Things That Matter. And Things That Matter, Less | ETP#108

[aaron_straker]: 0:27

just for switching my thing around here. So it's closer. All right, here we go. What's up guys? Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of Eat, Train, Prosper. Today is an episode with Brian and myself, and we are going to cover the things that matter, the things that matter not quite as much. And then the things that may matter or probably matter. And this is going to be a bit broad across training and nutrition. Of course, like all things ETP, but before we jump into this episode, Brian, can you kick us off with some updates, please?

[bryan]: 1:04

Yeah, we had a big weekend the last five days here. Paragon director of operations, Laura's been in town, LCK, living in San Diego now. From Thursday until today, we've just had big Paragon powwows and going over lots of business stuff. And so my first announcement here is about the new menu, Friday in a private Zoom to our members. But we're changing our menu slightly, not significantly, but enough that I think it's worth mentioning. And so it's becoming much more streamlined. We're going to have a four day physique program for each type of equipment setting. So we're going to have a four d physique for commercial gyms, a four d physique for home gyms, and a four d physique for dumbbell only. And then we're going to do the same thing three-day physique. So three-day we'll have a commercial gym option, a home gym slash functional fitness gym option, and then a dumbbell only option. And then the other three programs, which are Quicky, 45-minute physique, and our OG Paragon program, which we now call Strength Metcon, kind of got the CrossFit feels in it. Those aren't changing at all. So it's really just strategically aligning the different physique programs for wherever you are and a three day version for wherever you are. And we're going to have different bundles that you can purchase. So you'll either have like the commercial gym bundle, which is just physique. You'll have the home gym bundle where you'll have the dumbbell only bundle. So three different options there. And I think it's going to be, it's going to make everything a lot easier too, because there'll be less kind of questions about what program is right for me. days a week do you want to train. And yeah, that's kind of what we've been working on a lot and getting things together for the new launch of that, which is going to be on April 10th, is when everything is going to officially align and kind of break out the new menu. Yeah, questions are...

[aaron_straker]: 3:21

Yes, I do have a question. So the equipment you have is going to, that is the bundle is based off of that, that you would choose the bundle.

[bryan]: 3:32

Yeah, and then within once you decide what your equipment is, then you decide if you want to train four days or three days a week.

[aaron_straker]: 3:40

And then, and this is just because I would imagine a listener would have this question because I did, is there an ability to like, let's say I'm an accountant, right? Or something like that. And it's tax season and I'm getting my ass kicked. I'm like, I can't train four days per week now. I need to train three days per week. Like, could they move from that to that? Is that like

[bryan]: 4:01

Yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 4:01

decently?

[bryan]: 4:01

for sure. Yeah, they would just need to email help at ParagonTrainingMethods.com, and we would switch you within 24 hours or whatever. Yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 4:10

Perfect. Cool. That's really cool.

[bryan]: 4:12

so yeah, it should make everything just a little more streamlined, a little bit easier. And then the other cool addition we're adding to that is that we're gonna have an optional add-on cardio program that you can do that essentially will have two zone two workouts and one zone five workout a week you can do all of them, you can do one of them, or two of them, or whatever. And that way I don't, like I'm programming cardio in right now because we're in a metabolic phase, but once we get to the new menu, we're just gonna make cardio like an optional add-on, kind of like you would generally do it, like most programs aren't gonna have cardio programmed in, it's gonna be kind of in like at your leisure, how much do you need, how much do you want, how much can you fit into your schedule type thing. like an additional add-on to any of the programs as well. So yeah, that's my main update. I have two more quick ones, but let's jump over to you what is going on.

[aaron_straker]: 5:11

Yeah, first update for me is I do have some client roster availability for people who want to get ready for summer. If that is important to you and have physique focused goals and by physique focused, I mean training and nutrition there. One thing I think is always funny, Brian, is you and I are like the worst at promoting our other services on the podcast.

[bryan]: 5:35

I am.

[aaron_straker]: 5:36

So I was like the first thing I was like, People like to think like, okay, oh, May, it's summer's coming, I should get ready. Like, no, you wanna be ready well. You wanna be well, well along your way by the time May gets here. So I wanted to get that out.

[bryan]: 5:54

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 5:55

I, my weight is averaging in the mid-205s this week. It's morning time for me here. Actually, it's kind of funny. The daylight savings time got me. And I had, you know, because the time doesn't change here. just got earlier for me and it was like, you know, but with the podcast, we'd been recording at eight this morning. It's like at six 30 my time, it's like, Oh, the podcast is in 30 minutes. I'm like, Oh, fuck, I need to get out of bed. So

[bryan]: 6:27

I didn't even

[aaron_straker]: 6:27

I

[bryan]: 6:27

think

[aaron_straker]: 6:27

was actually,

[bryan]: 6:27

about that.

[aaron_straker]: 6:28

well, yeah,

[bryan]: 6:28

Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you were on top of that.

[aaron_straker]: 6:31

I made my phone just sent me the alert. I was 206.9 this

[bryan]: 6:39

Nice.

[aaron_straker]: 6:41

we are going to push to about 210 pounds, like the average of 210. So originally the average, we were looking between like 204 and 208, but body composition is holding like much better than I had honestly anticipated. And then I just first, I just see it better to push higher than stop earlier because like that just potentially right speaking in kind of hypotheticals and theories more muscle than as I get leaner if I push my body weight up higher. Now the thing that I kind of wanted to touch on here is I am, I don't believe I'm essentially adding new muscle. I have been significantly larger than I currently am, albeit at a higher, you know, body fat percentage, but we know that it's much easier to reclaim lost muscle than it is to add, Tissue, I just wonder what the time horizon is on that because the last time I was essentially bigger than I am right now was, you know, the spring of 2018 that we're coming up on now. It's five years ago. So I don't know that kind of time horizon there, but I have been pleasantly surprised. And I don't get me wrong, you know, I am adding body fat in the lower back, you know, kind of, especially like when you sit down and feel like where the glute meets the lower back, like, I have body fat there, like

[bryan]: 8:14

Thank you.

[aaron_straker]: 8:14

tangible, noticeable body fat, same thing with like the lower surprised to be completely honest at this body weight.

[bryan]: 8:24

That's awesome dude. Yeah. You're gonna be a savage once you lose the weight and get down to like 190 or whatever that is.

[aaron_straker]: 8:31

Yeah, I'm excited to see how it's going to go. It has been, it's been fun. I am looking forward to less total food volume, the final meal of the day. I'm like, fuck, okay, it's time to eat again. Like I really don't want to, but I, you know, sort of thing. So I am excited to get away from that. And then the last note, and I have, and we can talk about this more in What Does Matter. find my limit on the hack squat, on the back off set and on my drop set. So the thing that I find very kind of important to point out there is like when we are, when load limits, load can very clearly limit push where your limit is because you're like, listen, I did six reps, the seventh one like isn't happening, right? The weight is too heavy, but I found like once you get into that like eight plus rep range, more so like nine or 10 plus, it becomes a lot more limited of like the heart rates elevated, the metabolites are accumulating like when are you going to call it sort of thing. So I was able to, I increased load 5% this week and I was still able to top out on the first set. I was very, very excited for that. So I will increase again on the back offset. It was my first week at a 10% increase on the back offset. able to max out the top rep there. That one I really had to push for really, really. And then the unfortunate part is then I have a drop set after my back off set. So I like get off the hack squat. I unrack the weights. I just drop them right on the floor where I'm at. It's probably about 40 seconds or so before I'm back on it. And then it's a like, you know, go until you can't sort of anymore. around the like six rep mark where like my legs were, were burning. Hard rate was really, really elevated. But this week I was like, I'm just going to, I'm going to push into the wheels, fall off and, you know, and see what that really is. It was 10 reps. So I got like an

[bryan]: 10:44

Wow.

[aaron_straker]: 10:44

extra like four reps and they were horrendous, horrendous.

[bryan]: 10:49

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 10:50

Like the final rep, you like when your arms start like flapping and shit like that, like the things that

[bryan]: 10:56

Yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 10:56

don't make

[bryan]: 10:56

yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 10:56

any

[bryan]: 10:56

yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 10:57

sense.

[bryan]: 10:57

The elbows are doing this thing.

[aaron_straker]: 11:01

in the weight like it stopped moving. And I was like, I'm gonna get fucking pinned on the hack squat. And fortunately, I made it through and I knew like, I was like, that was it. I was a mess trying to unload the hack squat then. I had to stop like four times and just like,

[bryan]: 11:17

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

[aaron_straker]: 11:17

go sit and collect myself as I was unloading it. And I don't think my breath rate returned to normal for like eight minutes. And my legs were so blown up and shaky and stuff like that. And that was literally three sets, you know, a

[bryan]: 11:31

Mm-hmm.

[aaron_straker]: 11:31

top set, a back off. And I did take a full five minutes between the top set and the back off. And

[bryan]: 11:37

Bye

[aaron_straker]: 11:37

then

[bryan]: 11:37

guys.

[aaron_straker]: 11:37

my drop there. And I literally could have left the gym right then.

[bryan]: 11:40

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 11:42

It was probably another 10, 12 minutes before I was able to start warming up on my second exercise because I was like that. Done.

[bryan]: 11:50

Well, we're gonna get back to that in the things that matter because I wanna ask you specifically about how much that matters.

[aaron_straker]: 11:58

Yeah.

[bryan]: 11:58

But yeah, that's cool. Finishing up my updates real quick. I essentially slacked on my cardio these last five days, six days, because we've had the girls in town and we've been doing a lot of Paragon stuff and I'm trying to get ahead with programming before the road trip back and all that good stuff. So, been slacking on my cardio. I always actually wondered, I didn't wonder I kind of knew the answer to this, but I knew there was going to be a point where I had to choose weights or cardio and it hadn't you know happened up into this point But I knew it was inevitable at some point and I kind of knew I was gonna choose weights over cardio if given like you know A 90-minute period to go do something physical But it's nice to know that I still value my experience in the weight room and staying on my schedule and breath and working on my zone too. So I thought the listeners would appreciate that. It's still high-parched food, it's still my baby. And then the last update is really just that I have 12 more days left in San Diego. Along with me not doing all my cardio the last few days, I've also been eating more food. So what I talked about in the last episode, how all of my objective metrics of health were improving, uh un-improving?

[aaron_straker]: 13:26

Like a regressed regression?

[bryan]: 13:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my VO2 max has gone down half a point in the last week. My resting heart rate has gone back up again from like the low 40s back into like the mid to high 40s. And sleep is not as good. And all the things that happen when I seem to gain weight and or stop doing cardio, it's hard to separate those two because they kind of work together. Like at this point, we know where I'm mostly at maintenance. of me being able to, I just got a weird message on my computer, me doing cardio is a way for me to be able to kind of more accurately monitor or keep my body weight consistent. And when I don't do the cardio and I keep eating the same amount that I was, if I was doing the cardio, then my body weight begins to creep up and the things happen. So still curious as to how I'm gonna end this trip when I get back home and get my body weight done. And I would really, really, really like to be 193.5 when I do my DEXA on April 9th or whatever that is for my one arm training experiment, because that's the weight that I was when I did the initial DEXA. And I would love to be the same weight both for the assessment of the arms, but also for the assessment of my body composition in general to get a determination of whether the cardio is impacting my muscle to fat ratio in any way. So we'll see if that ends up being where it is. of my updates. So I guess as we get started into things that matter, the first one we have on here is effort. And so we can reference back to your hack squat story that you just told. And so basically you did a set to failure, you rested five minutes, you did another set to failure. And then on the drop set after the second set to failure, you got four more reps than you did the Does that matter? Like how much benefit did those four reps give you that potentially to thwart off the negative impact of the recovery debt that you put yourself into as a result of that, not just in the 10 to 12 minutes that followed as you tried to like get your bearing straight and recover your breathing and all that stuff, which is another rabbit hole we can go down, but then potentially also in the recovery throughout the course of like, you know, the next three to seven days or so.

[aaron_straker]: 16:07

Yeah, so that's a really, really good thing to bring up. I think for things like that, if you're at maintenance, it's probably not the best idea. If you're in a deficit, it's probably objectively a poor idea. I fortunately am in a position where like food is really, really high. Body weight is essentially for all intents and purposes at an all time high. My recovery capacity is large, and I'm not training my quads for another seven days again. I'm only training them You are correct in that it did subsequently negatively impact my third exercise, which is my rear foot elevated split squat. I'd say performance was like a 20% decline over the previous week because my legs were just demolished. ranking order of programming of the exercises for the day is important. In a perfect world, the gym has the leg extension in, you know, the gym isn't fully essentially open yet in terms of equipment that's all in, and the leg extension would go first. And then the hack squad is like this sledgehammer that comes through and it's like, I'm kind of done after that, you know, training quads all hit, maybe a and I'm gone sort of thing. But with that, with things that matter, effort is important, but also, which I don't know if we have on here, but exercise order,

[bryan]: 17:51

Mm-hmm

[aaron_straker]: 17:51

I would say matters as well, especially relative to things like effort, proximity to failure, which was the two kind of first big ones we had.

[bryan]: 18:01

Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know. I almost would put exercise order in the category of things that may matter. And the reason that I say that is like, we talk a lot about like the nuance on here and you and I have both talked about how much we love putting like a short overload movement before a lengthen movement like the leg extension and then you know going into the hack squad or a leg curl and then going into the RDL. physics people have achieved over time. It just seems that like that seems to be pretty low on the totem pole of like things that really move the needle in creating like a monstrous physique over time. And we've just seen so many years of people doing like full body splits with all compound movements that have produced some like fantastic physics, you know.

[aaron_straker]: 18:51

Yeah, I would agree with that. It

[bryan]: 18:53

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 18:53

is a may matter, not a do matter. It

[bryan]: 18:57

I

[aaron_straker]: 18:57

does

[bryan]: 18:57

think it's

[aaron_straker]: 18:57

matter.

[bryan]: 18:57

all of the may matter ones and even some of the things that may not matter, I think ultimately may matter to the individual. And so the whole conversation needs to be cloaked in that sort of understanding.

[aaron_straker]: 19:11

Very well said. Yeah.

[bryan]: 19:13

But when we go back to effort, so effort is the first one that's on our list of things that do matter. And so when we look at effort, I think we look at the effort that you put into that hack squat. And like, maybe that doesn't matter. Like, you probably don't need to push yourself to the point that you have eight to 12 minutes of like, I may die and I can't recover my breath at this

[aaron_straker]: 19:38

agreed.

[bryan]: 19:43

There is certainly a level of effort that is necessary. And that's, I think, why I ended up at the top of the list here, is that it doesn't matter how much volume you do. If all of those sets are 15 or 10 reps from failure, it's just not going to create the physique changes that you're looking for. Do you have anything to add to that?

[aaron_straker]: 20:03

Yes, one thing you said there, you said all time classic physique. Can you kind of more specifically define that?

[bryan]: 20:13

Yeah, so I think any of those physiques that you look at from like the pre-steroid era, from Steve Reeves, John Grimmick, Reg Park, like some of those guys that you can just Google and look and these guys are, you know, 5'8 to 5'10 and between 180 and 200 pounds at 8 to 12% body fat, something along those lines. proxy to use for like an all-time classic physique for a natural athlete.

[aaron_straker]: 20:50

Um, because I, I was like, well, from my perspective, when you said that, I'm like, well, this could be like a, like your, your mere mortal, you know, great, you know, physique in, in any kind of big box gym across the United States, or are we talking like a classic physique competitor? And these are very stark contrast sort of things. So I was like, let's just ask them to define it a little bit.

[bryan]: 21:10

Yeah, yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 21:11

So yes, I mean, I would agree with that. Making sure that you are in that, let's say that what I just described from the hackswatt was a 101%, right? You do not need to be there. I confidently feel you need to be in the 95 plus in order to get to what Brian is defining is that like all time classic physique. Do you need to be 95 plus to have hypertrophy? When a lot of these studies and stuff are referenced it is like hypertrophy is a is there hypertrophy? Yes, right, but it's like a there's a that that might be 5% hypertrophy But if you're after like 70% hypertrophy your effort and things need to be greatly, you know in advance of what it takes for 5% hypertrophy and and I think the last thing that I have on this particular one is like fortunately like It doesn't really matter. I spent the last essentially five, six years lifting by myself in the gym headphones in. You just get to watch a lot. I'm not having conversations off of the gym. I would say on a massive, at level, 90 plus percent of people in the gym are not at that. Effort is not high enough. Especially when you're working in with someone which is rather common here, chest press with like flies and stuff and each set is like a seven RIR, eight RIR. And it's it's wantonfully obvious that the effort is just significantly low and I would say on average the people's understanding of the importance of effort is grossly miss under under. What's the word I'm looking for Brian?

[bryan]: 23:17

uh under diagnosed.

[aaron_straker]: 23:20

Yeah, under diagnosed or like under evaluated, whatever,

[bryan]: 23:23

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 23:24

they don't realize it, they should just be working a lot harder and then you don't need as

[bryan]: 23:27

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 23:27

much of the superfluous extras and stuff like that.

[bryan]: 23:34

Yeah, that actually makes me think about like the effort thing again, because like we think about effort kind of like our second check mark here, which is proximity to failure. But I think that effort could be perceived as just a feeling of like being smashed at the end of a session to. rest and then repeating that triset, there might be a higher level or a higher perception of effort because of the systemic fatigue that's present. But that doesn't mean that that's the sufficient type of effort that we're talking about to elicit the type of changes that we're trying to create.

[aaron_straker]: 24:24

Very, very well said. Yeah. Effort in terms of like this exercise that I am doing right now, how hard am I trying on it?

[bryan]: 24:35

Yeah. Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 24:36

That's a really, really good. And don't get me wrong. I am back in like the CrossFit days, I was the most guilty person of like, okay, I'm into pull-ups, but I just had to do like thrusters. I'm smoked and I am half-assing these pull-ups like all the way

[bryan]: 24:52

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 24:52

to the fucking end. of that 100%. So yeah, it's a really, really good way to put it. Effort of the exercise directly in front of you. How hard are you trying specifically for it?

[bryan]: 25:06

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that if we take that and then we move on to proximity to failure, that's really kind of wrapped into effort. But I think, you know, if we were to throw out a number of what we would think would be sufficient effort, I think it would probably be like you have to train at least, you know, three reps from failure, and you're probably going to have to do a significant amount of more volume if you're going to train there, versus if you were to work harder on each you could kind of be at a similar place.

[aaron_straker]: 25:40

Excuse me. Yeah, I would agree with that. And then the thing with proximity to failure, one, it's hard to gauge. Uh, it's harder to gauge for larger compound movements and your subjective perception of the awfulness for lack of a better term of how it may feel will vary drastically between different body parts, right? Taking a bicep curl to a three RIR is like your heart rate is probably maybe slightly elevated above like a walking baseline. You know, taking a hack squat or an RDL to a 3RIR, things that are either actually loaded, where you have to brace multiple compound, you know, synergistic muscle group sort of thing, drastically different. So understanding that your perceived feedback of how that 3RIR feels will vary massively

[bryan]: 26:34

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 26:35

between body parts.

[bryan]: 26:37

And that maybe effort and proximity to failure may matter more as you get closer to your genetic peak. So like you were saying, you know, most people aren't working there, but they're still getting results. So maybe they're hitting this plateau at, say, 95% of their potential and they don't have the, they don't work hard enough to potentially get over that plateau and keep progressing. of their potential, which for somebody who has good genetics could be like an outstanding physique. But if you want to like get that last little bit, maybe you have to, you know, work a little bit harder and have a little bit more effort in those sets.

[aaron_straker]: 27:24

Yeah, the last thing I think we will add there before we move on is like, don't I wouldn't recommend leaving that stone unturned because like

[bryan]: 27:34

Hey.

[aaron_straker]: 27:34

you could find whole like kind of like, okay, whatever, a standard car manual transmission has like five gears or six gears for the more kind of sports car sort of things. But like an 18 wheeler, they have what like 16 gears, 18 gears or something like that. So like, don't leave those stones unturned thinking when you may realistically have like seven or eight sort of thing.

[bryan]: 27:59

Totally. And then the next one on here is kind of also related to the above two, and it's finding your balance of volume and effort, because kind of as I alluded to earlier, like you could opt to work less hard on each set and do more sets, and that is a fine recipe to get you, I would say, almost all of your gains, and we've seen that throughout time, built with sub failure training. They just do a lot of it. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you have the people that do very little training, but every set is like Aaron's description of his hack squat from earlier. And so there's there's certainly a whole ton of gray area in the middle. And I think that for you as we as we did with our nihilism episode, like we went deep into the rabbit hole of research with our evidence person, they might respond better to high volume further from failure, but another person might respond better to lower volume closer to failure. And if you just choose one and do it, and you don't actually ever really learn and investigate where your optimal doses are, then at that point you're probably leaving gains on the table, and that does matter.

[aaron_straker]: 29:26

Yeah, 100%. The difficult thing here is this is probably something that you are not going to be able to figure out in like an eight week period or a 12 week period, because hypertrophy outside of that first year, so it's quite slow. And what this may realistically be is like, okay, this last winter or gaining period, my low volume, really high intensity, period, mark things like your rate of progress, measurements, obviously take photos, those sorts of things. And then in a whole other year, when you come back, now it's maybe time to go higher volume, lower proximity, sorry, higher volume, less intensity, relative intensity, and take those same measurements and see, it's probably going to be more than like a six week experiment phase, unfortunately.

[bryan]: 30:28

glad that you that you provided that caveat because that was really well said. You want to kick us off with some sleep?

[aaron_straker]: 30:36

Yeah, this, I mean, this one, you can get away with it without really buying into it until you cannot. Fortunately, unfortunately, the research on this is quite clear, right? Lower consistent volumes of sleep produce more negative occurrences in your life. And that's elevated cortisol levels, decreased testosterone levels, higher hunger, it really really is across the board and if you are really pushing your training you know really hard or really high volumes kind of those two different gas pedals we have the better you sleep right the more recovery you are going to have and then the more frequently you can train the more intensely you can train or the more volume you can handle at a given you levels so it really is it does actually quite

[bryan]: 31:41

Yeah, I 100% agree. It matters a lot more now than it did when we were in our 20s, though. I just keep thinking about all of the times that I worked out in college, hung over in flip flops after drinking 15 beers. And I would still progress, and I still added muscle. And granted, I wasn't progressing as fast as I could, but I was still progressing. being greater than fatigue. And there's tons of different ways that recovery happens. Being 20 years old in the peak of testosterone flooding your body and eating endless amount of food and having zero stress. Like those are things that you put in the recovery bucket of like those are great. Those are going to help me recover. And then you look at, okay, 15 beers, shitty sleep. You put those in the bucket of things that are going to raise your fatigue. that are raising your recovery to overpower the things that are increasing your fatigue, then you will still make progress. It won't be as fast as if you decrease the bucket with the fatigue things and you just basically abolish that. You're like, oh, all these fatigue things, like get rid of those. Like imagine how fast I would have progressed in college if I wasn't drinking and if I was sleeping eight hours a night. But like there are just different levels of recovery And that is one of the biggest influences on how much training volume people should do, but most people don't think of it that way. They think of it as, oh, well, this study came out and says that I need to do more volume because more volume is correlated with more muscle growth, but it's only correlated with more muscle growth if you can recover from it. This could literally explain why people progress so well on lower volume training programs could just be because they have lower recovery capacity is the amount of volume that they need to do to progress. I mean, it could be a number of other reasons too, but that could be one explanation for it. And so when you just look at that scales of you have recovery in one and you have fatigue in the other, you just have to make sure that the things that are going toward your recovery exceed the things that are going into your bucket of fatigue.

[aaron_straker]: 34:03

Yeah, I mean, that's that's so so well said and the kind of thing I want to like reemphasize there is like at different periods and you know, essentially ages of your life like your capacity for what already automatically gets stacked into your fatigue versus recovery buckets like will shift, you know, as we get older, our cells replicate slower, our testosterone Recovery bucket if you have a family that you are now financially responsible for providing, you know and being emotionally stable and empathetic for like those things will increase your Emotional stress which will increase like your fatigue as well so that you operate at different defaults at different phases of your life And that's why you can't

[bryan]: 34:53

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 34:54

Run the training program at 45 that you did at 20 and you're like why is my body falling apart?

[bryan]: 35:00

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 35:03

way.

[bryan]: 35:03

Right, you've lived two lives at that point.

[aaron_straker]: 35:06

Yeah.

[bryan]: 35:07

Yeah, so this then transitions into the next one, which you wrote this one down, taking actual rest days versus active recovery days. And that fits into this recovery spectrum, but why don't you expand on that?

[aaron_straker]: 35:21

Yeah, it's just like, and don't get me wrong, I am, I have been guilty of so many of these, you know, in my past, and it's something that I think I'm going to touch, you know, kind of pull more from like the CrossFit functional fitness-based crowd, but there's like a fear of taking rest days sort of thing. You're like, oh, well, I this, you know, Sunday's my active rest day, I go in and roll a 5k or I go run for 30 minutes. I'm like, that's not a rest day. calling a rest day sort of thing. And if it's like something that you need to recover from, it's not a rest day. And now I'm all for like taking a walk or maybe there's like a small hike or something like that. That's like a cows mountain sort of thing. I wouldn't really call that a training day. Cow's Mountain is a mountain in San Diego that's very popular. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the top.

[bryan]: 36:16

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 36:16

You can do it at a very leisurely pace but don't be in there doing, you know, arounds of like the rower and burpees and different things and calling it a rest day because it's not. And that's just one that I have found, especially with clients, you know, I have a new client who's great dude, but he trains seven days a week and he's like, Aaron, you know my testosterone is low. Yeah, no shit, this will happen. And you don't fucking take any rest days. So I think it's really, really important yourself like a day away from training in the one of the This is a slippery slope term, a kind of terminology that I'm afraid of using, but I will, and then maybe I'll eat my words later. If you can train seven days per week, you are probably not putting in enough effort because you feel like you can train seven days per week. Like I actually look forward to my rest day because one, I wanna make sure when I get back to Monday, I am primed, ready to beat my previous week, like I beat up right I'm sore in a lot of places and I think like I what could I train today there'd be overlapping soreness I wouldn't move the needle further it would just be to not get over a fear of taking a rest day and that doesn't actually move the needle forward you're just buying into your previous biases and habits

[bryan]: 37:51

No, I agree. I actually, I love my rest days, but I do like to move on my rest days. So it's not just like a sedentary day would be the way I wouldn't say that. It's a day where I'm still trying to get maybe even more steps because I know I'm not lifting or doing any intense cardio. I may go out and like trying to get 10 or 12,000 steps that day. Go on a couple like purposeful 20 or 30 minute walks, something along those lines. like do some stretching, sit in a squat chair, do some dynamic kind of like lunge and reach things, like stuff like that just to keep blood flow. And I find that I feel much better. But also it's for me, I think rest days are and it's like with everything with training, it seems like I've talked about this with deloads, but the psychological impact seems to be even more significant than the physical impact. So like I fully relate to what Aaron was saying, we're like, you know, I'm so sore, I don't even know what I would train today. But for me, in a lot of ways, it's it's really like my mind just needs a break because lifting takes a certain type of acute mindset where you really have to like focus in and know that you're taking things to house, you're going to failure. And then cardio takes its own mental toll, where you know that you're going to have to like breathe hard and it's going to hurt. And like, even if you're doing zone two, which isn't supposed to hurt per se, you have to get in the mindset of okay, I'm just going to breathe hard for the next 45 minutes. And there's there's a lot of like mental preparation that goes into all of that. And so for my rest days, I'm honestly always most excited about just exercise on me and being able to go out and just hang out in zone one and go for walks is really nice.

[aaron_straker]: 39:43

100% that psychological break is nice. And again, you know, a lot of things I think we will relate back to that first thing we started off with his effort. And that effort requires like this psychological buy in focus commitment. And that does take a toll, right? It is nice to be like, I don't have this like, you know, that impending anxiety of like the hack squats coming day or I would rather have another act squat session than to

[bryan]: 40:15

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 40:15

have to do that fucking assault bike work out each week, but it is it is nice to not have that psychological

[bryan]: 40:22

Yep.

[aaron_straker]: 40:23

stress that comes in.

[bryan]: 40:25

for sure. Yeah, so then the next one is kind of related to some of that, which is being cardiovascularly fit enough in quotes. Because there's certainly a point where being cardiovascularly fit does not accommodate your hypertrophy goals at all, but there's also a point where if you're not cardiovascular fit or say you're unfit, that it could actually take away from your hypertrophy goals. between sets. If your mitochondria don't function well enough that you're inhibiting your recovery between sessions. There's just a number of downstream effects and we did a whole cardio episode so we don't need to dig into this too hard unless you have anything else to say. We can probably move on to the next one.

[aaron_straker]: 41:12

No, just that I did stray too far from this for a while and then I kind of realized that like, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it and I was like, oh, I've lost it. So

[bryan]: 41:24

Hehehe.

[aaron_straker]: 41:24

maybe it should get it back. But I like you said, it's fit enough, right? Spike in the

[bryan]: 41:29

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 41:29

heart rate, getting sweaty, but it is don't take, you don't need to take it to an extreme or it probably will deter from your hypertrophy.

[bryan]: 41:39

So you wrote down movement patterns here and so I was thinking in my brain a number of different ways we could take that as just a general statement. So why don't you start us off?

[aaron_straker]: 41:48

Yeah, so kind of what I first wrote down was in the things that don't matter as much, and that's what we'll get to. I have specific movements,

[bryan]: 41:57

Right.

[aaron_straker]: 41:57

but the specific, you don't not need to hack squat to grow your quads. You probably are going to need a squatting pattern of sort, right? And that's just a compound movement where you are either actually loading or loading with gravity being a provider of load per se and things like that like squat pattern, a potentially a lunge, a knee extension, knee flexion, vertical pull, horizontal pull, like the, I always forget there's like seven or nine basic like movement patterns and it's like, like focusing on making sure you have one of each of those is probably going to matter over a long enough time horizon to fully develop your physique.

[bryan]: 42:48

Yeah, I fully agree. That's how I would have taken that as well. And I think the primary six, and then I'm sure you can put in some of the others, but hip flexion, knee flexion, so squatting, hip hinging, like deadlifts or RDLs, horizontal push, horizontal pull, vertical pull, vertical push. And then I think we're at a point where we could probably take vertical push out sort. But, but yeah, I think in general, those six movement patterns get you the majority of the way. And then there's some kind of other final touches you can add on. But yeah, we're fully in alignment on that one too. On to the next one. Again, it's an enough statement. So enough protein. There's a basically a point on the protein graph somewhere around 1.6 of your body weight in protein grams, where that's probably where you get the majority of the benefit of protein, call it like 90 to 95% of the benefit of protein. And then if you go higher than that, there's marginal increases in muscle protein synthesis and or the construction of new muscle tissue. I don't know the best way to say that. But it's certainly marginal as you get higher up than that number. to at least kind of meet that bottom number.

[aaron_straker]: 44:22

Yeah, this is one. I wouldn't say I necessarily disagree with the research. I would say my kind of personal stance is so many people who have the best physiques go over what the research says by such a proportionate degree that I, when I'm like, I'm just going to kind of go with the crowd on this one and hedge my bet on more. grams per kilo is if you're trying to maximize your physique I would I probably wouldn't go lower than that I think like that 1.6 you know would be like 140 grams of protein for me at you know 200 pounds it becomes the opportunity cost of where else do those those calories have to go somewhere it's either carbs or fat but yeah it is obviously vitally important you need that that muscle very, very easy switch to really just cover your ass sort of thing there.

[bryan]: 45:32

Yeah. And it's more satiating. So you eat protein, you don't need to... Yeah. Which is, I guess, another reason why maybe you could go a little lower when you're in a surplus, because you have all that extra food coming in that

[aaron_straker]: 45:43

Yeah.

[bryan]: 45:43

you have more protection, so to speak, and then you'd probably want to go a little higher in a deficit.

[aaron_straker]: 45:47

Yeah, exactly.

[bryan]: 45:49

Next one is probably the most obvious of all, but consistency over time. So you just have to keep showing up and doing the work. And that's not to say that there isn't benefit in taking a week off here, a two week active recovery there. Like, I think you probably need to train pretty consistently 49 weeks a year, 48, 49 weeks a year. And if you do that over many, many years, I think that you'll be pretty happy with where you're at.

[aaron_straker]: 46:19

Yeah, and with that, the amount of time that you will need to spend doing it to get to where you want to go, you have to find a way to enjoy it. I don't think that I could consistently for a period of years of time do something that I didn't actually enjoy unless it was like, okay, I have a job that I need money sort of thing, but you have to find a way to enjoy it. And maybe the traditional hypertrophy style training like you don't enjoy. There's periods in my life where I completely moved away from that, Brian I think as well. And I found things that re-ignited that spark of enjoying like being in the gym and things like that. And I think over your training career, you will fall in and out of things. Some of those which may be influenced by what we have in the things that may matter category, paramount to making it a long term.

[bryan]: 47:22

Yeah. And then I just added this note as well into the consistency over time that is falling in love with the process, which is pretty much what you were saying. It's, you know, finding something about the day to day of showing up and doing the work that really provides you some sort of tangible reward that you kind of crave. And, you know, it gets to a point where, like, people ask me how I stay so motivated to chain all the time. Like I just love going to the gym and putting all of my effort into these movements and trying to improve in them and looking at the logbook and all those different things. And even when my physique stops changing for the better, which may have already happened, but if not now, then definitely in the next 10 years or so, I'm still going to show up and I'm still going to do the work because it's just what I do.

[aaron_straker]: 48:23

Yeah, agreed.

[bryan]: 48:25

Yeah. And then we have one more on the things that matter. And I think this is a good one because it's the most specific. Do you wanna talk about this a little bit?

[aaron_straker]: 48:34

Yeah. So what I have written down here is spending more time where movements are the most challenging. And that is typically in the lengthened position. So think about a squat, very bottom of a squat where it feels the hardest and it is the most challenging. If we're talking about a flat dumbbell bench press when the dumbbells are right outside your chest and your chest is getting that big stretch where it's there based off your levers, but it is the length and position there. And we just have more confirming research that spending more time in the length and position or allocating more volume to exercises that train that length and position is probably more hypertrophic, and that's essentially what we're looking for.

[bryan]: 49:28

Yeah, I agree. And then I added this note here underneath what you said, which is having a high degree of lengthened movements in your program design. And so we can take this back to my statement of the all-time classic physique from the beginning. And you look at like what the training styles looked like back in the day before we had all of this science and all of this nuance in training. And the majority of the movements that people would perform back in the 30s, 40s, 50s and dumbbell basic movements that tended to be hardest at the length and position. So we're talking about squats, we're talking about hip hinges, we're talking about chest presses, we're talking about shoulder presses, and we're talking about, you know, a number of other movements. They never really had the opportunity to have lengthened movements for their backs. So we're talking about pull ups and we're talking about bent over rows, tends to be something that now, as we know with science, we have ways to kind of bias some more of these lengthened positions and back movements. But that really is the only benefit of the current day, as far as this whole spending more times where it's lengthened thing, because most of those movements from back in the day, they just were lengthened, overloaded. So we didn't need to necessarily do as many emphasize that position more.

[aaron_straker]: 51:02

Yeah.

[bryan]: 51:04

Cool. Things

[aaron_straker]: 51:05

anything.

[bryan]: 51:05

that matter not as much. You wanna

[aaron_straker]: 51:08

Yeah.

[bryan]: 51:08

kick us off?

[aaron_straker]: 51:09

Yeah. So I think we'll probably move through these a little bit faster as

[bryan]: 51:12

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 51:12

they're just not as impactful per se, but I have the first one specific volume landmarks. Right. Like, things are like guidelines, don't let them necessarily become like laws, because there was assumptions under when the volume landmarks kind of came from. And the one that I have here is like, you need to do between 10 to 20 sets for every muscle group and I would say just don't fall in love with specifics of those sorts of numbers and making sure that you're in between there.

[bryan]: 51:48

Yeah, or like the problem of looking at general population averages and forgetting that you're an individual that may not fall on that curve that the general population does. So there's always like, like the general population or the averages are going to be the 80%. So, you know, most people, 80% of people will fall between that, but that's 20% of people that are not. So I think that you need to remember that that's, you know, a pretty large percentage of people that either need more or need less. than what that 80% middle is.

[aaron_straker]: 52:21

Yeah.

[bryan]: 52:21

Yeah. And then macronutrient percentages, this is one that I was going to put on there too, but you beat me to it. So yeah, why don't you talk about this real quick?

[aaron_straker]: 52:30

Yeah, so I want to be very, very clear that I mean macronutrient percentages relative to each other. Like, oh, in your diet, you need at least 30% of your diet to be fat sort of thing. Those are pretty decent recommendations, but if you're like, let's say you're in a growth phase and you're eating 34, 3500 calories and you have 500 grams of carbs per day, you don't of 3,400 calories to be your fat. Like your fat can be high enough to support things like hormone production and the different things like that, but you don't need it to be at a relative percentage. What's more important is like total caloric load in these sorts of things. So that's

[bryan]: 53:19

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 53:20

one that I'll get from clients and stuff. And they're like, well, is my testosterone gonna tank? Cause my fats aren't at like 30%. Your sex drive's fine, you're recovering really, really good. Like, do you think you need more fat? And they're like, no, I don't think I'm okay.

[bryan]: 53:39

Yeah, I feel like this is like, it could be phrased as the, in the things that matter category, it's protein and calories. And then the fat and carbs specific percentages, they matter, they just don't matter as much. And so that's why it ends up

[aaron_straker]: 53:57

Correct.

[bryan]: 53:57

in this category. And then this feeds into the next one, which is related to nutrition as well, and it's how often you eat, and I put to an extent in parentheses, There does seem to be research that you do want three protein boluses per day and maybe up to six There does seem to be some research to my knowledge that shows that more than six Can you know not allow the MPS refractory period to occur? Which means essentially MPS signaling doesn't completely depreciate and then you try to spike it again generally six meals a day would be the most that you can kind of space out where you can still get that refractory period. And then on the other side of the equation, we have like intermittent fasting where people do two meals a day. And this one's a little more controversial, I think, because like the studies do show that you do want to spike MPS at least three times a day, but then you also see a lot of studies that compare intermittent fasting to like a full meal plan. between the populations. And so I kind of think that this is one that may again come down to individual. It may come down to where you put your training. I remember that with one of the studies that it really mattered if you're when you're eating two meals a day, it really mattered that your training was like between those two meals instead of on the outsides of them. So I think there's certainly some caveats there, but to an extent,

[aaron_straker]: 55:39

Yeah, yeah, it's, well, I would put this in the category of like, it doesn't matter until it does, right? If you want to do intermittent fasting and stuff, stretch that until, stretch that really, until it carries you quite far and then start to experiment outside of that, maybe with just protein, you know, sparing, modified fasting outside those windows and those sorts of things.

[bryan]: 56:04

This next one was yours of the training specific movements.

[aaron_straker]: 56:08

Yeah, so we kind of cover this, but like there's like, I literally for years and years and years, I'm talking well over a decade was like, I need to barbell back squat. And that I was ready to die on that hill. And if I died on that hill, I would have been fucking wrong. So it's, it just things don't fall in love with like, you know, ideologies around this is the movement that makes you a man things and I think a lot of the messaging has fallen by the wayside. I think we're showing our age a little bit there. But that held me back for years and years and years and thinking that if I can squat over 400 pounds, my legs will grow. I'm not saying they didn't grow, but they have grown tremendously more by significantly reducing loads and not training that movement.

[bryan]: 57:06

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, there's so many ways to roam. And like in the things that do matter, we had movement patterns. And so finding the squat pattern that works for you is much more important than saying you have to barbell squat.

[aaron_straker]: 57:19

Yeah.

[bryan]: 57:19

But like you said, I think that that's kind of understood information that this generation maybe doesn't have to deal with the same type of critiques that we did in regards to that.

[aaron_straker]: 57:28

Yeah, I hope so.

[bryan]: 57:29

Yeah. The next one is I'll link into the one that follows it as well. So I wrote the split that you do doesn't matter that much. And then the next one after that was the frequency by which you train a muscle group also probably doesn't matter that much. And this is, you know, just in the last few years, I think this information has really come to light in the research, um, in that if volume is equated for the most part, you could train a muscle once a week, you could train a muscle. three or four times a week and it really in many ways comes down to personal preference, your recovery curve, like how quickly your individual muscle recovers, what types of movements you're doing, like lengthen movements being more damaging, obviously, if you're doing all lateral raises and leg extensions, you could probably do them every freaking day and you'd be fine.

[aaron_straker]: 58:20

Yep.

[bryan]: 58:21

So there's a number of factors that play into that, but you know, I still get the question want to know what people's splits are. And I remember when I was young, I wanted to know that shit too. I'm like, oh, that split sounds dope. Like I definitely want to do that one, you know? But like at the end of the day, it just doesn't.

[aaron_straker]: 58:43

It's really funny, I put up an Instagram story Q&A, like ask me questions sort of thing yesterday. The very first question was like, what's your split?

[bryan]: 58:52

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 58:53

And I put it out, I'm like, here it is. It's very,

[bryan]: 58:55

Heh.

[aaron_straker]: 58:55

very fucking vanilla. I'm sorry, but there's nothing special to it. I'm running like

[bryan]: 59:00

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 59:00

a, I'm essentially running a bro split right now, which we covered

[bryan]: 59:03

Yep.

[aaron_straker]: 59:03

like two episodes ago. The one little caveat I will say here that may matter is if you are doing a much, higher frequency sort of training, there does seem to be a basement for like stimulus in a session. So if you only go in and do like one set to like a five RIR, a six RIR, it may not be enough for like an intra or inter session like stimulus

[bryan]: 59:32

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 59:33

to kind of get that benefit.

[bryan]: 59:35

Yeah, you potentially need like enough stimulus for a muscle in a session, which may be like two or three sets, somewhat close to failure. I mean, it's tough to say though, because like Meno has been training seven days a week for as long as I can remember. And he trains one to two sets per muscle group per day. So he's hitting like 10 to 14 sets a week or whatever. And he says he's progressing fine. nature

[aaron_straker]: 1:00:05

individual.

[bryan]: 1:00:05

of things. Yeah. The next one I wrote here is natural testosterone levels and I put natural because I think testosterone

[aaron_straker]: 1:00:12

Thank you.

[bryan]: 1:00:13

levels matter a whole ton if you go supernatural. But I do think within the spectrum of being somewhere between like 300 and 900 or whatever like the normal free range or total testosterone numbers are, it seems like it doesn't really move the needle much. the spectrum and I'm on the lower, lower middle. And we both seem to have more muscle mass than the average person. So yeah, I mean, my assumption is that if my testosterone was like double or triple what it is now, I might have like two to four pounds more muscle, which may matter. So maybe this should go in the things that may matter category, but I don't know. I just think that it doesn't matter enough. much category. What do you think?

[aaron_straker]: 1:01:08

I would definitely put it in the May Matter category. I think once you, if you're at the extremes, I'd say it matters more. I think like your Lane Norton's, your Doug Miller's, your Brian DeCosta's, the naturals who are like supernatural naturals, and I don't mean I'm calling them fake natities or anything, but they have like, They're in a league of their own of the naturals. Let's put it that way. I they have From I'm almost positive like very very high natural testosterone levels. I do think I'm talking like 900 a thousand plus I think those things sort of matter compared to like someone who's a 200 But once you're in that like 400 to 700 ish like you're all kind of in the middle And there may be certain things that you know, like quality of life sort of things obviously outside the scope of our conversation. It's not, I don't personally believe it's completely cracked up to be of like, you should try this supplement, in this supplement in like, you know, icing your balls to try and get you from, you know, a 300 to like a 400. I don't know how much if that investment of time in sitting with ice cubes on your nut sack is worth that sort of thing. Where things like avoiding a sauna, you know, don't think it's a needle mover unless we're talking about like orders of magnitude, right? If you're 300 and you get to 900, okay, I think there is potentially there and there is research that I've seen that it does appear at increases in dosages, you get like a dose, it's a dose dependent response, right, of about a couple kilos sort of thing. So I do think it is largely relationship that many of us have with like testosterone and what it means to be a man. I'm using air quotes here for the podcast listeners. I think that is more where that stems from in terms of

[bryan]: 1:03:17

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:03:18

then actual reality of muscle mass.

[bryan]: 1:03:21

Well said. Yeah. Next one is free weights versus machines. And we don't really need to harp on this. We kind of did with movement patterns already, but it just doesn't matter. Choose the movement that fits you and your mechanics and something you can do for a long time and work hard at. Final one here is ascending RPE slash pyramid style versus warming up and doing straight sets or back off sets type approach. stress out about these sort of things like should I be increasing RPE every set or should I just warm up and then do my heaviest set and it's like what do you prefer like they're they both will get you where you want to be you just still go back to effort like at the end of the day you need you need to work hard on one or two of those sets and how you get there is kind of up to you.

[aaron_straker]: 1:04:11

Yeah, that's really, really well said.

[bryan]: 1:04:14

And then finishing up with things that may matter. I'm sure we're missing a ton, but these were the first

[aaron_straker]: 1:04:21

Yeah.

[bryan]: 1:04:21

ones that came up off the top of my head. So, Jim you train at slash environment. What do you think about that?

[aaron_straker]: 1:04:30

Personally, fucking huge. Absolutely huge. I think this matters when you are trying to push that last 5%, right? When you, you know, sort of thing, when you really, really want to be getting after it. Or if you are in like a toxic environment. It's like, I could imagine for like a woman, you know, who's maybe goes to a gym where there's just like a creepy dude culture, right? That would really fucking matter. Cause every day when you go to the gym, going to be like this uncomfortable part of it. I could imagine that would be huge. I personally feel like if I'm at a gym and people are just like fucking around on their phones sitting on a machine, like I've been gyms where people are like on the leg press, like doing the leg press and like texting at the same time. And I'm like,

[bryan]: 1:05:17

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:05:18

and if I'm like waiting to use that machine, my blood is boiling,

[bryan]: 1:05:22

Yeah. I agree.

[aaron_straker]: 1:05:23

boiling. And for me, I would say like that is 100% of things. 4x membership to not have to be in an environment like that because it would it would ruin me mentally

[bryan]: 1:05:37

Yeah, it's interesting you put so much credence in that. I wonder, like I put less in it maybe because I train at home. And so I, and now I'm training at a commercial gym and it's a great environment for a gym. And yet I still find myself like being more motivated almost to like just train at home with the things that I know and not have to deal with the stuff around me, waiting for machines, cleaning machines, like taking weights on, taking weights off type thing. This leads into the next one, which is training partners. And I remember the days training with partners, like the CrossFit days, and then before the CrossFit days when I would train with Anders and my college roommates and stuff like that. And those were great days, but I don't think that the quality of my training was any better. Like I think the quality of my training is actually probably better now, which it's hard to say how much of that is with age and experience. But I don't know if me personally a critical element for me? What do you think?

[aaron_straker]: 1:06:42

Daily, probably not. It's too hard to manage other variables and stuff, but if you have that person that you meet up maybe once a week for legs or every other week or something like that, I would say those could be needle movers, especially the right type of person to push you, kind of like those gears, that gear analogy I used earlier, right? That especially if it's someone who's close in your and you guys want to be better than the other, right? That can really bring out, I think like, I think this is one of the places where like, kind of like the toxic masculinity can be actually be like positive and beneficial. Cause like Brian, like let's say you and I get together to train, right? We're gonna push, we're gonna push really, really hard, right? Cause it's just like fun to be with each other and lift together. And that's one of those things where I think it can be a net positive. I think it is overrated in terms of like a day in thing. You're muted.

[bryan]: 1:07:45

He, I agree with that. Sorry, Bryson's crying in the background, so I'm trying to mute myself

[aaron_straker]: 1:07:49

Hehehehe

[bryan]: 1:07:49

when I'm not talking. Let's get through these last ones real quick.

[aaron_straker]: 1:07:52

Yep.

[bryan]: 1:07:53

Music you listen to, you guys all know that I'm a big proponent of listening to more calm music when I'm working out and staying a little more Paris empathetic. So I find music not to be like a huge contributor, but then I also understand the value of it for like when you're in a max week and you're trying to like push the limit that if you have that song that just hits just right, you like exceed your own expectations. So maybe it's the idea of even periodizing music that may matter. Like in the earlier weeks, you know, listening to softer stuff and then when you're in your heaviest, hardest weeks, you can really amp up and do the one that gets you going.

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:30

Yep, I would agree with that. It is a use it as a tool, but don't let it become a crutch because then it doesn't work anymore. If you're

[bryan]: 1:08:38

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:38

always like, if you're just training like arms and you have like your heavy, you know, swing for the fences playlist, it's not going to hit as hard when you need it. When it's, you know, heavy, you know, pull day or back day or something like that.

[bryan]: 1:08:50

Yep.

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:50

So

[bryan]: 1:08:51

Yep.

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:51

yeah,

[bryan]: 1:08:51

Exactly.

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:51

I would agree with that.

[bryan]: 1:08:53

Having accountability is the next one. And I put that on there because I actually think this one helps me a lot. And I don't know how many other people it helps or how many people even institute accountability. And I think that accountability could be individual, like it could be accountability to yourself, or it could be accountability to others. Um, but for me, I've always really gotten a lot from the process of sharing Instagram and having the conversations with people in my DMs That that keeps me motivated like I love that there's people that are interested in what I'm doing and engaged in it and when I think Very rarely about you know, maybe I won't train today or blah blah blah like there's certainly a part of me that says in my head like These people are expecting me to work out like I have to go in there and slay because that's what I do and these people happen. So that's helpful for me. And then when I do my annual diet and I post my weights every day, that's a huge accountability piece for me because I naturally don't like to diet. I think some like you, you tend to you tend to embrace it much more like you kind of like that that you embrace it more than I do.

[aaron_straker]: 1:10:10

Yeah.

[bryan]: 1:10:11

But for me to have that accountability of knowing I have to post my weight on the Instagram every morning and have a conversation about it. It's motivating for me.

[aaron_straker]: 1:10:20

I agree. I think, man, I would even put this, I think in things that do matter, the accountability,

[bryan]: 1:10:27

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:10:27

like being accountable to yourself is probably one of the, in doing it honestly and without fail is probably one of the hardest things in this world to do. And maybe from my standpoint, but like I will, I've broken many promises to myself over the years, you know, I've And I've told myself that I was going to do things and that I don't do, but the second there's someone else in that accountability, like what it brings out of me is two fold, three fold of what I will, you know, to bring out of myself sort of thing. So I would say that it's huge. I mean, it's the same reason like white coaching, while hiring a coach is so effective, right? You take that, that relationship with money and the value of handing that over to someone know,

[bryan]: 1:11:21

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:11:21

checking in weekly and stuff. It's a massive game changer. The accountability piece, I would say, belongs in the things that matter for sure.

[bryan]: 1:11:30

I actually do too. I think of all the things that I put in the May Matter category, this is one that I think should absolutely have gone into the do matter. Because whether it's to yourself or to someone else, I think there's certainly an accountability piece that has to be there.

[aaron_straker]: 1:11:43

Yeah, for sure.

[bryan]: 1:11:44

And then the last one is motivation. And this certainly ties into accountability, but I think it's separate because it goes back to what I was saying before about like, I don't have motivation, I just have habits. And I think motivation is probably important in the beginning to like get you going. But motivation in the beginning is easy because your body is changing quickly and you're seeing the like rapid physique developments. So it's easy to go in, you're seeing strength increase, like it's exciting. eventually that shit stops, man. And it's just like any relationship. Like you are in a relationship with the weights and at some point they lose their like sex appeal, but like you still love them. So you keep showing up and like doing the work. And so, so yeah, that's my analogy.

[aaron_straker]: 1:12:33

Yeah, it... This one is hard. I think like there's days and I think it may be related to caffeine intake where I'm like, fuck, I cannot wait to go train today. You know, I think it might just be like my body big, hey, there's too much energy. You need to go dispel some of it. But then there's other days like yesterday, I did not want to go to the gym. And I can tell like, because I obviously make my own schedule, like it shifts, but like, if it's like noon and I'm at the gym, it's a very motivated day because I'm like kind of chomping at the bit to get there. like I got to the gym to like three and I did not want to go. But fortunately, like, I mean, of course I'm going to go anyway, but I know that like once I get there, once I get my blood flow moving and once I get into maybe like that first working set, it's like the default Aaron brain in the gym just takes over and I completely forget that there was not any motivation at all. And it's just like, I'm ready to go. And it's just like Brian said, you have the habits and just, you just show up regardless of if you're motivated or not. and you will quickly find that you don't need the motivation to get through those sessions and to get through really, really good sessions.

[bryan]: 1:13:44

Yeah, no, that's really well said. And I completely agree with what you said about like when you go, because I'm actually at a point where if I don't train by 11 or 12 at the latest, I'm just not going to train that day. Like I'd rather push it to the next day. Cause I know that I'm just, it's going to be a mental struggle for me to get going. And eventually I will reach that point that you said where you're in the session and it's like awesome and you, you did it, but it takes more like psychological later in the day and then that psychological arousal that I don't have for later in the week. And so I just kind of know myself and I'm like hey if I don't train by 11 or 12 I'd rather just put it off the next day make it easy on myself go in and have a great session.

[aaron_straker]: 1:14:29

Yeah.

[bryan]: 1:14:29

Also I think knowing yourself as part of motivation.

[aaron_straker]: 1:14:32

Yeah, that's true. That's true as well, knowing what

[bryan]: 1:14:34

Yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:14:34

motivates you. OK, that's all we have for this episode. I think this was a really, really cool episode, so mega props to Brian for the idea. If you guys like it, ping us, let us know any things that you thought were either helpful or maybe would like a little bit more information on it. Maybe we'll spin off to in a solo episode on those. As always, guys, thank you for listening. Brian and I will talk to you next week.