Goal Setting Through a Mesocycle | ETP#113

[Aaron Straker]: 0:30

I just honestly forgot how I opened the podcast. What's up guys? Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of Eat, Train, Prosper. Today is Brian and myself. If you caught that, I'm laughing because I literally forgot my opening line for the podcast, even though I say it every single week. As you know by now, I open with the exact same thing for the most part. Anyway, this week, Brian and I are talking about goal setting through a meso cycle. So this was a question that came in that we thought would be a really, really good one to kind of explode out into an episode and we are going to dive in. But before that, as always, Brian, can you kick us off with some updates, please?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:05

Yeah, I think this may be the least amount of updates that I've had in a really long time. Maybe I should just try to like fabricate some so we have some like more content. But basically I am not wearing glasses today and I have now been pretty much headache free for about a week. So since our last episode, I noted on the last episode that they were improving. I noted that it wasn't my vision and so that's good. And then I don't really know why they're better now, but they are, and I am super thankful for it. So at least when it comes to my headaches, I guess we'll hear about yours. But yeah, mine have been solid. Waking up with good energy, focused throughout the day, no things seem to instigate them, like no exercise or computer or foods or anything, they're just gone. It was the weird, it really is one of the weirdest things for me because I don't have these types of odd conditions just like pop up. And so it was pretty disconcerting for a few weeks to be like, I have these headaches, and I don't know what's causing them and they're not going away. And it seemed like this chronic thing. And then to have it just, it didn't like just go away one day, it was kind of like gradual over a week. But then to have them dissipate, I just It's weird coming out of it and not having any understanding of how or why it happened. And so if it pops up again, like I don't know what to do or why it happened. So just a little disconcerting, confusing, whatever, but, um, mostly just thankful that the headaches are gone. How are yours?

[Aaron Straker]: 2:48

I had forgotten about it until I saw in your updates about the headaches. So mine are mostly gone. What I have found now is very, very, very high exertion set. So like they will set in on the hack squat. But today I had a push session, no headaches, which was nice. So the past two Tuesdays, the push session is when the headache has been the worst and then it persisted all day. That being said, I did swap an exercise today. I had been... they would show up when I was doing an anterior delt press with a dumbbell. So I swapped that for like a machine overhead press instead because I remember, I thought to myself, the last two Tuesdays, my headache showed up in the gym and then I had it literally for the next like 10 hours until I went to bed and I don't wanna deal with that again. So I was like, I'm going to swap the exercise. I don't, it could be the exercise as we touched last week around, like me pulling something in my back overhead pressing like many, many times. So I decided. to skip that, but I also, it has been better. So I have been like much more diligent on putting like, it's like a hard foam roller, not, it's like a PVC wrapped in some foam. So it's like significantly harder than I have the peanut, lacrosse ball here that I've been like putting, you know, on either side of my spine and doing that, I have been much more diligent with that and they have been, you know, improving. So like leaps bounds better from two weeks ago for sure.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 4:12

Sweet. That's awesome. Um,

[Aaron Straker]: 4:14

Yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 4:15

I just realized I kind of have another update too. So I'll kind of wrap all of these in together. Um, but I have this, uh, so just kind of spontaneous trip planned. Um, some of the guys that are doing this Moab bike race with me are actually heading up for a weekend trip to Fruta, which is about an hour from Moab. It's on the Colorado side of the, the border over there. And apparently it's some of the best mountain biking around Colorado. So three of these guys have campers and they're heading up to do a weekend mountain biking trip this coming weekend. And they invited me and my first response was of course, like, no, I have like this with the kids and I have, you know, a dentist appointment with Bryson on Monday and like a thousand reasons that I couldn't go. And then I asked Kim, cause the guy was like, yeah, maybe just ask him and see what happens. And I was like, all right, well, she's going to say no, you know? So I asked her and she was like, yeah, I think we can probably make that work. And I was like, Oh, awesome. So, so this coming weekend on Saturday morning, I'm going to head up to Fruta and we're going to bike Saturday, Sunday, and then come back Monday. So just like, you know, a day and a half of biking up there camping with the guys or whatever, which should be fun. Um, but kind of along the lines of this cardio thing, I, uh, I had a huge week of cardio last week. I think I did five zone two sessions, which is the most that I've hit in a week. And this is one of the things I was talking about on Danny Matronga's podcast when I was on, last week or the week before. We were talking about the concurrent training research and adaptations to each and things along those lines. And I noted one of my frustrations with all this cardio I've been doing is that at least as it correlates to the VO2 max that gets pinged on my watch every day when I work out. there hasn't been any improvement, like literally no improvement. My VO2 max is the same from August before I started all this cardio to now. So one of the things I did just trying to figure it out is I went back and re-listened to six hours of podcasts on the Tia podcast where he had Inigo Sanmolan on and Inigo Sanmolan is like the world's foremost researcher on zone two cardio. type two diabetes, mitochondrial function, stuff like that. He essentially uses cardio as a tool to treat mitochondrial dysfunction and diabetes on top of also being a coach to Tere Pogacar, essentially number one tour de France cyclist in the world. He's like his coach and he programs all of his training and stuff like that. So he has this really cool, unique perspective where he works both with general population people using cardio as a way to cure sickness and mitochondrial dysfunction, but also the perspective of working with the top athletes in the world when it comes to mitochondrial function and cardio respiratory output and stuff like that. So a number of months ago, I wrote him an email because I had found out that this dude lives in Boulder, does his training in Boulder, and is a professor at one of the CU campuses where he has a lab. And you can essentially, according to this article I read in 2015 or 14, you can essentially go into his lab, pay three to $500, have this full assessment of like mitochondrial function, VOG max, cardiorespiratory output, like all these different things. And then he designs you a cardio program based on the precise information that he gathered from you, the individual. So I was obviously extremely excited about this. I wrote him an email a number of months ago. He never responded. Um, I also checked his Instagram where he hadn't posted for a number of months and I was like, shit, maybe this dude's not around anymore. Fast forward to like last week and there's like three new Instagram posts that popped up on my feed from him and I was like, oh, dude is active again, let's do this. So I wrote him a DM, never responded. So then he posted another thing like a few days ago and I commented on his post that I was like, dude, I've emailed you, I've DM'd you. I'm trying to get ahold of you to get into your lab. Like, what do I have to do to do this? And he wrote back and said, oh, the university took away my funding. I no longer have the ability to do these kind of cool experiments on people in my lab. And I was like, oh, well that is beyond unfortunate. And essentially leaves me back at square one, which is, I don't know why I'm doing all this cardio and nothing is improving. Circling back to the Danny Matronga podcast that I referenced. One of the things I was talking about on there is needing to decide what is your one a and your one B when you're doing concurrent training, because you can't fully focus on both of them simultaneously and expect to get results on both of them. And so, um, I am not, and this is what I said on the podcast too. I'm not like fully ready to be like cardio is now my one a and, and lifting is my one B. But one of the things that Inigo Sanmilan was constantly hammering on this six hours of podcasts that I listened to about Zone 2 training is that he tends to see two to three times a week of zone 2 to be a maintenance dose for people that are already in decent like moderate shape and that to see adaptations from zone 2 cardio He recommends five to six sessions a week of zone 2 at 60 to 90 minutes per session And so that's

[Aaron Straker]: 9:55

Oh

[Bryan Boorstein]: 9:55

obviously like a huge time commitment and a big ask of somebody that also has a family and a job and trying to lift weights and all these things. So I'm not like at the point where I'm ready to say, cardio six times a week for 90 minutes a session is gonna be what I do, but I did fit it in five times last week for 45 minutes a session. And so we will see. I still, you know, my love is hypertrophy. I love training and lifting weights. And that is my time more than, like I have to still force myself to go out and do cardio. It's like, oh, I have to do cardio today. Whereas it's like, I get to lift weights. So there's a number of things swirling in my head about this, like maybe I am just doomed given fast twitch muscle fiber dominance to just be better at weightlifting and not be great at cardio. Maybe I do have to take weightlifting down to two or three times a week and up. cardio to six times a week. I don't know what the actual solution is, but it has been a little annoying that I'm doing all of this cardio and not really seeing progression as it comes to like these metrics of sorts. So anyway, that's my little tirade and my fabricated update to make this a little bit longer, but I find it frustrating. I'm ruminating on it. And if any of my people listening, my cardio people have any thoughts on the dose of cardio to elicit adaptations. I'm all ears and curious to your experience.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:26

That, I guess, before I continue, is it just the VO2 max that you are looking for in terms of the adaptation? Like, what specific

[Bryan Boorstein]: 11:36

Well,

[Aaron Straker]: 11:36

are

[Bryan Boorstein]: 11:36

the

[Aaron Straker]: 11:36

you

[Bryan Boorstein]: 11:36

VO2

[Aaron Straker]: 11:36

looking for?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 11:37

max is, that's a good question. The VO2 max is the most like acute variable that gets pinged every day on my watch. Like every day at some point it's like your VO2 max is, and it's basically always the same as it was for the last six or seven months. But I don't think that that's necessarily the only metric worth considering. Like I wish that there was a way for me to assess mitochondrial function and see whether that's improving or not. And I don't exactly know how to do that. I guess it would be through watts. Like it would be through seeing the amount of watts that I'm putting out at a given heart rate. And so what I'm noticing is that I'm able to work harder and still be in zone two in quotes. So now I essentially had to adjust my zones on my watch so that zone two is. a little bit higher than it was. I think it was 126 to 137 or something like that. And I changed it to 133 to 144, I think. So I'm able to work a little bit harder and still feel like I'm in zone two. But I don't know if this is correlating to more output of Watts, which would really be the definition of whether, everything is functioning more efficiently or not. My heart rate going up could be so many different. things going into that equation, right? So I think what I need to do is ultimately buy a power meter for my bike so that I can see what the watts are that I'm doing and I can see whether I am in fact improving on the wattage output. I just don't know because I don't have that wattage meter. And if I'm being completely honest, like I was, I started it. a lower watt number, like when I very, very first started in August, September, I was, you know, hitting about 150 Watts or so for my zone two. And then a number of months ago, I was rowing and I hit 170 Watts and I was assault biking and I hit 170 Watts and I was able to sustain those for, you know, 45 to 60 minutes. So it seemed like there was some improvement initially there. But now like even as of a number, like a couple of weeks ago, I went and did a rowing and assault bike. And again, I was still right around 170 watts. So from that initial improvement that occurred in the first couple months, it doesn't feel to me like there's been improvement since then.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:04

Understood. Okay. Yeah, I um, I Did the the functional power threshold test

[Bryan Boorstein]: 14:12

Threshold power, yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:14

If I keep fucking it up f FTP

[Bryan Boorstein]: 14:17

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:17

Functional threshold power test. I think I botched it but then maybe maybe I did it and I do just kind of suck So I did it At my friend Matt's house Who has a sick, you know, like Bali Villa home gym like CrossFit style gym here. It's it's really really dope And I did it on the bike erg. I thought that made the most sense since it's essentially a cycling thing. It can measure watts and that sort of thing. So I said this to you, but my wattage was right at 171, 166, something like that. Something in the low 170s or high 160s. And my heart rate was mid 150s for that. And then I plug it all in and it gave me back my zones and they would have been way too low. Okay, so either I'm a fucking moron or I sandbagged my FTP

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:12

FTP.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:12

test.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:13

Well, did you feel like you were going to die during your FTP test because

[Aaron Straker]: 15:16

I always feel like I'm gonna die. Like I come off the hack squat and my heart rate's in the 170s.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:22

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like, so FTP is the most effort you can do for an hour, right? Like the most effort you can do for an hour, where zone two is a sustainable effort for an hour. So zone two, I think generally is going to be around 80 to 85% of your FTP.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:43

Yeah,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:44

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:45

I need to do it again and like push myself a little bit harder and see, but Matt did it. And then he's in very good shape, cardiovascular shape, but his output was like a 220 average at like the same heart rate compared to my like 168 or something. And I

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:02

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 16:02

was like, okay.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:03

so if he's doing a 220 FTP, then that makes his zone two like 190 or something along those lines.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:11

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:11

And depending on, like what does he weigh? Is he around your size?

[Aaron Straker]: 16:14

Um, he is generally yes, but he's like wrapping up a deficit. I'm bigger, you know, he's like, I think he's like 80 kilo, maybe 85 kilos,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:24

Oh wow,

[Aaron Straker]: 16:24

82 kilos

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:25

yeah so he's

[Aaron Straker]: 16:25

or something

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:25

doing

[Aaron Straker]: 16:26

like that.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:26

over two watts per kilo as his zone two and his zone three or his FTP would be almost three watts per kilo.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:36

Yeah, he's in good shape. Let's

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:38

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 16:38

put it that way.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:38

that's really impressive.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:40

Yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:40

So if you do do the FTP again, the way that most people do it is they do a 20 minute and then they discount it 20% for it being only 20 minutes instead of an hour. So

[Aaron Straker]: 16:50

Yeah,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:50

that

[Aaron Straker]: 16:50

I'm not

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:50

way

[Aaron Straker]: 16:50

doing

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:50

you at

[Aaron Straker]: 16:51

an

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:51

least

[Aaron Straker]: 16:51

hour.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:51

don't have to commit an hour to it.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:53

There's no way I'm doing an hour. Yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:54

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:57

Okay, cool. Any other updates from you?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:59

No, no, that's it. I think that's plenty.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:02

Okay, so the only update I have, well, I will have a follow-up from the previous weeks. I hit my hack squat number. So I took 200 keys for, I hit my 10 reps, right? I posted that on my story, which by the time you are watching this, it is long gone.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 17:21

Hehehe

[Aaron Straker]: 17:22

And next week I will get one stab at five plates per side on the hack squat, which

[Bryan Boorstein]: 17:27

Thanks.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:27

I am pumped about. And then I will have a hack squat for like a- A couple weeks. So we'll see how that goes. So I was really, really pumped about that. Massive anxiety about it. It's literally like the most, it's the hardest thing I do all week, like literally, and massive anxiety about like, like I said, like I have, I think it's a great segue into the conversation. We can skip my other update. The question for me right now becomes like, how much longer can I progress, right? I've literally added weight or reps on the hack squat for 15 weeks straight. How much longer can that actually go? And that is my fear now going into it because I'm like, numbers don't go up forever as much as we would love them to. But when is, when am I going to be like, oh, it happened sort of thing. So that is my big fear there. And I think as is a great segue. to today's.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 18:27

Yeah, I mean, I watched your hack squat set. It looked awesome and very painful, of course. And you did end up actually making it into a reel for your main feed. So people can actually go back and see that.

[Aaron Straker]: 18:41

Yeah, that's the back off set and drop set. So like I have, you know, one top set, which is a six to 10 rep range. I have a back off set, which is supposed to be at 80%, but I've had to push it up. I think that, I think my back off sets at 90%. Cause if not, I don't want to do fucking 20 reps, you know, on the back off and then go into the drop. And then the drop. So that is up there. It is soul sucking. Let's

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:07

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 19:07

put it that way.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:08

I couldn't imagine doing like, like the combo of like, doing the back offset immediately into the drop must be like 20 to 25 reps, right?

[Aaron Straker]: 19:18

I went 12 and 11 and 13 or 11

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:22

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 19:22

and 12 or something like that. So

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:23

yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 19:23

yeah, I was like 21,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:24

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 19:24

22 reps.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:25

Yeah, no, that's, that's amazing. And I think a lot of this progress you've been making can probably be attributed to your consistent weight gain. Like I'm going to guess if you were just hanging out at like the high one 90s or low 200s and being at maintenance, this probably wouldn't be progressing quite in the same manner that it is.

[Aaron Straker]: 19:44

I agree 100% there, yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 19:46

Yeah. But like just to frame this question, it had one little nuance or caveat to it that I think is probably somewhat important for our discussion. So this conversation, this question came through my DM a number of months ago, and we just haven't had a chance to really address it on the podcast yet. But it said, how do you set goals for each meso cycle? I'm a goal driven person and struggle setting goals since I am no longer focused on one rep maxes. And so I think the one rep maxes piece is the nuance that I'm referring to because there's definitely like, overridingly a different way that you approach training when you have a one rep max and your objective is to beat said one rep max at the end of said training cycle. Because it kind of flips the script on the philosophical approach to progressive overload, in a sense, not that you can't apply that to like a more powerlifting objective, but you do have these really like concrete numbers that you're trying to exceed, where in hypertrophy you're more chasing a stimulus. So it can be a little bit ambiguous if you're not actually specifically trying to overload and reach a... given load for reps each mesocycle. And I don't necessarily think that that's the best way to approach hypertrophy is to say, well, I hack squatted, you know, 200 kilos last time. So now I have to do 205 or whatever it is. Like, it's just a different approach to it when you're not looking at one rep maxes. And so we just thought this was a great question to address. And I think a lot of it is going to come down to psychology. Um, which is obviously a huge part of any training endeavor.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:45

Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't be funny to me anymore, but there's like, as we're speaking, you know, like I'm like, okay, I have these points I want to hit and that sort of thing. And then like you just literally like chop them down like one by one, like say the exact same things I was going to say. And then I'm like, ha, here we are. The psychology thing is huge. And it's someone, you know, and like obviously Brian has to, like we've spent number of years on both sides of it. I personally was someone that like the working off of percentage and one rep maxes and stuff, it crippled me. I just did, I never performed well on that. And I'm not bashing that methodology or whatever, but like I could never perform at the percentages. It would be like, okay, we do this now 95% for like a triple and I would get one, you know? And then it would just like fuck my head up. And I'm like. We're only four weeks into this program, I'm already falling behind, I can't hit the numbers, like it fucking derailed me, you know? And I would go through mesocycles and like wouldn't progress in that sort of thing. And you know, partially those failures is a reason, I'm much more partial to the forgiving nature of mesocycles and hypertrophy, but on the flip side of it is, I wouldn't, this is my personal standpoint, I wouldn't try to micro-manage it. Right, because one, there's other factors that, I'm not sure if we're gonna get into in this episode or not, that play a large role in your progression. Like Brian and I just talked about, I'm at a very high body weight for me comparatively, from where I've hung out the last four years. Food is consistently higher, and I have everything to throw at this. You know what I mean? Outside of work, lifting weights is literally the only thing I do, so it does get a good amount of you know, my life force and I'm able to progress a lot. But if you would have told me in January, hey, like what's a goal to set for this, you know, block? I wouldn't have said it nearly as, you know, lofty as where I am now. And then I think I may have, would have like kind of undershot myself a little bit because I would have crossed it and then be like, well, what next? Maybe I should move that goal to like the Smith machine, you know, squad or something like that instead of just being like, hey. it's working really well, I'm not gonna fuck with it, sort of thing, so I think what I would, what I'm really trying to wrap up is like, I wouldn't necessarily try to overly micromanage it, and that is because of the forgiving nature of hypertrophy training, it is a little bit different than working off like the one RM and that sort of approach.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 24:35

Yeah, no, as really well said, and like we've talked at length on here about why we don't think percentages are great to use unless, you know, you're writing the program yourself or you have a coach that knows you really well because if you knew yourself or if your coach knew you, they would know that 95% is not a weight that you can do a double or even or a triple at like, you know, they would they that would be an 88% or something along those lines because everybody's fiber type and blah, blah, blah. All of that's different. But I do, you know, it's interesting to, cause I do see a lot of parallels between how you would approach hypertrophy and how you would approach, you know, trying to beat a one rep max. Because when you look at your one rep max on a movement and then you go into a cycle where your goal is to improve that one rep max, it's not like every week. you're trying to beat your one rep max. So you deadlift 500 and then the next week you're like, now I'm gonna deadlift 505 and then now I'm gonna deadlift 510, right? You look at it on much more of a macro scale where you're like, well, my one RM is 500 pounds. And so I'm gonna go through this whole big long cycle of five to 10 weeks. And then at the end of this five to 10 week cycle, my goal is to beat my one rep max of 500 pounds. And so there's these stepping stones that are implemented. as part of the process to get you to your objective. And I don't see hypertrophy being different than that. It's just a different rep range. And so I think this may be like a good jumping off point to kind of go into like progression through a mesocycle. Cause this is something we've touched on maybe a year ago. We had an episode about it, but it's been a long time and we have a bunch of new listeners. And so when you are progressing through a mesocycle, I don't... think you necessarily have to take the approach of trying to set a new PR every week. In the case of Aaron's situation with his hack squat that he keeps referencing, this is happening because of the fact that he's putting on weight and he's got this kind of new approach to training and he's working with a coach that, you know, has him going to failure. essentially every week on this top set. And then if he makes his reps, then that would warrant an increase in weight. And then, you know, if he makes his reps, then again, increase weight and the process kind of just continues. But it's reactive. If he doesn't make his reps, then he doesn't increase weight. So that part is different than you would see in a one RM percentage based progression plan where it's like, hey, we did 88% this week, we're gonna do 90% the next week or whatever that kind of semi-linear or wave progression is, there's kind of a plan involved in it. Whereas with Aaron's approach to the hack squat, it's much more reactive and based on his prior performance. So there's subtle differences there, but like the way that I progress through a meso cycle, it's more going to similarly emulate of a cycle that is like say a six to 10 week period where you try to exceed your one rep max from the prior cycle. So like in my progression model where we start, you know, we won't go into at this moment, the difference between short movements and length and movements. We'll just say that movements are going to start slightly further from failure. And then week to week, we're going to work closer and closer and closer to failure until the end of the cycle when you butt up against failure, you work as hard as you're going to work. And then that provides you a kind of obvious point of, hey, this was the most weight that I could do for x number of reps. And then I would have a reset week at that point, which is sort of like a deload. But I just call it a reset week because it doesn't always mean that I'm trying to facilitate recovery as much as trying to. reset my progression model to build momentum again. I kind of think of it like that a little bit. And so when I then reset and then go through my next six to eight weeks of progression, where I start further from failure and I build week to week, and then eventually I end up again at failure, my goal in that final week is to beat whatever I achieved in the prior MesoCycles final week. And so in a sense, we're kind of comparing apples to apples. We're just not doing it week to week basis. It's more of like this macro view of like, well, eight weeks ago I did this and now I have this plan that I'm putting together so that eight weeks from now, I can try to beat what I did eight weeks prior. And so yeah, I think in many ways it is a similar model to how you would approach trying to exceed your one RM on a movement over the course of a cycle.

[Aaron Straker]: 29:30

Yeah, that's really, really well said. I think one thing that you said that I think we should really kind of give more time to is looking at it from a mess cycle to a mess cycle sort of thing. I mean, because that's a very obvious, like, hey, and this is a reason why it's great to have people be tracking your training in a log app or a log book or something like that so that you can go back and compare. Because let's face it, memory is poor. You know what I mean? I would say like, if you're like, okay, Brian, what did you do for these eight movements at the end of your mesocycle in November or whatever? You could probably get to within 10% accuracy, but that 10% progress is probably more progress than you would even make in a mesocycle. So that's the importance of keeping decent notes and things there. But the reason looking at it from a grander scale is like, because... it's not always going to be linear. You know, like for example, yesterday, hack spot went really, really good. Today was my push day. It was a higher stress work day. I kind of didn't get my food in on time like I should have and had to go squeeze the gym. And I didn't progress on literally fucking anything, right? Like all my movements, I performed less reps, like literally across the entire day compared to the week prior. And you're gonna have those days it happened where like, There's so many, when you are comparing like apples to apples and you, maybe last week you had a really good week where you did improve a rep across the board. Maybe you have one of those days where you improved two reps, but sleep is lower, right? Maybe you're a little bit dehydrated. In the research or evidence, I should say, on dehydration is quite telling. It's like a 2% dehydration, which is not much. Your performance output is notably less. Um, there's these little things that impact it. And that's why like sitting on a grander scale is more, it's better for comparison is what I'm really trying to say.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 31:36

Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And I mean, I really do think that if you're chasing 1RMs, you do look at it over the course of that longer scale. Like nobody's trying to beat their 1RM every week, week upon week. And then I want to kind of, it's a little bit unrelated, but to touch on one thing you said about the importance of tracking as we go through. Because There are certain exercises that we do in hypertrophy training, specifically like compound leg movements where you're just completely stable, like a hack squad or a leg press or a pendulum or something like that. And if you don't go into the session with some sort of knowledge about what you achieved the prior week and what your objective is this week and say you're just like, well, I'm going to hit two RIR or one RIR. I mean, that range of what you think. could be one RIR or two RIR, could be six to 15 reps. I mean, you could go into that and be like, cool, I'm not gonna look at my log book, right? I'm just gonna do my set. And when I feel like I'm at one RIR, I'm gonna stop. The amount of times that I would have stopped like four reps before what I actually could do, right? Just one of those things. And I know you can relate to that too.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:55

If you go to my Instagram profile and you find that that back offset drop set video, I have like at least one more rep on the back off and I think two more on the drop set. In the fact that in like that's the fact of the matter watching the video, that is nightmare inducing for how it felt when I was there. And I think like there's the... The self-perception of how something feels, right, especially in proximity to failure, especially like Brian said, with those compound movements when you are stable, those sorts of things that are, you're using multiple synergistic muscle groups to produce force and move, they feel very, very challenging, right? However, you can, there's, you are generally at like an 80 to 90% output of what your capacity truly is. And that is one of those things where... Like you said, you could, if you didn't know, hey, last week I did 100 kilos or something like that, you might load like 85 on there and be like, yeah, that's a two RIR. But I mean, it really, really isn't. That's such a good point to bring up. That is the real benefit there is, there's times where I'll be like warming up, and I'll be like, fuck, I did that last week? Holy shit, this feels so heavy. And then I warm up a couple sets and like, sure as shit, it's moving. And I'm like, if I didn't, I literally would have sandbagged myself like hard here.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 34:27

Yeah, no, for sure. And I mean, that can apply to any movement, but I think it's much more specific to these types of movements. Because I've actually done this experiment. I was curious when this whole philosophical approach to progressive overload came out with like Brian Miner kind of pushing it a bit that you really don't need to force progression, but you really just need to notice it. Was kind of the idea like, oh, that was too easy. So I should add weight next week. And so I started doing this thing where I would just not look at my log book going into the session. And I would just try to follow RIR so that I would have what I consider to be an accurate representation of what my RIR is for that day, given that we know that preparedness changes day to day, et cetera, et cetera, like you said, with sleep and stress and things like that. And that was exactly what I noticed is that on certain movements like those really big compound if I didn't look at my log book and then I just kind of felt in my head that I was at my designated RIR, it was always a little bit lower than it was when I looked at my log book and I was like, oh, well, now I have to get this number because I basically go into it being like, I have to at least match what I did last week. I don't want to like backslide or whatever. And so then that gives you like that extra little bit of motivation and oomph that when you get to six reps and you know you have to get to eight. It's like, man, that six felt gut wrenchingly awful, but I have to get to eight, so I'm going to type thing. And that maybe isn't as specific on movements like curls and pull downs and stuff like that. I think it's a little more accurate and it's a little less subject to the oscillations in preparedness. But those oscillations in preparedness hit you really hard on those big compound leg movements.

[Aaron Straker]: 36:21

They really do. And one thing I think is beneficial to add on the back end of that. My personal take on the, you know, the philosophical side of the hypertrophy and in your big, oh wow, this is just easier this week. Like personally, I have never actually felt that like everything feels just as hard as it ever did. It's the weight just moves and I'm like, oh, holy shit, dude, six reps. Like I'll tell myself like, oh, I unwrap that, that, that hack squat. And I'm like, there's no, I'll do like two reps. And I'm like, there's no way I'm getting. nine again. You know, like last week I got nine, like two, I might get like six best. And then I go for seven and it still just moves. And I'm like, oh, okay. How about eight? And I'm like, okay, it's moving. But like, I, it's, that one is hard for me because I feel like it never feels like easier. Like even when I was back school, able to like back squat, you know, four Oh five and North, I would put three 15 on the bar and it still felt heavy as fuck. but it just moved anyway. So that one I think is like, I think it's going to be like so much of what we're talking about, like inter, person independent, person

[Bryan Boorstein]: 37:36

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 37:36

dependent, person

[Bryan Boorstein]: 37:36

inter-person

[Aaron Straker]: 37:36

dependent.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 37:37

dependent, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 37:38

Thank you.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 37:40

Yeah, no, I relate. And like going back to this guy's like original question of like, you know, I need goal setting, I need objectives because, you know, I have these one RM lifts. And so one thing that I think is part of the reason that I've gravitated toward doing lower rep sets of most stuff is because it does give you a more. Accurate sense of whether you are progressing and kind of this ability to to quote chase progression if you want to do that Because if you're doing a set of like 12 to 20 reps on something or even more reps It's subject to so many micro changes within your set like if you pause for a quarter of a second less at one position or if you speed up your rep tempo by 10 or 15 percent then over the course of 15 reps, you could get two or three total more reps just based on those really subtle micro adjustments that you're making to your execution. But when you're lifting in the five to eight rep range or five to 10, depending on the movement, which is where I usually hang out, those micro changes in your execution don't have a macro effect on the number of reps you achieve. And so, that kind of leads me into one of the next things that I would suggest for this person or anybody that struggles with this idea. And that is kind of the way that I use partials on the lengthens sets that I do. And I've discussed this, so I won't belabor the point. But essentially, when I do my lengthens sets, they follow a full range of motion set. And so say I'm doing my T bar row and I hit. eight reps at 160. My next set, which would be considered a lengthened set, is 20% to 25% heavier than the prior set. So you would essentially increase that 160 for eight. You would increase that to 200. And then my goal would be to achieve eight reps again. But of course, you understand that if I did 160 for eight to failure, then when I put 200 on there, there's no way I'm getting eight full reps. And what essentially happens is I get say two full reps and then I get six partial reps to equal eight total reps. I call it partial rep match. And that is like a really cool way where you can see progress happening quickly because those two full reps can turn into three full reps or you can increase five pounds and go from 200 to 205, but still get two full reps and then finish with partials. And so there's really this acute improvement that you can see week to week. And over the course of a mesocycle, I've had periods where I'll start a row movement or something like that with one full rep plus seven partials. And by the end of the cycle, I'm using the same weight. for three full reps plus seven partials. So I'm literally getting two additional full reps, which would be considered, if you're just doing full reps, that would be considered a 300% improvement in your output, which is insane. Like no advanced person improves anything 300%, but using these kind of partial rep match sequences, I'm able to have partial reps turn into full reps. And then being able to see that week to week is. extremely motivating for me and kind of something I look forward to when I go into the gym is is just trying to improve the number of full reps that I achieve on these partial rep match sets. So just kind of setting goals that don't necessarily have to be specific to your one RM or two in Aaron's case, improving his hack squat five kilos or whatever it is. There are many ways that you can kind of manipulate that to, to notice improvement across your lifts week to week.

[Aaron Straker]: 41:49

Yeah, I think I'm trying to think of like my kind of big picture thing here. And I love the approach of like the goal setting, right? But the thing that I keep coming back to is like, because when like strength training is more of like a science pretty much, it's because the outcome is more concrete sort of thing, right? Like when you're just... trying to get generally stronger, you know, increase in hypertrophy. Yes, like if we're going like muscle biopsy and all of those things, like, is it possible? Like, yes, is it practical? Not by any stretch of the imagination. And kind of like coming back to what I said earlier in the podcast, I'm a very goal driven person, you know, very, very much so. But I wouldn't say when I approach like a new training block that I am outlining goals because it would be really, really hard to do so. You know, like in there's gonna be times where you surprise yourself, right? Where things are just going much better than you could have anticipated. And then I feel like by having that concrete goal, you may stop things a little bit earlier. But then at the end of the other flip side of things, like let's say, you know, wife throws a season at you and you come up short because like you're sleeping five hours, five and a half hours per night because you have like a newborn or something. It might be like overly critical, but by not, you know, realizing many of these variables.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 43:24

Yeah. No, I want to pick out something you said when you said that strength training is a little bit more of a science and that sparked an idea in my head in that, like, I believe that both hypertrophy and strength training are both science and art, but I think that strength training is more science and less art and hypertrophy is probably a little more art and less science or at least more art than strength training is. And so, With that in mind, it's like the my vision is to like go to it's Picasso that had those really wild like types of art that kind of you know, we're just like throwing colors at the page, right? Maybe anyways, we'll just assume that I'm right on that even though I'm probably wrong. So the show shows how much like actual art I know, but but my vision is basically that like, in hypertrophy, there's so many ways to roam that oftentimes, it really can almost feel like you're just throwing colors at the page and then at the end, you hope that it makes some sort of semblance of sense. Whereas in strength training, it doesn't exactly work that way. Like you can't really just kind of throw random shit together beyond, you know, you're novice and early intermediate years, which you know, everything works. But you kind of do have to have like a much more strategic approach to your progression to get to, to end goal. Whereas in hypertrophy, it does feel more forgiving in that there are many ways in which you can kind of combine those colors to create the ultimate kind of masterpiece at the end.

[Aaron Straker]: 45:06

Yeah, to be in full transparency, I don't think I have anything else on the back end of this one.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:14

Yeah, I don't really either. I mean, we knew it was gonna kind of be a short episode, but there's only so much you can really talk about. You added one out here that was don't get hurt, which I think

[Aaron Straker]: 45:23

Oh my God, I can't believe it. It's

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:24

is

[Aaron Straker]: 45:24

like

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:24

a really

[Aaron Straker]: 45:24

the first

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:25

good

[Aaron Straker]: 45:25

thing

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:25

overriding

[Aaron Straker]: 45:25

came to mind.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:26

objective

[Aaron Straker]: 45:26

Every...

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:26

as well.

[Aaron Straker]: 45:28

Yeah, and I cannot believe I actually forgot that. It was like when we had the episode and I was copying the notes in the document, the very first thing is like, don't get hurt.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:38

Hehehe

[Aaron Straker]: 45:39

That's been like a motto of mine for... Since like 2018, so like going on five years now. The reality of it is I just had a rough stretch in my... the end of my 20s where I was just getting hurt constantly. And that's been a big one. And whenever I always have to keep myself in check, don't get hurt because then you can't do what you want to do. And I think that one is, don't get greedy chasing things when, like, okay, there's two weeks left in the meso. My lower back is super tight and uncomfortable all the time, but I'm still going to try and go balls to the wall I've been there before, like when I hurt my back for the first time ever in my life, like that's exactly what happened. My back was tight, I knew it, and I still went in and did it anyway. And like, lo and behold, your back does what it does when it's giving you like very obvious signs, like, hey, dickhead, I'm about to pop. I think that one's big in just knowing yourself. Like, it's kind of like a live to die another day thing. When you're getting into some of those later weeks, like you could always kick it out a week if... things don't feel good if your hip or knees feels like off, especially if you're training in the lower rep ranges, things like, you just wanna be wiser there because it can blow up on you for sure.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 47:00

Yeah. And so I think that that again kind of relates back to the conversation of, you know, chasing 1RMs versus chasing hypertrophy or whatever. And when you are chasing 1RMs, I think you feel this more kind of internal inherent pressure that like, well, because it's a science, I have to expose my body to this progressive stimulus each week or else, you know, the train derails off the tracks type thing. And with hypertrophy, you just... it's more forgiving. Like you, you can honor your body a little bit more and you can understand that taking one step back can lead to two steps forward in the future. And it's the same with strength. It's just that most people don't really perceive it that way. Like they look at it much more linearly. Um, so maybe ultimately like the person asking the question and anyone else in this situation, maybe it really is like the psychology and the perspective that you take. going into your training and that being like the the framework that needs to shift primarily when ultimately at the end of the day, like we're still trying to progress. We're still trying to beat what we did six weeks, 12 weeks, 18 weeks prior. It's just maybe a little bit more of a meandering road to get there. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have goals and objectives and numbers you're trying to hit per se. It's just like, you know, it's a winding road that may take. and may not actually happen on the exact date that you intend it to happen.

[Aaron Straker]: 48:35

Yeah, I think that's like the clip to wrap up with. It is, with hypertrophy, often like a meandering road. Like that's such a good word to use there.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 48:45

Sweet.

[Aaron Straker]: 48:46

Anything else on the back end of this one, Brian?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 48:49

I think that's good, man.

[Aaron Straker]: 48:50

All right, so as always guys, thank you for listening to Eat, Train, Prosper. Brian and I will talk to you next week.