 Did they have any, like, steroid vape pens? That would be the best way to go about it. Yeah, no, yeah, that's right. So that's the steroid diffusers. I should have done that with my dad at 16. Like, dad, can I get a testosterone diffuser for my room? Yeah. And he's like, sure, son. And I'm like, yeah, that testosterone diffuser is just a giant syringe. You're listening to Barbell Logic, brought to you by Barbell Logic Online Coaching, where each week we take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship. Welcome to the Barbell Logic podcast. I am Nikki Sims here with Matt Reynolds. Today we are going to talk about the press, some very specific stuff about press programming. I have a list of questions for Matt. But Matt, is there anything that you wanted to say before we get started? So I told Nikki, I was like, I got to tell you this story on air because it's way better that way. I have lots of stories I could tell, but I honed in on this specific story because I think this is, you'll see. So I got a 15-year-old daughter, as you know. And she's great. Let me start this story by saying she's great. She's a morally upright kid. She's not crazy. You know, we home school, she's pretty innocent, but she's not totally innocent or anything. So she has a little bit, I don't think it bothered her, that says she gets sometimes, she has a little bit of anxiety stuff, nothing too bad. And it's usually like at night, she needs some help to kind of just relax to go to sleep sometimes. And so she comes to me the other day and she says, hey dad, can I get a melatonin diffuser for my room? And I was like, okay, you know, she's like, you know, just help me like sleep. And I was like, okay, you know, we've got like oil diffusers, you know, like my wife has all these ridiculous essential oils and stuff, and she shows you that. So I'm like, okay. And she asked me in the living room, my wife is sitting in the living room too. And I said, okay, how much is it? You know, and it was like $25 or something. I was like, sure, that's fine. And Rachel's like, you sure? I was like, yeah, I mean, like it's gonna help her sleep $25 for melatonin diffusers, fine. So she ordered it, she comes in, Kinsley, my youngest one, she comes running in and she's like, Kailin got a vape. Yeah, I was wondering if this was it, okay. She's like, she got a vape. I was like, what are you talking about? She brings it in, the melatonin diffuser. It's a pen. It's a vape that you smoke. It's exactly the size of a cigarette. It's exactly the same color as it's totally white. It lights up on the end when you take a puff of it. No. I'm like, this is false advertising. These have been popping up on my Instagram for a while. And I've been like, no, you're not supposed to smoke in bed. That's dangerous. And of course, my wife knew what it was. And I was like, why didn't she goes, I was surprised that you let her get that. And I was like, guys, a diffuser is a thing that you put on your end table and you fill it with water and it kicks out essential oils and water vapor, not something you smoke. Oh, that's a classic move there where you describe something as something that you know they'll be okay with when really it's a vape pen. And here's the thing. That is the word that the company uses for this thing. That's what it's called, because I looked it up. And I was like, what in the world? And so, yeah, and it's one of those deals where then I had to have this talk with them and I'm like, listen, it's just kind of bad. It's not like a moral problem. It's still melatonin. I get it, but it's just like. Are you worried it's a gateway? That's the thing with kids. Yeah, and that's the main way kids smoke. Weed now is they're, it's vapes. And so, we're like, don't try vapes, don't, no nicotine vapes, no marijuana vapes, no. And so, she's never puffed on a vape in her life until she started puffing on the one that her dad bought her that has melatonin in it. So, I wasn't very, I wasn't happy about it. I remember going to the store with my dad, we would go like after church and we would get candy after church. And I would always get like, you know, sixlets. Do you remember sixlets? They came in like plastic tubes and they were a little round. Oh, I love them. If anyone knows where they can get them nowadays, please tell me, I want some. But I would also typically get candy cigarettes. Did you ever get candy cigarettes? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was great party favor in the 80s. So, I was never really into smoking, but I definitely developed, I think a pretty significant addiction to candy. So, it was probably the candy cigarettes that got me to where I am now. That was it. Yeah, it's a rough call after you get it, you know, for your kiddo, cause she probably, you know, she's, I'm sure this is mostly like placebo, but she feels like she needs a little melatonin, to help her like go to sleep. And I'm just like, yeah, but now we're kind of developing this bad habit that you gotta smoke this thing, this vape to go to sleep and it's left. And I was like, do it. I want to watch, you know, and then she was embarrassed to like do it in front of me. And I was like, well, yeah, you know, cause you hold it like a cigarette and you puff on it like a cigarette. You inhale it like a cigarette. The end of it lights up while you're inhaling. And I'm like, ooh, this thing like just, Oh God. So there you go, parents. So would you be okay with melatonin in another form? Yeah, like, you know, an actual diffuser. If she took a pill form or something, I wouldn't have any problem with it at all. It was actually more like the, it was the concept of the vape itself. Yeah. And again, I'm not thinking, you know, they have to stay on me. I'm a typical dad that I'm like, oh, you know, you want your cartilage pierced in your upper ear? Like what's getting pierced next? You know, and they're like, nothing. It's just a ear, you know? That's just neat dad syndrome coming out of me. But it's, I don't know. It's kind of the same thing with like little, little vape thing. I was like, ugh, ugh. It just seems like not a very big jump, right? If she goes to, and then she goes to like a party and somebody's got to, and she's like, I know it. And it's literally exactly the same. I mean, like the actual like the process of inhaling melatonin versus the process of inhaling nicotine or marijuana or whatever. It's exactly the same. It's still just water vapor. And so I'm like, ugh, it's not a very big jump. And they don't taste bad. Like- No, it's not. That's right. Kind of tastes good. Yeah. This one has lavender in it. It's got a lavender thing. And of course, you know, it's like it's cherry or whatever. But yeah. So that was my parenting fun for the week. So now my 15 year old has it. And then part of that's the age too, right? Like if they're 17, 18, you feel like I don't care. You know, it's like it's 15, right on the edge. You're like, ugh. Well, it seems like you did what you could do and just explained why it could be bad. I did. That's all you can do, I guess. Yeah. I kind of felt like there was a no win situation because it's like, well, I'm not really crazy about the form this thing is coming in. So if I take it away from her, she didn't really do anything wrong and it's just melatonin, right? At the same time, I'm like, sure, you know, just, you know, smoke that thing like crazy. And it's like, anyway. So what are you gonna do? Oh, the joys. Oh, God is killing me. I shouldn't- Oh boy. What else is going on? I may have to cut this one out afterwards, so the other thing that happened a couple weeks ago is, and they didn't tell me, is they got her eyelashes extended. So she got eyelash extensions. And again, I'm like, you know, they're like, you know, it's just like, it's like going to get a pedicure. And I'm like, yeah, but it's, you're 15. Yeah. And so, I'm like, why don't we work on the inside a little bit? Let's work on the heart. Let's work on that soul. Let's work on that, you know, like it doesn't all have to be eyelash hair and eyelash extensions and vapes. That's so difficult. And like all these, all these like cosmetic upgrades are so easy to do now. And that's like going to become like the norm. So now it's like, if you have just like your own eyelash, it's just like, oh, I'm so disappointed. Yeah. And let me be clear. I have no problem with eyelash extensions, especially for adults. It's just like, you know, like, obviously you never see your kid as sort of a physical sexual object. But so as soon as they start doing things like that, where they're just like, it's cosmetic upgrades, like somebody's looking at her that way. And then it bothers you, you know? And then you're like, I also don't do, you know this about me. I don't do anything. I don't really care what other people think about us or whatever. But I'm also like, you know, we homeschool our kids. It's a pretty conservative community in the Midwest. And I'm like, you know, and the problem is my daughter's not able to just not tell people. I was like, if you got the eyelash extensions, you didn't say a word. It probably wouldn't be as big of a deal. But you know, she had to be like, check out my eyelash extensions. And then got all these other little 14 and 15 year old girls that then go and tell their parents and her parents are like, what the hell are the Reynolds doing? Letting their 15 year old get eyelash extensions. And then she's like, and I'm like, I get it. I get it. You know, it was, it's again, it's like innocent. It's innocent on my wife's part. She didn't think about it. She's just like, that's like getting your hair done or pedicure. So I'm like, yeah, it's a little bit different. So, oh God, the joys of parenthood. So. It's tough out there. I know a bunch of people listening to this can relate. Yeah. There's a lot, well, I live in Southern California where it's like, I don't know, maybe like one in 10 women has like real boobs and real anything. Everybody's getting Botox by the time they're like 21. So you're just like inundated with how much easier you could look better. And so it gets to be like, I don't, I never want to like go down that gateway because I feel like once you stop, once you start, you probably just can't stop or maybe that's how I am. Yeah, well, you see people like that all the time. Right? We have a lady in our neighborhood that were like, it's the plastic lady and she's super nice. She's a super nice lady, but like literally everything on her is fake. Everything, but she got the butt in plans and all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, and then there's the part like my wife and I talked, we had a good talk with her. It wasn't an argument or anything, but we have this, like you spend all this time as a parent trying to shepherd your kid and sort of invest in their brain and their education and their heart and their soul, their personality and so like you kind of preach that, but then the nature of like Western culture is then you spend all the money on the outside stuff. Like, oh, we've got to have the hair coloring and the special like hair thing and the eyelash extensions and the good clothes and the stuff. And then you're like, well, what you're showing with your wallet is what you actually care about is like what the outside looks like, not what the inside looks like. And so I'm like, you know, I think we need to spend a little more time a little more effort on the inside than just like dropping money on the outside stuff. I think that's the part that maybe bothered me the most was, and again, I don't think it ever even occurred to my daughter or my wife that that was kind of what we were doing and when they both thought about it, they're like, ooh, that is kind of what we're doing. Yeah, and I get it, it's fun. Let's go get pedicures. I love pedicures. Let's do it, but at some point you've got to be like, we've got to draw a line here a little bit, especially the younger they are, so. Yeah. All right, so there we go everyone. That's thank you for the counseling session. It was cathartic for me to talk through. You want to talk about the press? Yeah. Okay. All right. So actually I think this is great timing because we have a meet coming up, which starts, oh, I had it pulled up here. When does our press meet start? I think it's the 18th of October, right? So October 18th through November 1st, yeah. This is our Halloween themed meet and it's a push-pull. So for us, that means it's a press and a deadlift and it can be their sumo or conventional, but that made me get to thinking about pressing and honestly, every time I'd sit down and program press, it seems like you're always running into a wall with press and missteps are pretty common with press. There's so much timing involved. It's a really long kinetic chain, so it's just like so much opportunity for stuff to go wrong. And it really seems like once you get into late intermediate and then again for our advanced lifters, it's like they just hit these walls where they seem to get stuck at a one RM for like a long time. Like they just can't get above their body weight or they can't get above 225. It's like they're these consistent ceilings. And so I was wondering how you approach programming the press for more advanced lifters and I'll have a list of questions that I'll run through. Okay, do you want me to give you my general first or go to the first question? Yeah, let's hear your general. Let's hear your general, then I'll go specific. I think general, it's actually gonna be pretty similar to the way I would do the other lifts and so this is the way I organize it in my brain. I'm sure I've said something like this on the podcast before, but when my clients are out of ways from the meat, I'm gonna try to do the lifts, the press with the greatest range of motion and the strictest form. So big military presses, very strict, no hip movement, not much throw in the upper body portion, seated presses. And if you think about it, the more strict in the greater range of motion, the less weight you're gonna be able to use. So, and it's also tends to be a higher volume as well, so you're kind of building some hypertrophy there, you're getting a lot of work capacity in, lots of tonnage, all those things kind of are important in it, so I like those as I'm out of ways from testing a PR or a meat or whatever. And then as we get closer to the meat, I'll start to add more of the explosive sort of movements of the press, right? So either using the hips or the upper body or both to throw, I'm gonna cut those reps down to singles, doubles and triples. I use a lot of singles on press more than anything else because a really heavy press for a near max single is then very difficult to bring down and fire back up for, right? So it's, you know, I can take 225 or something for me, which is, you know, it's not real heavy and I can knock out reps with 225, but if I jump up to like 250, even though I could hit a single and then put it in the rack and take literally eight or 10 seconds and take it out of the rack and do another single and then another single, another single, stringing together 250 for a triple is hard. Cause I get up to the top and you shrug up and you're, and it's hard to bring it down and stay tight. And also the first rep of a press is the one that matters for a meat. And the first rep is so different than the reps you're gonna do after the first one. Like you're probably gonna be bouncing it back up or you're not gonna use as much hips. And even just after the first rep, it's like you're able to better assume the weight of the bar over your entire body. Whereas when you just unrack it, it's like so much more difficult to feel the full weight of the bar down through your feet. And so I feel like the first rep and everything that after is just so different. So I think that's another good reason why singles are very important. More on the press than any other lift. Definitely. More on the press than any other lift, right? So this is why we deadlift from a dead stop is we're actually, what you're really doing on a deadlift is you're doing five singles really quick where you never take your hands off the bar. That's what a deadlift is, right? Cause you don't touch and go. We don't teach the bounce of the touch and go. And a squat and a bench press are almost identical. Rep one to rep two, rep two to rep three. Like there's really no form difference. But the way we actually perform the press is a little bit different cause it really starts from a dead stop on rep one. And then we get some of that stretch reflex starting on rep two. So you're exactly right. So as I get closer to the meat, I'm going to do more of that. Less reps, heavier weight. And then I'm going to start doing things that are like partial movements, like press lockouts where I can overload the press where I get more weight in my hands or press starts. Things where I'm actually, theoretically, I have more weight in my hands than what I could actually do a one rep max for. Two to six percent, two to seven percent higher than you could actually press is a great place. I think 10%, 15% is just too damn heavy. You'll see that sometimes with people that do like board presses or something on the, on a bench press, you know, some sort of parcels or like everybody's seen the guy that pulls on a rack pulley does a 405 deadlift and any rack pulls like 630 and you're like, hey bro, rack pull is not the problem. Like there's no reason to do rack pulls. You're not specific anymore. You leverage is really good. And it's not, it's not carrying over. And so, yeah, so that's my general, that would be my general philosophy of how I would approach it. Okay, okay, cool. So that was one of my questions is what you thought that the best supplemental variations of the press were. So you said, you like to start with something very strict, like seated or just strict press the further you are away. And then you start to get more specific and work through the regular press itself. And then you start to overload different parts of it with the press start, press lockouts. Do you ever do chains with press? I have before, so let me, let's talk about press lockouts really quick. I actually progress my press lockouts as well. So I start lower and I'll have them pressed from like chin level and then nose level and then eyebrow level and then top of head and then, you know, three inches above the head. And that's kind of as far as I go. And so you can change that up every couple of weeks too. So a lot of times I'll hit like a three rep max on week one. And then I back off 10% for like three sets of three. You've seen me program this before and maybe in the next week I might actually go to one rep max at that level and then do a back off, you know, 10 or 12% for three sets of three and then raise it just a little bit and like short in the range of motion, the weight's gonna go up. So I like that with the press lockouts. Press starts, I think are underused. I think they work really well. And I think that they work really well, really close to the meat. So just in case anybody doesn't know what a press start is, it's where you overload the weight. Like Matt said, two to 6% you unrack it and then you do a rep that you miss basically and it's really embarrassing and then you re-rack it. Is that right? So well, here's another way to, yeah, that's right. But again, think about it compared to the other four lifts. You would never put on, you know, 5% higher than you can squat and... Just write it to the pins. Lower down to the bottom of the squat and just strain on it for a little bit and set it on the... I mean, I guess you actually, you could. God, that sounds so miserable. Seems kind of dangerous. Certainly, you know, that's a bad idea on bench press where the weight's over your face. And on a deadlift, if you put 5% over what you could do, it's just not gonna move. It's not gonna come off the ground, right? Cause it's not starting with an eccentric component there. So there's no way to sort of like get some momentum. With the press, you can take the weight out of the rack. The press is an easy one to miss and it doesn't seem to really screw with the, I don't know, bro science here. It doesn't screw with like the central nervous system. It doesn't seem to, it doesn't fry you at least mentally as much as the other, missing as much of the other lifts cause it's just such a groove movement. It's like missing a snatch or a clean, right? Somebody misses a snatch or a clean, like that's just, you just groove it weird. Yeah, so you do your normal press workout, whatever that is, like maybe you're working up and you're hitting like four sets of three or something with your regular press weight. And then you go up to, you know, 10 pounds, 15 pounds higher than your all-time PR. You know, it's probably 5%, 3%, something like that, depending on obviously changes based on how strong you are. And you take it out of the rack and you try to press it, knowing that you're gonna miss almost certainly. And you try to see how high you can press it. You press it up to the top of the head and you grind on it for two, three seconds and you bring it down and rack it. Yeah, playing around with these. I like to pick a weight jump where people are able to still grind it. Cause sometimes if like, if you go too heavy, you just get the hip reach and it's like, you just can't push it all into it. So you have to get the right amount of weight that allows that lifter based off of, and I think this has something to do with anthropometry, to get to the point in front of or maybe just above their face where they actually can give it a little bit of a grind or else it's just like, you just get, it feels heavy in your hands, which is useful. But I remember you've programmed it for me before and you would always say grinding it for five seconds that I'm like, how about one and a half seconds? Right. Yeah. Yeah, so one of the challenges with the press when you talk about supplemental lists is there just aren't that many that you can do. And especially for my clients who don't have maybe access to as many cool things as I've got. You know, if you don't have bands or chains or things like that, it makes it, it makes it difficult. So I don't like a push press and I don't like a push jerk for supplemental lifts. I just don't think they carry over. I think both those lifts are cool lifts and they're fun, but I don't think they carry over to your press very well. So I do think chains and bands carry over far better than a push press or a push jerk, but then you're under the constraints of, do they have bands and chains? And then also like the distance of the barbell to the floor is so far on a press that it really becomes a pain in the ass to do. You got to have like a long leader chain to put your weighted chains on or like, you know, the bands get stretched out so much that there are lots of tension on the bands. I think a reverse band overhead press would be awesome, but who has a rack other than Cooper Mitchell from Grusham Reviews, it's 11 feet tall, that you could do a reverse band. If I did a reverse band in my rack, if I got to the top, there would be, the bands would be loose and so, you know, theoretically, I think that would work fine. There's just not much to do. So for most of my clients, it ends up being, you know, seated presses to starts and strict press and then you go from strict press more to a competitive style press on your normal press day and you go from seated presses to low press lockouts to medium press lockouts to high press lockouts over the course of eight weeks or so, that tends to be the sort of the strategy. Yeah, like I feel like accessories are really important for the press because we're just trying to like load more muscle onto the upper body. So what do you think are the most important ones for people to do? You know, Bill Star said years ago, he said that if you can dip 100 pounds over body weight, then he felt like dips would really contribute to the press and so, I like that for sure. You know, dips are a good big chest movement but the more you tilt your body forward, the more stretch in your pecs you get and the more you kind of stay upright, you can get a lot more work on the tricep and on the shoulder joint. And so, I like dips for sure. If you can do dips and a lot of people can't, right? It can cause some shoulder issues. If you've got some shoulders, obviously sort of drives the head of the humerus up into the shoulder joint, but I do like dips. And then I like anything that's sort of a heavy tricep movement. So I actually think things like heavy board press or a slingshot bench press, like the top-end bench press work carries over well to press. I definitely think strict dumbbell, especially seated dumbbell presses work really well if you have access to dumbbells. Again, a lot of our clients don't but you've got to get to the point where you can get pretty damn heavy on the dumbbell presses. And then of course I like big, heavy tricep movements like the LTE or the rolling dumbbell extension to just put as much meat on the tricep as we possibly can. And so that's the best combo. I think the thing that's gonna put more meat on your shoulders than anything else is probably those dumbbell presses for your shoulders and then the big movements for the triceps. And I think that's really what the press is. It's shoulders and triceps. Yeah. I like to have pull-ups and chin-ups going pretty consistently too. For the antagonists. Yeah. I think it's like tougher for people to get into that lock-out position because it's really tight. So if you have them consistently hanging from the chin-up or a pull-up position, then that kind of just opens things up a little bit. And the press involves some posterior muscular too. So I think even like rows can be helpful in some way to just help people feel what it's like to finish the press where they have to transfer from where it's just anterior pecs, anterior deltoids too at the top end where they're like really trying to use their traps and their posterior deltoids to help them finish. So anything that kind of reaches back that I think is good. That's a really good point. I have a lot of clients, you know, those middle-aged guy clients who, and me too, I'm talking to myself, really have a hard time hitting that last inch or two of lock-out. Totally. Because of that. And it's a lat tightness here. Your lat crosses the shoulder joint and grabs the humerus, grabs your upper arm. And so I've gotten really intentional with programming those guys' hangs from the pull-up bar. So let's say it's a typical four-day split sort of workout. So they're gonna press and bench press before they do their accessory work. I'll usually have them hang from a pull-up bar between their warm-up sets of presses just to help open up the arm a little bit, open up the shoulder girl a tad and then have them do their chins or pull-ups. And again, my kind of go-to there is I actually like people to be able to do them in all sorts of different grips. So overhand, underhand, neutral grip, whatever, you know, wide, narrow, just be able to do pull-ups. But then at the end of the pull-up session as well, make sure that they spend some extra time just stretching in that really, get that really long position. You wouldn't get that, you know, even if you do a full range of motion, chin up or pull-up, where you go all the way down to the bottom, you're still maintaining some tension so you can kind of rebound back up. I want to get to the point where they can actually like stretch and relax and like take a deep breath, breathe out and kind of like get long, let your arms get long, let your shoulders get long. And so I think that helps a lot. Totally. I have a lot of clients that struggle with, you can see they can press off their shoulders, the bar is super fast and then it gets real slow as it passes their head and it's because it's that inflexibility. So now they're trying to press a heavy barbell in a plane or in an area of the movement where they are inhibited by their own lack of mobility, right? And there aren't a lot, everybody knows it listens to us, we're not super mobility sort of people, but if you can't perform the movement through its full range of motion, that's a problem. So now you're not just fighting the weight of the barbell, you're fighting the tightness of your lats or the tightness of your triceps or whatever it is back there. And so I think that's a problem. Oh yeah, I have one of my lifters that just came to mind thinking when you brought that up, I have some ideas for her. Excellent. Okay, so you said something that I thought was important about missing the reps, how you're like missing press reps are going to happen a lot. But I know that when that first starts to happen, it's one of the first lifts in your lifting career that you're gonna start missing. There's still this kind of like bomber effect that happens when you miss a press. So you have to just kind of teach people to be able to just brush it off, right? That's right. It seems like it's just, it could be so fickle. It's like you could go in and go for your one rep max on Tuesday, totally miss it, doesn't even break your chin. And then on Wednesday, you could have another heavy single plan and you could totally go in and get it, right? That's right. Yeah, so the big mental aspect to missing reps. So when I was younger, I was super OCD about everything. And a missed rep would just, it wouldn't ruin my day, it would often ruin my week or ruin my life until my next good workout. Can relate. And you get to the point where just like, yeah, it doesn't matter that much, it's okay. And for press especially, again, missing a press, you have to think about a press like a snatch or a clean. Like you miss them all the time. That's just a groove thing, right? It's often not, it's often not strength. Sometimes it is, or sometimes it's a combination of both. You just can't groove it. You know, people struggle to get the weight back and they kind of push the weight forward away from their shoulder joint. And so they'll have problems there. But missing a press is not that big of a deal. And you can also come back, especially if you feel like you misgroove the weight. It's the one that I'm okay with my clients, racking it, taking a few minutes and trying it again. Right? Now I did have a client the other day, misses press like five times in a row. And I was like, bro, that was three times too many. So it was, so that's not okay. But it's not the same thing as missing a squat. Now I'm still to this day. I don't think you should miss a squat very often at all. If you miss a squat, it should be very, very rare. A deadlift isn't that big of a deal because typically if you miss a deadlift, it just didn't come off the ground. So it wasn't that big of a deal, right? And bench press, you should always have a spotter. And so you shouldn't miss bench press very often. But likewise, if you've got a good spotter and you know what you're doing, you know, if you need a little help to lock the thing out, of course, you can't count the rep if that's the case. It's not such a big deal. Press is the easiest one to miss and just like move on. So yeah, you've got to get yourself mentally prepared to just be like, listen, it's okay. Yeah. Listen to press is okay. And you can come back and try to regroup it. Or like you said, you can even have a terrible day and come back three days later and crush what you missed just a few days before. Yeah, I was thinking about this this morning. I've been going to jujitsu a lot more since I've been injured and just haven't been able to lift as heavy. So I have like more gas in the tank to go to jujitsu. But the more you go to jujitsu, the more you can see how up and down things are. Like Tuesday was a great class. Like sparring was really awesome. You know, you go to sleep thinking like, oh, I'm a really good jujitsu player, but like it's going to happen the longer you do it. And you just have to know that it's going to happen. Like the longer you lift, it's usually not the fewer reps you're going to miss. Like you're just going to accumulate more missed reps. It shouldn't be like a significant problem, but just like in jujitsu is like, yeah, you're going to have like roles where it's just like nothing works. You try everything and it doesn't work, but like you can't let it be like a rain cloud, especially on the press. Like it's just like, you know what, it's going to be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Cool. Definitely. My last question is, how much do you think body weight plays into the press? So if someone is going through like a weight gain and then a weight loss, what do you see? Yeah, press is most affected by weight gain. The more you put on, the more you compress, the more you take off, the more you struggle. I think sort of the one that's the quickest gain and the quickest lost, right? So if I don't press for a little while or, you know, it just, or I'm losing a bunch of weight, I'm in a dieting phase or whatever. I mean, my press will just fall through the floor pretty quick. And as I put on weight and get bloated or, you know, I'm just like, oh, I'm going to smash some Chinese food and a bunch of soy sauce and salty and stuff. Then I come in and I'm just like, I feel so strong on the press, right? So I definitely think body weight affects the press and really the bench press probably more than anything else. It also very much affects the squat and it doesn't seem to affect the deadlift very much. So you're, you know, as you lose weight, the deadlift just doesn't seem to be affected by body weight very much, but the press for sure. Like, look, there's a reason that the three guys in the history of the world that have pressed over 500 pounds were all pushing 400 pounds of body weight at the time. You know, they were, they were big boys, big boys. Yeah, you don't see. As a matter of fact, to me, I'm going to screw this number up. I'll go back and look. I believe that Bob Bednarski for York Barbell Club is the only guy to approach. And I think he might have done it. A two X body weight press. Oh, I'm cheating. Now think about that. To me, that might be the most amazing, untouchable record in lifting ever. So he was like 240 pounds and he had a 400, 80 pound press. I think his best press was 485. Yeah, 240. That was freak. I mean, they got crazy. That is so. Wow. Yeah, when you see stuff like that, I'm just like, how is that even possible? And you know, this is like, and you're talking this is man. Again, this is like in the mid 60s, late 60s. Were his arms really short? No, I mean, yeah, maybe. I mean, the guy was built like he was a Olympic weight lifter is what he was. Oh, OK. And he was just a huge presser too. But you know, as part of that York Barbell crew in the 60s and, you know, it was kind of perfect storm for everything back then because, you know, steroids have been invented, you know, 10 or 12 years before and they weren't really illegal and they weren't really getting them illegal anyway. They were just going down to the pharmacy and the doctor was writing them the script for it. So, you know, it's probably, you know, a little morally bankrupt. Although those guys were nuts with everything else. The like getting their steroids was probably the least of their issues. And so. Did they have any like steroid vape pens? That would be the best way to go about it. Yeah, no. Yeah, that's right. So that's the steroid diffusers. I should know that my dad at 16 late. Dad, can I get a testosterone diffuser for my room? Yeah. And he's like, sure, son. And I'm like, yeah, that testosterone diffuser is just a giant syringe. So no, no. So there you go. And try that, kids. Try that on your parents. Just call it a diffuser and it'll be OK. Yeah, I mean, you know, those guys, they had the perfect atmosphere. There were a bunch of super strong guys. Yeah. And there was sort of street cred with being able to be really strong in the power lifts and be really strong in or have big time PRs in the Olympic weightlifting thing lifts, which at the time was the snatch and the clean and press and the clean and jerk. So they pressed in the Olympics. And there was a lot of respect to give them for guys that looked good. So these guys that would those guys like Bob Benarski, the guy like that would be on the cover of Strength and Health Magazine. Well, they're not going to put a big fat dude on the cover of that magazine. And so this guy, like he looked great. He was jacked and he had a great atmosphere and he had the right food and he had the right drugs and he had the right everything. He was probably built right. And all that said, it'd be awfully tough to give anybody all of those things and still have you press 480 at 240. Yeah, that's crazy. So but body weight makes a massive, massive difference. That reminds me. I remember there was a discussion on Slack one time. I think I had asked a question about the press and Charity Hamburg, who has a really freaking good press. She said something about how she learned to treat the press like a full body exercise where it wasn't just like, OK, this is an upper body lift. Like you have to think of your whole frame, your whole musculoskeletal system really contributing to this lift. And so that would make sense why when there's more of you, like when your foundation is bigger and heavier in the floor, there's more that you can press upward. But I think that's important for any lifter to remember is like you have to get everything involved in this. Like when you on racket, you have to bring it over your midfoot. So it's not just this like random object that's way out in space, that's heavy. Like it has to become like a part of your full body. Like gaining weight makes sense. And just think about the stability piece of this, right? Like if you know, if you look like the space needle, it's real wobbly. But if you look like the pyramids in Cairo, then, you know, it's so much more. It's got this big, heavy base. That's what I'm going for. I'm going for the pyramid diet. I want to look like a pyramid. I just want to be real fat bottom. Me too, actually. Awesome. OK, those are actually all my questions about presses. So thank you for my programming, tutoring. If you're struggling with the press, I actually think it can often be one of the most, if not the most confusing, but I really think the answer is often quite simple. I mean, you just start strict, big range of motion. The thing about the press, if you get really good at, I've had lots of clients to get really good at an Olympic style press, like the big throw with the giant layback. I think that's awesome for competitive lifters, but it doesn't make you much stronger, like generally stronger. And so you have to have times where you really train for strength, big range of motion, more strict military press, so seated presses. But seated presses is the first thing I'm going to put in somebody's program. If they're just an incredibly efficient Olympic presser, because I need to give them a movement that is not efficient, like seated on the bench with no back support. I say seated, by the way, we should explain. I am sit on the bench press bench, not like on a military type bench that's got a, yeah, that's got that 90 degree angle that you have something that you can support your back on. I don't want the back support. I like those lifts. And then you just progress to more heavier, heavier lifts with maybe a shorter range of motion as the supplemental lift. And you start to do more of those Olympic style presses or using your hips, that full body movement, like you were talking about like charity does. I think that works really well as you approach it. And then don't forget about the press starts. I think that as you're getting closer to further, especially for those of you who signed up for the big lift or die meet that's coming up. And by the way, if you haven't just go to the website and sign up, it's cheap, it's 50 bucks and go have fun. And like you've got all kinds of crazy prizes and t-shirts and stuff. So, but if you're doing that as you approach it in those last three weeks or so, throw a little extra weight on the bar at the end of your press workouts and do one or two singles. That's it, like two singles per day that are a few pounds heavier than what you can do. And what most of you will find is on about week three, you'll accidentally press your press start. You'll finish it. It works really, really well. Yeah, it's fun to do that. It's fun to go into those being like, wow, what if I actually make this? Like go into it. I think that's good to go into it like you're gonna make it. Don't go into it like, I'm just gonna sling this to my nose and then I'll just rack it. Like go into it like you're gonna get it over your head. It's fun. That's right. That's a great point. And then the other thing is that I think a lot of people do this. It's weird, I see this with bench press especially. Most people move the bench press with intention. They're moving it quick, but they tend to be kind of slow and methodical on the press. I obviously don't wanna lose control of the press. I wanna take it out of the rack nice and tight and walk back and take my air. But when it's time to punch the weight, I'm punching to the ceiling as fast as I possibly can. Move it with intention. But if you do the same thing with the heavy weights. Like you wanna make the plates rattle at the top. That's right. If you do it with the heavy weights, eventually you'll get to the point where, well, I'm gonna take this press start. I'm gonna move it with intention and you'll be surprised. Because for most people, you've got that sticking point kind of between your eyebrows and the top of your head. If you can get it through that point. And a lot of times I've visualized that there's a brick wall there and I'm trying to bust through the brick wall. So as I throw the weight, I move it with intention. I'm like, here we go. I'm gonna punch through this brick wall. If you can get through it, you're like, oh, I'm gonna get this now. And it finishes and it locks out. I like that. So. That's cool. Awesome. All hopefully good valuable lessons to be learned on the press. Always good for us even to talk about it and remind ourselves the things that we need to do on the press. Yeah. For sure. Awesome. Thanks, Matt. Hey, thanks for listening to another episode of the Barbiologic Podcast. Again, we would love Five Star Reviews. We are so close to 1000. Go to iTunes, give us a Five Star Review if you'd like to show share it with a friend or family member or coworker or, you know, anybody. Somebody at Walmart or the grocery store or whatever you can do that to. And turn them on to Barbiologic Podcast. It's okay to talk to strangers. That's exactly right. And we'll catch you next week with another new episode. So we'll see you then. Yeah. See you guys.