May Instagram Q&A | ETP#114

[Aaron Straker]: 0:29

What's up guys, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of Eat, Train, Prosper. Today is our monthly Instagram Q&A episode. We have a lot of good questions to dive into. We kind of sorted through, put some of the best ones first, and I think we're gonna have a really, really good, productive, valuable episode for you guys. So as always, before we get started, Brian, do you have any updates for us? And maybe we'll keep them shorter because of the questions that we have.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 0:54

Yeah, for sure. I get what you're insinuating. Um, yeah, I only have one real real big update. And that is that I just spent the last three days up in fruit doing mountain biking. I talked about this a little bit on the prior episode that I was excited about it, going up with three of my buds camping, they have trailers on their their SUVs. And so you can camp in the trailer. It was Just fucking epic. It's, it's hard to say anything else. Like I didn't realize that we have Fruto, which is like this incredible lush ground of mountain biking terrain, literally three and a half hours away from Boulder. And I guess it's widely considered to be like some of the best mountain biking in the entire country. So, um, it was amazing. The first night, uh, we arrived midday and we got to our campsite. It was a super bare bones campsite. I've never done anything. quite as bare bones as this aside from, you know, when I was like 13 at sleepaway camp, and we were actually intense. But this this site literally had nothing it had, it had a bathroom with no sink, no toilet paper. And it was one one bathroom for like 80 or 100 people camping there. So we didn't really use that. And then we were right at the bottom of the mountain, like literally, you would do a 10 to 15 minute bike up. like a three or 4% grade, and then you would be at this like trail system that you could do for hours upon hours and just never have to leave. It was just incredible through I guess you would call it like desert biking. But it was that like it was in mountains, but it was very much desert as well. So it's kind of like some interesting terrain. Super beautiful. I didn't realize that mountain biking was graded similar to skiing. So they have like greens and blues and blue blacks and blacks and stuff like that. And so, um, I found blues and blue blacks to be, to be my jam. Um, I. Actually had a very unfortunate fall on the very first run that we did. So, um, we got there in the afternoon and first thing we did, you know, was unpack our stuff, go for a ride. The first trail we did was a blue black. And I was just speeding. I was in the front of the group of four. It just so flowy, so many great turns and I was killing it. And then I got around one turn and there was this root sticking out of the ground that was like six inches up. And I had so much speed rounding the corner that I went to try to turn and go around it instead of trying to jump over it because I didn't know what the speed I had, if that was gonna be a good move. And my hand slipped. off my handlebar as I was trying to turn around it. And my whole body fell and rolled over the front of the handlebars and I landed on my left side. I scraped up my knee and my shin on the left side, scraped up my forearm on the left side and scraped up my shoulder. The scrapes are the minimal injury because the one that really fucked me up was that I got a, I think a bone bruise of sorts that went. essentially from my elbow to my shoulder. So I think my humorous got bruised. And it was bad enough that the first six or seven hours after I couldn't really bike anymore. I couldn't even lift my arm. I couldn't do like, I couldn't do external rotation of my rotator cuff. And I couldn't really do like a lateral raise abduction type movement. And so I was fucking crushed. I thought that I was I As injuries go, I thought it was gonna get worse overnight because the adrenaline was in and I thought that was like quelling some of the pain or whatever. Luckily it got better overnight. I iced it, I put a bunch of, you know, neosporin and some CBD cream on it and stuff like that and it got a little bit better overnight. So the next day I was able to bike again. Both of the next two days we did AM rides with the sunrise. So we basically got up at six and we were on the trails by seven or 730. We were like the only ones there for the first ride or two. And that was by far my favorite part of the whole experience was these, these AM sunrise rides. So then the second day we packed up campsite, went to a new campsite. This one was a little more she, she, it had like showers and, and like a clubhouse and it had like a power outlet for your trailer and, and stuff like that. It was along the Colorado river. So the next day we woke up again, did sunrise ride, and this time it was right along the Colorado River with like red rocks all around us and stuff. And so that was incredible and beautiful too. And then we came back and aside from having a bunch of scrapes and a bruise on my body, I would say, the whole thing was just a slamming success. It was epic. We ate tons of food, drank beer, campfire, burned a ton of calories or. exerted a ton of energy might be the better way of saying that. And I'm just really amped with the experience. It's my first ever like big mountain biking trip, you know, overnight, and something that, you know, I hope to do a lot more of in the future.

[Aaron Straker]: 6:10

Yeah, that's awesome. That is definitely something that I plan on getting into. If and when we come back to the States, kind of full time sort of thing.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 6:20

Yeah, you should have tons of good mountain biking in Utah if that's where you end up as well.

[Aaron Straker]: 6:24

Oh yeah. The only update for me is I leave for a trip back to the States actually coming to Colorado immediately after we finished this podcast. This is the final thing on my to-do list. We wrap this up, I pack my computer, it goes in and we immediately leave. So I got like 35 hours of travel until we finally get in, but tons of downtime per se. looking forward to seeing some friends and you as well, Brian.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 6:55

Yeah, I'm super hyped for us to hang out. I know we're gonna get a good session in at the gym at Prospect and hopefully hit one in my basement as well. Um, I have a real quick additional. I just remembered that Paragon is now doing monthly promotions for different programs. And so May is the promotion for the home gym program. And so this has our four day home gym as well as three day home gym. And, uh, it may or may not include the dumb. that but it's for our home gym program is basically like barbells dumbbells bands stuff like that and so the code is LBLB home gym that is the code for May you can get 20% off if you join the home gym program in May and there'll be one for June as well it'll be a different program so that is all I have on updates

[Aaron Straker]: 7:53

Cool, ready to jump into the first question?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 7:57

Yeah, so this first one, I actually broke down into five questions because I got so many questions about different things related to training at long muscle lengths or lengthened overload or just stretch, immediate hypertrophy, stuff like that. We got five questions about that. So I just lumped them all into the first question, which is questions about lengthen things. And so the first one of these questions was, do you perform lengthened partials with wrist height cable curls? The idea being that the wrist height cable curl essentially already overloads the bottom of the movement more than a lower setting cable curl would. So, you know what, that says cable curls. I think that's supposed to say cable lateral raises. I definitely just mistyped that. So anyway, cable lateral raises. The idea is that if the cable is at your wrist height, when you raise your arm, it overloads the bottom of that movement, whereas if the cable is set lower, it overloads more of the top of the movement, making it more short overload. And so with movements like this, and I put like a cable face-away curl in this category, as well as like an overhead cable tricep extension, because these movements are inherently overloaded at the length and position already, if you try to do a partial after you fail, essentially what happens is you just kind of barely move the thing. Like you might get a couple inches of movement instead of like 80% than 70% than 60% like you would with a short overload movement. And so occasionally I will do them and I call them pulses as opposed to partials because you're more just like trying, but nothing's really happening. I I think, you know, with these types of movements. I don't really think they're necessary, but as an intensity tool, like if you just wanna spend a little bit more time in the bottom range, I don't see why you couldn't hold the bottom position, do a lengthened isometric, and then maybe try to like gently push against it and get a couple inches, that's fine, but they definitely aren't gonna have the same effect as they do on like a short overload movement. Anything to add there?

[Aaron Straker]: 10:12

No, I mean, it's understanding with a lengthened overload movement. I shouldn't say that with this specific movement, it is so lengthened overload. If you try to do partials, like you're, that's probably what happens is like when you, okay, I get rep eight, I go for rep nine, I can't get past that sticking point, which is really only like four inches from your side. And that's like the end of the set sort of thing, besides like the pulses, but that's about it.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 10:40

Yeah, cool. Okay, the next one here is, how many short and lengthened movements do you program per body part? And I'll assume that this is like a general question over the course of a micro cycle or whatever. Generally, I would say that for most body parts, I'd say 70% of my exercise selection is lengthened and about 30% is short-ish. Um, that's obviously very depending on the movement and you know, how much is in my program because I follow a pretty low volume program myself. It's likely that I will only have about three movements for a body part across the course of a week. Like one day might have two and the other day we'll have one. And so in that case, it would be like a 66 33 split. Like two of them would be lengthened. One would be shortened. Um, and I think that's pretty standard, like for the way I program for others, for the way I program for myself. Something around 66, 33 or 70, 30 or something like that.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:41

Yeah. The only thing I would really add to that is if you're like, let's say you're prioritizing a body part and you're putting a ton of volume at it, it might differ a little bit. Back might differ because so much of back is going to be shortened overload as opposed to lengthened overload. But it, the reality is, is it's going to be very, very dependent upon the body part. And if you're prioritizing the body part or deprioritizing it, but like Brian said, that 70 30, which is, Hey, two to one is pretty good rule of thumb.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 12:12

Yeah, and then this would assume like a standard hypertrophy phase. Like if you're doing some sort of metabolic phase or something like that, you would want to skew more of that short, if not all of it. Um, one thing I do for clients on deload weeks is I'll often have them do just short overload movements. Um, so that way we can work a little closer to failure, still feel like they're going in the gym and doing something productive instead of like doing lengthened movements at six RIR. You can do short movements at like two RIR and still kind of feel like you're working hard during a deload week. So I like that approach as well. Next one is not sure how to implement reverse drop sets, any tips or resources. I did a full post on reverse drop sets on my feed a while ago, so it might be kind of buried now. It's a video of real of me doing some seated cable rows, and then I kind of go through in the real exactly how you do a reverse drop set. But basically the idea is that you would take, it's only for short overload movements. So that's why a cable row is kind of perfect here, but you would essentially take a set to about two RIR, maybe one to two, if you're getting aggressive. Say you're using a hundred pounds for that set, then you would increase the weight immediately with no rest, 20%. So you would go from like a hundred pounds to 120. And then you would more or less try to match the reps you achieved on the first set. with the heavier weight. So say you did a hundred pounds for 10, you did full range of motion reps, you increase it to 120, you probably only get one or two full reps, if maybe none, but that's why you leave some RIR in the tank on that first full range of motion set so that you have like a little bit of oomph left for the reverse drop set. Increase the weight, try to match the reps, understand that maybe you get one or two full reps and then you get, you know, seven to eight partial reps with decreasing range of motion each. Anything to add there?

[Aaron Straker]: 14:07

No, I think that's exactly how I do it. And you're who I learned that from. So I think you

[Bryan Boorstein]: 14:14

Perfect.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:14

are the lead on that for sure.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 14:18

Do all muscles follow the logic of train it first short and then lengthened to maximize mechanical tension? Do you have any thoughts on this? You wanna jump in?

[Aaron Straker]: 14:28

Sure, this is the first I'm hearing of this, is in terms of this logic to maximize mechanical tension. I don't do that. I very often don't do that. So I'm not sure that that logic is necessary, like a stronghold, perhaps it is, and I am uninformed, but one thing I feel like is, I think we're getting like a little bit of a common theme is that there's like. rule sets of like things that you have to do. And with the nature of the majority of the time we're speaking on hypertrophy, you know that that's not really just true. So personally, I don't think you need to, but maybe Brian will say otherwise.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:10

Yeah, so you, I feel like you do do this. You do leg extension, then you go to hack squat, right?

[Aaron Straker]: 15:16

Not anymore. So

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:18

Oh, you switched

[Aaron Straker]: 15:18

I

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:18

it? Okay.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:18

was, yeah. And then because I didn't have access to it, the hack squat's gone in first. And since the hack squat has become so. like all encompassing in so much work and force goes into that. I just think I can create so much more of a stimulus on that hack squat. And I don't want to jeopardize the load by going in fatigued there.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 15:51

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:52

But then on other days like hamstrings, I purposefully do do that. So I think it depends is all I guess I'm gonna say.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:00

Yeah, I think it depends too. I think it's very individually dependent. I think it depends on where you are in your training career. I know that like, I don't often, in fact, I almost never prescribe people in their first few years of training to do it short then lengthened. I almost always will have them do the more demanding technical movement first, and then save the isolation short overload stuff for when they're already fatigued. I just think that that makes more sense to have to be more fresh both mentally and physically going into the more complicated movement. I think doing a short movement and then a lengthened movement is a very advanced protocol and something that I only started doing in the last couple of years. So that means I spent 20 plus years of my training doing it the other way.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:47

Same. Same.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 16:48

Yeah, I love doing it this way. And the idea that the phrase maximize mechanical tension was at the end of that question. And so In a sense, I think that this isn't wrong because, man, I guess you could argue it from both sides. If you're somebody who's going to lose significant load and force production by doing the length and movement second, then I think you're actually minimizing mechanical tension by doing that. In my case, I don't feel like I'm actually sacrificing total load significantly. Like I think there's some effect, but I don't think that the amount of load and reps that I'm achieving on the length and movement is drastically impacted by doing leg extensions first, for example, because it's like, we know, I guess we've talked about this on the podcast, but that you have more oomph in the lengthened range. And so if you fatigue the short range first, you still should have a lot to give that lengthened range. in theory. Whereas I think the reverse isn't necessarily true. Like I personally find, you know, going from a leg extension to a hack squat, my hack squat suffers less than if I went hack squat to leg extension, then my leg extension would suffer more. And so I think that might be part of the logic is that you can, you know, flood the metabolites into this area, train it short, get some of that proximal stimulus to the muscle without fatiguing the distal. So in that case, you know, proximal is furthest from the insertion point. So in using the leg example, the leg extension would fatigue you proximally, which would be closest to the hip. Whereas the hack squat would fatigue you both distally and proximally, but you actually don't get much distal hypertrophy or fatigue from the short movement. So the part closest to the knee is going to receive less stimulus on a leg extension than the part closest to the hip. So you still have a lot of that to give the length and movement. And so I think that's where a lot of this logic comes in is that you just have more to give when you fatigue a short position. But if you fatigue the length and position, you essentially fatigue proximal and distal. So then the leg extension second would be more impacted. So yeah, ultimately I don't wanna spend too much time on this, it could be probably like half of an episode. I think it's individually dependent. I think it just depends. And if you're an advanced trainee and you feel like you can, you know, still provide sufficient force production into the length and movement after doing the short movement first, then I love that approach. I know Aaron and I love it for hamstrings, for ego purposes. So even if our SLDL or our RDL isn't drastically impacted by doing leg curls first, it at least allows us to not feel like we have to lift the heaviest weights in the world. So it's like, I know I could SLDL 405 for six or something like that. But when I do leg curls first, I don't feel like I have to do 405 for six. And so that leads to a better stimulus to the hamstrings than if I were to have done it first. So maybe it's, you know, it's individually dependent, it's movement dependent or muscle group dependent or whatever. So I don't know that there's necessarily needs to be a rule here.

[Aaron Straker]: 20:21

There's one last thing I want to add onto the back because I think I have a really practical example. The reason I like doing it for the hamstring movements is when I am doing like my RDL or my SLDL, my core is my limiting factor. That's where reps stop when my core breaks down. By me pre fatiguing my hamstrings going in, that no longer becomes my limiting factor because my core is then stronger than my hamstrings and my hamstrings become the limiting factor. So like that is a very good practical use case of a time where I do do that and would recommend it there.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 20:59

The last question, after listening to Cass on the Revive Stronger recent episode, has your opinion changed on length and stuff? I have only listened to the first 20 minutes of this episode, so I literally cannot answer this question. My guess is that it's probably not going to change my opinion on it. But as we're on the topic of talking about opinion changes, I had a very in-depth very in depth, I had an in depth conversation with Milo Wolf on DM a week or two ago about some of this length and stuff and how I do things differently than the way that he does them or the way that the evidence based, the current state of the research does them. And so I, I think that there's many ways that you can do them and handle the length and stuff like. I still hold stand strong on the idea that I think if a movement is inherently lengthened overloaded, I don't really think that there's a ton of benefit in doing length and partials. So like Milo and a number of other people in the industry have done length and partials on like RDLs and back squats and hack squats. And literally they're just hanging out in like the bottom 60% of that range of motion and not locking out at the top. To me, I feel like this is redundant. I think it would probably take a lot for me to change my opinion on that. Um, however, the idea that Milo uses and Eric Helms uses with this whole, uh, setting a standardized range of motion for your partials. That's kind of the way that they tend to do it. So where I tend to fatigue the short position and then let range of motion drop off, um, they tend to just set like a, Hey, 60% range of motion is the end range and that's where. we go to each time and then that allows them to use RIR, so to speak. They love RIR, which is, I think why they do it this way, which makes sense. I've done a couple movements this way, like on my 45 degree hip extension, I've done 60% range of motion, which I enjoy. And I'm open to trying it on some other like short mid-range movements. I still think I'm a ways away from wanting to do it on lengthened movements. Like I can't imagine doing a pendulum squat where I just hang out. 60%. It just seems redundant and unnecessary. But I think I'm open to at least experimenting with that approach for some short overload movements. And then I will update you. We're not going to have an episode next week because Aaron's going to be in Denver. But the next episode we have, I will update on my opinions after listening to Cass on the Revive Stronger podcast.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:42

I'm gonna just basically defer to Brian on that one. I'm gonna be really honest with you guys. I have a lot going on. In the next two

[Bryan Boorstein]: 23:48

Hehehehe

[Aaron Straker]: 23:48

weeks, I'm probably not gonna listen to the podcast. So, and I have more than enough faith in Brian and I'll basically just align my opinion to his.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 23:58

Perfect. Sweet. Well, let's, let's kick this next one over to you since we're done with lengthened questions now. How do you balance life and training stress to have a decent training session?

[Aaron Straker]: 24:11

So I'm gonna take this one kind of from a different angle and this is something I guess if I'm gonna try and open some opinions without really opening a massive never ending book here. I think the pendulum from my standpoint has swung way too far into like you need RIR, stress is a bad thing, like sort of direction and people are trying to avoid everything at all costs. Adaptation is only as a direct result of like a stimulus and needing to make an adaptation to that sort of thing. So I think I wouldn't try and micromanage like the training stress. Training is a stress. If you are redlined in other aspects of your life, like financially, emotionally, and those sorts of things, yeah, you probably don't want to be taking like hack squats to a zero Definitely keeping things in and having it add value to your life, but I would say for the overwhelming majority of us, you should be able to balance quite easily. And that is what I find personally with myself, with the overwhelming majority of my clientele, there's only one client who I have to very much make sure we manage his expectations because of what he has on his plate, but I think this is like a 2% sort of problem thing, not a 98%.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 25:40

Yeah, I feel like there's kind of two different ways to approach this. One is something we've talked about on here in recent episodes, which I've used the analogy of how volume tolerance or tolerance to training in general, the amount of training, the difficulty of training that you do changes over time based on the way that your life is going. And I referenced how in college I could drink 15 beers and sleep five hours a night. and still show up and do a relatively high volume training program and get results because I had no stress and my testosterone was high and blah, blah, blah, all the different things. Um, so different phases of life call for different approaches to, to your training. And that's just a fact. As far as balancing life, uh, and training stress, I would try to find a time to train during the day where you aren't stressed out. For everyone, that's different. But for me, I do not have quality training sessions if I train later in the day, because I have my mind consumed with all the other things that are going on in my life. So for me, it works really well for me to wake up, drop the kids at school, come back. And the first thing I do is make a protein shake, head downstairs to the gym and work out. And then once that's done, I feel like I'm in a good mental space to be more productive for the rest of the day. Um, other people, like I know Aaron often trains at night. Um, and that changes too. I know you've had different phases of life where you train at different times. Um, but I do think that whenever that time of training is for you at this specific point in your life, you should try to curate your life to work around that and that's not to say to prioritize training above everything else, but to understand that when you do have a good quality training session, it amplifies. the rest of your life and makes your work more productive, makes your mind work more efficiently and things like that. So yeah, I would just try to monitor your time, find the right time to do it and understand that it should be a positive on everything else in your life.

[Aaron Straker]: 27:58

Okay, so first let me say that I just read the question wrong. I mean, I read it before and I just, I took it at like a deeper level than it really was asking. It was really just about balancing like time and making time to get a decent training session in.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 28:13

Hehehe.

[Aaron Straker]: 28:13

And I just completely missed that. So I apologize in the way that I answered that question. But I guess if you thought of it from that, or that standpoint or ever do. What I was basically getting at is you can handle a lot more than you think, but the time aspect, yeah, I think Brian killed. You answered that well from a balancing time, which I believe was the intended question.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 28:36

Yeah, I think so as well, even though time wasn't actually specifically mentioned. Cool, how do you approach getting sick in the middle of a mesocycle?

[Aaron Straker]: 28:47

I mean, you don't train really until you're recovered. It depends on the type of how you have your mesos structured. So if you're following something with like six week planned mesos and stuff, like that's a little bit more difficult. And then obviously if the next cycle's starting there, personally I use much more flexible ones. Like we might run for eight weeks, we might run for 12, we might run for 20 if things are still damn good. And in that, we just kind of punt, you know, like take... take a, we might take a kind of like a three sessions to like get back in a groove sort of thing until we're fully recovered, adequately hydrated again, fully carbohydrate recompensated, and then we get back swinging for the fences. So don't try and rush it when you're not ready to perform yet.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 29:33

Yeah. No, I think that that three session, uh, gradual acclimation phase is, is pretty much what I use as well. It's not always three sessions, but I basically don't train when I'm, when I'm sick. Like if I have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and try to train sick, like I'm just not going to do it. I'm going to take that time off. Uh, once I feel like I'm on the mend, but you know, after you get sick, you, you can feel better, but you just don't have all your strength back yet. Um, that's when I kind of begin those two or three gradual ascent sessions. And so I might do the first one with half the volume and 70% effort. So say usually I would have two sets of hack squat, you know, to, to RIR. Maybe I do one set of hack squat to five or six RIR, um, as my first session back. And then each session I do, I'll add a little bit more volume as I feel up for it to get back to my normal amounts. And I'll add a little bit of intensity as I get back to my normal prescribed intensity. And so the amount of sessions that it takes until you feel like you're back to normal, like lifting the same amount of weights with the same effort level as before, that varies depending on how severe the sickness was and how well you're recovering from the sickness. So it could be two sessions, it could be four sessions, it's usually somewhere in that two, three, four range, and usually by the end of four to six calendar days, I usually find myself pretty much back to how I was ready to go, and that assumes that you're sleeping well and eating adequate food and stuff like that too.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:19

Yeah. This next one will start with you, Brian. You good with

[Bryan Boorstein]: 31:23

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:23

that?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 31:23

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:25

Are drop sets on lateral raises too fatiguing?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 31:31

I think no, I mean, especially if it's a dumbbell lateral raise, uh, it's a short overload movement. There's not a ton of fatigue happening anywhere, except like the top 30% of the range of motion. Um, I have done run the rack lateral raise drop sets for most of my first 15 years of training, you know, start with like the forties and then the thirties and then the twenties and then the fifteens and then the tens and basically go until you can't move your arms anymore. And I can't really say that any appreciable fatigue happened. Um, So I don't think so. I mean, it's very specific to this being a dumbbell lateral raise. And a few other movements that are, you know, that lack the fatigue accumulation similarly to this movement. If you had said a whole variety of other movements, I think my answer would be different. But for a dumbbell lateral raise, I think I think you're fine.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:27

I think if there was one exercise that was not fatiguing, it would be the dumbbell lateral raise. Like when I first read this question, I thought it was like, I bet you, you could add drop sets as your very last workout, or sorry, as your very last exercise for every single day of a training week, you could do drop sets on the lateral raise and you could probably, they probably wouldn't really be sore, maybe minorly by like day three or day four,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 32:52

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 32:52

but.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 32:52

I mean, even if you're sore, I don't think there's any systemic fatigue that comes along with that or anything.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:59

No, yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 33:00

You've actually inspired me. I haven't done a drop set on a lateral raise in years, probably a decade. So now there's a side of me that wants to go run the rack on lateral raises and just see what happens. Cool. Let's see. Oh, that is such an easy question to answer. With the growing interest in cardio, do either of you have any interest in a full or half marathon?

[Aaron Straker]: 33:26

No!

[Bryan Boorstein]: 33:27

No,

[Aaron Straker]: 33:28

Not whatsoever!

[Bryan Boorstein]: 33:28

of course not.

[Aaron Straker]: 33:29

Hahaha!

[Bryan Boorstein]: 33:29

God. No. So the thing is like, I do, I very much am enjoying cardio as this question insinuates or states. This race I'm doing through Moab on my bike is going to be, I would guess plus or minus six hours is kind of my estimate based on it being 50 miles and based on what I know my speed is when I'm on trails versus being on road. I think somewhere around six hours is gonna be about right. So that could be the same as what it would be to run a marathon if you really are not, you know, an elite level marathoner. I just have no interest in doing that with running because running isn't good for me. I think the impact is awful. And I think that there is a significant fatigue cost associated with running because of the eccentric. nature of running. So you have the impact, which is going to cause like joint stress, but then you also have the eccentric loading that occurs with each step that lands on the ground. And so there's a lot of fatigue that you accumulate that you don't get with biking, which is just a concentric activity. And so I hate running. I will not be running long distances and I wouldn't do it anyways because of its interference with with strength training.

[Aaron Straker]: 34:55

Yep, my thoughts exactly.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 34:57

Cool. I

[Aaron Straker]: 34:59

Okay,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 34:59

don't even know. Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 35:00

so

[Bryan Boorstein]: 35:00

go ahead.

[Aaron Straker]: 35:01

this next one here, I lost one inch off of both arms after bicep surgery, and now I can't get it back. Any suggestions?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 35:12

I feel for you. I mean, I find it a bit surprising that it's not coming back because we know muscle memory is so solid. Like usually, you know, people will take a layoff for whatever reason, surgery, sickness, et cetera. And then gains usually come back, you know, in a third of the time that you lost them. Direct bicep surgery, not really sure. I mean, the fact is that... Your arm is made up of two thirds tricep and one third bicep. So that should have a relatively small effect on your arm size. I would just make sure that you're like, is your body weight the same? Cause if you're, if you lost 15 pounds, that would make sense that you lost an inch on your arm. I make sure you're eating enough food, training as you were. And if all of those things are happening and you still can't get your arm to grow. I don't know, man. I don't exactly have a great suggestion here. I don't even like I would say a specialization phase, but after going through my one arm experiment, I don't necessarily think that that there's a ton of value in that. But that could be my end of one experience too.

[Aaron Straker]: 36:26

My thoughts are around the triceps, like prioritize more triceps. If the goal is really, hey, I want my arms to measure 17 inches or 18 inches or whatever, I feel like triceps are much better return on your investment in terms of size to add. And then the second would be gain weight, right? Make sure that you're not limiting your potential gains by trying to stay too lean or something like that. Put 10, 12 pounds on and see how things go from there. See how your progressions and stuff go there.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 36:55

Yeah. My last suggestion would be maybe try like a bunch of short overload movement stuff. I would assume if you're listening to our podcast, you're probably on the lengthened overload train. So you're probably training your biceps a lot with like face away curls and triceps with overhead extensions and stuff like that. But the amount of volume you can do is kind of limited on there because of the damage and the fatigue and all that stuff. So maybe, you know, putting. three or four weeks of primarily short overload movements and then using that as an opportunity to amp the volume up might help create some kind of nutrient and blood flow to the area.

[Aaron Straker]: 37:34

Yeah, and our second injury related question is hamstring training. How much can you get out of leg curl variations only because I have a herniated disc?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 37:48

Yeah. I mean, I think you can kind of fix her any herniated discs, right? Like it's a, it's a small surgery and then you don't have a herniated disc anymore. Um, so, so that would be cool if that's the, you know, an avenue you want to pursue. If you don't, um, then I think you can get a ton out of leg curl variations. Uh, the seated leg curl will train you at long muscle lengths. The lying leg curl will train you a little bit at short muscle lengths with long muscle If you have the ability to spend more time in the length and position of the seated leg curl, and you're not doing any hip hinges, I think that would be a good idea. So it would be something like, you know, maybe you overload your seated leg curl so that you're only doing the length and 60% range, like we kind of just talked about earlier. So you just load it heavier than you usually would, and you just go down until, you know, it's 40% away from the bottom of the movement. Spend most of the time where your hamstrings are stretched. Make sure you're leaning forward from the hips so that you kind of pre-stretch the hamstrings. And then you're kind of losing using that seated leg curl as your hip hinge in a sense. I mean, you are starting in a hip hinge and then curling from there. So it is like this kind of hybrid-y type movement. You could try GHRs or Nordics. because those are also going to be an eccentrically dominated, lengthened overload movement, uh, much like a hip hinge would, but it doesn't have the, uh, the fatigue cost on your low back that a, you know, an RDL or an SLDL would. And then I would also consider, uh, trying 45 degree hip extensions, even though they're a short overload movement, they are a hip hinge. Um, so that might help you get some more out of that. Really, in my mind, the only thing you're losing out on by doing just leg curls with a mix of seated and lying is that you're missing out on some glute development. So you're not going to get a lengthened glute in either of those leg curl variations. So I think that your hamstrings would be fine. I really don't think you would notice much difference at all in your hamstring development, but I do think you need to find a way to train the glutes lengthened if you're not going to be doing like an RDL or SLDL or hip extension.

[Aaron Straker]: 40:09

The thing I'd like to add on the back of what Brian said is also, I'm not a physical therapist, anything like that. So maybe take this with a grain of salt. A very large percentage of lower back injuries come from like poor, glute control and glute strength. So if you then you're not training that, the potential reason you have a herniated disc could be glute related or a lack of, I should say. One, I think that could be really, really or a safer option, especially earlier to slowly get into is like a B-stance, like a cable RDL. It's not gonna be very, very heavily loaded since it's a B-stance, you're using significantly less weight. That I think could be a safer hip hinge to introduce. And then the thought that I had here is, if we're only gonna do like hamstring curls, we can just pull some intensity techniques, you know, like you could do. thought you could do like two straight sets on it and then take rest, polo sets and really, really just hammer them because you're only doing them, you know, one, one exercise per se. So that could be another avenue to explore with just, you know, different intensity techniques and really throw in the kitchen sink at it per se.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 41:22

Yeah, the the comment on the glutes being weak is a really solid one. And something that I've noticed a lot in our paragon group when people talk about they're performing their RDLs. And they're like, well, I feel them a lot in my hamstrings, but it's also hurting my low back. And I'm like, well, are you using your glutes? Because most of the time, if you're trying to feel it in your hamstrings, then you're subconsciously sort of eliminating the glutes. And so I think that you don't want to do that, especially in a hip hinge, you really want to almost like lean into the fact that the glutes are going to be the primary mover just because of where the rotation point is. And so you have to understand that the glutes are the primary mover and some hamstring comes along with that. And when you can kind of execute your hip hinges with that in mind, I think that we we mitigate a lot of the low back pain that comes with it.

[Aaron Straker]: 42:11

Definitely.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:12

Yeah. If money

[Aaron Straker]: 42:13

Ooh.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:14

in space were unlimited, What specific brands and types of machines or equipment would you get for your dream home gym for each body part? I mean, this is a,

[Aaron Straker]: 42:25

This

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:25

I feel

[Aaron Straker]: 42:25

is an

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:25

like

[Aaron Straker]: 42:26

episode.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:26

we

[Aaron Straker]: 42:26

This is an entire episode

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:28

haven't

[Aaron Straker]: 42:29

in

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:29

we

[Aaron Straker]: 42:29

and of

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:29

done

[Aaron Straker]: 42:29

itself.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 42:29

like a similar question to this before? I

[Aaron Straker]: 42:32

I think we said like our favorite, our favorite, but what I would say is I don't think for each body part way too long, prime in Atlantis for a good chunk of it really. Prime for seated row, leg extension, leg curl, functional trainer. There's probably like one that I'm not thinking of and then Atlantis has like that really, really good. 45 degree hip extension. Their hack is pretty good. Although I think I would take an old school hack from like King manufacturing or like Paramount or something. The OG Paramount pendulum squat. I would say like, I'm definitely like a sucker for like the used gym equipment, like Instagrams. I follow a bunch of them and I plan on like, I have money chunked out that like, when I have the space and resources, like I am going to spend some. on a fucking home gym. But yeah, I think those are the two like most that I would say like prime in Atlanta's probably if I had to say the two.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 43:41

Yeah, you've I'm like beyond excited for you to buy your home gym, by the way, now that you like kind of hinted at that. I can't wait for you to move somewhere, settle down and start accumulating equipment. That's going to be dope. I agree with Aaron on almost all of that. I am personally not a huge fan of the prime seated leg curl. I don't really like the shin pad. I prefer the thigh pad. And so I really, really like.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:07

Yeah, that's right. That

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:09

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:09

is

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:10

I

[Aaron Straker]: 44:10

right,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:10

don't have just

[Aaron Straker]: 44:10

yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:10

a personal opinion. A lot of people really like it. Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 44:14

I don't either. I forgot

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:15

I really

[Aaron Straker]: 44:16

about

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:16

like

[Aaron Straker]: 44:16

that.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 44:16

the hammer strength seated leg curl that I had access to at the compound in San Diego when I was there. That hammer strength seated leg curl has just like the perfect resistance curve and the perfect setup and it's just amazing. Beyond that, yeah, I would say like. a prime dual cable machine. So whether you're going with like the prodigy rack that has like all the whistles and gadgets, um, or you're just getting like a functional trainer with the arms that move, you know, side to side and up and down, um, prime is going to be great for, for either one of those. And then that covers pretty much most of your upper body, at least for your extremities, like all of your arm and shoulder dealt training can pretty much happen on the cables.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:59

cables,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:00

Um,

[Aaron Straker]: 45:00

dumbbells.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:01

As far as chest pressing and rowing, like a lot of that can also happen on the cables. I would personally prefer to have more of like a standalone machine just because of the stability side of it. And that's, I think, the main thing I lack in my current gym is a chest pressing machine. I love the prime incline. press

[Aaron Straker]: 45:30

Press.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 45:30

that Cass has at N1. That one is super solid. I can't say I'm as big of a fan of the the Costal Sternal one where you're sitting more straight up and pressing straight out. That one never quite feels the same or as good for me. And then as far as rowing, I mean, dude, literally, like you could take the entire gym that Cass has at N1. And that would be my dream gym minus the seated leg curl that I would exchange out for the hammer strength leg curl. And that pretty much covers that question.

[Aaron Straker]: 46:04

There we go. Okay, so this next one's a little bit long, so I'm gonna kind of frame it up here. Has it been common or rare in our experiences with serious intermediate advanced clients for ourselves that one time per week frequency just doesn't lead to progression for certain muscle groups, no matter how much volume and intensity are in place. Assuming all the other big rocks of life are in place. I am going to say I have not found that. And this is something that... Over the, as the years go by, my perceptions and things have changed. I've, I've proved myself wrong, you know, numerous times over the years. I have thought that I had was forever moved on from like a bro split style, only training, you know, muscle groups one time per week. And here in 2023, we find myself following that. Mostly I have a hamster, sorry, a quad, a push, a pole, a hamstring, and then like an upper mixed. I I don't know if I can realistically see myself training hamstrings and quads together again because of just the demands of each. Like imagine taking, I couldn't imagine taking those heavy hack squats sets and then like doing like, you know, leg extensions, like, okay, now I got to go, you know, hip hinge RDL to close to failure sort of thing. Like I just, I don't think I have that in me and I love separating them. I think with that, especially certain body parts, we all have those body parts that we kind of suck at, work back your habits and understandings of them and rebuild them and I think you will find a lot of value in that. Like personally, it took me 15, 16, 17 years to learn how to fucking train my quads really, really well. Like I'm not exaggerating that. It wasn't until like. 2021 that they really started coming along and I started lifting weights seriously in 2003,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 48:24

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 48:24

which is absurd. So I think we're all going to have things that we respond better or worse to, the ones that you respond worse to, like break down and go back to the building, like square one of how you're performing things.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 48:36

Yeah. I haven't noticed this specifically either, but I do have some caveats. Um, I think that it depends on your exercise selection, um, like how many length and movements you have, how many short movements you have. And then I think it also depends on the muscle group and what type of movements tend to dominate that muscle group. And so you can look at your back, um, you know, rear delts, upper back lats, with all of them being pretty much inherently short overloaded. I can train them every other day or every third day and really have no recovery issues. And I think that I just get more and more out of back training kind of the more often it's done up to a point. I kind of feel the same way about lateral delts. I don't really feel like they fatigue very easily and much like rear delts and upper back, they can handle a ton of volume close to failure and it just seems to be able to be done. know, two to four times a week without much issue. Um, so I would say like those two muscle groups specifically, I will probably always train at least twice a week. Um, but as far as quads and hamstrings and chest, um, and triceps and biceps, which are the primary movements that I find can, eh, biceps not as much. I know Paul Carter and Chris Beardsley argue that biceps are very fatigable and only need once a week training. I don't find that to be true, but I do find for specifically chest, quads, glutes, and hamstrings, the ones that get sore a lot that once a week seems to be fine. I did a full specialization cycle for my hamstrings for an entire year last year, and I was training them twice every eight days, and they would get sore to the point that I needed four days of recovery before I trained them again. And I think it worked. I got good results, but then I'm now training them. Like literally my hamstrings are the one that's put on the back burner this current cycle because quads and delts are my specialization. And I'm now training hamstrings once every nine days. And I'm still progressing and not having any issues there. So like to Aaron's point, I think specifically like the hamstrings and the glutes. or hamstrings and quads. I mean, because they take a lot of damage and usually have a lot of exercise selection that does incur damage. You don't need to train them as often. And you know, I find the same with chest chest takes a bunch of a bunch of damage too. But, but again, it just, it always comes down to exercise selection. Like if you're doing a bunch of cable work for your chest, and you know, most of the stuff is short, or if you're doing a bunch of leg curls for your hamstrings and not doing much hip hinging. then you probably will need to train them more than if it's the alternative exercise selection.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:38

Yep, really good additions on the back of that one. So this next one here, have you had to overcome many chronic injuries? If so, how?

[Bryan Boorstein]: 51:53

You know, the only chronic injuries I've ever had were during the CrossFit days. And so the how is I stopped doing CrossFit. But I will I will expand on that, of course, because these these chronic injuries that I had during CrossFit, they didn't dissipate immediately upon transitioning over to hypertrophy. It wasn't until I actually dialed in exercise selection and exercise technique in specific ways that the chronic injuries finally subsided. Um, and so the ones that I dealt with during CrossFit were elbows, knees and shoulders, um, which is kind of, kind of a lot. And, uh, and they hurt constantly. Like I remember days where I couldn't get in and out of my car without literally using my upper body to push in and out of my door to, to get in and out of the car. Uh, cause my knees were just that bad. And then I remember, you know, not being able to do pull ups some days because my shoulders were so limited in range of motion. I couldn't do pull ups without, you know, 30 minutes of banded distractions first. And so when I would switch to hypertrophy, I was doing mostly barbell basics to start because I still had, you know, so much ego attached to certain movements that I was doing during CrossFit. Like I still wanted to deadlift and squat and bench and. overhead press and like all these things. And I was using a barbell or an easy bar for my bicep and tricep work too, which, you know, was locking my hands into either a supinated or a pronated position. And that didn't help my elbows at all. Um, and so the way that I finally got over it was I basically switched to cables for almost my entire upper body work. Um, I set my body up in a manner that aligned the muscle fiber with the movement, you know, biomechanics, the way that stuff cast promotes. Um, and over the course of a number of months, everything dissipated, um, as far as executing movements and this spans all movements, you know, lower body, upper body, it doesn't matter what it is, uh, slowing down the eccentric and then pausing at the length and position has been huge. I mean, to, like, I just, Lori just put a post on my feed for me today. So if you go and check my feed from. May 1st. There's a post that I just put up about owning every rep and how you know controlling the eccentric and pausing at the bottom it helps you, you know own that load and There's a lot of bouncing that happens when you're when you're training in CrossFit or post CrossFit Or if you just go into the gym with an ego in any way, you're going to execute a lot of your leg movements By getting a little bit of that stretch reflex effect out of the bottom And I've never found stretch reflex to be beneficial for my joint health. It's been much better and basically non-existent pain since I just pause, like literally pause and stop and then go from a dead pause into the concentric portion of the movement. And so, yeah, I think the way you execute movements and the movements that you choose are going to be the ticket out of chronic injuries.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:07

Yeah, I think what you wrapped up on there like is the takeaway there. The, if I, if there was like one thing I would say across the board that I see like just observing in gyms the most is people just rushing the eccentrics, botting and bottoming out, trying to turn around way too fast. And like one that's not, yeah, you put more weight on the bar machine. It doesn't actually lead to better gains. I would objectively make my stand that I think it leads to worse gains, to be completely honest. and it's gonna take a massive toll on your joints. My knees were so bad during the CrossFit years that I would wear my knee sleeves like when I was at fucking work and stuff. Like,

[Bryan Boorstein]: 55:47

Yeah

[Aaron Straker]: 55:47

not exercising, I would have knee sleeves on at times. And I remember like watching people squatting or like things thinking like, it's crazy that they don't have knee sleeves on. Like I would not dare to touch weight without my knee sleeves on. I haven't had a pair of knee sleeves on in like three years now. three and a half years. My knees feel fantastic, and it's controlled eccentrics. I stopped, I got rid of my ego, tied to certain lifts and stuff, and my body feels great. And my body was in shambles in my late 20s. Absolute shambles, like a few surgeries, those sorts of things, and I feel really, really good now. Best I have in probably close to a decade.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 56:32

Yeah, I can co sign that too. Like I at 40 years old, I feel better than even before I started CrossFit. Like I remember, you know, just tweaking things every 12 to 16 weeks, like doing a dumbbell shoulder press and tweaking something in my trap or like doing a tricep extension and hurting my elbow. And this is like all pre CrossFit stuff. And

[Aaron Straker]: 56:53

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 56:53

then throughout CrossFit, my body felt awful. And so literally, I can honestly say at 40 years old that I have the least joint pain or like chronic inflammation that I've had since maybe like my first five years of training. So, um,

[Aaron Straker]: 57:06

And that's amazing.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 57:08

yeah, yeah, I would just say, you know, exercise selection, exercise execution, and, um, those things should really help a lot. Um, all right, we have one more question on our primary ones, and then we'll see if we have time for any others, but I'll kick this over to you here. Um, how to move past the mental fatigue of bulk cut cycle.

[Aaron Straker]: 57:30

This one is hard for me because... I think it's fun. Like to me, maintenance is the mental fatigue because nothing fucking happens. Like you're just existing and adaptations happen slow. It's hard to keep your head in the game when the outcome of the game is nothing happens. I find bulking, cutting, like fascinating. this one's really hard now. I wonder what mental fatigue they have. One thing I guess I will say before I kick it over to Brian is something that I think people really, really struggle with with this is playing like one foot in, one foot out. Oh, I'm bulking, but then like the second that you don't have abs the way that you want to look in some lighting one day, you're like, I don't wanna do it anymore. Or you're cutting until your friends wanna have beers on the weekend or something like that. and then you're like, I don't want to do it anymore. And I think you end up playing that decision seesaw to where you end up at maintenance because you're spending a week bulking, a week cutting, and then not going anywhere. So I don't know, this one's really hard for me to answer. Hopefully Brian has some better insights and then maybe I'll be able to add some more on the backend.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 58:48

Yeah, I guess my thought as somebody that doesn't really like tracking would be that the mental fatigue may come from the process of meticulous tracking that's required during bulking and cutting. And so that would be my thought. That's what I, that was my initial thought going into this question was it's got to be the like tracking and the meticulous nature of like, you know, food selection and stuff like that. And so I empathize with that and I understand it. I also understand what Aaron was saying about like maintenance being a place where nothing's happening. And that can be frustrating and fatiguing too. So I guess like I'll just reference my personal approach to off season tracking again, which is basically that I track protein grams and overall satiety and body weight. And so if you're tracking protein grams, you know you're at least getting enough to support muscle growth or decrease the likelihood of muscle loss. Satiety tracking, essentially I determine whether I feel underfed, overfed, or satisfied for the day. And then I track body weight so that I have a direct correlate to whether my satiety tracking is accurate. Like if I say that I've been satisfied every day but my body weight's going up, then I probably know that satisfied is actually overfed. And then vice versa, of course. So I don't think that my system works as you get to the extremes of bulking or cutting. Like at any point in the extremes, you're going to have to be more meticulous. And that's just the nature of being close to a goal. But at least in the earlier stages of, you know, whether it's maintenance or the early stages of eating in a surplus or eating in a deficit. With some experience, I think that the subjective satiety rating system works. It just depends on if you kind of have that ability to assess yourself accurately.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:00:51

Yeah, that's that

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:00:52

and

[Aaron Straker]: 1:00:53

that is those are really helpful points. I guess what I would say here is. Everyone's gonna have their balance, right? And maybe you're like, hey, I want to cut, but it doesn't need to be in three months. Maybe it doesn't need to be in five months. Maybe it doesn't need to be in seven months. And you can just take things a lot more slowly and more flexibly, which can work for you. Same thing with the bulk, you know? And what I would say there is like, if you don't wanna meticulously track like day in and day out, just have some objective metrics that help you with decision-making. Maybe you're gonna weigh yourself every morning. And then every two weeks, you're going to collect the average and being like, am I North? Do I want to be North? Great. Keep doing that. Or am I South? Do I want to be South? Great. Keep doing that. So there is no one size fits all. There are going to be some that are some approaches that are better or worse for you and your personality and your desired rate of gain or the ambitiousness of your goal. And I think that is finding that. middle ground is very good for your understanding.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:02

Yeah, I agree with that. Um, do you want to go through and do some of these secondary questions as like a rapid fire, spend like 20 seconds on each one?

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:12

I want, I don't really like answering them that way. And I have to go, like

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:17

Okay,

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:17

hardcore

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:17

word up.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:18

have to go.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:19

Cool,

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:19

Yeah.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:19

cool. Yeah, go ahead, man. Get on your airplane, come hang out.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:22

All right, I will see you soon, Brian. As always, guys, thank you for listening. We will talk to you in two weeks. We are taking next week

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:28

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:29

off.

[Bryan Boorstein]: 1:02:29

Yep.