5 Signs You're Making Good Gains | ETP#122

[Aaron Straker]: 0:30

What's up guys? Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of Eat, Train, Prosper. Today we are talking about five signs that you are making good gains. So it should be a really fun episode. Brian and I have picked our kind of high level top five and then we have some obviously tertiary and secondary points underneath just to make sure that you are kind of crossing the box or checking the box, I should say, on all of these to ensure that you're getting the most that you possibly could be and not kind of inhibiting any of the progress that you could be making as well. But before we get into the topic, as always, Brian, can you kick us off with some updates, please?

[Bryan]: 1:04

Yeah, I have a few updates as y'all probably expect. We were just briefly talking off air about a study I read two weeks ago that basically, or not a study, it was a news story. I'm so used to saying study all the time. It was a news story that they found that 50% of the water that comes through our taps in our country in the United States, whether rural or metropolitan, has quote forever chemicals in it. And so these are the chemicals that can lead to like cancer and dementia and like stuff like that. And so I was Aaron was not surprised by it. I think it after thinking about it for even like a split second I wasn't surprised either but my first reaction upon reading it was oh shit because I've actually taken the stand for two decades that Tap water makes me stronger and helps me build immunity and like all of this shit So I've literally been not purposefully avoiding filtered water but I've just been, I don't hold back or have any hesitation in drinking tap water. And since that story two weeks ago, I've been really trying to avoid tap water. And now I wonder if I have done myself damage, but mostly just a PSA for everybody. If you haven't seen this story or anything, I think it's relevant to our audience. Like we encourage you to drink a lot of water. And sometimes the most accessible water is tap water. So, um, yeah, maybe just consider that and think about, uh, you know, getting a filter for your house. If that's something that you can do. Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 2:40

Fortunately

[Bryan]: 2:40

All right.

[Aaron Straker]: 2:41

for me here, the water is very unsafe, so everything comes in a bottle. So. Yeah.

[Bryan]: 2:49

Yeah, you're good to go for the last couple years at least. Were you a tap water drinker in the US?

[Aaron Straker]: 2:55

Oh my god, I would drink from the garden hose.

[Bryan]: 2:57

Yeah, exactly. Me too. Okay. Good. Well, good to know we're both going to die. Um, all right. So updates for me, um, last, last Monday or Tuesday when we spoke here, I was getting excited that my new bike was going to arrive. My bike, a Rov, a Rov, a Rov arrived, um, the next day. And, uh, and it was awesome. I'm super excited. I got it built the next day by, uh, by the bike shop locally and took it out for a super long ride. I have this kind of 70 or 80% gravel ride that I really like to do that takes me from Boulder to Longmont and back. It's about 15 miles each way. And so I did that ride and I wanted to do that one specifically because I wanted to compare my results, uh, on my mountain bike compared to my new gravel bike. And, uh, it was about one mile per hour faster in speed. for the whole two hour ride. So that means I was going about 16 plus miles per hour instead of 15 plus miles per hour, which cut off about eight or nine minutes on the whole ride. So I don't know if that was as drastic of a change as I had hoped for or expected, but in the grand scheme of things, when you're looking at a two hour ride and you're cutting off eight or nine minutes, that seems significant. And then in the course of this race that I'm doing in October, potentially three and a half to four hours would mean you know, 15 minutes of time cut off or more. So I do think it's relevant. It took a little bit of getting used to. The bike setup is quite different with the handlebars in the front. The gear shift and the brakes are also in the front instead of on the handlebars that are more proximal. And it has these like weird racer handlebars that kind of curve under. But overall, super amped about it. I looked at my Strava, which is how I track my cardio, and it noted that I did 154 miles on the bike this last week, which is 40 miles more than my biggest week yet, which means prior to this, it was 114 miles. And I was reflecting back on a conversation I had with my buddy Andy, who's kind of my friend, who's a pro gravel bike racer. And when I was telling him about this race back in, I want to say it was like February or something like that, maybe January. And he was telling me, he's like, yeah, just start it, you know, 60 miles a week and do that for a while. And then as you get closer to the race, bump it up to 80 or a hundred for a week or two, and you should be fine, you know, for this race. So to see me now like averaging over a hundred miles a week and then having a week that's 154 miles is kind of wild and probably a bit excessive for the goal. But you know, as we discussed last time, it's enjoyable. And I'm really kind of enjoying the process. So all good things there. I finally figured out how to stop my body weight from dropping, at least temporarily it seems. Since I noted last week that I saw my first weigh-in under 190, I haven't seen a single weigh-in under 190 since. I was 192 yesterday and then 191 and change this morning. So that's good, I guess. I'm not like opposed to losing weight. If it happens, it happens. As I think it would just help me be more efficient on the bike. But I'm really like really stuffing myself every day. Like I literally eat at dinner until like I can't fit any more food in my body. And then sometimes I'll wait an hour and try to eat more food. And so I feel like I'm bulking. which is wild because you were just going through all of these emotions of your bulk and you know, all the food that you have to eat and how hard that is. And I'm kind of experiencing the same thing in like a very different kind of way. So that's been interesting. And then I think my last update here is that I, found some sustainability now with three times a week training. So it's been a little over a week that I've been pretty consistently training. three times a week instead of trying to force for four and a half, five sessions a week, which is kind of what I was doing before. And so as this biking has ramped up and I've taken the training down now to three times a week, it actually feels like way better. It's wild what, you know, just cutting one weightlifting session out of the weekly sequence does for kind of my recoverability. And it makes me wonder how much of that fatigue comes from the weights versus the cycling. And I think... Like I already, I always thought it was weights more, but now I think it's even more weighted toward the weights, especially the way that I'm doing the cardio where it's mostly zone two and like a lot of like zone two, zone one even, like I have two recovery rides each week that are zone one. And so it does really feel like the weights are probably the more significant piece here. But anyway, three times a week is great. After complaining last week that I didn't improve for the first time, and actually, I don't know if you'd say I'd. backslid, but I added weight and then lost a rep last week. This week, everything's been great. I've been kind of progressing on everything, had a back session yesterday where every single movement across the board improved. So that's reassuring and cool. And, you know, it makes me think that some of it really just has to do with body weight. Like that's really the factor, and I think we'll get into this in our topic today. But like, as my body weight was dipping, I was having worse performance in the gym because I wasn't sufficiently fueling myself. And then as I really force food and make sure that I'm giving my body the recovering nutrients that it needs, it seems like performance is trending back up again. So, kind of obvious, but just always important to note that your body weight and the amount of food that you're eating really has an important impact on performance. And I will kick that over to you. Actually, I'll have a question for you as you jump into your updates. How has it been transitioning out of the bulking phase now and eating a little bit less food?

[Aaron Straker]: 9:10

I mean, it was kind of a hard week because I got, we touched on this on last week's episode, but I got sick right as the deficit started. I was sick Monday, Tuesday. And then I deloaded, so my training wasn't, I did really like eight to 10 sets. of 20% of, you know, 80% of my normal, it was a push of a training. You know, I wasn't training very intensely or anything like that. So I mean, weight moved down but not like I would have expected. Still some 215s, those sorts

[Bryan]: 9:49

Okay.

[Aaron Straker]: 9:49

of things. But it was, it's a very easy adjustment. Calories are still at 3000 and I do think they will stay there for a little bit of time as training kind of ramps up in terms of overall volume, which is kind of one of my updates. here. But it's been it's been it's been a nice reprieve because I feel like I'm not behind the ball anymore.

[Bryan]: 10:11

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:11

I do have one more meal to eat tonight but it's like 150 grams of salmon and like 60 grams of avocado or sorry not

[Bryan]: 10:20

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:20

salmon tuna.

[Bryan]: 10:21

So

[Aaron Straker]: 10:21

That's

[Bryan]: 10:21

it doesn't

[Aaron Straker]: 10:22

easy.

[Bryan]: 10:22

feel like you're forcing food at this point anymore.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:26

No, and I will say, and this is kind of one of the notes that we have here, there was, there was, when we would make an increase, you know, food, I would, I would be a little bit full, that sort of thing. But by the end of the, of my, you know, gaining phase, food was going down very easily. I felt satiated at meals, never overly full, as long as I was able to time them appropriately. If I didn't get meal two until like 1 p.m. That was gonna be a rough, rough day because that means I had meal two, three, pre-workout, post-workout, you know, four and five to go from 1 p.m. until 10 p.m. There's no, that you're eating every two hours. You can't really skin that. And that's with training in the middle of that too. But now it's lower volume. It's a nice reprieve right now. But calories are still very, very. So I'm in that kind of sweet spot. We'll see how body weight trends, but I'm already feeling like noticeably leaner there.

[Bryan]: 11:28

Yeah, cool.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:31

All right, so I mean, jumping into my updates, I'll kind of work backwards a little bit. So on last week's episode, I believe it was last week, I talked about this idea of treating my diet like a training camp sort of thing, where I was like, it's probably the last time I'm going to really have the resources, in terms of time resources, to dedicate fully to something like this. And I wanna give it everything, right? I'm obviously going through with this big calorie deficit. I wanna have the best physique of my life. I'll be... By the time we wrap up, you know, close to pushing 36 years old, I want one last, you know, swing for the fences sort of thing. And I was talking with my coach, you know, friend, business partner, Jackson, about it and he was like, let's just start training together, right? But we'll treat it like a camp, right? We'll have extra accountability, quality spots, we'll push each other, that sort of thing. So we linked up for the first training session today, which was legs. it's a lot more volume and they're long. They're long, let's put it that way. So I was kinda nervous going in, but I'm perfectly fine. And that's one of those things that I find it, which we're gonna touch on a little bit here. So, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it off. When you have these challenges, right, I feel like many times people, we sell ourselves short and you're often capable of like much more than you initially think once you get into the mix of things. But we had a, granted we had a third person training with us today, so things moved a little bit slower. We had a three and a half hour leg session. But I felt perfectly fine. Like at

[Bryan]: 13:09

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:10

the last exercises I was still pushing really, really hard. I feel a little bit like systemically. Like I tried very hard on many compounds, you know, over the day, but I don't feel like I'm going to be like crushed from it.

[Bryan]: 13:25

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:25

So who knows, maybe I'll eat my words, but I'm excited for kind of camp, public off day stuff, sauna sessions, cardio, that sort of thing. But I'm excited to feel like I'm kind of like an athlete again,

[Bryan]: 13:38

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:39

and take that with this calorie deficit over the next four to five months per se.

[Bryan]: 13:44

That's very interesting and I think there's a lot of advantages to training with somebody that's going to push you. And you know, I'm a huge fan of taking really long rest periods too. So having a training

[Aaron Straker]: 13:54

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 13:54

partner is going to kind of force you to like slow down and probably rest more. Like we talked about on the hack, you know, five to six minutes versus two to three really makes a big difference.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:03

It does.

[Bryan]: 14:04

But I do have a question on this though, because

[Aaron Straker]: 14:06

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 14:07

it seems as if now you're jumping in onto like his program more or less. it seems like it's no longer individualized to you. So from an optimality standpoint, like have you considered that? What do you think about the fact that, you know, you've sort of found over the last year that you like training harder with less volume, especially on lower body stuff. And so how does that kind of play into your whole mindset of the training dose in general?

[Aaron Straker]: 14:39

It is a very similar style. So almost everything is top set back off set. It's just instead of having hams and quads separated, there's like two leg days per... I think it's a 12-day rotation and those are just together. So the leg days are long because there's just a lot of exercises per se, but it was very, you know, a top set sub 10. Sorry. Yeah, top set sub 10 reps, back offset over 10 reps. Sometimes we have like a rest pause or something like that. So it was very similar, but now hamstrings and quads are on the same day.

[Bryan]: 15:19

That's brutal, yeah. Another thing I love about this is that you're now officially a non-calendar week guy.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:27

Yeah, that's true. And

[Bryan]: 15:28

Dude, you're

[Aaron Straker]: 15:28

honestly,

[Bryan]: 15:28

basically

[Aaron Straker]: 15:29

I'm

[Bryan]: 15:29

coming

[Aaron Straker]: 15:29

a...

[Bryan]: 15:29

over to my side. Where we go? Long rest periods, non-calendar week.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:35

There are parts that I do like, but there's parts that also kind of scare me. For instance, like Tuesday is one of my busiest days. You know, I had a console 730 this morning. I roll into check-ins. I know, like, I have to get these all done by X time because I know I have... I like to... I'm kind of like an inbox zero with my coaching where I like... I'm like, okay, six check-ins came in, you know, overnight. I'm getting them all done before I do anything else. to train knowing I have check-ins. Is it just like, I don't know, I just like having it done sort of thing. But then knowing, okay, I have big training session, I was literally gone for like four plus hours,

[Bryan]: 16:18

I'm gonna go.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:18

come in, podcast, and then I'll probably have like another check-in or two to complete tonight. That part is just, it's just going to require new management skills that I previously haven't had to really do because... I mean, don't get me wrong, life is good. I have commitments to my clients, which I love, but there's no kids, there's no other responsibilities. Like, my responsibilities are run my business, eat, sleep, and lift weights sort of thing. So it does add a new layer of complexity of planning that I just previously haven't had to yet deal with.

[Bryan]: 16:53

Yeah, no, it's all interesting. I'm excited to follow along. That's a really cool, unique and unexpected, to be honest.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:01

Yeah, I'm excited, I'm a little bit nervous, but I mean, we're both quite intelligent. I would say I think any kind of challenges that things come up, we'll be able to manage intelligently

[Bryan]: 17:12

Yep,

[Aaron Straker]: 17:13

from there.

[Bryan]: 17:13

yep. Cool, sounds good. What else you got?

[Aaron Straker]: 17:16

Second one, so last week I touched on the online coaching upgrade, which is my business project that I do have with Jackson. We had our third class, which sold out, which is always very, very cool. We're very, very appreciative for the next batch of coaches coming in. That is a project I absolutely love running. It's a kind of a cool way to kind of give back to the coaching space that I've been fortunate to find success in, or that we both have, I should say. It's really, really cool to just kind of equip some of the younger and newer coaches in the space with like one good morning. moral standards to operate in because we know obviously the fuckery that goes on in this space. Good tools to help them run their business in just paths of wisdom and ways to grow the right way with their morals intact. So I'm always super, super happy with that. I'm glad it's vibing and jiving with the coaches too because we market from a place that we feel comfortable marketing in. We're not like... Join this program in 100x your coaching and make$10,000 a month like all the other bullshit that everyone else does that's just empty promises and shady business practices. What we're teaching is exactly how we run our businesses, exactly how we communicate with our clients. So it's a very feel good product offering, which I love. And then the last one that I don't want to get into too much because it's ongoing and I feel like every time I say something it changes. Last week Jenny adopted two cats or I should say we adopted two cats which has been on her to-do list forever and now that we know that we're going to be living in Bali longer. We adopted cats and then after a few days, or kittens I should say, they just weren't like playing like kittens would be and we're like, let's just call the vet in, you know, sort of thing. Come to find out they're both dying of something called like FIP, which is like feline something, something like periodontist. I can't remember. But if you look at that, it's something that affects 1% of cats worldwide. It's a mutated

[Bryan]: 19:18

Peace.

[Aaron Straker]: 19:18

version of a coronavirus, like a cat coronavirus sort of thing. Like, what are the odds that we have two of them that both have it? They're non-related kittens sort of thing. And now it's been a lot of just emotional stress, especially for Jenny,

[Bryan]: 19:36

Yikes.

[Aaron Straker]: 19:36

back and forth between taking them from one vet to a different vet, ordering this experimental medication and getting it overnighted in and reading research on it. I mean, I am grateful that I have my background with working with clients, reading lab work, because I understand the cat's lab work. majority of it's the same exact kind of lab work as humans. And then reading on this research of this medication and understanding dosing and a lot of that stuff. So I am fortunate for it, but it's just, it's a lot that I was not expecting and it's been a very, very emotional week.

[Bryan]: 20:14

Yeah, that's heavy. So are they like, are they likely going to die? Or is it like, is it art? Can they be saved?

[Aaron Straker]: 20:27

We just I think we broke up a little bit. Can you say that again?

[Bryan]: 20:30

Yeah, yeah. Are are they like, what would you feel like the chances are that they're going to live or like, are they on the path to death?

[Aaron Straker]: 20:39

It's hard to say they're both in the vet now in a different vet from the first one because the first vet was like Hey, they have this thing. There's nothing you can do about it. You have to put them down and That was rough because we had him for like three fucking days or something

[Bryan]: 20:53

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 20:53

like that

[Bryan]: 20:53

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 20:55

And then we're like, I was like, well, we go get a second opinion sort of thing, right? So we did that and then they're like, okay, yes, this one's very sick. This other one though is fine. You can take this one home. So we did, had a great two days and then noticed that like, when she's like laying there, she's breathing like way too fucking fast. And even like looking things up like, this is not okay. It's way too fast. So talk to some people and they're like, yes, that's an emergency. Take her into the hospital. So then we end up with the second cat back in the hospital where the first one is. We have them on the medication. One is doing okay. The other one is not doing okay. Like in like what would be like a critical condition, I would say.

[Bryan]: 21:36

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:37

Hopefully within a few days of being on this medication that we literally got overnighted in. will start to improve, but I just, I can't, I don't feel comfortable saying anything because the vets, like, the news you'll get in the morning is different than the news that you'll get in the afternoon, and it's just, dude, that's fucking a lot. And if I'm being

[Bryan]: 21:57

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:57

honest, what it made me realize is like, I am woefully unprepared for children.

[Bryan]: 22:02

Hahaha.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:03

Like, and

[Bryan]: 22:04

It's different.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:05

it's made, I, is a lot of emotions that I just haven't felt in like over half my life. You know, like I haven't had to deal with like heartbreak or anything. Life's been great for like the last, like literally since I moved to San Diego in 2010. Life's been like more or less rather chill. I mean, I've had some injuries and things like that, but it's, I haven't had like emotional roller coasters and like... Whoa, these feelings again, like this fucking feels terrible. Like I don't want to feel these things and stuff. And it's just been like a lot of foreign feelings and emotions that I forgot were part of life. And I just don't want to fucking deal with it.

[Bryan]: 22:48

Yeah, no, I feel that I'm not a cat person. In fact, I'm allergic to them, so I don't really like

[Aaron Straker]: 22:53

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 22:53

them. So I will keep my insensitive comments to myself and let you have your emotions.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:59

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm a cat person, but one thing I did realize, like I always thought I was gonna have dogs because growing up I had a bunch of dogs. And then when I, so here's the thing, right? Hammer, you remember Rob Hammer who took all the photos

[Bryan]: 23:13

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 23:13

and stuff

[Bryan]: 23:13

of

[Aaron Straker]: 23:13

at the

[Bryan]: 23:13

course.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:13

gym? Had this amazing husky named Mojo, it was this incredible

[Bryan]: 23:17

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:17

dog. He died like a year ago and it fucking crushed me. And like, it wasn't even my dog.

[Bryan]: 23:24

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:25

And I realized like, I'm not equipped for pets. I don't think I can handle the emotional side of it. So I was like, oh, I realize now I'm not gonna get a dog, because I'm not gonna be able to handle it when it dies way before I do sort of thing. So I was like, okay, Aaron's not doing pets, but Jenny really wanted the cats. I'm not gonna say fucking no.

[Bryan]: 23:44

Right.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:45

But yeah, it sucks.

[Bryan]: 23:48

Yeah, that's quite unfortunate. Okay, let's

[Aaron Straker]: 23:50

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 23:50

move on to happier topics like gaining muscle.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:53

Let's do that for sure. So the first thing that we kind of picked like five top ones and potentially there are some other kind of ancillaries and stuff, but the very first thing that we want to talk about is making sure that your training is very challenging. And then I have a little, in parentheses here, relative, right? Because challenging is a subjective term in what might be challenging for you, may not be challenging for like, you know, Brian or someone with a much more extensive training history. But... If we kind of boil it down to the basics, so like if you...if the goal is hypertrophy, right? Hypertrophy happens in response to a stimulus that our body needs to then adapt to, right? So the classic example of like day one you do three sets of, you know, 10 reps out of the 20-pound dumbbell for a bicep curl. Five years down the road, that three sets of 10 reps at 20 pounds is no longer going to be challenging enough for that your body to produce an adaptation to. So that challenge needs to be on a relative kind of increasing curve as your training age and adaptations continue to occur.

[Bryan]: 25:10

Yeah, there's a feels like we're heading toward a little bit of discussion around the philosophical approach to progressive overload versus more like forcing progressive overload. And so we've kind of flip flopped on our thoughts on this over the two plus years of the podcast. I think initially we were very on board with that philosophical approach of like, Hey, let's just wait and see for the gains to show up and then recognize the gains. And then when we're like, oh, that weight's too light now, then hey, that's a sign you should add some weight, right? And then I think we kind of went back the other way and it was more like, ah, you kind of sometimes just have to like force the progression and like make your body adapt. Where do you stand on that now and how do you relate this to being in a surplus, trying to gain muscle?

[Aaron Straker]: 25:57

I don't like the term of like forcing your body to adapt because I feel like that can lead you down like chasing it

[Bryan]: 26:10

Comprising

[Aaron Straker]: 26:10

erroneously.

[Bryan]: 26:10

form.

[Aaron Straker]: 26:11

Yeah, yeah. And what I'd say most aligns with me personally is instead of this weight feels like easy now or this weight feels light now, I don't think they ever really feel light, but it's just like... this weight still feels the same way, but I can do more.

[Bryan]: 26:32

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 26:32

Like you discover that you can just do more, right? Like one day, like through like the iterative, like increases in challenging yourself and trying to add a rep here, like you just discover that you're eventually stronger and then like using that or choosing loads that are pushing you into that discovery as opposed to. You know, because like, great example on my D-load, I was like, hey, I'm going to do 20% less. The weights didn't feel light. And in fact, that kind of bit me in the ass because I wasn't like taking that mental, like, like attack into the sets thinking like, oh, well, I'm just doing 12 reps at 80 pounds. I did 12 reps at 100 pounds last week thinking it would be easy. It wasn't easy.

[Bryan]: 27:20

Right.

[Aaron Straker]: 27:20

And in many cases, I was like, I've gotten to get close to failure here, and I thought this would be easy and it's not. So

[Bryan]: 27:26

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 27:27

I think it's you just discover that you can do more.

[Bryan]: 27:30

Yeah, that's, the D-load thing is interesting because you go into the workout with this mindset that it's gonna be easy and you're like, oh, five RIR, like that's really easy work. But if you go into like a five RIR set of a hard movement and you're not mentally prepared for that set, that can certainly feel significantly harder than you want it to feel. I actually used to D-load like that a number of years ago. I used to just say, whatever weight I was using the final week before D-Load, I'll just use the same weight and do five reps less. And it was like a psychological battle to get myself to even build up to that weight. And then to have to do like a working set at that weight, it felt just like another work week that was slightly easier. So yeah, I think some of this conversation is bleeding over to our point number three, which we'll get to as we get to it. But I do have a couple thoughts, I think, that will relate to this conversation as we get into that one as well. Thanks for joining us.

[Aaron Straker]: 28:35

Let's do that. Let's move into three and then we'll circle back on two since it makes the best sense for the flow of the conversation.

[Bryan]: 28:40

All right, cool, yeah. So what I was gonna add is onto that kind of progression model is that if you're in a surplus and so you know that your body should be adapting at a given rate and you should be able to add weight at this given rate, right? This is where I love micro loading because it feels much less like you're forcing progression and it feels more just like you're meeting your body where it naturally would. would be anyways for progression. And this definitely is different when you're in a deficit as to like what your body can handle and how quickly you're gonna get stronger or even not stronger potentially in a deficit. But micro loading is great. And my general rule of thumb in a surplus when micro loading would be to stick to a 1% of the load or slightly under 1%. So you would say 1% is the cap. So on something like my hack squat, where I'm doing 500 plus pounds, I can add five pounds to that movement and it feels almost like nothing is happening or changed. Whereas if you add five pounds to a 20 pound dumbbell curl, we're talking about a lot, a lot different. It's like 25% of the load or something like that. So, yeah, I think it's obviously relative to the exercise, but if you have the option to micro load and now they have these fractional plates that you can buy at Rogue or wherever else for. like$30, you can have your own full set of fractional plates, a quarter pound, half pound, three quarter pound and one pound. I think that's a great tool to use as you kind of utilize and implement progressive overload in your gaining phase.

[Aaron Straker]: 30:22

Yeah, with this kind of point here in number three on getting stronger and having good training performance, one thing I want to make sure we kind of provide a decently clear distinction on is in general, you will be getting stronger, right? But if your goal is hypertrophy, don't get kind of blindsided by chasing strength, especially on like... like exercises like bench press, you know, maybe a squat, like sets of five in really trying to add 10 pounds per week on that. Like, that's not the best approach for hypertrophy because when you are training, you know, near maximal loads, oftentimes there is just... Form compromises, because you're trying as hard as you possibly can with a weight that is very, very heavy, so you end up bringing in, you know, ancillary muscle groups and those sorts of things in effort to move the load, but that takes tension and stimulus off of the target tissues that you want to train. So don't lose sight of that. Generally, you get stronger, but you're probably not. putting 30 pounds on your five rep max sort of thing. What we generally say, what I will say with most of my clients is we're working in the six plus rep range and then working with the rep ranges across a mesocycle. you find that like, hey, week one, I was doing, let's say a flat dumbbell bench press, I used the 70 pound dumbbells for like my first set of seven. Now I'm in like week 14 and instead of the 70s, I'm using like the 85s for a nine. Like that you are obviously stronger there, but we're not chasing like that low end strength per se.

[Bryan]: 32:11

Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I think that there's something to be said to for this idea of like cementing your performance, especially because it's hypertrophy and you're not like chasing strength numbers. And so Alberto Nunez has talked about this effort you talk about this as well, where you'll stick with the same weight for two or three weeks in a row, just to make sure that like you own the weight. And maybe you'll even feel over the course of those two or three weeks, you'll feel it not get easier per se, but it's like you just, you just handle it better. Like you have better control of the weight. You have a better mind muscle connection with the weight, whatever it is. So if you go from doing 10 reps with the eighties to 10 reps with the eighties three weeks later, but you own the weight more and you have much better precision with your execution, that is improvement. And that's going to you know, put some drops in the bucket of hypertrophy gains. Not necessarily strength gains because it's just a different beast. But in hypertrophy, you can own a weight and do better with a weight and that equals hypertrophy. So you don't necessarily have to see the logbook going up every single week.

[Aaron Straker]: 33:27

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up and honestly is I love this training progression model because it's foolproof, because sometimes it's, did I select the correct load? Did I maybe cheat myself by bumping up too high and then my ego kind of got in the way and I didn't, I shorted my pauses or something like that. But when it's, hey, I used the 80s for the past five weeks, in week one I used the 80s and I did seven reps, now it's week five with the 80s and I did like 12 reps, like that clear, you know, kind of foolproof progression. And it's not so much like, did I select the right load and those sorts of things. So I love that progression model of work with the same load, multiple weeks in a row, reach the top end of the rep range, the following week, increase load to, you know, if it's a dumbbell, the next dumbbell, and then your weights or your performance will drop down to the lower end of the rep range. Like it's like, it's quite foolproof.

[Bryan]: 34:30

Yeah, we've talked about this too. So I have to bring up the caveat that there are certain movements that just don't respond to adding reps very well. And the example I always use is weighted pull-ups. Like I can do five reps at whatever the weight is, and I will never do six reps at that weight. I will just do five forever. But if I add 2.5 pounds, I can do five and then I can add 2.5 pounds and I can do five. And so, uh, sometimes it's, it's the movement specific progression. And this is just something you kind of learn over time as to like, whether your body. will make that jump to one additional rep or whether it's just like, nope, but you can add a little bit of weight, you know? So yeah, keep that in mind.

[Aaron Straker]: 35:09

That's so good. I had a pull session yesterday and there's some supinated pull ups, chin ups in it. So I looped the D handles on the thing. And I give you a grant, it was the fourth exercise in the list. But I literally had two hard sets of it. I got six fucking reps.

[Bryan]: 35:25

Hehehehe

[Aaron Straker]: 35:25

I've been training for 20 years. I do my pull ups, I got six fucking reps on both sets. So don't, but it was a great stimulus. I got a great pump from it, great connection. And I know like I know I'm not doing sets of 15 18 pull-ups or whatever like it's I'm not in and that's okay and that had probably pull-ups probably haven't really progressed in a number of years But I'm still adding like stimulus in where

[Bryan]: 35:51

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 35:51

I want to and have a really clean execution on that movement

[Bryan]: 35:54

Yeah, probably also worth mentioning that it's harder to add a rep when you're training in lower rep ranges, because it's a larger percentage of the total. So if you're trying to go from six reps to seven reps, you're talking about a 16.6% increase, which if talking about a load increase is massive. I mean, to try to add 16% to your lift week to week would be wild. So the idea of trying to increase a rep and low rep ranges is significantly harder than increasing a rep and a higher rep range. And so all of that, like exercise selection, rep range, all of these things kind of intermingle and play into this like milieu of, of how we need to think about progression.

[Aaron Straker]: 36:37

Yep, really good. Anything else on number three before we jump back to number two?

[Bryan]: 36:42

No, let's go to number two.

[Aaron Straker]: 36:44

All right, so number two is, are you gaining weight? This one, it seems simple enough, but oddly it's a question that I'll get from clients sometimes. So I wanna make sure that we're just being transparent in it. If you're gaining muscle and we're eating in a surplus, well, yes, there is some body recomposition in smaller amounts, probably not that tangible of a difference. your weight needs to be increasing, generally. It doesn't mean that you're putting on a pound per week or whatever, but if when we're zooming out over a six week period, a seven week period, an eight plus week period, is your weight increasing? Because if we're adding muscle, it has to go somewhere. Where you can't add phantom muscle that doesn't weigh anything sort of thing. So that's one that I feel like people oftentimes will say things like, oh, well, hey, I wanna put on muscle, but I still wanna stay at 170 pounds. And I feel like people do themselves a disservice with some of those kind of plans, I guess I could call them.

[Bryan]: 37:50

Yeah, to do a little devil's advocate here, I feel like Chris Barakat might come on and argue against this point, or at least argue that body recomp is like a real thing that could happen, you know, depending on your level of advancement. So in theory, you could be gaining muscle and losing fat in very small margins, and your body weight could stay more or less the same. What are your thoughts on this?

[Aaron Straker]: 38:18

Yeah, I mean, I hope that I wasn't kind of making it seem like it's impossible. I have a client who will be wrapping up together shortly and I'm excited to share. Mail. at least mid-40s, potentially late 40s, and our body weight hasn't changed that much in the year plus that we've worked together, but we have very different day one and, you know, ending photos, and I am excited for that. However, if you just notice what I said, it's been over a year. So it's just... It's... I can't even say relatively. It's objectively very, very slow. In my kind of opinion... It's very, very slow for the effort as opposed to spending, let's say eight weeks or even 12 weeks dedicated putting on weight and then another eight or 12 dedicated like losing weight. You will have those changes generally much faster as opposed to spending a year, you

[Bryan]: 39:16

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 39:16

know, re-comping sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 39:18

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I feel like on one side of the spectrum, you have that, you know, oh, you could do body recamp comp and your body could stay, body weight could stay the same, but I think it would be prudent for us to also talk about the idea of the dreamer bulk or the excessive bulk or bare mode or whatever you wanna call it, because this is something, you know, we've touched on over the course of the time with this podcast, and I think we have similar opinions on it. But it is like really interesting to me that, you know, as you go through this, and I've rubbed shoulders with a number of the top people in this industry, it really seems like when you talk about, Hey, in your first three to five years of training, did you just go fucking ham on some food and end up a little larger than you wanted? And even though everyone now backtracks and it's like, no, you don't have to do that. Like you really, you, you can do it slow and blah, blah. It seems like everybody that got big did it. through getting really big at some point. And so I have this question a lot, like in DMs and stuff, people always ask me like, hey, can I get big doing this like really slow progression like science says, or do I need to do a dreamer balk type thing? And my response is usually, hey, if you're in the first three years of your training, like you probably should just go get it and eat big and live big, and you can always lose that fat later. So where do you kind of stand on that at the moment?

[Aaron Straker]: 40:43

Yeah, I think the trying to stay too lean is it's hard because obviously like being lean on Instagram and that Influence and stuff is flashy and no one gives a shit about you when you're at 16 body fat and plus that sort of thing But if you're if you actually like want to Be big I think you need dedicated times like Years long at least a year gaining, you know emphasis sort of thing to make noticeable like real decently quantifiable improvements. I think when you're trying to just like stay really lean and do the mini cut sort of thing, I mean, maybe if you're like a competitor or something, or maybe you're in your late 20s or in your 30s and you're natural and you're near that peak, like that's a different ball game. But if you're still like skinny, you know, and you're like, hey, I want muscle, like it's going to take years of surplus to do that. And I agree, I would do that. Like

[Bryan]: 41:45

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 41:45

I've run. I think of multiple times in my history of running year long plus, like gaining phases to put that size on.

[Bryan]: 41:56

Yeah, I think when I look at my own story, there were two periods where I let my body weight get up really big for me, what I felt like was big. And both periods correlated to huge increases in muscle at the end of the day. So back in college, I've talked about this, I went to college freshman year at 170 pounds and by Christmas break, I was 200. So I gained 30 pounds in four months and it wasn't great weight. But once I cut it off, I was 185 and I was just as lean as I was at 170. And I know there's like a lot of things going on there. Like, you know, I'm going through puberty and like there's just there's tons of testosterone and hormonal pieces happening. But that was for sure the most muscle I've ever gained in a small period of time in my entire life. And then second, when we got into CrossFit, I went up to 212, maybe 213. And that correlated with the period of time where I gained the most strength. And I don't know if I gained a ton of muscle during that time per se, but it really provided cushion that I needed to. get better at the skills of movement. And so at that time in my life, it served that purpose. But I do think, you know, there definitely are times where we're doing that kind of dreamer like, Hey, yo, bulk it up, YOLO. That's, that's something relevant.

[Aaron Straker]: 43:35

Yeah, and I mean, not to turn it too much into an episode on that, but I feel like there's benefits past just the muscle that comes on because what it does is it gives you an extended prolonged period away from a low calorie, low energy availability environment. And in many cases, if you were someone who tried to stay lean for too long and that sort of thing, you can correct a lot of those adaptations that had taken place from that. And then when you do go to diet the next time, you're in a much better place. like hormonally from an appetite regulation, ghrelin signaling, I don't know, I can't think of the other one, ghrelin,

[Bryan]: 44:13

Lepton.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:13

leptin signaling.

[Bryan]: 44:14

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:15

And it's just, you'll find a diet easier when you're starting from a place that's very, very far and months away from any kind of calorically restrained intake.

[Bryan]: 44:26

Yeah, and it just is obvious, but it ensures you're in a surplus. Like sometimes you get people that are, you know, towing that line like, oh, I'm just 300 calories above maintenance. And then, you know, some days they're not 300 calories above and they're 100 or 200 below, depending on their activity levels. And just being in dreamer bulk mode, like a thousand plus calories or whatever it is, excess per week or per day rather. that, uh, that just ensures that you're in a surplus and there is no doubt that you're having anabolism occur at all times.

[Aaron Straker]: 45:03

Um, on the back end of the gaining weight one, if there is a really good published research, it's from Eric Helms and Alan Aragon on rates of gain in natural bodybuilders. And that's actually a part of the information that I use to build the fat loss and muscle gain models. So that is out there to help you kind of steer. the direction in quantification of like a amount of rates of gain, I should say. The last thing I wanted to touch on with the gaining weight, and this one, honestly, being fully transparent is a newer for me. The gaining weight versus via muscle protein synthesis signaling via training versus pushing food. So I feel like something that so many people do, especially the younger guys, is calories go super, super high. I'm gaining on 5,000 calories per day, 6,000 calories per day sort of thing. will allow that your... Obviously it's going to push your weight up. I can't confidently say that I think the partitioning is going to be the best and it also allows you more slack with suboptimal and... I don't want to use the word suboptimal in the wrong context, but like lackluster training. That's a much better term. Lackluster training. Or you can take the approach of like really, really dialing and training, make sure you're training like really, really adequately providing very good stimulus and that sort of thing. And then you can use those large, you know, NPS signaling of the training to drive the weight gain. Obviously, you still need a calorie surplus, but you do not need nearly the degree of the 5,000, 6,000 calories

[Bryan]: 46:53

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 46:53

sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 46:54

I think one thing relevant here that I don't know if all of our listeners know is the MPS stimulation can only happen every three to five hours or whatever it is. And so... Back in the day when I was dream rebalancing, I was just thinking the more protein I get, the more often the better. And so, you know, 10 times a day, I try to get myself like a bolus of protein or something along those lines. But literally when you fill up your bucket of MPS, you can't stimulate muscle protein synthesis again until that bucket sort of like slowly drips out. And then you're more or less back at baseline. It's called the refractory period, right? And so, um, I'm pretty sure that's the term.

[Aaron Straker]: 47:41

always just heard of it as the muscle full effect.

[Bryan]: 47:44

Well, refractory period is the period as it depletes and

[Aaron Straker]: 47:47

Oh yeah,

[Bryan]: 47:48

then

[Aaron Straker]: 47:48

sorry.

[Bryan]: 47:48

before you can refill it again. And so once it's the muscle full effect and you're full, then you have to wait for this refractory period to take place before you can fill it up again. And so literally, if you're eating every two hours, the second dose of protein is not. stimulating MPS. It might be doing other things for your body, organs, tissues, skin, things like this, but it's not necessarily doing MPS. And so having four meals a day or five meals a day is probably better than having eight to 10 meals a day. And so that's probably worth noting as well.

[Aaron Straker]: 48:22

Yeah, if you're a male, let's say north of like 165 pounds, or I mean, I could say female north of 165 pounds looking to gain, generally going with a minimum of 25 grams of protein per each serving or per each bolus, I would say, is I believe what the research showed kind of maximally stimulates the muscle protein synthesis via each... Of course, over that like four to five times per day. Obviously, if you're like 110 pounds or smaller, that can be relatively smaller. I would say aim for like 20, but that's a generally pretty solid rule of thumb. As opposed to having 90 grams of protein with dinner, but only like eight grams of protein and via like a yogurt or something like that in the morning, that is suboptimal there. Okay, so we covered pretty... number three, pretty good. Moving into number four, which is kind of relative to what we were just talking about, your appetite is still present. So in the... it's a bit of a semantics in the title, but we said, you know, five signs you're making good gains. If you're really, really full and your body does not want any more food and you're just like force feeding yourself, the odds are you are going to be pushing into territory where your partitioning ratio starts working against you. and your body fat is starting to increase at kind of an exponential rate. So if you still have a good appetite, you're probably not going to be starving, but being like satiated and not force feeding yourself at the end of the night where you feel disgusting is a very, very positive sign there, assuming that numbers one through three are already all in order.

[Bryan]: 50:09

Yeah, I don't have too much to add on this one. I feel like we kind of hammered a lot of this one through the prior section on gaining weight. They kind of bleed together a little bit. But maybe it's worth mentioning that the studies on circadian rhythm seem to show that biasing more of your food to earlier in the day is going to allow that food to be used much more effectively. And so yeah, you know, avoiding cramming food at the end of the day for sure, but also making sure that you're. eating when you wake up, you're having a big bolus of protein in the morning, carbohydrates, good complex stuff to get you moving through the day. And then you feel like you knock, if you can knock out a thousand of your 4,000 calories or whatever it is in the morning, then it just feels a little less daunting to go through the rest of your day.

[Aaron Straker]: 50:57

Yeah, the one kind of the play devil's advocate, if you're an evening trainer,

[Bryan]: 51:02

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:03

you want to train, you want to eat around when you're training, like you want that pre and post workout meal. But let's say you're a midday trainer or something like that, the research and partitioning of calories, carbohydrates specifically, blood glucose levels and stuff do favor more feeding earlier in the day as opposed to the opposite.

[Bryan]: 51:22

Yeah, you may actually be familiar with this study. I heard about it relatively recently. They actually found that by eating, there was either no breakfast or a small breakfast, it had negative mitigating impacts on your performance in your workout in the evening. So they took people that either had a small or no breakfast, I can't remember, and they made up those calories at lunch and snack. So they had like a 12 PM and a 3 PM and They had the same calories, whether it was like 9am, 12pm and 3pm. But some one group just did them at 12 and three and the other group did them between all three hours or something like that. And they found that the group that skipped or didn't have the big breakfast ended up with worse performance in their evening session.

[Aaron Straker]: 52:09

Wow, I did not see that. That is very interesting. Honestly, if you were to like pop quiz me and put me on the spot there, I would have said no kind of difference and that would have been wrong.

[Bryan]: 52:21

Yeah, I need to find this. I actually feel like, the funny thing, I feel like I heard this on a cycling podcast, but it was a strength training study, and they were using it to reference, like how even if you're an evening cyclist, you need to be having breakfast, blah, but I'm pretty sure it was a strength training study. I will try to find it. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to.

[Aaron Straker]: 52:44

Alright, again with that one, I think just to kind of put a bow on an appetite, eating decently spaced meals, you know, generally more is better than fewer once we're... The four to six is the sweet spot for the majority of people. Right? Even when I have my busier clients, I'm like, well, we're gonna do a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and we're gonna do a post-workout, you know, shake and some quick, you know, kind of carbs and banana or something like that. Almost anyone can kind of fit that in. Four to six is generally that sweet spot. Two, suboptimal. Three, still suboptimal, kind of there. And it helps by just you spacing out, getting consistent kind of feedings in and avoiding really large... meals that are going to digest really slowly probably push your blood glucose way higher than it needs to be, those sorts of things there.

[Bryan]: 53:38

Yep. I got nothing else to add there if you wanna take us home with number five.

[Aaron Straker]: 53:42

Let's do it. So, number five, recovering well between repeated training bouts. So some of this is going to require a little bit of intelligent programming and obviously be relative to the overall kind of caloric intake, managing your total volume, intensity, these sorts of things. But if you are not recovering, you know, between leg days and then you go try and train legs again, you're probably not gonna get the best session and you're not... getting out of that. There's a really good infographic that shows when you train, you get a little bit of an MPS spike and then you kind of... Or I'm sorry, not a stimulus, and then you kind of dip under your underwater per se in the recovery aspect. And then it takes... time to dig yourself out as your body repairs those tissues, that sort of thing. You have that other training session and you pop up again and you dip under. If you're still in that under area and you're training again, like you're effectively just digging the hole deeper and prolonging that recovery and performance is probably not going to be very good with significant overlapping soreness.

[Bryan]: 54:51

Yeah, how do you feel though about like, because I feel like soreness comes in different varieties. Like there's the soul crippling soreness where like, you know, it's sort of the touch or like you can barely get up and down off the toilet without like, ah, you know. And then there's like the soreness that's on the very back end of soreness where like you really have to like flex hard or put yourself into like a very strange position to feel the soreness. And I find that sometimes or most times that I train with that like mild tail end soreness, that it has no impact on my performance and I'm able to improve and everything seems good to go versus, you know, it would no difference to just wait until that soreness is like completely dissipated. And it could be the difference between training after four or five days or having to wait like a full week. You know?

[Aaron Straker]: 55:43

Yeah, I would say if you have to go find the soreness, you're probably safe to train. More so when you're wondering, like when you take each step and your quad shakes and it feels like someone's stabbing you, like yeah, you don't want to go try and train on top of that

[Bryan]: 55:58

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 55:59

sort of thing. But yeah,

[Bryan]: 55:59

I remember

[Aaron Straker]: 56:00

I would

[Bryan]: 56:00

as

[Aaron Straker]: 56:00

say

[Bryan]: 56:00

it...

[Aaron Straker]: 56:00

if...

[Bryan]: 56:01

Go ahead.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:03

No, I was just going to say if you have to go kind of search to find the soreness, it's like, you know, maybe slightly present, but it's not... clearly present.

[Bryan]: 56:13

Yeah, I feel like the quads are the only muscle group that I get that just like soul crushing soreness on anymore. And I was reflecting back on when I was a kid and I first started training as a teenager and I have this image of me being in my house that I lived in with my parents and going to like turn a doorknob and my chest is so sore that I can't even like. turn the doorknob and I didn't even realize that turning a doorknob, you know, activated the pecs at the time and I'm like, wow, that is so interesting. And now I don't think I've ever had soreness like that in my chest in so many years.

[Aaron Straker]: 56:51

Yeah, I would most often I get calves, quads and glutes. Glutes are a little bit because I don't train them, you know,

[Bryan]: 57:00

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 57:00

that much. They get a very small amount of volume. And I rarely train them primarily at a long muscle length. So for instance, if I put the front foot elevated reverse lunge in my program, I am in a world of pain. Like the first two or three sessions from that.

[Bryan]: 57:22

Yeah, that's a good point. I feel like any of these single leg movements that I do, I almost exclusively do them as quad dominant versions. And so I'll use like a wedge and then get that super knee flexion and like it's really more of that escalator motion, forward and backward and less of that up and down. But yeah, good point, man. If I ever do any sort of like more glute dominant lunge or split squat type movement, that is an awful type of pain for a few days.

[Aaron Straker]: 57:49

Yeah. And then the last one on recovering is just in the importance of sleep, right? When you're sleeping at night, that's when your body's repairing those tissues, right? You're producing more testosterone, growth hormone, all of these things. The better that you sleep, the better gains that you will make. Now I don't know if I can confidently say going from like nine to 10 hours of sleep would produce more. But if you're sub eight, you know, especially sub seven. If you're a six hour per night sort of person, you're literally leaving gains on the table by doing nothing, by avoiding doing nothing. It's cut and dry. Same thing goes with fat loss. The better you sleep, the better your outcomes are. Pretty much the more your life improves in many facets there. That one I feel like can't be understated enough. It's so simple that people don't want to believe it, but you're really just doing yourself a disservice.

[Bryan]: 58:51

Yeah, I think especially in that gaining phase, I remember Dr. Brandon Roberts was talking about some sleep study at some point. And I remember him saying that like, yeah, you don't really think that you need more than eight, but when they did this study on these like super high level Olympic athletes or something, they found that most of them were sleeping like nine to 10 hours a night. And so yeah, I mean, if you're able to do it and your lifestyle supports it and like you can actually stay asleep, that's the other thing like. I wake up naturally, I don't set an alarm, but I wake up naturally at eight hours. It is a very, very rare occasion if I ever sleep more than eight hours. And so yeah, everyone's different, but the more sleep you can get, definitely the better.

[Aaron Straker]: 59:36

Yeah. I think that does it on this one. Any anything else that you can think of, Brian, that we missed?

[Bryan]: 59:43

No, man, I think that's a pretty thorough list. And I love how we are able to kind of get into the weeds and take some meandering paths on each of these too. So it's not just like, here are the five things and like bullet points, you know, it's kind of like

[Aaron Straker]: 59:56

Yeah

[Bryan]: 59:56

a bit more of a conversation and some personal experience and stuff like that. So I think it was delivered quite well.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:00:02

Yeah, I think this should be a really, really good episode. And it's, I've. I know we've touched on this in the past and it takes sometimes me spending time closer to people who this isn't their entire world. I have conversations with you, I have conversations with Jackson, some of the, I had a call with Jeremiah Bear who we've had on the podcast. When you spend, you forget what the real world is like when you're only speaking to people who each have 10 plus years of... of experience this being a high priority in their life. So it takes time, you know, when you get questions from like Instagram or something like that, I'm like, oh, people are still fucking this up, you know, especially people who are younger. So I'm glad we kind of pull back and put these together because I do very often. I feel like everyone knows this already, like no one would benefit from this, but sometimes it takes me talking to someone and they're like, oh no, people are still really can use this information. So I'm glad we can put it together for them.

[Bryan]: 1:01:06

Yep, for sure.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:01:08

Alright guys, next week we will be back, potentially with a guest, if we can line one up, or

[Bryan]: 1:01:15

or

[Aaron Straker]: 1:01:15

another

[Bryan]: 1:01:15

a Q&A. Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:01:15

interesting topic, or Q&A, right? So next week, guest, Q&A, or something that is not either of those two. So we will go from there.

[Bryan]: 1:01:24

So who knows? It'll be anything. Take your guess.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:01:27

As always guys, thank you for listening, and we will talk to you next week.