June ‘23 Instagram Q&A | ETP#118

[Aaron Straker]: 0:29

What's up guys, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of Eat, Train, Prosper. This is our mostly monthly Instagram Q&A. I would love to say monthly, but we haven't been able to hold up to that. But we do have a really good stream of questions that came in from Brian's Instagram followers, which we're going to dive into. But before we jump into those, as always, Brian, can you kick us off with a few updates, please?

[Bryan]: 0:52

Yeah, I'm gonna be quick because we have like 16 really solid questions. Well, mostly solid questions to get to. So first update for me was I had six drinks this Saturday evening, and it's probably the most drinks that I've had in a sitting in a really, really long time.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:12

reckless.

[Bryan]: 1:13

It was fun. I had a great time. I it was between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. So I got to work, got home. you know, went to, the plan was to get a decent night of sleep and, you know, see how minimally I could have six drinks affect me. And unfortunately, my daughter woke up at 5 30 a.m. And so I couldn't fall back asleep. She fell back asleep with Kim until nine. So, so, so Kim got a full night of sleep and I slept five and a half hours. So I actually think that my struggles are more related to the sleep than the alcohol because I didn't really feel hungover. But you know, one of the interesting things that I've discovered recently since getting into all this cardio stuff and listening to a number of experts discuss glucose sensitivity and things like that. And it seems like You know, the old common knowledge that I held for many years, forever basically, was that, hey, if you get a shitty night of sleep or you feel under recovered, then you take a day off and you give yourself grace and you come back and you have a good session the next day. And this is how I've always operated. Since the last year and learning about all this cardio stuff, it seems that the one thing that can actually restore your glucose tolerance and just general sense of wellbeing in the way that your body is functioning is to actually work out when you're underslept or not feeling great. It seems to have like a regulatory effect on your glucose response and stuff like that. And so I obviously felt like discombobulated and pretty awful all day. And then we got back from an event that we were doing and I got on the peloton and did a bike ride. And aside from the fact that my performance was low and my heart rate was high, which I fully expected given that my resting heart rate was up about 10 beats a minute. I expected my working heart rates to also be higher. But I did it, I biked for an hour. I was about 10 watts lower than what I would usually be for zone two. And my heart rate was about 10 beats higher than I would usually be. But aside from that, I got off, felt great and felt like things were mostly restored to normal. and it kind of like reset everything and I ended up sleeping eight and a half hours the next night and everything was all good from there. Had a fantastic cardio session the next day, set PRs for distance and track and everything. So one day off and everything's kind of back to normal now, heart rate and circadian rhythm and all that stuff. So that's kind of cool and an interesting lesson just in the way that I... I've always, I just thought it was interesting that I always defaulted to taking time off when I'm under slept and just giving myself a day off. But it really does like just make you feel worse. Like you almost feel like you get into this cycle where like you want to eat shitty food and then you're not feeling good. So you want more shitty food and like by just working out and doing a bike ride, it almost like reset me and made me feel like back to normal. I lost my cravings and stuff like that. So I thought that was interesting.

[Aaron Straker]: 4:36

There is a very interesting, like what you just said, it's, I wish I had some like, you know, more data on it, but it's purely like a self-perception thing I've noticed and as well as working with clients. Like when you train, you feel great. Like you're motivated to eat your healthy foods and those sorts of things. But when like, if you have like a rest, sometimes in rest days or when you don't like, it's rather ironic because the days you can, I'm using air quotes here, of the shittier foods are like post-workout. When you're partitioning is so much greater and stuff from the hormonal responses, but it's like you have an aversion to that because you just did something like good or healthy, but then on the days that you're not training and stuff, you're like, yeah, give me the bullshit food, but it's like a double whammy because you're not

[Bryan]: 5:28

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 5:28

gonna partition it well on your rest days sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 5:31

Yeah, Noah, that's totally right. And like, I would even justify it and be like, well, I need these extra carbs because I'm not feeling well. They're gonna help me recover and then I'll use them tomorrow for my workout or whatever, you know? And so you can go down this like whole rabbit hole of justification. Next update, I ended, I alluded to it on the last podcast that I was gonna go hang out with Milo and Cass at N1. And so I did that. It was rad, I biked up there. And I only got to hang out for about an hour. I had some stuff I had to do. So I had to turn around and come home, but got to chat with them a little bit. Got to watch Milo do a little bit of the one arm lengthened overloaded pull down from the prime machine, which we all love. It's just an amazing piece of development equipment there. And then Milo did some lengthened partials after failure, which just makes me happy because I touched on that last episode and our kind of differences in the way we view partials and Cass was making him do some post failure partials. And the word on the street is that there might be a collab coming between Milo and Cass about how to optimize the use of lengthened overload, lengthened partials, long muscle lengths, all that stuff. And I'm very curious, I'm Cass is more on the side of using partials after failure, kind of the way I do it. And Milo's obviously on the other side. So I told those guys, I'm really curious to see what they come up with in regards to that piece. Last update is that I bought Kim her bike. I talked about that last week, but we went for our first bike ride. And just a real funny quick story. I was like, look, babe, I think I was being condescending, but I was like... I was like, look, babe, when I get into zone two, I'm at like 180 watts. So look, when I bike with you, I'm just gonna understand it's not gonna be zone two, it's just gonna be zone one. It's all good, don't worry about it. And she's like, you are being so condescending. I'm in shape, I peloton, I can blah, blah. And I was like, babe, 180 watts, I just don't know. I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you, all this stuff. She weighs less, so obviously it takes... less to power that engine, or less effort rather. But on our ride, the first 15 minutes or so was like this gradual incline. Maybe it was like two to four degree incline. So you almost couldn't see it so much, but you could feel it. And she was on my ass the whole time. I was like, I'm in the higher end of zone two. And she's like, I'm chilling, you know? So I had to eat my words a little bit. But then... once we got to the turnaround point 15 minutes in all that two to 4% grade that we went up, we had to go down and I am able to go fast enough and keep my RPM rate high enough on that descent that I can still keep my heart rate up at like 135 140 145 as I'm going down this grade. Kim Either she wasn't capable of producing that much power down the grade, or I think more, she was just hesitant and timid of the speed that would be necessary on these trails that are relatively novel to her. So I was right in the sense that we biked for an hour and I ended up spending 45 minutes of that hour in zone one and 15 minutes of it in zone two. But. It was impressive that she was on my ass, keeping up with me on the, the inclines. And so I think, uh, what we're going to try and do together is find an incline that just goes, goes. And so it's not like a series of ups and downs where I'll drop out of zones, but a more, just like a consistent. Incline grade that maybe we can hit for 30, 45 minutes, something like that. And I think that would, uh, even the playing field a little bit, but, um, she was super amped with her bike, with her first ride and just you know, that freedom that you've just talked about, about just getting out in nature and being like a kid again.

[Aaron Straker]: 9:45

Yeah, I want to say you told us that story last week.

[Bryan]: 9:48

Oh, did

[Aaron Straker]: 9:48

I'm

[Bryan]: 9:49

I?

[Aaron Straker]: 9:49

not,

[Bryan]: 9:49

Damn

[Aaron Straker]: 9:49

I think

[Bryan]: 9:49

it, did

[Aaron Straker]: 9:50

so. I remember

[Bryan]: 9:51

I?

[Aaron Straker]: 9:52

there

[Bryan]: 9:52

How

[Aaron Straker]: 9:52

was

[Bryan]: 9:52

could

[Aaron Straker]: 9:52

something

[Bryan]: 9:52

that?

[Aaron Straker]: 9:52

about a bike ride and you talking about eating your words, but I could be making that

[Bryan]: 9:56

Maybe

[Aaron Straker]: 9:56

up, but

[Bryan]: 9:57

I did.

[Aaron Straker]: 9:58

only time will tell.

[Bryan]: 10:01

Damn, that would be pretty bad, but that's certainly possible.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:03

Yeah

[Bryan]: 10:04

I've told that story like three or four times and I really couldn't remember if I told it on the podcast because we biked. Oh, it wasn't this past Friday that we biked. I think it was the Friday before. Okay, well, you guys heard the story twice. It is what it is. Let's

[Aaron Straker]: 10:19

Okay.

[Bryan]: 10:19

move on to Aaron's updates.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:21

So the first one, I guess, it's not so much of an update, but I've had essentially two weeks of solitude. Jenny dropped me off at the airport like two, Wednesday morning, so tomorrow will be like two weeks. And then obviously I had my Hong Kong trip and stuff, and I've really only had like three conversations you know, since, and I've just like, especially since being back, because I was like really kind of, feeling unease around just like how much variation was in my schedule and stuff. So I was like, okay, I'm back home in Bali. I'm doing like nothing this week, but just eating, training, like working and sleeping. And I really haven't done anything. And I, it's been, I haven't really enjoyed the week. I got a whole shit ton of stuff done. I feel ahead on some things like planning stuff. And I'm just like. Excuse me, I kind of just really liked it and then I kind of had to thought was like I wonder how long Cuz like to me I look at solitude is like a positive Thing I know it can be depending on the definition kind of framed in positive or negative light, but I was like I wonder how long this how long it would take for that like solitude to turn into loneliness And I'm a little bit afraid of where that threshold might be for myself

[Bryan]: 11:40

Because you're still enjoying it.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:42

I'm still enjoying it. Yeah,

[Bryan]: 11:43

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 11:43

and

[Bryan]: 11:43

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:43

I just It's just like, it's just me and there's like, no kind of weird conversation you get into that you don't wanna have. Like my conversations have all been like very focused. Obviously I have like my client check-ins and stuff like that, but then it's just like. knocking shit off the to-do list, my food gets delivered, I'll go to the grocery store for my breakfast stuff, but I'm just like, it's a groove. And all I'm saying is I do, it was like, it's exactly what I needed post a month of like things all over the place in the US.

[Bryan]: 12:14

That's

[Aaron Straker]: 12:14

So I've

[Bryan]: 12:14

awesome.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:15

enjoyed my week, and my two weeks I should say.

[Bryan]: 12:17

I can relate. I'll be quick, but when Kim used to go away for travel and stuff, I may have told this story before, but she would go to Asia for 10 days and stuff, 10 years ago when she was working corporate job. And the first four to six days I'd be like, oh, this is heaven. I can do whatever I want. I never have to check in. I just watch movies and go to work and whatever. And then by day like four or six, I'd be falling apart and I'd be like, man, when's she gonna come home? So it seems like you've gotten well past that boundary.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:47

Yeah, yeah, I mean I do enjoy it. But it was just kind of like interesting to see. And then with my week of solitude, when I got back on Monday, I was like, I am going to have a hell Monday so that I can be everything fully on plan by Tuesday. Like have my groceries, my meal plan, like everything done ready for Tuesday so I can just be like, I'm in, you know, I'm back in a groove thing. My body fought me all last week with training and food. Like my body weight was super fluctuating, dipping low. And I recorded, even though like everything was through a T-on protocol for the entire week, the lowest average body weight since the first week of April. So

[Bryan]: 13:31

Mm.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:31

essentially two months ago, which was really, really wild. And it kind of like pissed me off, you know, cause I was like, and not so much that it was just the body weight, but I also had the corresponding evidence in training sessions, like really like subpar pumps, not great training sessions. You can just feel that when you're like,

[Bryan]: 13:51

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:52

I feel like I'm just not like. carbohydrate compensated in like, you know, glycogen compensated is probably a better term to use. And you can just like feel it. And then you look kind of like shit too, you know, in the mirror and stuff. And then you're like, coupled with the fact that I'm already at like a 15% body fat, like it's not gonna look that good as is. So I was just kind of like pissed off about it. And then when I had my check-in this week, I was like, okay, you know, obviously body weights down, like what are we doing? And what I really like is Jackson's like, we're just gonna, like, we're gonna take a sledgehammer approach. I don't wanna take like, another seven to 10 days to get body weight back to baseline and stuff. And he's like, we're just going to do like sushi refeeds every single night, like until morale improves, this sort of thing. So I had three of them. And then today I finally like the carbs like stuck and I'm like back. I actually was the heaviest I was ever this time. I waited. It was like a two thirteen point one,

[Bryan]: 14:48

Thanks for

[Aaron Straker]: 14:48

but

[Bryan]: 14:48

watching!

[Aaron Straker]: 14:48

like a good. It wasn't bloated or anything in the morning, like felt real, felt normal. But body weight was like there. And I had an amazing training session today. So that was like, I did like the approach, except for like the last three nights, like eating dinner has been kind of, it was a little bit of a push to get all the food in. I was not really enjoying it.

[Bryan]: 15:09

Yeah, that'll happen at 213. I feel like somehow that doesn't really surprise me because you had those crazy days with like 32,000 steps, like three days back to back to back, right? And so I feel like what was happening with your body weight was that there was like this delayed effect where all of that, all of that walking you did. took a few days to like catch up and show on your physique or whatever. And so that's probably why you felt shitty, lost weight and all that stuff. A few days later.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:42

Yeah, I mean, with any kind of, with increased flexibility or added variation of things, there's going to be, there's going to be some low grade inflammation, especially with traveling and flying and time zones and subsequent sleep. You're going to be a little bit inflamed and carrying some inflammation weight from that. And then when all that kind of dumps, you get more of a one-to-one representation. And that's essentially what happened last week. And my low was even like, I had almost a 207 flat. So that was like weeks ago was those numbers. And that was at

[Bryan]: 16:22

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:22

like day three or four after being back and feeding normally and everything.

[Bryan]: 16:27

Yep, yep, definitely makes sense. All right, should we

[Aaron Straker]: 16:30

Uh,

[Bryan]: 16:31

jump

[Aaron Straker]: 16:31

yeah.

[Bryan]: 16:31

into questions?

[Aaron Straker]: 16:32

Let's do it.

[Bryan]: 16:34

All right, well these first two are very specific to me. So I'm just gonna address them really quickly and then we'll move on to some more bulky stuff here. The first one is how do I feel about not doing a spring cut this year? And so for those that don't know, I decided not to do this basically because I wanted to make sure I was fueling all of my cardio that I'm doing. And I feel great about it. Thank you for asking. I'm actually really happy not to be cutting right now, not to have the pressure of those daily Instagram updates. As much as I enjoy the back and forth communication with the people that follow my journey. And I'm very honored by the sentiments that people express about how much it's been helpful for them to follow that journey and stuff like that. Honestly, I've been doing it now three or four years in a row where every spring or early summer I would cut and it feels very free now. I feel like I can really go out and enjoy the spring and the summer here in Boulder, which are some of the most beautiful times to be outside. So I was able to, like I said, go out and have six beers with my friends the other night. And that's something I obviously wouldn't have done if I was in the middle of my cut right now. So it's been cool. I'm fueling my cardio. The cardio is improving and body weight is basically stable. So I feel really, really solid about it. The next question is, we need an update on only eating weed now, five months in. And for those that missed this, back in January for my New Year's resolution, I decided to stop smoking weed and only eat it. This was gonna be to see if it helps my VO2 max slash cardiovascular performance. as well as just the health side associated with not smoking and damaging your lungs. So, in complete transparency, when I was going through all of those headaches back in, I guess it was mostly April, I stopped eating weed because I thought that the eating of the weed may have something to do with what was causing the headaches. I don't actually know if... it was or was not the eating of the weed that was doing that because I have been only smoking it for the last month or so since that time. And I, as of yesterday, this is kind of a fortuitous timing for this question, but as of yesterday, I decided to stop smoking again and go back to eating it. So I very much am committed to this. I just took this hiatus because I didn't know. what was causing it and I was basically willing to do anything at that point. What I should have done obviously was just stop doing weed entirely. Like that would have been the prudent move to make. But I stopped eating it, started smoking it again. There's definitely some pieces of smoking it that I like more, specifically like the fact that it lasts a quarter of the amount of time and you don't have to wait 40 minutes for it to kick in. You just kind of are like, Hey, I want to be high right now and you do it. And then 30 minutes later, you're basically normal again. So there's certainly like positives and negatives there, but yeah, that's the update. So yeah, any thoughts on either of those or you wanna move on to question three?

[Aaron Straker]: 20:00

I only had a very small one on the cardio one, or not doing the spring cut per se. I think it's, you're doing so much cardio, not like an absurd amount, but like relative to last year or whatever, that I feel like with the added flexibility of your life, like you just have more energy expenditure as well, so it's kind of like a good like middle ground of it, and because of all just the additional, like caloric need of the activity that you're doing too.

[Bryan]: 20:30

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I actually realize I have to consciously focus on putting calories in my body a lot of times, and they're not always like the cleanest because I went through a period for five days last week where I was like, I'm gonna eat really clean. Like I'm gonna stop eating crap and I'm just gonna focus on like really high quality natural foods, you know, like stuff you can get on the outside of the aisle of the grocery store. And literally my body weight went down like two and a half pounds in five days. And I was like, okay, I gotta eat a little more crap in here. So I mean, I guess if I were to cut, it would be pretty easy in the early stages, but I'm pretty sure there would be some muscle compromised as well. And so

[Aaron Straker]: 21:14

and

[Bryan]: 21:14

definitely

[Aaron Straker]: 21:14

just

[Bryan]: 21:14

important

[Aaron Straker]: 21:14

performance,

[Bryan]: 21:14

to keep hand performance. Yeah, exactly.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:17

which

[Bryan]: 21:17

So

[Aaron Straker]: 21:17

is

[Bryan]: 21:17

both

[Aaron Straker]: 21:17

hard.

[Bryan]: 21:17

aspects

[Aaron Straker]: 21:17

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 21:18

there.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:19

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 21:19

Yeah, okay. I'm gonna kick this next question over to you. What is the most effective way to go from a deficit to maintenance calories?

[Aaron Straker]: 21:28

So there's kind of two approaches and the hardest way to answer this is because of the term effective, because there's really like two sides of the coin. If you are someone who, like let's say your diet was really, really easy for you, you're not, you don't have a high level of hunger or diet fatigue, you're just kind of like, hey, I'm kind of done and I want to slowly start working things back up, you know, taking the slow kind of reverse over a period of like four to eight weeks, slight caloric jumps. There's no like... And let me be clear, the benefit to this is mostly like psychological in terms of, hey, I'm not just, my weight's not gonna jump up like another two or three pounds overnight sort of thing. And the benefit that I will use it with mostly is it... Prevents to some degree caloric overages over what your new maintenance is because if we're only giving you like 200 calories at a time or whatever instead of being like hey the diets over at 1800 tomorrow go to 3000 like that is where I think that the benefit is is just from like you still crossing your t's and Dotting your eyes more than you would if we were like, hey, you know open the floodgates again to what this estimated maintenance is The downside there is like if you have high diet fatigue and you're really, really ready for it to be over, it's essentially not over. You're at like the 95% mark. The second way is you just jump your calories back up to what estimated maintenance would be. Now here's the hard thing, that estimation is an estimation. You may be... a little bit high and within a few days start putting on, albeit very slight amounts of body fat. And then the other kind of detriment to that one is if digestive capacity isn't up to par. And if we're using that same example, we're at 1,800, we go to 3,000, you get super gassy, bloated and all of these other things, which then will affect your appearance and then could start to mess with some of the psychological stuff of like, I just dieted and now I'm all bloated and everything. wasted it sort of thing. So two approaches. It's hard to answer which way is most effective until you weigh the pros and cons of each for yourself personally.

[Bryan]: 23:45

Yeah, I think you covered that really well. I will just provide my own personal preference, which is that the psychological side of trying to slowly reverse back up after being at the bottom of your diet, I find to be extremely difficult. Like I basically extend myself psychologically to get to the end of the diet. And then the last thing I wanna do is spend four to eight weeks where I'm still basically having to be on and managing that. all of those little components. So for me, I prefer to just go back up to about maintenance or even a slight surplus, which I think there's some risks in doing that as far as accumulating body fat and stuff like that. But I guess it all ultimately, as we've discussed before, really comes down to how lean you got. Because being stage lean has a completely different approach than being like the guy that got to 12% so he could do a photo shoot or something like that.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:42

That's such a good additional point. If you're getting sub 10, sub 8, yeah, getting things up faster, your life will improve. If you're going from like a 24% body fat to like a 15%, you're not really, it's not in the same ballpark sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 24:58

Yep. All right, cool. Next question, I'll kick over to you for some thoughts initially. I naturally wake up after six and a half hours of sleep well rested because it's high quality. Am I missing out on potential gains? If so, how can I make my body sleep more? Matt Walker's book, Why We Sleep, is causing anxiety and making it worse.

[Aaron Straker]: 25:21

This one's hard. Personally, I am someone like, what I would say from my standpoint, this is where I can feel most confident answering, mine is more relative to when I go to bed. If I go to bed at like 930, I can sleep till about like 630, sort of thing. If I go to bed at 1245, I can sleep till about 630. So for me, that six and a half hours is really relative of when I go to bed because almost regardless, like my body's getting up at 630, sort of thing, once the light starts coming out and noise starts being made outside. I would say is, are you missing out on potential gains? It's relative to other things like how hard your training is. Like do you need that extra recovery capacity? If you're taking the like 80-20 training approach, like probably not. It could also be dependent upon like what periodization you're in. Like are you, using our previous example, like deep in a calorie deficit? The more, when you're dieting, the more you sleep, the lower your weigh-ins, the more fat loss you have. It gets very, very cut and dry there. So it really, really does depend, but I would say if you feel good, if your training is progressing in all of these things and it's something that, you know, you're getting up at 6.30 and no matter what you do, you can't really push that back, I... As long as it's not impacting you and you have like good objective metrics on this, I wouldn't say trying to needlessly chase optimality there.

[Bryan]: 26:55

Yeah, I

[Aaron Straker]: 26:55

Until

[Bryan]: 26:55

think that

[Aaron Straker]: 26:55

you

[Bryan]: 26:55

was

[Aaron Straker]: 26:55

do.

[Bryan]: 26:55

a really good point about waking up at 6.30 no matter what, because my body's kinda the same way. And so yeah, if I go to sleep at midnight, I'll get six and a half hours of sleep. And if I go to sleep at 10, I'll get eight and a half hours of sleep, right? So it's possible that maybe what you need to do is start trying to get yourself to go to bed slightly earlier. Because I wonder if you go to bed at 9.30 or 10. Like are you really gonna get up at 3.30 or 4 in the morning? Like is that gonna be what your body does just because you went to bed early or are you getting six and a half hours of sleep because you're going to bed later and your body's naturally waking up with the sun or with the light or whatever that is? So I try and maybe like gradually start going to bed earlier but at the end of the day too, like I struggle with this question because the guidelines state that people need between seven and eight and a half or nine hours. That is a general average, right? So there's gonna be outliers on either side. Like there's gonna be somebody that needs nine or nine and a half hours, and there's gonna be somebody that needs six and a half hours. And so it's possible that you're an outlier. I just, I never like to default to you're an outlier because in the hypertrophy world, it's like, hey, most people respond to this many sets, but there's certainly people that respond to less or people that respond to more, and like to assume going in that you're an outlier. I just think the likelihood is pretty low. So yeah, I would try and go to bed a little bit earlier and just see what that does to your wake up time.

[Aaron Straker]: 28:31

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 28:31

All right,

[Aaron Straker]: 28:31

very, very well put.

[Bryan]: 28:32

next question. How do you deal with injury and your mindset regarding rehab?

[Aaron Straker]: 28:41

I mean, this one's kind of easy for me. I love training so much. It's literally my favorite thing to do. So the times that I've been put out of training with like my, like, you know, I've had tendon ruptures and things before, I will do what, anything. I'm like foaming at the mouth just to get back to doing what I want to do. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm So it was never like, oh, I don't want to be here sort of thing. It's like, this is the best I can do for now. So I need to do this so that I can return to training faster. And it's just a necessary prerequisite to get back to what I enjoy doing. So I've always just viewed it as such.

[Bryan]: 29:23

Yeah, I agree completely. I feel like we either recovered this in an episode, like a full deep dive, or it was like a deeper dive question that we covered amongst a few other questions. But I remember talking about this, and my main piece of advice is always do what you can do. Have a can-do mindset instead of can't-do mindset. And that's the way I approach it too. And so like I had PRP in my knee and I couldn't. uh, you know, squat for, for X amount of time. So I did more hamstring work. Uh, as soon as I could train my leg again, I still couldn't squat, but I could do leg extensions. So I did leg extensions in the time between when my knee was recovering and I still couldn't do leg extensions and I was doing, uh, more hamstring work. I was doing leg extensions and squats on my other leg. So, I mean, it's like you, you find the things that you can do that allow you to keep being in the gym and pursuing your goals. And you work around it or you just basically don't work it, but you work the areas of the body that you can work. And in many ways, like you see these types of things occur and you actually see gains occur in the body areas that you're not training. The perfect example is powerlifting where somebody might get injured and suddenly they can't deadlift or squat for. a month and so they just end up benching more and suddenly their bench shoots up like 30 pounds and they get through a sticking point that they plateau that they've been unable to get past for a long time because the deadlift and the squat are taking so much of their recovery capacity. And you see a lot of that same stuff with even smaller injuries or things that you're working around. It's like, Hey, if I can't train my lower body as effectively as I want to, then my upper body grows more or vice versa. So going into it with a positive can do mindset. and realizing that there are still gains to be had is important. And then remembering that whatever you lose along the way, like if you atrophy your leg because your knee has PRP in it, that shit will come back in a matter of a few weeks once you start training it again.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:34

Yeah, the one last thing I'll add there that I forgot too is like... What just being in that positive gym environment and moving your body in the capacities that you can, like that will be very beneficial for your overall outlook and mindset, especially when the alternative is just like sitting on your ass and waiting. I'm talking a stark contrast between the two of them. So like Brian said, get in there, do what you can, especially if you have like a really, really positive like gym environment. Like I remember when I ruptured my Achilles and had the cast on, I would still come to the CrossFit gym. but just like being around that environment and seeing my friends and stuff was like very very motivating and I remember I did Pull-ups and handstand push-ups every

[Bryan]: 32:18

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:18

single day, right?

[Bryan]: 32:19

And bench press,

[Aaron Straker]: 32:20

It's

[Bryan]: 32:20

I think.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:20

a sit

[Bryan]: 32:20

Yeah, you bench too,

[Aaron Straker]: 32:21

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 32:21

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:22

the bench I wasn't for a while because everyone had to help me load it and I felt bad Because I couldn't like carry the weights

[Bryan]: 32:28

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 32:28

around

[Bryan]: 32:28

yeah, yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:29

That's why the handstand push-ups and pull-ups worked really well,

[Bryan]: 32:32

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:32

but I got damn good at pull-ups after that and so it's like It was kind of silly, but it was enough to keep my mind from being in the gutter. And that was well worth it in and of itself.

[Bryan]: 32:46

Yeah, find something that you can do that you can focus on progression and it'll help you a lot in kind of the mental side of getting through that as well.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:54

Yeah. Let's kick this one over to you. Is there a minimum threshold duration for zone two cardio?

[Bryan]: 33:01

Yeah, there definitely is. I think where that line is pretty ambiguous, but the lowest number that I've heard from anybody is about 30 minutes. And that's because the first 10 minutes are generally just getting your body warmed up and into the cycle of getting your heart to pump blood and your body to take in oxygen in a specific manner that. becomes conducive to improvements in mitochondrial function and stuff like that. And so if the first 10 minutes are just your body kind of figuring it out, then it seems like you need at least like 20 minutes of consistent, you know, in that zone time. So in that case, 30 minutes would be the minimum. I think that's the minimum practically for people. I think if you're really looking to optimize and get like the maximum benefit from it. I would definitely go more for like 60 minutes or 45 at the very low end. I always say 45 to 60 minutes because from what I've read and heard, it seems that 45 minutes in zone two seems to be the point where a lot of magic happens. And oftentimes it takes an hour of you biking or running or rowing or whatever it is to accumulate 45 minutes of zone two because there's that beginning time where your body's getting into the zone and adapting and then there's the period where maybe you're not in the zone the whole time like maybe you dip out into zone one for a minute or you dip up into zone three for a few seconds here and there. And so what I usually do just as a default to be safe is I go until I have about 45 minutes of zone two time. And so that usually takes me somewhere between 50 and 60 minutes depending on how accurate I am that day. And then I've heard people say that if you go out riding, like I ride in a manner that I'm on trails the whole time, so I don't have to stop and start, or like wait for cars or anything like that. But if I were out on the road and I was stopping at red lights and having to deal with that whole mess of stuff, I've heard that you need to do 90 minutes because it could literally take that long for your body to go out of the zone, stop, then get back in the zone, then stop. And so like... I've heard 90 minutes for people that are doing this outside and stuff. But, but I think if you just look at the time spent in zone two, that at least gives you like a general idea. All right, let's try this one over to you, bud. Can a newbie start a surplus or should they start at maintenance to minimize fat gain?

[Aaron Straker]: 35:51

So I'll read here what I wrote down and then I'll kind of extrapolate here. So the research that we have tends to suggest that newbies are best suited for a larger surplus. And then as your training age increases, the depth of the surplus generally gets smaller. So when you're a newbie, it's green fields ahead of you. You are going to make the best gains of your life in the first year of training. Don't limit that by being afraid of fat gain. Also don't eat like you're a super heavyweight sort of thing and put down 8,000 calories a day, but you... You're gonna have to do that. Go start with a surplus, right? Make sure your training is decent. If you're super green and don't know what to do, follow one of Brian's programs, they'll be fantastic, and put yourself in a surplus and really, really good things will happen.

[Bryan]: 36:42

Yeah, I agree with all of that, especially the following my program part. No, but I will, I will also add that because you're new, there's some re comp that's going to occur. So you thinking that you're going to gain a bunch of fat because you're in a surplus is probably not entirely true. Because you're also going to gain a ton of muscle and like Chris barricade has kind of been the forward thinker and study studying this stuff. And he has had a number of case studies and maybe even RCTs, I'm not really sure, definitely case studies where he's shown people go into a huge surplus and they essentially don't gain much fat at all and primarily gain muscle because of their newbie stage of training. So I think that especially if you're a newbie, don't be scared of going into a surplus. Okay, you got this one covered, it looks like. Must have accessories for the gym and they put IE wedges, VersaGrips, et cetera.

[Aaron Straker]: 37:49

These are the questions that like light my soul on fire because I just like picture myself of all the times I've been in the gym and being like, this fucking place doesn't have this thing and all this stuff and just talk super trash in my head. So the things that I have here is the 10 and the 15 degree wedge. What I would say is like get a bigger wedge than you think, not necessarily a steeper angle, like a 20. Well, let me back up. If you have absolute dog shit ankle dorsiflexion, get the 20. If you have like decent to great, you'll need less. The prime wedges, I like the individual ones. They are kind of beefy and wide, but I've purchased some that I'm like, oh yeah, these are wide enough. They're not too stable. And I have to use them very like trepidatiously. So I would say get a little bit bigger than you think. are fantastic. I do really, really like those. A small box or step. I don't really like the traditional aerobics class step because it's really, really bulky. But I know there's some that are stackable as well. I have here maybe about four to six inches. The utility is going to be this is for split squat variations, a front foot elevated reverse lunge, these sorts of things, or something to do calf raises off of. That's another one. When a gym doesn't have that, I'm like, what the fuck are we doing here? Why isn't this piece of equipment in

[Bryan]: 39:10

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 39:10

here? Wrist cuffs, another note I have here is small enough to use around your palm. So sometimes the leg cuffs might be really beefy and they're just a little bit too big to use around your hand or something. And then one of my favorites is the Prime Medium Bar. And that's just where you can have like, there's like little slots for the carabiner so that you can, okay, I wanna do like an upper back pull down with like D handles. You can go pretty wide if you wanna do a more like neutral grip row, you can go a little bit more narrow and a really good comfortable pair of like D handle grips.

[Bryan]: 39:48

Yeah, that's a really, really great comprehensive list. So the Prime wedges only come in 10, 20, or 30. So if you're going with Prime, I don't believe there's 15, or at least there wasn't last year when I looked.

[Aaron Straker]: 40:01

Maybe

[Bryan]: 40:01

There

[Aaron Straker]: 40:01

I'm

[Bryan]: 40:01

may

[Aaron Straker]: 40:01

confusing

[Bryan]: 40:01

be now.

[Aaron Straker]: 40:02

the 20 and 30 then. That which could be. So

[Bryan]: 40:06

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 40:06

get the two smaller

[Bryan]: 40:07

I use

[Aaron Straker]: 40:07

ones

[Bryan]: 40:07

the 20s

[Aaron Straker]: 40:07

basically. So,

[Bryan]: 40:08

and I use the 20s and I agree like I have pretty good ankle dorsiflexion, but the 20s are fine for me. 30s would obviously be way too much and 10s I think would be fine, but I just want to you know, I like I like the middle ground at the 20s. Versa grips for sure. If you're not going to do Versa grips, then straps or Cobra grips are kind of like this other version of Versa grips that are a little bit cheaper, I believe. The small box step is a good idea. I think that, oh, who makes those things? I'm blanking out on the name of the company that makes these things now that are stackable, but hopefully

[Aaron Straker]: 40:47

They're like

[Bryan]: 40:47

it'll

[Aaron Straker]: 40:47

the

[Bryan]: 40:47

come back

[Aaron Straker]: 40:47

puzzle

[Bryan]: 40:47

to me.

[Aaron Straker]: 40:48

ones that

[Bryan]: 40:49

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 40:49

go

[Bryan]: 40:49

yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 40:49

together? Yeah, I don't know the name of the company either.

[Bryan]: 40:54

yeah. It's like on the tip of my tongue. I'm thinking back to when I was in San Diego, and one of the things that was critical for me, was the little yoga blocks to put on the hack squat. And that seems like such a small little nuanced thing that maybe isn't even required for you. But for me on the specific hack squat machine that we had, I needed to be able to get more depth and I couldn't adjust the foot plate enough. So I had to put the yoga blocks on the shoulder pads of the hack squat and then strap them in with some little bands. So that was critical for me to be able to get the most out of the hack squat there. You may or may not need that. The wrist cuffs, yeah, I believe that like, they're even called ankle cuffs, like even though we're using them on our hands in our palm, like you're saying, to hold them. I believe if you're going to get these on Amazon or whatever, they're called ankle cuffs. But he's right, that you really want the small ones that are like less than one inch in diameter, because if you get the really big ones that actually go around your ankle, they won't fit in your palm, and then they're kind of awkward. So. I very much like those small wrist cuffs. I think those are actually one of the most important things for me right now as far as doing lateral raise movements and tricep movements primarily.

[Aaron Straker]: 42:09

Yep.

[Bryan]: 42:10

The prime medium bar, also a great idea. I think if you wanted to get around that, you could just use your standard lat pull-down bar and then you could slide some D handles onto the lat pull-down bar. There is that little ambiguity of like hey is it in the exact same place that it was the prior week or whatever But I find once you get tension on there, they don't slide around and move which I think is a worry that some people may have D handles are a hundred percent without a doubt You must have them Most gyms do so. I don't think if you're training in a gym that you have to get them if you're at home And you don't have them, please go out spend$19 on Amazon and buy yourself some D handles But yeah, I think for the most part you covered all that pretty well.

[Aaron Straker]: 42:57

There's one other one I just thought of, like if you're using like a leg press or something like that and the angles just don't really work for you, or the depth, another one I like is like a thicker, it's not really a yoga pad, but it's like a thick foam pad that's kind of squishy, and you can kind of like smooth out the sit position of the bench, and it'll obviously, like let's say you're running out of the final like two inches of depth and you're bodying them out the leg press, like that will help you. get a little bit more ROM in there without bottom. Now that's one that I'll use a lot with like the Sybex Squat Press.

[Bryan]: 43:33

Yeah, I think a lot of that stuff, like with the yoga blocks, it just depends on if the quality of the machines that you're using require you to have to modify the range of motion or not.

[Aaron Straker]: 43:42

Yep, exactly.

[Bryan]: 43:44

Alright.

[Aaron Straker]: 43:45

Okay, this next one, let's kick over to you. So question is, I'm a very new dad with an unpredictable ability to train. What are the biggest rocks? This is a

[Bryan]: 43:55

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 43:55

good question.

[Bryan]: 43:56

it's a good question. You put two notes down here that were some things I was gonna say as well. So you wrote full body sessions due to unpredictability. I think that's a great idea. Lengthened movements only, question mark. Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea as well. I think back to the two periods of time where I was a new dad. And the first one, I basically did a three times a week full body program, all compound movements. It was kind of like a squat bench dead style power lifting program with some accessory work. But the squat, the bench, or the dead led each day. I think I squatted on Mondays and Fridays, dead lifted on Mondays after I squatted, did a little bit of Oli work or RDLs on Friday after I squatted. So Fridays and Mondays were primarily lower body based. One of the days was a lighter recovery based day and one was like a heavier really go take it to the house type squat day and then the middle day on Wednesday was more of a bench overhead press focus day there's many ways you can obviously arrange that and honestly to be completely frank if I were to be in this position again right now I would not be doing a powerlifting style squat bench dead program but at the at the time that worked really, really well for me based on the environment that I was in. I only needed to train three days a week. If I missed a session, it wasn't a big deal. I could push it to Saturday or Sunday and just kind of keep the rotation going. All of those movements are lengthened too. So that fits into kind of your other point being lengthened movements. And then I look back to my second child being born and this was actually the very, very beginning of COVID. And so... the situation was entirely different. Instead of three times a week where I was going to a gym for these more robust, longer sessions, I was at home with only dumbbells and a few other kind of small pieces of equipment. And so I was working out in 20 to 30 minute increments multiple times a day. Like kid would go down for a nap, I'd hit split squats. Kid would go down for a nap, I'd do some weighted pushups. And so there's like a bunch of different ways you can think about this. And And to be honest, I actually think the second way was more conducive to being a new dad than the first way. But it very much depends on if you have a home gym or not. Like if you are at the peril of having to get in your car and go drive somewhere and go to a gym, then two to three times a week full body, just fitting them in as you can is probably the best approach. But if you have a bunch of dumbbells or a home gym, I actually think training higher frequency with really small doses of training is probably better. And you can create between six and 12 little mini sessions if you wanna be super organized about it. And every time that you have 20 or 30 minutes, just knock out one of those little mini sessions. Like today is split squats and pushups, tomorrow is dumbbell rows and RDLs, or whatever it is, however you wanna organize that. There's... a bunch of different ways you can probably go around that. So I found myself with the second kid training twice a day, five days a week in most cases, because I was just hitting these like 20 minute chunk sessions. So I would try not to stress about it and just, again, it's like that can do mindset. Like what can I do and how can I structure things in a manner that gives me the highest likelihood of being able to fit these sessions in.

[Aaron Straker]: 47:40

I don't think I can add anything more to that because I don't have any experience with being a new

[Bryan]: 47:44

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 47:44

dad.

[Bryan]: 47:47

yeah. Okay, this is an interesting one. I think we'll probably both have some opinions on it, but do you think training sessions should be written differently for females? Would love if you would read up to speed by Christine Yu. You have a great way of summarizing, plus I listen and do whatever you say. Well, thank you. Please, please don't listen to whatever I say and do it. That's not the way to go. I did not read Up to Speed by Christine Yu, so I'm not up to speed on that. But my general view is that for the most part, the main training principles stay the same for females. As many of you guys know, I write programs for Paragon training methods, and we are 90% female at Paragon. And so one of the main things we do there, just based off popular demand, is that we do slightly less chest work and we do slightly more glute work. That is literally the only changes. Maybe if you were to get like really nuanced about it, you could say women handle a little bit more volume than men do, but when you actually like, like that seems to be a common sentiment, like, oh, women are like damage protected and they can just do so much volume and recover from it. But when you look at the literature on this, it's literally like 10 to 20% more volume seems to be where women lie as a general average. And so if you're looking at somebody that's doing 10 sets a week per muscle group, now you're like, okay, I'm a woman, I can do way more volume. That's not like, okay, you can do 20 sets per muscle group. That's, you can do 11 or 12 sets per muscle group. That's your 10 or 20% increase, right? So this idea that women can just handle loads of volume and recover fine, I think is... a little bit misaligned. And I know there's this increasing popularity in the space of women sinking their training with their cycle. I honestly don't know much about this. I have my opinions. The people that I respect in the industry tend to basically say that this is a poor idea and that you would be... spending one to two weeks of every month, which is 13 to 26 weeks of every year, basically not training hard if you're trying to sync your training with your cycle. And so my general thought on that, at least for the little bit that I know about it, is to say that you shouldn't do that. But yeah, that's, I guess, my opinions on the matter as they stand right now. You're on mute.

[Aaron Straker]: 50:44

Thank you. What I was gonna say is like what Brian said, generally you're gonna find a little bit less interest in chest, a little bit more interest in glutes versus quads and then potentially maybe like a little bit extra emphasis on like a lateral delt sort of thing. But the latter I would say is much less than the first two things. And to piggyback on what Brian said about the differences in the hormonal shifts and stuff like that with the monthly cycle, it's from every, I haven't seen anything definitive that would be worth the extra added planned variability into the training plan and stuff. If anything, I'd keep some notes in a log book that's like, hey, this is the week before my cycle or whatever it is, like I'm a little bit naturally stronger so that when you come in the week after and maybe you got 13 reps the week before, you can only get 12 to not have a meltdown about it and just know that you might have a... days per month where your performance is a little bit better sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 51:46

Yeah, no, that's

[Aaron Straker]: 51:47

But

[Bryan]: 51:47

a

[Aaron Straker]: 51:47

again,

[Bryan]: 51:47

really good point.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:47

not worth trying to micromanage in my opinion.

[Bryan]: 51:52

Yeah, I agree.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:55

Cool, this one let's kick over to you first. So question is with Atiya's emphasis on grip strength, have you reconsidered trade-offs with using grips on back slash deadlift exercises? I'm still using them, especially on back since I had a lot of room for development, but I am now wondering if it's worth it if grip strength seems to be so important for longevity and health span.

[Bryan]: 52:22

Yeah, the note you put under here is pretty much what I was going to say as well. You noted that it's probably that grip strength is being used as a proxy. And I think that's 100% right. Yeah. So they're not legitimately looking at weightlifters and being like, well, this weightlifter, who already has better grip strength than the population, is going to die earlier because his grip strength is not as good as this other weightlifter that has even better grip strength. So I think it's important to remember that just by being a weightlifter in general and having strong grip strength, you're already in the upper echelon. Like one of the things I've had to do when listening to Atiya talk is remember that he's talking to a general population of people, many of which don't even exercise at all. And if they do exercise, they're probably more cardio fiends than they are resistance training focused. And so... It's like, it would be like telling somebody who already has top 5% in the world, VO2 max, and being like, well, you know, there's decreased mortality if you can get into the top 2.5% of VO2 max. And it's like, yeah, that's what the numbers say, but there's so many other factors that go into this like milieu of things that increase longevity. And so I really doubt. that your grip strength going from really good to really, really good is going to have any significant impact on your longevity. And like Aaron said, I think it's being used as a proxy. As a general just assessment of grip strength, the way that ATIA assesses whether you have sufficient grip strength to be in this camp of increased longevity is that you're supposed to be able to pick up half of your body weight in each hand. So that would be like a 95 or a 100 pound dumbbell in each hand for me. And then walk with it for one minute. I could do that with no problem. I could do that with my eyes closed going up a hill. And,

[Aaron Straker]: 54:28

I don't know about me.

[Bryan]: 54:30

no.

[Aaron Straker]: 54:33

I'm

[Bryan]: 54:33

So

[Aaron Straker]: 54:33

not sure.

[Bryan]: 54:34

that's his test. And so I feel like as long as you can pick up half your body weight in each hand and walk for a minute. I would think that your grip strength is completely fine, and if you can't do that, then yeah, maybe that would be something to consider.

[Aaron Straker]: 54:50

I feel like we should make like a little bit of an Instagram challenge, right? Because I'm thinking, okay, I'm like 210 more or less, that's 105 pound dumbbell in each hand. Walking for a minute? I don't think I can do it.

[Bryan]: 55:06

So do you remember back in the CrossFit days where we would do these 100 pound dumbbell farmers walk challenges?

[Aaron Straker]: 55:13

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 55:15

So we would do them in the alley outside the Cass Street gym, which was 100 meters down and 100 meters back, right? So 200 meters.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:24

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 55:25

I could make it all the way down with no issue. And I could even make it like halfway back up. And that would be like two and a half to three minutes by the time I would set them down. So just thinking of that as context.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:40

Yeah, I'm just trying to think, like, no chalk, anything, just like in the gym. I don't think I can do that. I'm gonna try, I'll film it and see if I can do it, but I gotta write it down so that I remember, but I think this would be a really fun thing for the listeners and stuff, but that's one of the things, like, not to get us too sidetracked, but like, I had to stop, like, you know, something that was kind of cool when you were younger was like going rock climbing? I couldn't do it anymore because I couldn't support my body weight with my hands and fingers. And I was just

[Bryan]: 56:09

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 56:09

sucked at it.

[Bryan]: 56:10

you're

[Aaron Straker]: 56:10

So

[Bryan]: 56:10

too big.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:11

I think,

[Bryan]: 56:11

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:13

yeah. Because I'm one of those people, I don't have like my wrists and fingers, like my fingers are fucking skinny relative

[Bryan]: 56:18

Mm.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:18

to the rest of my body. And I don't have like really big joints or anything like that. So I think I'm one of the people who's maybe like at a slight disadvantage. But I find it interesting the vast difference in our confidence in that, in what you just said.

[Bryan]: 56:34

I think I may go out and film that today too. I think you've inspired me to make a post about this. I really didn't think you would have any doubts at all. So this is interesting to me.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:44

Yeah, I could be wrong and impress myself, but I do not have much confidence in that.

[Bryan]: 56:51

Cool, well let's try it out and find out.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:53

Yep, this next one I'll kick over to you as well. Do you ever purposefully use pre-fatigue methods in order to need less weight on a big lift later in the workout?

[Bryan]: 57:05

Yeah, so there's really two ways that you can think about this question. One would be pre-fatigue as it would be like a pre-exhaust superset. And I don't do this super often, especially not with lower body. So my favorite example of pre-exhaust superset would be going from like a dumbbell lateral raise or cable lateral raise to some sort of overhead press type movement. And I do use that occasionally. I do the same for chest, where I'll sometimes go from like a dumbbell fly or a cable crossover type movement to a pushup. So I do use those occasionally, but I don't necessarily use them, as this person stated, to need less weight on the big lift. The way that I do use pre-fatigue so that I can use less weight on the big lift is not as a superset. but literally just as a exercise sequencing, like how I order the exercises in the workout. And I actually pretty much do this almost on everything. And it's a mere factor of going from short overload movements to lengthened overload movements. So I almost always prefer to do my leg curls before I do my RDLs. And I almost always will do leg extensions before I do my hack squat or my pendulum squat. And for those reasons, like you said, like I think it increases mind muscle connection with the area that you're training, but it also means that you can achieve the stimulus that you're looking for with less total load. And in my case, I find that means less compensation too. So especially when you're going to a movement like an RDL where there is a lot of room for compensation, it just keeps me. keeps me honest and allows me to focus more on the glutes and hamstrings in the movement and less on the ego fueling my load selection. So I think for lower body movements, exercise ordering certainly has a place. I think it does for upper body movements too. I mean, on a smaller scale, you'll see me going from like a cross body tricep push down and then the next movement will be an overhead tricep extension. Same thing with biceps. I'll go from like a cable spider curl, which is short overloaded. and then the next movement will be a cable face-to-weight curl. And I'm not doing this to use less weight. Like the question asks, it's more just about what I believe to be the optimal exercise sequencing for hypertrophy.

[Aaron Straker]: 59:37

I don't think there's anything I could add onto the back of that. You covered that from every angle that I thought of. I guess this next one let's kick to you as well. Can you include intensity techniques in sets made of only partial reps?

[Bryan]: 59:55

Yeah, if there's no reason you can't, especially if you're using them the way that Milo Wolf does it, where you're establishing a predetermined stop point. So say you're doing 60% of range of motion, then you could just do a set to whatever RIR you wanna do. You could take your 15 second rest. You could do rest, pause, sets, myoreps, whatever you wanna call it, same idea. You can also do partials after failure the way that I do them. So you could essentially go to failure and then your intensity technique would be. letting range of motion drop off and going into partial reps. The reverse drop set itself is an example of an intensity technique. So that would be, you know, you go close to failure on like a row or something like that. And then without resting, you increase the weight 20% and you do a bunch of partial reps. So there's definitely a number of different ways you can implement intensity techniques with partials. And I think there's probably utility in that in some cases as well.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:00:55

Yeah, yeah, I think you answered that one really, really well. There's nothing else I can add onto the back of that one.

[Bryan]: 1:01:01

Cool. Two questions about heart rate zones that I guess I can tackle here real quick. Can I trust the heart rate zones on my Apple Watch? Maybe. This is not asking how accurate the Apple Watch is in detecting your heart rate or anything like that. This question is asking the predetermined zones in the Apple Watch. So when I first got my Apple Watch and got into this cardio stuff, the zones were actually like, perfectly set for what I needed at that time. It had my zone two as 126 to 138 beats a minute, which I think is pretty spot on for beginning. But over the course of the last eight, nine months of doing all this cardio, my ability to hold zone two, my heart rate has gotten higher. So initially it was in the 65 to 70% of max heart rate range, which was directly in the middle of that. heart rate zone on the Apple Watch. And then as I got fitter, I've just had to adjust the zones manually. And I didn't even adjust them that much. It was 126 to 138, and I adjusted it to 132 to 144. So I think I took it up six beats on either side. So you can definitely go in and you can manually adjust them if you find that they're not accurate. But at least from my experience, they seem to be pretty accurate from the get-go because they're basing it on your max heart rate that it's detected. So as long as your Apple Watch has detected your max heart rate somewhat accurately to what your max heart rate actually is, then I think you can trust the zones. If your max heart rate has been pinged at some error number, whether it's too low or too high, then I think your zones will probably be off at that point.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:53

Well

[Bryan]: 1:02:54

Anything

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:54

said.

[Bryan]: 1:02:54

to add?

[Aaron Straker]: 1:02:55

No, I mean, I will just add that I thought I was smarter. I have a Garmin, but I thought I was smarter than the Garmin and put my own zones in there and then promptly fell apart this past week doing my cardio and it said I was in the zone one when I was in the sixth interval on my bike sprints.

[Bryan]: 1:03:12

Yeah, you

[Aaron Straker]: 1:03:13

So

[Bryan]: 1:03:13

might need to adjust those again.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:03:14

I immediately got home and just reset it back to what it was originally telling me they were.

[Bryan]: 1:03:20

Yeah, yeah. All right, next final question before we do the final, so second to final. I struggle to get into zone two on a bike. How do I get there without impacting my leg workouts? Yeah, so I would encourage you to go back and actually listen to the episode we did on zone two and zone five cardio. I wanna say it was episode 103, 104, something like that. I could be wrong. But in that episode, I discussed a lot about how the bike. was really a struggle for me to get into zone two when I first started. And it was simply because I couldn't clear the lactic acid fast enough out of my legs. And so my legs would begin burning well before my heart actually got to the zone that I wanted to be in. Since then, I've realized that I just, I've gotten a lot better essentially at flushing the lactic acid. And I think that that's just a factor of time and commitment to the endeavor. So now I can get into zone two fine on the peloton without my legs feeling like they're gonna die However in that meantime because I do relate to this question and I had a lot of experience in a similar situation I Had to spend a decent amount of time alternating between standing and sitting and I still do that but just not to the same extent So when I would sit my legs would blow up in the quads because they're the primary mover And then when I would stand, I would be able to push backwards more. And so I'd be able to put more of that into my glutes and hamstrings. And so until you get to the point where you can just sit and your legs can properly flush all that lactic acid out, I think that alternating between standing and sitting might be the key there so that not one area gets extremely fatigued over the other. But again, if you go back and listen to that episode that we did, I specifically stated that. doing an exercise bike without arms that move. So like not like an assault bike or a rogue echo bike, but say you're using like a Peloton or something like that or a road bike. It's just difficult if you're not used to clearing lactic acid out of your legs like that and it just takes time. The bikes with arms allow you to use your upper body equally. And so it takes a lot of that stress off your legs. Or if you feel your legs are, you know, starting to burn too much, you just switch to more upper body and then you can switch back to more legs. So it gives you kind of some more of that freedom that way. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think ultimately what's happening is you just are, uh, you just have poor ability to clear lactate from your legs. And that's part of being poor at cardio. Um, and so improvements in cardiovascular performance in include, uh, the ability to clear lactate better. And so that's not just the lactate that's, you know, going through your cardiovascular system, that's making you breathe hard, but it's literally the lactate in the muscle as well. And so it's all interrelated.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:06:17

I think what Brian subtly jabbed you with a you are not good at cardio, which is why you can't get there without your legs burning, which

[Bryan]: 1:06:26

That's literally

[Aaron Straker]: 1:06:27

was also,

[Bryan]: 1:06:27

exactly, exactly. Thank you for the synopsis, yes.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:06:30

which was also a subtle jab at me too, because I find myself in the same boat.

[Bryan]: 1:06:36

Well, it was a subtle jab at myself until the last couple of months. So final question here for Aaron. Actually the person wrote for Aaron, so thank you for sending this to me for Aaron. Can you go through each of the coaches you've hired and share a few key takeaways of what you've learned from both a coaching and a business perspective?

[Aaron Straker]: 1:07:00

This is such a good question and I'm not gonna lie, I sat here preparing for this episode and I probably spent like 20 minutes sitting here thinking about this question. So, kind of off the top, I've had three coaches, primarily that I've worked with, the first being Jason Theobald, the second Alex Bush, and the third in my current coach is Jackson Piaz. And I guess I'll just start at the top. So, I f- To kind of peel it back a little bit, I feel incredibly, incredibly fortunate that Jason Theobald was the first person I kind of reached out to. This is in very early 2018, right as I was getting like very serious about the space. And the reason I feel very, you know... Fortunate there is when you're new in something, like kind of what Brian and I briefly talked about on last week's episode, you're very impressionable, right? And I feel like Jason was wonderful for me to be impressed upon by. And the real reason is I learned from him to really place an emphasis on health. Fitness does not automatically equal health. And that's something that we find so much in this space, especially with like your younger coaches and stuff. thing I'm training like you know that's healthy they are correlative but not necessarily it's it's not they're not like a mutual mutually exclusive I might have used that in the wrong context but I get I hope you get what I'm saying just because you like lift weights and you're not overweight does it necessarily mean that like things are moving in a healthy manner um And he really, really like sparked my desire to learn about the human body at a deeper level, like the endocrine system, understanding digestion at a much deeper level and those sorts of things. And I've said this before, but I feel like that in him specifically has really helped kind of skyrocket the trajectory of my coaching career from the beginning. I would say from a business perspective, like I didn't learn like too too much from Jason because it was very X's and O's of nutrition. But he, I mean he's open, he talks about just like when you do a really really good job, like results speak for themselves, right? When you take care of your clients, they refer you other clients and that's a very sustainable way to build a business. So that's something that I've kind of used as a cornerstone for myself there personally. Moving forward into Alex, Alex was, it was a bit of a different approach as it was more very much like physique focused. And I think something that where maybe I'm not the best person for this question to ask is when I'm. When I'm reaching out to a coach, there's already a minimum threshold of what they know or assume that I am coming in with. So Alex isn't gonna be teaching me about, here's how you count macros and these sorts of things. It was like a very, we got to business and I said, hey, I wanna learn more about the phasing of how he cycles the different stimuli of. training and that was the biggest thing that we really focused on. A lot of movement execution and pretty much just physique stuff. We very rarely talked about food there. And the one thing that I will say that I took from Alex and how they structure their company is they run their business and I'm obviously speaking from my outside perspective, it's much more akin to like how other industries work. So in the contract when there's like, hey, there's going to be, I think it was two weeks out of the year, but please forgive me if I'm botching this, but like, hey, there's going to be two weeks out of the year that we take a vacation. not gonna have check-ins right and then one of those weeks came up when during you know my time with with with him and it was just like okay we're not doing check-ins this week like Alex is on vacation like seeing family and that one was a bit of like an eye-opener because for me that's like something in five years I've only missed the majority of my check-ins one week over five years. So I've never taken that full time away. And even that week I still did six or seven of them for clients that. still submitted them even though I asked them not to, which that's on me sort of thing. So that was like some good stuff I took from them. And then moving into Jackson. So I will preface this, it's kind of not a fair assessment comparatively because I've just simply spent a lot more time with Jackson than the other two. The other two were purely, I've never even met Alex Bush purely, online we correspond. years I met him one time at a conference sort of thing but Jackson and I have some like business together and those sorts of things and we'll like some like we just we have more of a relationship I would say so it's a little bit different. One of the biggest things I picked up from him is like being more confident in what I know to be true regardless of possible research limitations on it. That was something that I used to really, really struggle with being like, okay, well, I think I feel confident in this, but these people with, you know, PhDs who are smarter than me are saying X. So I, that makes me wrong. to trust your gut a little bit more in some of those things. And that's just been eye opening for me. Challenge your clients, especially when they are shooting below the mark that they are capable of. Something that I think Jackson does really well is he's very much focused on the mission and saying like hey You came to me with these goals that you said you want to hit When you go have 12 beers over the weekend, like how is that representative of these sorts of things? So being a little bit more firm There in in the proper context that sort of thing Those are both coaching related and then lastly to wrap up Business, I think at some point we should try to get Jackson on. He'll be a wonderful conversation, but

[Bryan]: 1:13:35

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:13:36

a lot. Let's just put it that way. Jackson is a machine, like a literal machine. He has a very, very interesting outlook on things, and I don't want to try and speak for him, but you know, with some of the business that we have together. It's been very, very, it's been a very informative process for myself, but also just in like, again, being confident in what you know, when you do good work, people will kind of flock to it sort of thing. And I'm sure more will come out over the coming months on that, but it has been very, very beneficial for me from a professional standpoint. And I'm grateful for the relationship that we've built together and for everyone that I've had the opportunity to learn from career thus far. So a really really cool kind of introspective question and hopefully a decent answer from myself.

[Bryan]: 1:14:31

Yeah, that was really a really tight synopsis there trying to put like four years of coaching into like a six minute segment. So really good work there. And definitely feel like we should get Jackson on as well, especially with all the work that you guys are doing together right now.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:14:48

Yeah, we'll see if we can get him get on his calendar sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 1:14:52

Sweet. All right, well, I need to go get kids to school and stuff. So thanks for hanging out, guys.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:14:58

Thank you guys for listening. As

[Bryan]: 1:14:59

Hehehe

[Aaron Straker]: 1:14:59

always, Brian and I will talk to you next week.

[Bryan]: 1:15:05

All right, I'm just gonna leave this thing up unless it stops right

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:07

I

[Bryan]: 1:15:07

now.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:07

cannot stop the recording for some reason. I

[Bryan]: 1:15:13

Uhhhh...

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:13

don't know what the fuck to do. Look for on portraits to see if there, I can't, the recording button, the stop button's all grayed out.

[Bryan]: 1:15:26

Hmm. Do

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:27

I

[Bryan]: 1:15:27

you

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:27

don't

[Bryan]: 1:15:27

think

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:27

know what

[Bryan]: 1:15:27

you

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:27

to

[Bryan]: 1:15:27

can

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:27

do.

[Bryan]: 1:15:28

log out and log back in?

[Aaron Straker]: 1:15:30

Yeah, let me try and leave the studio and jump back in and see if I can. Okay, now I'm at zero down here, now on the timer.

[Bryan]: 1:16:04

I'm not really sure what to say, bro.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:07

It's I don't know why it was just all grayed out. There's nothing I couldn't stop it. And now it looks like I have a new. It. Yeah, I. Let me see if I can get to the recording media. Nope. Why don't?

[Bryan]: 1:16:27

I gotta go, so just, I'll leave this open and just like hit me up on Instagram and let me know what I should do.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:33

I think it should maybe, it has to be by now recorded up enough. I would just jump out and then if you need to revisit, jump into the page to, like the re-upload page, we'll do that. But I would just pop out for now. I'll

[Bryan]: 1:16:46

Alright,

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:47

just

[Bryan]: 1:16:47

so

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:47

end

[Bryan]: 1:16:47

just

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:47

it

[Bryan]: 1:16:47

hit

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:47

all.

[Bryan]: 1:16:47

leave.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:16:48

Yeah, I'm gonna end it for all of us right now. Later.