again because it makes me better in my base camp this is another way of saying and to make it very basic don't get in a rut ruts kill that in whatever the in especially in physical culture what ruts kill you have to be you have to be pliable and to be able to move and especially up and down that velocity force curve to be able to pick different programs and exercises up and down that curve to enhance your abilities anybody else more specific questions maybe about this so this is just kind of a big umbrella overview anybody have more specific questions that just a question just about that um which is that generally the like you said with the uh if you're doing an exercise for eight months you're not seeing results you change you do change the tempo yeah is that generally the first kind of uh the first tempo change you'd recommend from the 30x1 to going to ballistic if you're stuck in a rut before you let the exercise go yeah and it doesn't have to be as drastic as what i showed there i mean you can do little tempo changes as well um you can do things like like jack up the eccentric okay so i can i can move this all the way up to eight seconds now we're talking you know big time negatives so i'll go through a series of negatives sometimes let's call this eight would you recommend doing that negative it totally changes the exercise again okay you know would you recommend doing that with a deadlift specifically no because that's why i changed the example to bench press because a deadlift is a different animal i didn't even i didn't even want to go down that road okay yeah negative deadlifts are not uh yeah that's not what i'm talking about that's why i change it to bench press you want to get away from that pretty much a deadlift you're ripping it off the ground as hard and as fast as you can and that pretty much doesn't change now it may not come off the ground fast but the attempt should be there to blast it off the ground as fast as possible and this as fast as possible with that extra notes and i will say too that's that's the intent to move the bar as fast as possible not necessarily that it is moving fast as possible but the intent is there to push it as fast as possible pretty much that for me stays the same all of my concentric movements are as fast as i can humanly produce now they might not move fast depending on the exercise and the load that i'm using and that's the same across the board it's the same with a barbell dumbbell it's the same with our arx equipment and it would be the same on a nautilus machine which i know a lot of nautilus people are probably cringing right now oh my god but that's just how i do it and i know that just from personal experience it works for me it's not going to work for everybody but that's that's how i do it and that's how i found that it works for me we got one right yeah i have two questions sure um i know everybody's different but generally speaking how often do you want to be lifting weights per week ah the golden question um it depends and that's not a cop-out answer it depends on number one what tools do you have available to you it depends on the type of workouts that you're performing every time you're in the gym um and it depends on what kind of time you have let me just take you through my training week just and there's no typical training week but i just as an example just as an example to to show you what i'm talking about let's just say i come in on monday i don't have a whole lot of time okay i've got 15 20 minutes bam in my head i'm thinking 15 20 minutes i want a this is going to be a classic high intensity workout a workout like you might you might have heard uh other speakers here talk about high intensity training but okay i've only got that much time bam i'm hitting a high intensity workout 20 minutes 15 minutes whatever it takes the next day i might have plenty of time plenty of time being i say i have two hours well if i have that kind of time i know that i can do olympic derivative lifts power clean snatches that kind of thing now i've got the time to recover the thing about those type of exercises is you just can't hit them hit them hit them hit them there's a fatigue factor in there that has to be accounted for they're fantastic exercises i love them but if i'm looking for a a time intensive worry that's not going to be it it can't be i can't get the amount of work i need out of those type of exercises in that short period of time so if i have a long period of time like that i'm thinking in my mind sprints tire flips you know outside kind of conditioning stuff gpp type stuff or i'm thinking olympic derivative lifts where i do one two maybe three repetitions bam the bars down i'm back resting for four or five minutes because it's such a central nervous system hit you just can't jump back into it to the next one without losing technique another thing i might do and i do this too because i'm constantly rotating different uh different techniques is i might throw in a bodybuilding type workout throughout the week too and that might be a 10 by 10 eight by eight okay now we're talking classic bodybuilding stuff but that takes time as well another consideration too is what plane of motion are we looking at okay if i just if i just did a vertical push and pull so if i did say overhead presses and pull-ups okay i have to take that into account when i'm planning my next workout all this is just cumulative bam bam bam on top of things so it's a constant juggle that means no two weeks are the same that means no two workouts are the same and it's just a constant fold over constant fold over constant fold over i will tell you i'll tell you real quick one one great way to minimize your time in the gym is to utilize a push pull type of routine agonist antagonist so i work chest along with back so if i do a push say any kind of vertical push overhead say let's let's talk vertical pushing and pulling push over the head i come back i do some kind of pull some kind of pull-up as i'm doing that pull-up the the agonists my shoulders are now being forced to relax because antagonists are now working as this physiological response use that kind of stuff i can i can really shorten my period of time in the gym too so i take that into consideration so i guess the answer your question is again it depends and the other question you kind of touched upon it already was just wanted to know how you feel about what's become very trendy in exercise which is crossfit sure and trying to keep your heartbeat accelerated during the entire workout having shorter workouts yeah um first of all crossfit i i love some aspects of crossfit some aspects of crossfit i think could be improved i think it's a great idea and i use a lot of crossfit like how can we say structure within my workouts um where i think the downfall to crossfit is is the programming i think the programming could be a little bit uh more pre-planned i'm totally i'm totally down with the whole idea of being able to reach in a hopper grab things out and a good athlete ought to be able to do well on these on these techniques he ought to be able to do well i i totally i'm totally down with that what i what i don't agree with it there's a difference between testing and and uh training you don't you don't train with a test all the time that's a way to get hurt real quick you train for a test if that makes any sense at all um but yeah for the most part the crossfit stuff i love i like the uh i like the structure of it i just i manipulate my there's a little bit more pre-planning in my workouts in other words i don't see the necessity in doing a an olympic derivative lift say a snatch or a power clean under fatigue and under a high rep situation it's just it's just not a good recipe that you can do better things than that so that that's my only that's my only knock on them i really like what you said about changing the tempo yeah um so my question is for those of us who are working out towards a specific goal for example my goal right now is just mass sure yeah um so i'm working um low reps highway and very very slow five seconds up five seconds down um how often would you recommend changing the tempo in other words was it when we hit a plateau or just ever so often and then when we do change the tempo uh would you recommend just changing it for one workout or for a certain period of time and then going back yeah so first of all you need to define what for you what a plateau is and what tools you're you're utilizing so if you're utilizing uh i'm assuming you're utilizing machines yes or is this mostly yeah um i would get back to more of the auto regulation part of it okay so if you can if there is some way you can structure these workouts where you can auto regulate them okay you go back to the auto regulation then within auto regulation that same exercise after you plane out let's say you're doing a five second up five second eccentric five second concentric okay try changing that concentric to as fast as possible on the way up okay okay once you hit that plateau is what once you hit the plateau on your other if that's your if that's your base camp if that's your home if that's where you found that there that's where you operate the best from that would be the first place to deviate okay now instead of coming up slow and control let's try uh for a while let's try coming up explosively okay and let's auto regulate that for a while and for a while i mean until you until you plateau there then step back go back to your old five second up five second down okay and then hit it again bam jump right back into it and more than likely you will have exceeded yeah okay see where i'm at and then then you go back through it again and it's a constant like i say there is no end point you know there's there's no point that you're going to be okay this is all said and done now i've got it figured out and in that here i am it's constant it's a constant change you know i mean so then so then you come back and then you plateau again then you find some other thing to change maybe it's tempo again maybe now you're mentally burnt out on this particular exercise whatever it is and you need to move on to a different exercise because that can play into it too just the mental burnout of performing a certain exercise especially a machine-based exercise is is pretty heavy you know what i mean you go into the gym every day you're like jesus christ you know i'm back here on this machine again five by five again you just your tenacity and your intensity just starts to playing off that way so if nothing else just to break through that mental that mental barrier change the tempo on the same machine then it feels like a whole new exercise you know what i mean and then you go on from there and you just you're just constantly folding over folding over folding over folding over gotcha yeah thank you yep yeah this question more about recovery yeah and uh in possibly nutrition i i get bored if i work out once a week or even twice a week and so oftentimes i'll over do it and i i don't really lift weights too much but i probably you know maybe i should i should probably talk to you since you should yeah but i'll do like plyometrics or i'll do running or distance running which you told me a lot about when i went with you with with anthony but even in training like right now i do like five days a week of stuff like shih tzu which can be really hard on your joints what is the best i mean supplementation diet what's the best way to recover to get your body in a progressive yeah well yeah okay so so just where people have genetic predispositions to be um good athletes have good physiques there's also genetic predisposition to recovery as well which kind of plays into that whole thing so number one your genetics plays the huge personally i know that i am very good on the recovery side of things that i can recover from workout and i always have been so that i can work out many days a week if i do it smart in which i do so i enhance that but i can recover from very strenuous workouts very quick so that's one thing you need to know know thyself number one there you know with you where are you genetically okay now we talk about the type of workout you're doing as it relates to what you can do to enhance recovery so there's kind of two two balls in the air right here the biggest thing you can do recovery what i mean it's generic okay sleep sleep is huge reduce your cortisol reduce your life stresses everywhere else those are the two biggest things cortisol sleep bam bam if you get control of those two you will find that number one you'll recover quicker number two if you recover quicker that means you can work out harder and more frequently on the other side as far as supplementation i think the best supplement as far as recovery goes is zma it's easy it's a zma is the best about the best supplement you can it's simply zinc i don't know the like but how do you reduce cortisol reduce stress question was how do you reduce cortisol yeah how do you reduce how do you reduce cortisol reduce stress question i want to add real quick is vitamin d does play a role in recovery yeah vitamin d is huge as well i would opt more for natural vitamin d than a supplement vitamin d but i don't shy away from the i don't shy away from the supplemental vitamin d either i take quite a bit of it about five thousand i use a day and i'm out in the sun quite a bit but the vitamin d blood serum levels are it's pretty cheap blood test get yourself tested find out where you are supplement accordingly it's not a very it's not a very expensive test i can guarantee even being in florida and being out quite a bit you're probably low just about everybody is low and that's huge quick aside from that the east germans back in the day i'm kind of an east german aficionado coming from the coming from the old school back in the day the guys you know steroids aside those guys had it going on they were they were extremely extremely not even training wise supplement wise they had it going on it we're still now behind where they were then as far as as far as sports knowledge as far as how to train how to recover supplements so just saying that i'll just say in closing that the east germans were big on vitamin d supplementation in huge amounts so something to really really pay heed to well guys i've enjoyed it um any of you guys want to hit me up personally outside of here i'd love to talk to you because this is an n equals one game just always always remember that it's an n equals one game you can look to other people for hints um but it comes down to where you fit on that health performance curve where you are where you want to be it all comes down to that place yourself on that curve determine where you want to go then start going out picking tools and techniques to help get you there if you need to uh if you have the desire to talk to me about it i can certainly get you pointed in the right direction i've enjoyed talking to you guys thanks a lot for having me