Lyle McDonald on Injury Prevention in the Weight Room

Best strategies for staying injuryfree

in the weight room.

>> Yeah, I was very curious to get your

perspective on this.

>> Well, it's like I said in the intro

before we started recording, the best

way to not get injured in the weight

room, don't go.

If you just stop training, you will not

get hurt in the weight room. I can

guarantee it. So that's my primary piece

of advice to stop trying.

Yeah, you might get injured doing other

stuff, but you won't get injured. Okay.

Now, somewhat shockingly to me given

what I have seen over

I mean I've been lifting for oh my god

40 years. I was like 15

professionally almost 30 now.

Given what I've seen in the weight room,

I'm actually surprised that the injury

rates are as low as they are because

they are. If you look at the statistics

on the injury rates from weight

training, it's a lot lower than you

think. It's actually pretty low.

Again, given what the what I've seen,

although then again, maybe the people

maybe I'm not seeing like it's rare to

see an acute injury. I've seen it, but

maybe I'm not seeing the injuries in the

weight room because the injured people

are no longer showing up.

>> And by acute injury, just so we're

clear, you mean something snapping while

actively performing an exercise, right?

>> Yeah. Like Yeah. Like

>> as opposed to like wear and tear on a

joint over time.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I

I again I haven't looked at studies in

forever, but I think it's it's they're

done on more acute injuries or like a

muscle pull or I mean tears do occur,

although that's usually under very

specific situations like a truly, you

know, acute traumatic injury of the

muscle pull, muscle tear, you know,

>> strain strain. Yeah.

>> Both performing hip hinges.

>> Yeah. I I mean I injured a spinal

ligament doing something stupid on

deadlifts when I was younger, which is I

think part of why I got real

conservative real quick because I was

lucky.

>> Yeah. Stuff like that where somebody

that like I saw I did see one

>> God this was last year guy on the hack

squat and he'd had a previous back

injury and I think he popped a disc at

the bottom of a hack squat and he

basically had to be removed in in a

>> in a

ambulance. I mean, I I witnessed one

that I could be pseudo blamed for. This

was many many years ago where a guy did

get taken out uh in a stretcher, but it

does happen.

>> Yeah, it does.

>> But, you know, I mean, I've had

>> in 10 years.

>> Yeah.

>> And considering that I've done it on a

frequent basis with high intensity in

that time, it's not that bad. like

compare it to other athletic activities.

Rugby for example, I'd have multiple

like

>> you know breaks by now probably and yes

American football players are wrecked.

MMA you know hell skateboarding has a

much higher injury rate than than the

weight room ever could which again

surprises me given what I see but the

body is pretty resilient. Now there's

also the issue as you know something my

mentor really pointed out to me is when

you're seeing

a quote unquote acute injury it is

frequently you are seeing the proverbial

straw and the camel right you are

generally seeing the buildup of

long-term tissue trauma

>> that you know it's kind of like like

when a light bulb goes out

>> and you go but it was just working a

minute ago. Well, yes.

>> Anytime something breaks,

>> there is a t0 and a t minus one where at

t minus one it was working and now at

like there has to be a point where you

you cross that line. So like frequently

you've got someone who may be

overloading a muscle, getting chronic,

you know, some sort of micro damage,

accumulation of it, like whatever it is.

Typically when you're seeing those types

of injuries,

you are seeing the final straw.

>> How can you detect or get around that

kind of

>> Well, you can't. I mean, you can't.

That's the Well, generally speaking, you

can't. Well, it depends on what it is.

So, there are videos and do not Google

these. Do not look at these. The They

showed this to me. I had this injury

prevention or this injury class in uh in

in college and um it's actually really

cool. My professor wrote this book. I

ran into him in a conference like a

decade later and man I must have been a

real pain in the ass in that class

because he remembered me. I was pretty

shocked actually. He remembered me from

UCLA. But he showed us he showed us

these videos and there were two

different ones. And this this also shows

you just like how difficult it is to

actually get an injury like this. And it

was an Olympic lifter and a powerlifter

who both during a lift blew out both

patellar tendons.

>> Wow.

>> Right. The Olympic lifter dipped for the

jerk and both of his knees went kaboo

and he was on the floor.

>> Same thing with the power. I've seen

other videos this happens

>> or you'll see often in bench pressing

peck tears.

>> Yeah.

>> Again, this was early 90s, right? Nobody

knew nothing about nothing. But they

went and did the math.

The patellar tendon is so overbuilt.

They calculated that it must have taken

something like 20 times body weight,

joint for reaction forces to blow that

tendon. That's how thick the patella

tendon is. 20 times body weight.

>> Crazy. Now realize if you're squatting

a,000 pounds or if you're jer, you know,

when you think about the dip, the

downward acceleration, the catch and the

reversal, that's a lot of force. But the

other factor was anabolic steroid use,

>> which we know over time can not only

overstrengthen muscles, but can weaken

connective tissues. And typically like

when you hear about bench press pec

tears it is almost invariably in

anabolic steroid user almost without

exception. Now I have a buddy

>> the exception being lane nor

>> yeah there are exceptions

but that will actually get sort of to

the answer of this. Now I had a buddy

who tore a bicep in a office accident.

He just had something wrong and

>> horrible.

>> Yeah. But also there something to

consider.

>> Yeah, there was a a YouTuber Goku Flex

who tore his bicep I believe helping a

friend move furniture. Sure.

>> Nothing weight room related.

>> It's so gross because when the muscle

pops it rolls up like a like a

>> Yeah.

>> window shave.

>> Don't Yeah. Don't look at bicep

compilations.

>> Don't Google any weight room. I've got a

buddy who sends me these damn things.

He's like I'm like dude just No. I don't

like to say I never show them to my

lifters ever because I do like even as

rare as it is I do not want one of my

lifters getting under a bar with even a

0.1% thought that yes my knees could

blow out like at a powerlifting meet guy

blew out a hamstring ended up face down

on the platform squatting like it

happens.

>> It doesn't happen often but it usually

happens at the absolute extremes of that

level of performance and there's a lot

of anabolics in powerlifting. Let's just

be honest. So also do keep in mind like

different tissues tear at different

rates, right? Muscular pole, muscle

poles are not that hard to get. I don't

think it happens a lot in the weight

room. It can

when people talk about

>> uh blowing out a tendon tendon like so

that's not actually usually what's

happening. So the tendon attaches to the

bone

and it's at the bone it's very very very

strong. It's very rare to actually pull

a tendon off of the bone where the

tendon ties into the muscle at the

muscular tendonous junction. That's a

lot weaker. Usually when people say say

they, you know, they tore they're not

tearing the tendon, they're ripping the

muscle away from the tendon because

that's a much weaker overlap. That's

usually what's happening. So that's a

torn typically that's a torn bicep.

That's you know a blown a torn pec. I

mean there could also like you don't see

this in the weight room but like you

know we hear about you know ACL injuries

in sports but that's usually you know

that that's typically in in high impact

sports American football women get it in

non-impact sports where the knee gets

into a very bad position and the ACL

happens to go through a notch that acts

like scissors and if you get twisted

just wrong it goes kapoof and if it gets

really jacked out you tear up the MCL

and the PCL and um the menisci Like

that's that's the full the full knee,

but that's usually a football player who

plants his foot and gets it bent out of

position, right? Like even my injury, I

was we were at the roller skating rink

of all things. I haven't been on skates

in years. I'm out there dorking around

on my inlines. Some guy gets out of

control, but my skate stuck. He hit me.

So here here's my skate. Here's my leg.

He came in this way, ran into me, my

skate stuck, and my leg went,

but that was like that's a traumatic

injury. You don't really see that in the

weight room.

>> Yeah, not so much.

>> Now, I've bonked my head on a nose

breaker that went like there's a reason

that those are called

>> skull crushers and nose breakers because

I guarantee you at some point one guy

did it,

>> right? You you you get to here, you go,

"Oh crap, boom." Boom. And you just don

yourself in the head. If you've ever

Olympic lifted, every single person

who's ever done a jerk has caught

themselves in the chin at least once

with the bar. You don't

>> Oh, yeah. It happens on the overhead

press, too. If it isn't the chin, then

it's the nose. Especially if you're

>> It's different on the jerk because you

were exploding that thing. And if your

tongue's out, you bite your tongue in.

>> Like,

>> I'm not talking We're not talking about

that stuff. we're talking about, you

know, the muscle pull like now

tendonitis, which is real common, right?

It that's not it's not an acute injury,

but it is a weight room related injury.

And I don't know if that's included in

the statistic. You're not like seriously

acute injuries. You just don't see that

often. And when you do, it's when

something like when I was deadlifting,

my low back started round went from a

flat back to round back. I strained a

spinal ligament. Like that's when you

typically see that happen. You can see

blown discs, but usually it's someone

that, you know, they're rounding out in

a squat, compression selection.

What's been happening is that over time

the disc has been pushed the the jelly,

right? So, here's your discs and then

there's there's the jelly donut in the

middle, the the nucleus pulposus, and

then there's this connective tissue in

back. And if you're constantly rounding,

you're pushing the the jelly back into

the and it it it eventually kind of

wears through.

>> So when you're seeing that blown disc,

what you're seeing is the long-term

effects of poor lifting and long-term

compression flexion.

By which I mean the discs are meant to

sit here. Compression. If you're

compression flexioned, the disc is

getting pushed.

Sorry, the jelly is getting pushed

backwards into posterior posterior

hernas uh posterior disc bulge. Anterior

herniations are extremely rare for

reasons. So if you see that happen, it's

usually again it tends not to just come

out of the blue. It's usually the final

step of the long-term consequence. But

that raises the question, okay, well

why? And really it comes down to just

load management.

Usually when you're seeing this,

you're seeing the combination of, you

know, because like as I like to say,

there's two types of trainees.

Those that have shoulder problems and

those that are going to have shoulder

problems

almost in the modern era, that's

probably the most common injury.

But that's due to our love of the flat

bench

that can absolutely be traced to the

western

being enamored of the barbell bench

press because all the old school lifters

who are still around will tell you they

never saw shoulder problems when people

were doing the Olympic lifts and were

not barbell bench pressing all the time.

>> Right. But

>> okay, I guess a follow-up question could

be what role do you reckon exercise

selection plays in injury prevention,

but we can come back to that.

>> Yeah, there there's multiple factors. So

part of it in general is simply load

management. Now load encompasses a lot

of things including frequency,

intensity, and volumes, right? In terms

of you're looking at the overall load on

the tissue,

those are really the key variables. Now,

exercise selection does play a choice,

right? There is probably something to

the absolute load being lifted in terms

of its stress on the joints,

right? I mentioned 18 hours ago, and

this is one of your questions we're

probably not going to get to. One of the

places blood flow restriction absolutely

plays a role is when you're trying to

find a way to increase the muscular

stimulus while decreasing the absolute

load on the joints because it allows

lighter weight because of the metabolic

effects. It's great for injury.

There are certain like super slow is the

same way. It's great when you're hurt. I

think we mentioned that in the hit

discussion because it decreases joint

forces because it makes you use piddly

weights.

But as far as overall load, usually when

you're seeing these types of injuries

that are what they are is it's chronic

overloading that eventually results in

acute injury. But people don't realize

they go, "Oh, he did this and pulled

it." No, it was everything he did up to

that. This is just when you finally saw

it go. I'm sure there are exceptions to

that, but we're talking weight though.

You're talking about like high

performance sport. You know, a sprinter

will pull a hamstring seemingly out of

the blue, but that's because of the

nature of high-speed sprinting and

ending up in a overly stretched

contracted position. You're talking

about weight stuff that's not by and

large the cause.

>> Just to be clear, what are you referring

to by load management?

Well, I mean basically

not chronically overloading

a tissue with excessive frequency

volumes and intensities so that you are

overwhelming its long-term recovery. And

where this really becomes important is

I've been meaning to do well an article

or a video for oh a decade plus. That's

how far behind I am on my work. But

connected tissue is the forgotten

tissue.

all talk about muscle mass and this that

and the other and how quickly it adapts

and how to maximize train all that other

crap. Nobody talks about connective

tissue because it's not interesting and

it's not sexy and it's not exciting but

it's critical

because muscle does recover pretty

quickly from training. There's no doubt

about that.

>> Yeah.

>> Connect connective tissue is much much

slower both to adapt and to recover. And

that's you talking about tendonitis.

Well, that's just inflammation of the

tendon. It's right there in the name or

tendonopathy, which I guess is the the

current proper term. Same thing. It is a

chronic overload of the tendon that

causes it to become inflamed. The muscle

is not the problem.

But if you do heavy triceps extensions

five days a week or play tennis five

days a week, that's how you get tennis

and golfer's elbow because it's the

frequency of this doing lots of stuff

that's stressing it without giving it a

chance to recover.

>> So would you argue that one set

performed every, you know, five days a

week would be more injurious compared to

five sets one day?

>> Yes. There was a supposed study. I've

never looked it up. I saw it referenced

in a running newsletter a billion years

ago and I can't be bothered. Could be a

powerpful. I don't care because I think

it's true. Took two groups. They had one

group run one mile six days a week. They

had the other group run two miles three

days a week.

Six day per week group got hurt. The

three day per week group did identical

volumes. The difference was the six day

per week group is hitting their

connective tissue every day in a high

impact activity.

whereas the three-day per week group was

not. Look at every single person who

jumped on that high frequency

bodybuilding BS a few years ago. Oh, you

should train the muscle group six

because the protein synthesis is over in

24 hours and you should be training

muscle group six days a week. And yeah,

they all got joint problems. The muscle

is not the problem. The connective

tissue is the problem. The joints are

the problem because they don't adapt

quickly. they don't recover quickly for

various reasons.

Hell, back in the day, they talked about

training the attachments by doing like

heavy isometric work because they're

like, look, and their lo the logic back

in the day was like, look, the muscle's

ability to transmit force to the bone is

through the tendon.

>> We need to strengthen the tendons, but

that takes time. Like it takes like bone

bone is an is a good example as a very

slowly adapting tissue and it is a

connective tissue in the strictest

sense. It takes like a year to see

significant changes in bone mineral

density of a few percent.

>> Would be nice if this was studied

directly the impact of frequency on

injury rates. I it probably has and I've

never

>> I think another way that frequency might

lead to higher injury rates is that it

allows for greater intensity on the days

that you do train. Um,

>> we can anyway.

>> Well, like I mean

>> I'll put it this way. Like if you do

five sets of triceps extensions on one

day, they're going to get like

progressive you're going to get like

progressively weaker set to set. Like

assuming you're taking like normal rest

intervals. Like either your your last

set will be limited by your first or

vice versa. Whereas if you spread out

that volume across five days, then you

can really send it on every single one

of those days.

>> Yeah, there's probably but you could

then counterargue but the volume is so

much lower maybe that's less stress to I

would still I think I would agree with

you more than enough. That would be the

counterargument. Oh, but it's only one

set.

>> So there go it's not as much stress.

It's like well probably I don't think

that's the case. And I think in pract in

practical terms, if you look at

activities

that are stressful to joints, running as

a good example, running has

one of the highest beginner injury

rates,

which is reversed. Most activities, if

you see increasing injury rates, it's

the highest levels of performance when

people are pushing the limits. Running

is the exact opposite. And there's a

reason for that. Because it's high

impact and because people try to go from

zero to running

volumes at a high frequency and they get

hurt. Why you should not run unless

you're being chased unless you follow a

truly truly intelligent program. And

most people don't. I'm going to start

running. I think I'll run 30 minutes

every day and they're hurt in a week

>> because their joints have to adapt and

it takes a long time. Even more so if

they're running is a terrible way to get

in shape. Running is I don't agree with

the general I want to get in shape

before I go to the gym. Running you

actually do have to get in shape to do

first. You you cannot unless you weigh

120 pounds. Running is a terrible way to

get into shape because you get hurt. And

in my experience, anecdote only being

injured is not a great way to make

progress. That is my my general

experience.

>> But yeah, look at the people who inv

like I said everybody who did that high

frequency BS and trained with any level

of intensity. Yeah, if you piss around,

I guess they all got tendonitis. They

all got joint problem. They all got

without fail. Ever people try to do this

high frequency squatting unless they're

doing incredible amounts of intensity

cycle, right? Heavy, light, medium can

work. If you're doing piss ass squatting

four days a week and only going heavy,

fine. it won't do you any good. Like,

it's still it's still purposeless, but

it can be done, but that's not what

people do. Everybody who did that stuff

got hurt. Everyone who's tried to follow

Mike Isertell's BS MRV charts training

biceps six days a week, which is the

most ridiculous crap ever. They all get

elbow problems without fail. He doesn't

He's on drugs and he trains with less

intensity than a 12-year-old.

There are a number of powerlifterss who

like bench every day and don't really

have problems with that.

>> Well, but again, but we also have an

issue with survivorship bias. We also

have an issue that are very well that

are very So my training partner, right,

he could do stuff that would just

>> injure most people exercise tech because

he had such robust joints. He'd also

been training for 17 years from like you

can adapt to that over time to some

degree. But

>> yeah,

>> the majority of pe because again and

that's the problem. I see a lot of

people they always bring oh well studies

of of lifetime runners don't have

arthritis. Yeah. They're their survivors

because they all weigh 120 pounds and

had certain body types. The ones who got

injured aren't running anymore.

>> It's very very simple. It is

survivorship bias.

When people get away with this, a it's

the survivors. B,

>> they build up to it over years, right?

Everyone likes to invoke the Bulgarians.

They create Olympic lifters and the

system broke one out of 65 out of 66

people because when people try to do

that and especially they jump into it,

they get hurt.

>> You are seeing the survivors

>> by definition now. Yeah. But and and

again, I think if you look at at the

handful of and there's not a lot of

powerlters that do it. Every once in a

while, okay, Jim Williams was an early

one, but you have to look at how he

actually trained.

So, he would go in and he would warm up

and he would work up to a single at 90%.

It felt good, he'd go for a PR. If it

felt bad, he'd stop

>> one rep. He also did that after a decade

of training. He was one of the best

bench pressers in the world. He was also

on drugs,

but he wasn't doing high volume six days

a week. He'd work up to heavy weight. If

it didn't feel good, he was done. That's

not how most people do this.

>> People who bench every day go in and do

four sets to failure with their buddies

doing force repetitions and then do it

again the next day. And then a day

later, and they're maxing out every

single workout. I think when you look at

people that are doing that, they're

using a lot of intensity cycling.

They're using a lot of very that's very

different. Training lift four days a

week where only one day is truly heavy

and there's a light, a medium, and a

medium heavy day is completely different

than trying to go Bulgarian 1RM six days

a week. Now, even with that,

you can get away with ludicrous stuff

for short periods of time. And I mean

ludicrous because I've done it. There's

studies that have done it for short

periods of time. By which I mean

maybe a month is right on the cusp. You

can do ludicrous stuff.

>> Yeah.

>> For me it was usually about six weeks

and then I would break.

There was a classic study back in I want

to say the 2000s by Fry. They were

trying to generate overtraining in the

weight room, which they've really never

been able to do because weight training

tends to be inherently self-limiting.

These guys, they did 10 singles at 100%

of one arm on a squat machine

every day for two weeks.

Everybody got stronger. It was two weeks

of one lift for 10 singles.

the study everyone likes to invoke on

that high frequency thing was um

it'll come to me couple years ago they

took three lifters it was a case study

and they had them squat to one RM

30 days in a row

and they took like five days off they

work them do daily max every day for 30

days

they took like five days off and then

they tested

And like one of the guys gained like 5%.

One of them gained a lot more, but their

squat was actually lower than what I

squatted. Their Olympic lifter that was

squatting less than I was squatting. So

I'm not too Okay, great. They did one

lift daily max. They all got real tired.

And we have to ask,

did they make meaningfully more gains

than they would have training

traditionally? Study just came out. had

a buddy, my guy in my group, really good

guy named Lee Bell was on. They're

trying to generate functional

overreaching

with squatting. They squatted five days

in a row.

Five sets, 80% of 1 RM either to a 40%

velocity drop or failure, which are

pretty close. And they were they got

about five sets of eight five days in a

row. That's hard. And then they gave

like a week off and they came back and

they were like five or six. But that's

five days.

30 days, two weeks, you could do

absolutely ludicrous stuff because

again, I've done it. But I was l I knew

in six weeks I would break physically,

emotionally, psychologically. And that's

the problem.

>> That's not what most people do. The guy

that you see bench pressing two or three

times a week, maxing out three days a

week, what else do you see? Elbow wraps

because his elbows are bothering him.

wrist wraps, not for support because his

wrists are bothering. Back in the day,

you used to see women on the stairmaster

with both knees with with knee sleeves

with knee wraps on because they were

doing two hours of hard stair master six

days a week.

It's load management.

Whereas, you take the guy that's doing

one heavy bench press workout once a

week and one light bench press workout

once a week. It doesn't happen in terms

of overall load management. That's what

it comes down to. Not only not

overloading, constantly overloading the

tissue, so they become constantly

inflamed and eventually like I said,

micro damage starts to accumulate.

Actually, overtraining is related to

local inflammation. It's a whole

separate thing. Like your body will

start to tell you if you're smart enough

to listen, but most people are not.

They're benching, their elbows start to

hurt. Somebody in my group just asked

this. He's like, "Yeah, this and this

and like my elbows are hurting and I

can't seem to fix it. Should I just

start wearing elbow wraps when I bench?"

Like, "No, you should fix the problem

and stop being a numbnuts." I'm like,

"You don't band-aid the problem and keep

driving yourself deeper into the hole

because eventually you will go from

minor annoyance to six months of

training loss when you finally push this

tissue over the edge."

>> Yeah. And the fix is, as you put it

earlier, basically load management.

Right. It's

>> not to say stop training completely.

It's just manage what you're doing

better.

>> Sure. And and sometimes that is

sufficient. You may have to do direct

rehab sometimes. But I think also if you

look at like the successful athletes who

do get away with what seems like heavy

loading, you see a lot more intelligent

programming than, let's face it, you

just don't see with bodybuilders. Mhm.

>> Now there are exceptions and I think

Westside is not even the exception that

proves the rule. It's the rule that

proves the rule.

>> Somehow Louie RIP and make no mistake

Louie was a genius was an innovator.

>> Yeah.

>> Love him. You cannot deny his

contributions. Okay. So keep it when I

say this, this is just all I'm saying is

making observations.

How he read the Russian manuals, which

I've read all of them, and I do not

recommend that you read any of them. How

he read those and got to Westside

is beyond me because at no point, no

Russian coach has ever maxed out 52

weeks out of the year. Ever.

Ever. And somehow he came up with a

system where you literally maxed in the

me exercises 52 weeks a year.

It was nuts.

Now his logic, well, we're ready to go

to a competition any week. Why is this

valuable? Powerlifting competitions are

not sprung on you like a pop quiz.

And

for any success Westside Training did or

did not have,

every single one of its lifters were

constantly wrecked. Part of the reason

they had to wear squat shorts during

their me workouts is because all of

their hips were destroyed from that wide

stance, foot forward, box squatting,

maxing out 52 weeks of the year. Dave

Tate and Jim Wler are both physically

destroyed.

because that was not good load

management.

Now contrast that to say Ed Con.

He would work up to a peak, he would

drop back to like 50% of max and over

the next 12 to 16 weeks, he would build

back up to a new peak. Now, he had a

couple minor injuries. He had a pec

there. He had a hamstring tear because

when you're squatting a,000 pounds,

[ __ ] happens.

But big picture stuff,

he didn't have a lot of injuries

comparatively speaking for as long as

his career was.

Look at this. Also goes to the exercise

selection. Dorian,

he had the one big bicep tear,

which is what caused him to retire, but

by and large very injuryfree. And you

look at him now, he's in great shape. He

did mostly machines. Volume is very

under control. He even says now he

wishes he de loed more frequently

and he wishes he'd been less intense

during contest prep.

>> Now I know this is we'll probably this

seems a little bit tasteless given

what's going on but I know Ronnie

Coleman is very sick right now and I'm

not trying to like dump on the guy.

He went super heavy, heavy triples,

squats, barba his entire career, and

he's a walking injury.

And I think there's a lesson to be had

here. You can go heavy, but if you're

trying to max out and go heavy, even at

low volume with certain type stuff wears

out.

>> Yeah,

>> high cycled things very, you know, Subie

trained a lot. She did train six days a

week. She trained each lift three times

a week. That was very, her volumes were

very low. The intensities were cycled

and I was very very very attuned. Like

again adjusting the training. I mean she

did eight singles in the squat on any

given workout and one day was light.

Every time she hit a new peak she would

back off for three weeks and we would

build her up. The volumes were very I

never buried her in volume. Was very

very careful. Anytime something started

to get a little twingy which it did

every once in a while. I would adjust it

because you can't keep pushing into that

because it just it doesn't magically get

better and that's not what most people

do.

>> Just uh coming back to Westside, I know

one corner so one cornerstone of

Westside programming was exercise

rotation.

>> Would you factor that in as part of load

management or do you reckon it's

relatively minor consideration?

>> Maxing is maxing is maxing is maxing

>> is maxing. It doesn't matter from your

joints perspective. doesn't matter

whether you're doing a two board press,

four board press, three board press. If

you're maxing, you're maxing and it's

going to hit your elbows and shoulders.

There ain't no difference.

That's not why they rotate an exercise.

Now, I know there is a belief that I

don't agree with, and this is neither

here nor there, that using the same

exercises over and over and over will

eventually cause connective tissue

injuries due to it's sort of a it's like

the idea of a chronic overuse like

carpal tunnel. And

>> maybe that's contextually true if you're

doing a ton of volume all the time, but

I've never seen it in anyone I've worked

with, but I don't use massive volumes

and I don't train people all out all the

time.

>> Yeah, you get the occasional de lo.

>> Yeah, exactly. I mean, easy weeks of

whatever sort, whether it's two easy

weeks or reduce the volume or take a few

day like whatever it is. So, I know that

belief is out there and I think

contextually it might be true, but I

don't think exercise rotation per se

fixes anything

>> because you can if you're still loading

that elbow, if you're loading that elbow

or wrist or shoulder maximally, it's

maximal. It's maximal. Their rotation

was a weak point thing and

what I don't want to debate. I don't

want to discuss why. So, because again,

>> I understand.

>> Oh, God almighty. I mean, like I said,

it contributed a lot, but there was a

lot of stuff that again, if you read the

Russian manuals, it was gibberish.

>> Yeah. Okay. So, so you're not really um

you don't think exercise rotation is

big.

>> No, I think

volume load intensity or you know,

frequency. It's that it's the whole or

you know, it all contributes.

>> Okay. Okay. Do do you think warm-ups

play a role in preventing injury and to

what degree? I mean, maybe like you

you're certainly not going to go under a

max barbell and go immediately. Like you

need to warm up those tissues. I I

guess. But you can still I mean what's

funny is like as often as not injuries

occur during warm-ups. Um I usually like

when I did

>> Yeah. It's funny. It's funny like I was

arching with 20 kilos

>> on the bench press and I was like, "Oh,

my midback feels really really bad." And

>> Yeah. And it's because I think a lot of

people don't focus as much during

warm-ups. They're not paying as much. I

used to find when I was warming up, like

my warm-ups felt harder

>> than the work sets, but that's just

because I wasn't putting mentally the

same amount of focus into the warm-ups

frequently. Um, yeah, I mean, they do in

terms of like they're warming up the

tissue, they're preparing the nervous

system. Like, absolutely. I think it it

is, but is that going to prevent an

acute injury if it's time? Like at this

time, you know, when you see that that

stuff happen, when you see the guy pull

a hamstring at the powerlifting meet, he

did the same damn warm-up he did

>> every day for the last 12 weeks. The

problem being that he came in with too

much fatigue. Whenever I saw people at

powerlifting meets, and people are going

to hear this and go, "Ah, you know,

they're going to get all pissy at me."

And that's fine. But like if the day of

the meet you're having to spend 30

minutes with the massage gun to work out

all the the tightness in your tissue,

you're not recovered, right? Like you

are coming into it still carrying way

too much cumulative fatigue. If you're

having to if your tissue is that torn up

all the time and you're having to go

through that constantly,

you are clearly

>> not recovering completely. And when you

look at the training that's being done

in those situations, it absolutely

stands out

>> in terms of constant high volume high

intensity and powerlifting frequency is

so variable. But even so, even if you're

just like if you're ma if you're doing

maxing out squads every week 52 weeks of

the year and doing high volume donkey

war I mean the west ton of volume of

hypertrophy work which is still another

stress and that was with all the drugs

known to god man and they were still

hurt all the time. You can definitely

get injured with low volume training as

well. Like it's it's not as common. It's

much harder to do but you know

>> Oh yeah. No, I mean yeah don't don't

anybody just hear this like things can

go wrong at any point and a tissue can

you know but by and large you're looking

at this this chronic um it is chronic

load management that is what's

fundamentally catching up with people.

Now let's talk let's talk about lane.

Lane maxes out every lift, every time he

trains, and that's why he's blown his

back out twice. Not to mention that his

squat technique is tragic, even if he

gets all pissy about anyone who tries to

tell them tell him that it could be

better.

There's a reason Lane has gotten had two

catastrophic back injuries, and that's

because he thinks every set should be

taken to an 11 RP every day, every week.

Now, admittedly, he's had success. He's

set some records. He's gotten away with

it. And he's paid a hefty price that did

not need to be paid because there's

better ways.

>> Yeah. Like there are lots of world

record holding power lifters who don't

get injured like that all the time.

>> Exactly.

Good luck telling him that because as a

scientist and a PhD, he believes that if

you don't squat more than him, you don't

know more than him because, you know,

academics.

Um but yeah, that's exa but that's a

perfect example of it. One of my

favorite things, this is super petty,

but it's funny as hell. Matt Gary, who

I've invoked his name a lot because I

think very highly of him, is apparently

the coach of the US powerlifting team.

Apparently that's a thing, which I

wasn't aware of till a few years ago.

I'm like, "Wow, we have a powerlifting

team." Okay.

He he was talking about training

intensity and I forget some podcast that

I listened to by him and he was like,

"Yeah, I found that

in my earlier career, I tended to get

hurt a lot by trying to work, you know,

at at like 10 RP at zero reps reserve

all the time." And I found that I

stopped getting injured when I, and

let's just, this is him talking mostly,

like, let's just put it the way it is. I

stopped getting hurt when I stopped

training like Bla Norton.

And I just thought it was a really

hilarious call out because he was like,

"Yeah, I realized it wasn't necessary.

It wasn't productive."

And not only that, it was detrimental

because again, my anecdotal experience,

catastrophic injuries are not good for

long-term health. And I think that's if

you look at the differences between in

any sport, the athletes that are and are

not getting chronically injured, it's

the ones who are chronically doing

excessive volumes and intensities and

frequencies

that are, and the ones that are not

doing that that are not,

no matter how they're approaching it.

And again, different sports. Cycling,

it's very, very hard to get hurt. You

can shake your butthole raw, but it's

very, very hard to get hurt if your bike

because you just you just ride miles,

right? You just do. Your low back can

get sore. But running, it's real easy.

Running has a huge injury.

>> Yeah, you can get into accidents on a

bike, though. It's just the cycling

itself that is

>> swimming. Swimming, you do get overuse

injuries. Why? Because they do massive

volumes twice a day, six days a week.

They have endemic shoulder problems.

That's a crime. But again, load

management and in the modern era,

they're moving away from those volumes

and that they're seeing less injuries.

It's also a very repetitive, you know,

if you're only doing freestyle and only

getting an internal rotation like you

have to this this brings us back to the

exercise selection thing, which is part

of it is if you get I think if you I

suspect swimming I don't understand.

I'll never understand the training. I've

tried for years. I don't get it. I never

will and I don't have to anymore. But I

think if you look at swimmers, it

wouldn't surprise me if the ones that

swim multiple strokes that have

different movement patterns that are

spreading out their volume probably get

less injured than specialists.

I know I at least read at one point, I

don't know if this is still true, that

triathletes tended to get less injured

than into the individual sport athletes

because I mean cycles are just cycling.

It's the same pattern. That's all they

do. Swimmers swim, runners run.

triathletes by having to spread out

their volume. Also by working

musculature frequently in opposing like

runners tend to get hamstring pulls,

cyclists tend to get quad issues. You're

doing both, you're working the

musculature a little bit more

evenly and then of course swimming is

mostly upper body. So I think that I

think in part of it certain types of

injuries can be predisposed by muscular

imbalances.

that occurred due to because again when

did shoulder problems in the weight room

really show up when people got so

enamored with the barbell bench that

they stopped doing any other movements

and also as much as I crapped on the

overhead press before that everybody

overhead pressed and that did

interesting things with the serratus and

the shoulder girdle and kept a level of

mobility because you had to push you

know behind the head that the barbell

bench didn't. You got guys who are doing

so much barbell bench, right? You you

start to get that that now that's

putting the rotator cuff in a very poor

mechanical position.

So you start to get impingements.

Take the average guy. What is he doing?

20 sets for chest and then three or four

piss ass sets for back where he's not

even using his scapular retractors.

Right?

if you maintain better balance across

joints. You know, back in the day, this

isn't really a thing anymore. They used

to link uh knee problems. They talked

about the quadriceps to hamstrings ratio

and it was all isocinetic. This is way

God this is a million years ago. They

would use isocinetic machines and like

all right if the quad to hamstring ratio

is that because like in something like

sprinting you know you have you have

heel strike now the quad has to

stabilize the knee as the foot comes

around and now the hamstring is firing

explosively and if the quad h the ham

you know and the quads tend to cause

anterior tibial translation the the shin

moves forward and the hamstrings keep

that stabilized. The idea was like,

okay, if your quad ham ratio is out,

then you're more likely to have your

shin move forward and pull on the ACL

and blah blah blah blah blah. I don't

think that is held to be so much the

case. Although one of the reasons that

women are more likely to get ACL tears

than men, there's a whole host of them

for reasons that I'm not I don't I'm not

sure of on like heel strike on landing

or jumping or sprinting. Women's

hamstrings fire like 100 milliseconds

slower than men's. I don't know why, but

that is long enough that if the tibia,

the low if the shin gets pulled out of

position because the hamstring hasn't

fired to stabilize it and a whole bunch

of other things go wrong, the ACL gets

cut.

100 millisecond different due to and a

lot of what they're doing with ACL tear

prevention is neurological retraining.

train women's muscle hamstrings to fire

sooner to better stabilize at the knee.

But that's an extreme, but it just goes

to make the point. Someone who's doing

all the benching and barely working

their back and they're usually working

their back badly because you know what

what are you seeing,

>> dude? Feel my back. Yeah.

>> Well, it's not even that. It's not even

effort. It's it's this. They're like,

>> why don't they feel my back? I don't

know. Maybe because your shoulders

aren't moving. I don't know because

you're getting zero scapular retraction

would be my guess.

So you know in in that sense another

like I mean nobody does direct rotator

cuff work. Everybody probably should but

obviously it's boring and lazy. It's

very rare to see just to keep the

rotator cuff firing well because when

the shoulder gets out of position and

the rotator cuff can become reciprocally

inhibited by tightness and etc etc. Now

it's not firing well. Now you start to

get an impingement because now the the

head of the humorris yanks up into the

acchromian pride and jacks that area put

it in technical terms and starts to

pinch the tendon and then that further

inhibits things down the road and all of

a sudden you've got a shoulder

impingement and then that's a big big

hassle and that's because your rotator

cuff became dysfunctional because your

technique was bad and it was never

getting trained in any sort of external

rotation movement. So, why I use face

pulls with Sunni, her rear delts, is I

had her do I had her do them

here with a little bit of external

rotation with a tricep rope because I

wanted to make sure and keep her

shoulder girdle healthy, but I also kept

the volumes very balanced

and she did a lot of backward. Um,

so that can contribute another partial

contributor to elbow issues. Everything

we

Everything we do is grip. It's this.

When's the last time you ever did that

movement against resistance?

>> Never.

And that can be a problem. You get

>> Yeah. Unless you do like the funny rice

bucket thing where you have those

elastic bands or whatever.

>> Yes. Or rubber bands or, you know, you

can get putty. You know, obviously if

you're going to do Chong,

do the do the stand and then you do the

rocks and then you do the the molten

steel and then you can just go

>> just punch a man and show him his heart.

Okay. Too many comfort movies. But yeah,

nobody I've seen Okay. I've seen one

person in 30 years in a commercial gym

do it. I was watching him. He was doing

some tricep work and in between I saw

him doing rubber bands and I had to ask.

I go, "Dude,

trying to fix an elbow problem." He

goes, "Nope. I want to make sure I never

have one." One guy, 30 years. I've never

done Yeah. I mean, and that is that is

an issue.

>> So there there can be those can be I

think those are going to contribute more

to

chronic issues.

Like I don't think that imbalance is

going to necessarily cause the acute

injury. I think that's just a little

bit, right? Doing more back work is not

going to change if you're doing 20 sets

of bench and maxing out two days a week.

>> All the back work in the world is not

going to prevent you that problem. It

may prevent the shoulder girdle issue,

but it's not going to prevent you

overloading the pec tendon, the elbow

tendonitis. Like it's it will but it

might prevent the inevitable rotator

cuff problem down the road.

So, do do you believe more in correcting

strength imbalances or and muscle

imbalances or volume imbalances? Because

the two are different.

>> You can Yeah. Like you can do a um a

high volume specialization program

where say you're doing like four times

the amount of chest pressing compared to

rowing and pull downs combined.

>> Sure.

where like despite the volume

imbalance, your back and chest are about

as strong as each other, you know.

>> Yeah. But that's also that goes back to

there's a reason my specialization

programs are only six weeks.

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, that's not fundamentally why,

but it is the fact that in that short

term, it's not going to it's this is

more of a long-term thing. If someone is

doing 20 sets for chest and four halfass

sets for back, they are going to get

now. Yeah, when I write up programs, I

do tend to balance them, although that's

probably more to do with slightly

obsessive compulsive need for symmetry.

It's just a weird It's a weird visual

thing. I was talking to someone the

other day and their whole workout like I

mean they're like, "Yeah, they're like I

do 10 sets of 10, eight sets of eight,

20 sets of 20." I'm like, "Yeah, I get

it. there's a symmetry to it. I go it's

nothing and I actually when I program I

was trying to make some change to their

training. I actually pandered to their

crazy

because you you have to I mean it's just

part of it's part of the deal. And so

the workouts I wrote up I was like yeah

I'm going to give you 8 by8 on this

because I know you need to see that

visual symmetry.

Another one one of our exercises was 10

by 20 and it was 20 by 10 because it was

humans are nuts.

>> 20 by 10 sounds nuts.

>> Yeah. Well, that's a whole separate

thing, but my point being that I think

as much as anything when you look at the

workouts I write up, the volumes tend to

be fairly symmetrical more because it's

a visual thing for me. I'm just like

must pair horizontal push, horizontal

pull, verticalish push, verticalish

pull, delts kind of stand on their own,

biceps triceps.

>> Yeah. I don't know if the symmetry thing

is just some kind of, you know,

idiosyncratic neurosis of yours. I think

it's a

>> little bit of both.

>> It's one of the judging criteria in

bodybuilding.

>> Yeah.

>> Balance development everywhere.

>> So, this is just hilarious. Again, this

is one of those old school things that

you're too young to remember

because you will occasionally see

arguments. Oh, that different muscle

groups require different volumes.

Reasons because look at Mike's MR

charts. There's no rationality to any of

it.

>> No, there's not. Why is this muscle this

many sets this many days a week and this

other one? Because reasons. Because the

whole

>> Where are the data?

>> Because the whole thing got pulled out

of his ass.

>> Yeah.

>> Back in the day, this is awesome.

Bodybuilders or a body

>> excessively high maintenance volume.

Sorry, I don't I didn't mean to prolong

this, but for a while it was like, yeah,

um you'll grow on 10 sets of chest

pressing, but eight sets of chest

pressing and maintenance. It's like why?

What is the minimum volume that you have

to do to at least maintain your chest

size? Generally speaking, about eight

sets a week for chest.

>> Sorry,

>> that's a two set difference.

>> But there was a belief at one point that

the

>> I could be wrong about that. Sorry. But

yeah, keep going.

>> Doesn't matter. That the triceps needed

33% more volume than the biceps. Can you

guess why?

>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hang on. So, you just

mentioned that. Yeah, cuz

they have one more head.

>> Yeah, there's three heads versus two

airgo. You need

>> Yeah, the triceps I mean they have one

more head of course,

>> which by that logic the quadriceps would

need you know

>> you know

>> whatever but like but yeah so

>> so yeah in a sense there is like I think

you know if you looked at it more

biomechanically like again

>> 1.3 recurring never mind.

>> Well yeah exactly yes Leroy Jenkins.

Yeah go I know you get that reference.

>> Yeah I do that refence. Of course I do.

>> Where they're asking the nerd what the

>> he's going in.

>> No, but but they they're asking they've

got one of the nerds and he's doing the

calculations on the likelihood of their

of the raid succeeding

because uh based on my calculations uh

got a success rate of 35.33%.

Uh that's.33 repeating of course. Of

course, but he had to explicitly make

that known. God forbid. God forbid

someone think that it was not 33 in

infinity group. Anyway, I digress. Nerd.

Um so

so yeah, like okay, the back is a more

complex muscle group and a an argument

could potentially be made that you might

need more sets to work everything. I

would counter that by going not if you

pick your exercises correctly. And I

think you probably, you know, you could

make an argument like, okay, the chest,

there's a middle section, there's an

upper, you know, sternoclicular.

You could potentially, you know, maybe

it needs more than the biceps that only

has really one line of pull like, yeah,

but by again, these are micro issues

that only might matter at the highest

level. So generally speaking when I drop

workouts I tend to make them fairly

balanced in volumes in terms of opposing

muscle groups and target. There are

exceptions

but those exceptions usually

represents a situation where someone is

already imbalanced in a different way.

Right. Yeah.

>> And that's it's almost a special it's

not even a specialization thing. But if

someone's like, "Look, for whatever

reason, I've already got this one really

well-developed body part and I don't

particularly care about bringing it up.

I don't particularly or whatever." In

that case, I'll write a workout. I'm

like, "Fine, that's maintenance

volumes." Or, "Do it whenever." Or,

"Don't do it. Who gives a crap?" Like,

if you feel like do do a couple sets the

end of the workout, it's fine. Like, so

let's say I did have someone who came to

me and they'd been doing your typical

Endless bench, not enough back work.

I might very well write up a program

that was deliberately imbalanced

towards back in that case, but it would

simply be using an imbalanced program to

correct an existing imbalance. And

here's a favorite here's a favorite

story.

I once made a guy taller.

I'm just I'm just that good.

>> Years ago, I was working at this

commercial gym here in Austin. Guy came

in. He had been doing nothing but

push-ups and crunches every day for two

years. He looked like a question mark.

>> What do you mean he looked like a

question mark?

>> Look like that.

>> Yeah. and he only worked this.

>> So, me being the super coach, I had him

work on nothing but upper back and back

extensions and he was two inches tall

around about a month because he could

finally stand up straight. So, there are

rare exceptions, but if you're talking

me riding up, you know, or also like

I've had this come up in some consults

lately and this is something whenever I

see this, I always think it's weird, but

I do totally get it. Like I'll get

consultations from uh

I'm gonna say physique competitors, but

by like women in some of the

less muscular divisions. I don't know

what you want to call that. Physique,

fitness figure bikini wellness

whatever this crap is.

>> There are many.

>> Yes, there are too many. And I can't

keep up with it because it's all silly.

But I'll look at these workouts and I'll

be like,

what the what? like what what is this?

Like where where's the chest work?

Where's the what?

And then they'll go,

"Well, I have implants and chest doesn't

matter." I'll go, "Okay, that makes

total sense." Um

someone I consulted with for his wife

and he's he's like, "Yeah, she they're

in I don't know, wellness. I don't

remember." He said, "It all kind of

blends into me." And they're like,

"Yeah, we don't do a lot of quad work

because big quads

detracts from the size of the glutes and

the hamstrings because that's" And I'm

like, "Okay, cool." Like, this is all

very silly to me, but whatever. I'm

adaptable. And it was

>> I can't believe they don't know that

traps are among the sexiest muscles in

women. Haven't you heard?

>> Oh, really? That's news to me. Okay. But

are we talking about traps one or traps

two, three, and four? Or two, and three?

>> Traps one.

>> Okay. Well, cool. Um,

>> from Mike Israel, you know, he has a

video where he's like ranking the

sexiest muscles in women.

>> He says craps are among them.

>> I have no words. Yeah. Because that's

what every woman really wants is a yoke.

>> Yeah.

Okay,

>> dude. You must check out Greg Ducet's

critique of that video. It's the

funniest.

So, yeah. So, so there will be times

>> about that digression

>> when you know where I will make but if

you're again that's that's a me coaching

thing. If I'm writing something up, if

I'm writing like the generic bulky

routine or a beginner routine or

I mean those basically a specialization

is by definition it's meant to be volume

imbalance, but that's specifically and

that's also for advanced people who are

already well-developed everywhere and

just need to bring up like that's a

specific situation for a beginner

routine. I'm going to give a balanced

program. This is part of why I don't

like and maybe this can come into the

next one. And I know you had a question

about minimalism, right? This is why

like a lot of these like, oh, just do

these three minimal big lifts. And I'm

like, yes, and you will end up with the

most imbalanced strength and muscularity

that you could ever want. And this is

dumb to just do these only three things

because you will end up completely

screwed down the road, right? Like you

look at my beginner routines that'll

have, you know, quad movement, a

hamstring movement, maybe calves, chest,

midback shoulders lats bicep tricep

abs, low back. It is

balanced completely. Now, yeah, I

suppose, yeah, there's a thing again big

in the 2000s, not so much now. You know,

all the corrective exercises, we got to

spend six months correcting all like

that. NASM had a whole thing that like

which NASM is one of the better ones,

but like that was the whole thing for a

while like we must just do a zillion

corrective movements before we even get

into real training. And I'm like I think

we can find a happy medium between these

two. Uh you can pick the right exercises

that will be kind of corrected if you do

it, but whatever. So like, yeah, if

someone had some super imbalance

coming in, but this would be in a

coaching context that I could see what

was going on, I might briefly address

that specifically. I mean, I was able,

my female clients thought I was a

magician because I could fix their

year-long their decades long knee

problem about two

>> terminal knee extensions.

>> Terminal. Yeah. They thought I was a god

among men. I'm like, no, not really.

This is pretty simple stuff. Um I could

fix rotator cuff problems in about two

most basic rotator cuff problems like

two weeks just by doing some basic fixes

stretch and strengthen them. Um but by

and large and you look at the generic

bulking routine and it is completely

balanced volumes across I I'm very

attentive to that just for the reason

that over time eventually

super imbalanced programs cause

problems. But again, which goes back

some as usual, we got way off topic, but

I think any injuries that exercise

selection in terms of maintaining, you

know, balanced across the joints, which

is what this people usually talk about,

I think it's going to be preventing or

even addressing a different type of

injury, right? Like so someone's got,

you know, a mechanical low back pain

that I might be able to link to either

weak spinal erectors or, you know, weak

or whatever it is. Like, yeah, I might

throw something a little bit different

at that just to try to if I think

there's, you know, right now the whole

idea of strength imbalances in the

post-modern era of rehab, there are no

strength imbalances. There's no such

thing as proper posture. It's all

psychosocial.

Yeah. No, it can be more than one thing.

It could be more than two things,

believe it or not. Sometimes it can even

be three things. So, let's maybe look at

this a little bit more contextually. So,

the reality is that stren stretch and

strengthen from a rehab standpoint still

works more often than it doesn't.

There's just more to it than that. So,

there there would be times where I might

be a little bit more, but by and large,

general basic training, I want balance.

Um, I did I've got a buddy I was going

to tell this story. We were talking

about split routines and I don't

generally use pushpull legs for reasons.

It's not my I tend to gravitate towards

upper lower by and large. And he was

like, "Yeah." He's like, "I use pushpull

eggs." And I was like, "Well, okay.

Well, describe it to me." And he showed

it to me and it was very reasonable

volume intelligent exercise selection.

And I go, "Right, that's the difference.

The way most people set up push pull

legs is push day is 20 sets for chest,

20 sets for delts, and 20 sets for

tricep. His was like six sets for chest,

three or four sets for delts, three or

four set. Like it was very he he chose

to split it that way, but he kept the

volumes reasonable. My experience is

when people go to body part splits, they

figure, well, I'm only training one or

two muscle groups. I better do all the

volume and they screw themselves up that

way. So, and hilariously, we had that

little discussion and I had a

consultation like a week later and it

was someone who wanted younger guy

wanted to train five days and I'll be

damned if I didn't set him up a moderate

volume push pull legs

>> and I emailed my buddy and I was like,

"Yeah." So, no sooner did I crap on PPL

than I gave it to then I recommended it

to someone who's like, "It serves you

right." I'm like, "Yeah, it does." But

again,

>> was it like a rotating fiveday?

>> Yeah, exactly. He's like he was used to

training that many days a week, but when

he came to me, he's like, "Yeah, so I I

what had happened, he'd done something

that was almost like a high frequency

upper lower training shoulder four days

a week." And he's like, "Then I came

across your video talking about how

invariably the shoulder girdle gives out

and uh then I got hurt and I thought

maybe I should talk to you because

that's exactly what happened." He was

training his shoulder girdle four five

days a week because of a split routine.

and it wrecked it. I said, "Okay, let's

not do that." And so the way we the way

I said the way it ended up being, it's

like, look, it's five days a week. Not

usually my preference, but if the

volumes are kept under control, which

most people don't do, it's fine. He was

young. He liked being in the gym. I had

the volume very constrained. And I'm

like, look, this way you're only hitting

the shoulder girdle three days on any

given week. You got, you know, two or

three I think that's right. push, pull,

legs, push uh four, but with three days

off, the volumes are under control,

you're not doing, you know, medial delt

four days a week. I'm like, I think, and

I go in, if you feel like you're getting

into trouble, drop one of the upper body

days for a couple weeks until your

shoulders feel better. But it can be

done. The reason I know, again, this

goes back to we're talking about with

like what I can write versus what I can

program. As soon as I tell someone to

use a push pull legs, they're gonna jack

the volumes up. Or, you know, god forbid

the dumb once a week muscle group, you

know, those types of training because

they're always like, "Well, if I'm only

going to train chest, I'm already at the

gym. I might as well do an hour." And

they do 20 sets of piss ass chest work.

I'm like, "Yeah, I don't use those."

Because that's what people always do.

Always.

At least push pull legs. They got a few

muscle groups, but they still do too

much volume most of the time. It can be

set up, but only if I'm programming it.

Because people just go, people are like,

"Well, I'm already at the gym. Might as

well do more sets."

No, I'll just make you do an upper lower

so that you won't do that.