Anti-Percentage People | ETP#128

[Aaron Straker]: 0:28

Happy Tuesday everyone, Monday if you are watching this on YouTube, welcome back to another episode of Eat, Train, Prosper. This is episode 128, which we are titling Anti-Percentage People with a question mark, because as always context is going to play an important role in the conversation that we are going to have on this episode. As always, Brian, can you kick us off with some updates please?

[Bryan]: 0:52

Yeah, percentages do seem to always rear their ugly head. I feel like this is one of the most common questions we get in the Paragon group is, hey, my last program, we trained with percentages and I don't see those here. So like, how am I supposed to choose my weights? And so, yeah, it's a good topic. And I'm sure we will get into it and delve into all the details here as we get going. As far as updates go. I have two, I guess. One has a couple sections that follow it. So the first thing is, I'll just cover the annoying one, is yesterday I went to go do my bike ride. I've talked about how I love to do these really long endurance rides on Mondays to kind of set the week up. So it was like 8.30 a.m. I just dropped the kids off at school, I was hyped about my long bike ride that I had planned out the night before. And I go to take my bike out of the garage. I'm like, oh, the air is a little low, I should fill that up. And then as soon as I put the pump onto the air valve, the little air valve piece at the top popped off and the entire tire drained of air just flooded air out. And then I couldn't get the air to go back in after that. So I went to my buddy's house, I had him fix the air valve. I was like, sweet, good to go. I'll pump it up. It's nine o'clock. Only a half hour late. All good. Even with the new air valve put in, the tire still would not hold air. And then I run tubeless tires, which basically means that you just have the tire with a bunch of sealant inside. And the idea is that if you get a hole or a small puncture in your tire, the sealant essentially goes to work and patches the hole for you as you're riding. So you almost don't even need to stop or worry about it. Whereas if you had a tube and you get a flat. Well, your tube is punctured. You need to take the tube out. You need to put a new tube in and all this stuff. So tubeless tires are the jam. But the problem in this situation was that the fact that the tire went completely flat, it no longer had. the word. Maybe the tire was no longer sealed to the like wheel rim itself. And so all the sealant started dripping out. And so I had like sealant just like shooting out and dripping out everywhere. I couldn't get my tire to hold air. Anyway, long story short, I basically had to take my bike into the shop and have them keep it overnight. So I did not get to ride yesterday. My bike's currently in the shop today. So I don't even know when it's going to be ready for me to ride later today, possibly. So I just lifted yesterday, which was great. And that actually kind of leads me into my next topic, which was that just in the last few days, since we had our prior episode of ETP, I have began to get extremely lean. And it's not just like the scale dropping, which yes, that's true, but I catch glimpses of myself now, and I'm like, wow. I have not seen an ab like that or a serratus or a delt or like a tricep or whatever the you knew what I'm talking about where you like walk by a mirror and you're like, what the fuck? Um, those sorts of things like hadn't happened to me at all throughout this process, even though I had been losing weight. And so I kind of was on the fence about whether I was losing muscle. I didn't really know. I was like, I just kind of look like this smaller version of myself, but I don't really feel like more defined or. more etched or anything like that. And then just in the last few days, it's all hit me and the scale dropped like super low. I had a 187 weigh in a few days ago and then we went to this concert on Saturday night and I didn't really eat in the evening and woke up the next morning and I was 185. And then I ate a bunch of food the next day and then this morning I was 187 again. So. It looks like my body weight's now like firmly into the mid to high once one eighties, which is really the point where I've talked about in prior years of ETP. It's really that point in the mid to high one eighties where I start to a feel really lean, look really lean, also tend to lose a little bit of strength on certain movements here and there and generally start to begin feeling some of the effects of diet fatigue overall. And so it's been really interesting in this experiment right now that I'm running with the successive amount of cardio because I am getting really lean and I am not hungry at all. I literally have to force myself to eat food. I find myself eating dinner, you know, at my normal time where I would normally stop eating at 630 and go to bed. And by eight or nine PM, I am so hungry that I find myself just crushing all sorts of food right before bed, which then has implications on the quality of my sleep, which isn't great. But the point being mostly that I am just eating so much food. I'm never hungry. And I can't like for sure say that I'm not losing muscle or whatever, but comparing my current deficit, if you want to call it that, to prior years. this is insanely easy. I have zero diet fatigue. I'm eating so much food. And I'm getting as lean as I was. And when you actually look at the strength and muscle loss, well, muscle loss is ambiguous. So I don't really know. But strength loss is like, you know, a rep here, rep there, and only on certain movements, like mostly chest pressing movements and stuff like that. But a lot of other movements are still progressing, like leg curls, pull downs, things like that. And so ultimately, when I reflect on what it feels like being at 187 right now versus what it feels like being at 187 when I'm dieting to do it. I don't feel like I'm dieting. I feel like I'm in a surplus and yet I'm losing weight. And so this has been, man, I don't even know what to think of it because my advice has been 100% counter to this for years and years and years. It's, you know, don't overdo the cardio, make sure that you're doing it via like steps, something you can control, make sure that you're you know, monitoring calories and body weight on scales and protein intake and all of these different things, because everything matters. And it's not that I think that things don't matter. Now, it's just, I'm really wrapping my head around this and trying to figure it out. And I understand it's an n of one, and this probably may or may not work with other people. But it has been, it has been wild and eye opening for me and I Yeah, just kind of curious to kind of see how it continues for the next three or four weeks until the race.

[Aaron Straker]: 7:46

question for you because what I don't want is for people to kind of get the wrong, take the wrong message away from this.

[Bryan]: 7:55

Yeah, I don't either, for sure. No, I get that.

[Aaron Straker]: 7:57

What is your current, let's call it like a weekly, hourly investment into bicycle riding time?

[Bryan]: 8:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, for sure. That's like the that's the next point I was going to make is I'm literally I'm probably averaging 10 hours a week of biking and it's between eight and 11 hours most weeks. And so yeah, it's it's, it's not something that most people are going to be like, well, I'll just do cardio and eat a bunch of food and I'll lose weight like Brian does, like it really is a balance of life. And so when you're struck with this choice of a normal person who works a normal job and has normal things that they need to take care of on a daily basis. The idea of trying to fit in 10 hours of cardio on top of four hours of lifting in a week, it's like half of a full-time job. And so yeah, I mean, that's obviously a really good point.

[Aaron Straker]: 8:49

Yeah, but I think it does go to show like, when you have someone who's like metabolically healthy, like yourself in those sorts of things, you have like good food habits for the most part in these sorts of things. Like eat less, move more, like does work, you know? And then that eat less, move more is like a, it's a sliding scale. You're not really doing much of the eat less, but you're doing a lot more of the move more. And that scale kind of slides, but it is one of those things like, yeah, you have the, and you're preparing for like a race. So you like these, these training sessions are, they're training sessions. You're not just like fucking around on a bicycle riding laps around the neighborhood

[Bryan]: 9:33

trying

[Aaron Straker]: 9:34

sort

[Bryan]: 9:34

to burn

[Aaron Straker]: 9:34

of thing.

[Bryan]: 9:34

calories or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 9:35

Yeah. So, but, but it is a, it's, it's a very cool, you know, real world representation of, Hey, I've taken this, you know, different approach and I'm still getting quite lean. you know, body composition is improving these sorts of things via this different modality.

[Bryan]: 9:50

Yep. There's a small piece of me that is considering doing a photo shoot like I usually do at the end of my diets in October or whenever the bike race ends and shaving the chest, which I haven't done in a year and tanning up and doing the whole thing in the same scene where I always do it and having the shots. Because even though that's not, it's probably not as accurate as getting a Dexa, which still has its potential errors in there. But, um, But at least like, man, standing up there in that same scene with the same photographer in a similar type situation at a similar type body weight as I've done in prior years, but with a completely different approach to get there. I think that could make for a really cool story and some educational material. And so I'm not fully in on it yet, but that was an idea I just had yesterday when I looked in the mirror and caught that glimpse. So yeah, I mean, I'll keep you all updated as we get going here, but, or as we keep going. But that's the update for now. So yeah, what's going on with you, bud?

[Aaron Straker]: 10:51

Suggestion.

[Bryan]: 10:53

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:53

We move forward with the photo shoot, we take that iconic Brian Boor scene in front of the fuckin' mountains with the back double bi-pose, but you have like your bike resting against your hip.

[Bryan]: 11:05

Yeah, no, I mean, or I'm holding it up overhead like, like that and just back looking at, you know.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:10

Yeah, yeah, I say

[Bryan]: 11:12

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 11:12

we

[Bryan]: 11:12

a

[Aaron Straker]: 11:12

do

[Bryan]: 11:12

few different

[Aaron Straker]: 11:12

it.

[Bryan]: 11:12

options there. We'll see what we can do. I'm definitely not going to run this year since you know, I tore my planner fashion last year trying to run during my photo shoot. So yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 11:20

Yeah, it's probably for the best.

[Bryan]: 11:22

yeah. All right. What's going on with you, bud?

[Aaron Straker]: 11:26

So I guess on the back end of last week, and Brian and I were talking a little bit off air, I am experiencing some of my personal deload signals this week. My training enjoyment is down significantly. However, I think there's a few variables on this one. A couple of the guys went back to Australia because they are in the final weeks before their shows who are competing. So... Training camp has been reduced from consistent three or four individuals to just now me. Jackson is in Singapore kicking off the first leg of his like, he's doing like an Asia seminar tour sort of thing, so he's on his first leg of that. So I'm riding solo for a bit, and these are, I put on my story today, like the... Like the misery of the training sessions because they're so grueling, like the more people you have, you're like dividing the misery by the number of people. And like when you're dividing by one, it's fucking sucks.

[Bryan]: 12:32

It's one

[Aaron Straker]: 12:33

It's one, yeah. And it's like, you don't have that person in your ear that's like, come on, you know, one more. And then it's gambling, right? On like, is this one RIR? Do I have this next rep? Like on my today training legs, I got pinned on both hack squat sets. Like I gambled on both and lost. And it's just, it's a tough training session solo. And like I said, some of my deload signals are starting to go, like my enjoyment in training is down a little bit. I feel it, energy levels. And from my own kind of subjective, you know, personal experience, I'm still a little bit fatter than when these sorts of signals will start to show up. So I'm probably going to wait till like the next, lower like, like tomorrow's a rest day, which is nice. And then maybe back off some things a little bit, reduce some of the intensity techniques, those sorts of things. I wanna get a couple of days without caffeine to see how I feel there and then reassess.

[Bryan]: 13:35

Cool, one of the questions I didn't get to ask in the training camp episode last week that I think is relevant now is what is the general viewpoint on deloads or recovery weeks within the training camp crew, given that you have a mix of enhanced and non-enhanced people, and then we have the heels of this deload study that you and I kind of discussed a couple episodes ago. But yeah, what's the general view on that?

[Aaron Straker]: 14:00

Yeah, I think it's a little bit more individual, right? So I think with the type of crew environment, it's a little bit more of air on the side of flying closer to the sun as opposed to not. But some of the guys are, like I said, I think at this point, one of the guys, he's like two weeks out, maybe potentially even closer from his first show. So being like auto-regulation and being smart in there, knowing... with limitations or maybe previous injuries and those sorts of things. So it was a little bit auto regulatory, but that's kind of it. Like when you're beating up, like calling it on yourself a little bit, or sometimes someone would like, hey, I'm too beat up for likes today. Like I'm gonna push them till tomorrow sort of thing. And it was a very individual approach.

[Bryan]: 14:48

Cool, cool. Yeah, so I think that that's good that you're being like super aware of these signals and you got a little like ache here and a little lack of motivation there and things like that. And it just kind of creates this little milieu of notification that, hey, it's probably time to dial it back a little bit, especially because from the training camp episode we did last week, this is higher volume and higher intensity, both. than

[Aaron Straker]: 15:14

buff.

[Bryan]: 15:15

you've been training with in the past. And so usually you pull one of those levers and pulling both has been obviously a revelation for you. And like, hey, look what I can recover from for the most part and progress from with. But yeah, I mean, eventually I guess shit hits the fan and you know, you have to be aware of that.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:31

Yeah, and I would say I'm approaching, I think, week nine of, or in week nine of the ramp up in training and intensity and that sort of thing, coupled with week eight, I believe, in a calorie deficit too. So it is potential of, or what's the word I'm looking for, correlative of that timing sort of thing. So I'm just... going to be a little bit more, I guess playing it safe sort of thing. And kind of what we talked about a number of episodes back now I wish I could remember which one. For me, the signals to deload are mostly psychological. I found that I can fly very damn close to the sun in terms of a performance standpoint. Like literally I went after two PRs today. Like one was on the hack squat. I did get a PR on the leg press. I went for a hack squat PR and I failed that, what would be the PR rep, and I went for a PR on the RDL at 160 kgs, and I failed the ninth rep there. So like, performance is still there, but like, I mean, fucking hell did I not wanna be in there training today.

[Bryan]: 16:51

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 16:52

Ha

[Bryan]: 16:52

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:52

ha ha.

[Bryan]: 16:53

Yeah, we've talked about the psychological need to deload outweighing

[Aaron Straker]: 16:56

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 16:56

the physiological in almost all cases, which is interesting because at this point with all of the activity I'm doing in the 14 hours a week of training or whatever it was we decided I'm doing, it is it continues to be psychological. So even though I'm putting my body under all of this additional stress, it's still like, Hey, I am just really beat up right now, emotionally or psychologically, and I don't want to do this session. more than it's I can't do the session. And I guess at some point, if you keep pushing through the psychological barriers, eventually it becomes physiological. But if you're, you know, on point and aware self aware, then noting the psychological limitations I think can keep you from reaching the physiological ones.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:40

Agreed.

[Bryan]: 17:41

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:45

And then I guess my only other update is I'm at that point where I'm starting to get a little bit antsy around the fat loss. It's kind of funny. Like you have you made that note like you like you walked by the mirror and caught yourself. So like every day post training and then pretty much every day I go do the sauna. Right. And there's like this recovery area of the gym. This was like a pool sauna, you know, kind of in the back. And there's this mirror that you walk by, you know, to get to it. So every day, like check that mirror. And I'm still like, yeah, I still fat, you

[Bryan]: 18:13

Hahaha

[Aaron Straker]: 18:13

know. Not not there yet, right and I'm always like, okay, like what like when is that look in the mirror? Damn like things are and I'm just like nope not there yet. Not there yet So I am getting like a little bit impatient But then the fear is starting to build like is this gonna be better like has it happened where like I'm Past my prime and I'm grasping for straws that are no longer there like that kind of you know What's the word I want to I want to use like? I guess potentially insecurity, you know, or fear of like, is this... I have this big goal that I've been grinding for, you know, all year long. Like, am I going to be able to make it happen? Is it not in the cards? So like that thing, that's there a little bit for me. I do subjectively feel significantly more, you know, muscular and leaner at 207 than I've ever been. However, I'm just, you know, fearful that that's just wishful thinking. sort of thing. So I am kind of in that purgatory phase and I need a couple more weeks of the fat loss to really feel confident like, well, we're in brand new territory or we're not sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 19:24

Yeah, I was actually going to say that I think you ended your last bulk prior to this one at like 207, didn't you?

[Aaron Straker]: 19:31

207

[Bryan]: 19:31

Wasn't it about?

[Aaron Straker]: 19:32

exactly, yep.

[Bryan]: 19:32

Yeah. So you where you are right now after losing 12 pounds, were you 219 at one point?

[Aaron Straker]: 19:38

2.17 was the peak.

[Bryan]: 19:39

So 10 pounds. Yeah. I mean, the picture you posted on your story yesterday of you at 217 and you at 207, it's significant. I mean, you can see big differences there. And I obviously, I'm sure you've done this. I haven't seen your 207 last bulk to your 207 right now. And obviously it may look different because there you're at peak bulk at 207 and here you're 207 on the way down. So there could be some kind of ambiguity there as well. But like from what I can recollect in my brain, which who knows how accurate this is, but it seems to me like you're a leaner 207 now than you've ever been.

[Aaron Straker]: 20:17

I do feel that way. I have that photo. I should put them up, but I remember when that, I remember that week when that bulk was like shifting. I remember being like, when I was working with Jason Theobald at the time, I remember being like, I feel sloppy. Like that, I remember like using the term, like I feel sloppy here. And I, I do subjectively feel significantly better from a physique standpoint at this 207 versus, you know, which would be 2021 at 207. Um, but yeah.

[Bryan]: 20:50

Cool. Well, that's awesome. I mean, I think you should put the picture up. And honestly, it's likely that you did exceed your last period from a year or two ago, or whenever that was. But yeah, time will tell, man. Just keep at it. Stay focused.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:04

Time will tell exactly.

[Bryan]: 21:06

Yeah, cool. Well, what should we do, jump into the topic?

[Aaron Straker]: 21:10

Let's do it. So, I'll kind of stack it up a little bit. So, during last week's episode, it came up briefly and we're like, you know, this is a really great episode that we should tee up. I know I have a lot of my own personal subjective dislikes for percentage-based programming, but Brian, as always, has fought very far and wide covering the various aspects. The one thing I will say, I guess, to start this episode off is... A lot of the standpoints we will make are going to be from a hypertrophy focused standpoint, which is obviously the majority of what we talk about here at E-Train Prosper. I think for strength, purely strength outcomes and goals, the percentage based approach does have a significantly higher utility. And I did just want to get that out of the way before we end up super deep into the episode without giving that kind of disclaimer.

[Bryan]: 22:09

Yes, sorry, I was answering something and did not listen to what you said. So if you can just quickly give me the quick recap.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:17

Yeah, I basically said that we are gonna focus mostly on the hypertrophy side of things

[Bryan]: 22:23

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:23

that for a strength-based outcome, percentage-based programming does have a higher utility.

[Bryan]: 22:30

Yeah, I agree. But I do think that at the end of the day, whether it's hypertrophy or strength, there's a component of individual versus group programming that I think really overrides the entire question of whether you should use percentages or not. And I mean, there's so many rabbit holes that we can go down here. But when you have an individual who has a coach, who knows that individual inside and out because they're their coach. They know what a likely number of reps that this athlete is going to achieve at a given percentage of their one rep max. And so when you have a strength athlete and their coach tells them to perform four by four at 80%, they know that this athlete can probably do, call it seven or eight reps at 80% or whatever that number is. So they know that those four reps are very doable. This is regardless of whether it's strength or hypertrophy, I guess. I mean, in any sort of circumstance, like if you know your athlete, you can use percentages much more effectively. When you're looking at a group program, and if you take that same example and you say, okay, we're going to do 80% for four by four, across the spectrum of that group program, you will have some people that can do 80% for four by four and feel like it was a walk in the park. They can do sets of 12 or more at 80%. And so those sets of four are like six to eight RIR on every single set. And so if the coach thinks that their intended stimulus there is to go two to three RIR, they've completely missed the boat with that specific athlete. On the other side of the spectrum, we have some people that would be told to do 80% for four by four or whatever, I mean, maybe I chose a bad example, maybe that should have been six, but there are some people that can't even do four reps at 80%. And so that person who's told to do 80% for four by four would be unable to even complete the prescription. And so when we look at this disparity between using percentages in group programming and using percentages in individual programming, this is the one glaring thing that pops out, is that group programming just spans so many different types of individuals with different muscle fiber type makeup. And so there's a, actually, do you have any thoughts on that before I jump into this PubMed study that I looked at?

[Aaron Straker]: 25:05

I mean, not really. So I mean, I kind of do. So I for a little bit of backstory, a lot of you guys already know this, like I was a member at Brian's CrossFit Gym for a number of years. You know, Brian did programming for all of us and I followed it, of course. I was someone who the percentage based training just translated very poorly for me and it would really fuck with me psychologically. Um, because we would be in like, you know, we'd be working through this progression up until like establishing new one rep maxes and those sorts of things. And of course I'm all like giddy as fuck. I want new PRs and we're like three weeks out and it's like, okay, you know, 85% for like six, I'm just someone who cannot do that. Right? Like once, once I get like damn near the top 15, 18% like I just, I just can't do six. I'm at like. threes and fours, and it would fucking crush me. I'm like, we're three weeks out, I can't even hit, you know, the six that I'm supposed to do. Next week we're supposed to go up and I'm not gonna be able to do that. And I would just like mentally fucking fall apart from it. So I think like just to give, you know, a little bit more of like a follow up to that, Brian was saying like, some people it works really well for, like I was one of those people, I just did not do well with it and it would crush me.

[Bryan]: 26:31

That's a really good point. And I had a lot of the same experiences, which I will use to reflect on here in a little bit. I wish that in that example I just used with the 80% for 4x4, I think realistically, that should have been 85%. And those numbers I said would have been much more accurate. So at 85%, you'd have some people that can do 12 plus reps, and you'd have some people that can't do four. I think at 80%, that equation doesn't quite work the same. But the idea. The idea is the same and 85% would probably be the right number there. We have this study from PubMed here in 2014 it was Richins and Cleather Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly The relationship between the number of repetitions performed at given intensities is different in endurance and strength trained athletes And so this is just further proof of that point. I made that people just exist on different spectrums And when you separate people into what would be considered an endurance athlete or a strength athlete, you're not directly separating them by muscle fiber type. Like you're not saying, Oh, weightlifters are fast, which muscle fiber and runners or endurance athletes are slow, twitch muscle fiber. But in some semblance, you know, you probably will see that they do tend to skew more toward being good at endurance events. Whereas the weightlifters will skew more to not being as good at endurance events. And a lot of that probably does come down to muscle fiber type though. that was not discussed in this paper. So essentially what they did in this paper is they took eight weightlifters and eight endurance runners and they tested them on a one rep max on the leg press. So that's interesting that they chose leg press. I feel like it's hard to test a one rep max there, but either way, then they tested their maximum repetitions achieved at both 70, 80 and 90% of their one rep maximum. And so this floors me, I can't believe this, but at the 70% of their one rep maximum, the endurance runners completed. 39.9 repetitions on average with plus or minus of 17.6. So that would mean that somebody performed, of the runners, somebody performed 23 repetitions on the low end and 57 repetitions on the high end at 70% of one RM. Compare that to the weightlifters who also did the 70%. and their average number was 18 reps with a plus or minus of three. So someone performed 21 and someone performed 15, but most of them were right in that like 15 to 21 range. And so that's crazy, man. I mean, you got more than double the repetitions for the runners at 70%. And I'll go over the 80%, 90% here in a second. But the first thing that comes to mind when I look at that and see 40. repetitions with a plus minus of 17.6 for the runners is that they likely just have never even learned how to push to failure or activate the muscles that they need to activate for that movement. And so they can kind of just keep going because they probably didn't even have the ability to find like a true one rep max. If you want to want to quote that. because they're just like not familiar with finding one rep max. And so if the one rep max is inaccurate because they're endurance athletes and they don't have that experience, then naturally, when you take a percentage of that one rep max, they're going to be able to achieve significantly more repetitions. If that one rep max wasn't actually a one rep max, uh, or if they have just a large predominance of slow twitch muscle fibers that say they did get that one rep max, correct. The fact that they can just keep pumping. submaximal loads of that one rep max for 40 repetitions on a leg press. It just blows my mind. What do you think about that, Straker?

[Aaron Straker]: 30:38

It blows my mind too, because I remember there was a program I followed, I don't know, like three years ago or whatever, and there was one day where it would have a 50 rep leg press set, one of them, and I would only be able to put like one plate on each side.

[Bryan]: 30:54

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 30:55

But it would like, but for like a set of 12, whatever, I'd have like five plates, you know, per side. But I'd have to reduce load to like literally like a 15% to... to get, I mean, and it would be hell on earth getting those 50 reps. So as the listeners can probably correlate from the subjective information I've provided from my history, I perform very low on the

[Bryan]: 31:22

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:22

percentage-based things.

[Bryan]: 31:24

So so, Aaron, if you were asked to do 90 percent of your one rep max on a movement, they're using leg press, but whatever, it doesn't really matter. We're just trying to throw some random numbers out here. What what do you think you get on like a big compound lower body movement if you take 90 percent of a one rep max?

[Aaron Straker]: 31:43

Maximum of two reps, guaranteed.

[Bryan]: 31:45

Yeah, yeah, maybe three at most. So this then also potentially shoot some holes in this study, because when we get to the 90 percent number and we look at the endurance runners versus the weightlifters, the endurance runners were averaging 10.8 repetitions with a plus minus of almost four. So they were basically getting either, you know, 15 or eight or seven repetitions, something like that. But even the weightlifters. had an average number of repetitions of seven at 90% with a plus or minus of 2.1. So people were either getting five or nine reps, but Aaron and I both just stated that 90% for us would be like two or three reps. And so even on the lower end of these people that were doing five, six, or seven reps for the weightlifters, they would still be above where we are. And these endurance athletes doing almost 11 reps on average at 90%. It definitely like makes me think that there's some holes in the way that the One Rep Max was tested or how hard these athletes were being pushed in their assessments or something along those lines. But the main point of this is not to tear apart the study design or anything like that or the methods. It's to ascertain or to clarify that there's just so much variance between the way that people are going to perform at given percentages. And so I have a few other points as to why I don't use percentages in programming, but this is really the main point is just that people vary. And if you're going to run a group program like I run, and like many other coaches run that do use percentages, it just doesn't make sense because we see that you can program something like 85% and have some people be able to hit the goal reps with tons and tons of RIR and basically get. very little stimulus from it. And you have other people that can't even do the lower end of the prescription. Like that example, I used of 85% for four by four. Some people will do that without any issue at all and feel like they didn't get a workout in and other people will be unable to complete the task at all. And so at some level, like if you're a coach programming with percentages, and you put this out to your group program, like, what do you say when people respond and they're like, Hey, I couldn't do this or someone's like, Hey, I did this and it was really easy. I just it to me, it doesn't make any logical sense when you look at the quality of programming overall.

[Aaron Straker]: 34:19

Yeah, that kind of leads me to one of the points that I wrote down is when you're taking a percentage-based approach, larger assumptions need to be made. And typically when we have more assumptions, we have less context provided, which lends itself to the scenario you just described of you have clients saying, like, hey, I did. 12 reps, it was really easy. And then someone else saying, I only did four and thought my legs were gonna fall off sort of thing. So, you know, kind of steering us back to, yes, the majority of the context we speak in is hypertrophy based, but then also providing the necessary context of like, hey, we're working with a rep range. These are some things to expect. This is where you may want to increase this number a little bit if you experience these sorts of things. And conversely, this is where you may want to decrease some things if this is what you're experiencing so that you can provide the lifter a little bit of extra education so that they can auto-regulate themselves into the desired stimulus for the week of the program, et cetera.

[Bryan]: 35:31

Yeah, no, really good point. And I'm really glad you brought up the hypertrophy side as well. Because I think for the most part, we've been, without explicitly saying it, we've kind of been discussing this from the viewpoint of strength. But hypertrophy, I do think there's some value in using percentages and back off work in hypertrophy. And so an example of this that I tend to use quite a bit when I'm programming is. Uh, over the course of two to three sets, build to a top set of 12 reps, something like that. 12 reps at one to two RIR. So, um, that would be a great hypertrophy number. You are getting a lot of stimulus for whatever musculature you're targeting. And then I will say something like, you know, rest two to three minutes after you find your top weight and take 80% of that top weight and perform. presets of six to eight to two RIR, something like that, eight to 10 to two RIR, whatever, whatever it makes sense with the percentages and with the rep scheme. And so at that point now we're combining both percentages and reps from failure. And that is the way that I almost always will program any sort of percentage work, whether it's strength work or hypertrophy work. and a percentage with a range. So it's not 85% for four by four. It would be 85% for three to six reps or something along those lines at two RIR. And then I'd make a note at the bottom and say, Hey, if you get to six reps and you feel like you are still below two RIR, maybe you're at four RIR or something like that. Keep going. Like prioritize the reps from failure over the percentage. The percentage is a guideline. It helps get you into the ballpark. But once you're in the ballpark, now you need to dial it in a little bit closer and using reps from failure then allows you to create the stimulus that you want, regardless of how many reps you achieve. Because we know in hypertrophy that anywhere between five and 20 plus reps is going to get you a relatively similar stimulus. So your major error would just be, oh, coach said six to eight reps, so I'm gonna stop at eight. even if I have six RIR left. Whereas when you put in that kind of qualifier of, we're using percentage to define load, and then we're using reps from failure to define how hard we want to work or the stimulus intended, now we have this much better kind of combination of things and information that we can use to progress.

[Aaron Straker]: 38:15

Yeah, I love that. I would say the time that I, the only time I really will use percentages is very, you know, similar to what you said with the back off set. And because I'm such a big fan of repeating workouts, like week over week, I really like, use, like we're gonna perform our back off at 75%. Let's say week one, use 75% to establish like a load and then your performance. at that load is going to dictate what you choose for like, you know, week two sort of thing. So let's say 75% is 100 pounds and we want to perform, you know, 10 to 12 reps on the back off. If you only get like seven reps on the back off, you need to reduce load to get you into the rep range for, you know, week three. Conversely, if you perform 14 reps, you need to increase load, you know, in week two so that we can get you back into the rep. sort of thing. So it's helping like you said get you in the ballpark and then you're going to leverage like a predefined RIR or a performance based metric to help you further make decisions in the coming weeks.

[Bryan]: 39:23

Yeah, no, I love that. And I'll also like another way that percentages get included is I may say things like, once we establish our working weight in week one or deload week or whatever it is, I might say like, hey, increase 2% this week or 3% this week or something like that. But that's not taking a percentage of maximum and telling you to do some sort of work at that percent. It's using percentages as a way to kind of micro load the movement and progress it. over the course of time. And usually there's a rep range and there's a reps from failure designation along with that. And so yeah, another kind of... thing against using percentages would be daily preparedness. And the fact that, you know, when you wake up on a given day, you might feel less prepared or more prepared than you did the prior week. And so now we adding another level of ambiguity into this whole sequence where if we're not combining percentages with reps from failure and with a range, um, what was, you know, say 85% for four by four, the prior week, and this athlete maybe barely got through it. And now it's 86.5% for four by four, but this athlete had poor sleep, had a fight with their girlfriend and didn't eat before going to bed or something, a whole bunch of things happening at the same time. They go into the gym and they're like, oh, 86.5% for four by four. Well, that should be fine, because I did 85% last week, not accounting for the fact that they're way under prepared today. and they are unable to meet the task at hand. And so if that coach had instead put in 86.5 for three to six reps, then that allows that athlete the freedom to say, Hey, I'm feeling really bad today. I'll just hit triples versus, Hey, I'm feeling great today. You know, I may be able to hit sixes, even though I only get fours last week. And so it just provides you a lot more freedom based on the way that you are in fact feeling and how that would directly impact your performance on that day.

[Aaron Straker]: 41:30

Yeah, the last kind of note that I had here, which is very, very similar to what you just brought up is predefined rates of progress, right? And because of that preparedness or other impacting variables in life like stress, breakups, travel, different things like that, many times with the percentage-based things, it's like we are using a six-week, you know, workup progression of percentages where if... In week five or four, you have some life event thing that crushes it, that crushes your ability to perform. That is again, kind of, there's no auto regulatory flexibility in there, whereas if you're working individually with a coach or whatever, it might be like, hey, repeat last week, perform one rep less because we have high fatigue or something like that. We'll extend the... the working number of weeks of the program, et cetera, et cetera. So that's just another one that I see very commonly will come up. I've had that question before where someone's like, hey, I'm on a six week strength program. Week four, I was traveling and I didn't get to do my squat day. Should I just jump into like week five, you know, sort

[Bryan]: 42:45

Right?

[Aaron Straker]: 42:45

of thing? I'm like, no, don't do not do that.

[Bryan]: 42:49

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 42:51

So.

[Bryan]: 42:52

One of the things we always say is that programming is like chapters in a book. And I'll give credit to Erin Johnson. She's our, our Facebook admin, amongst a number of other things at Paragon. But she came up with that kind of analogy or metaphor for, for the way that programming goes. And now whenever people ask that question, and we don't, we don't even use percentages, but the same holds true. It's like, you know, we use an RIR progression or whatever, there's some built in progression week to week. And so yeah, people will be like, Oh, I missed week four, I was on vacation. So I'm coming back. You know, should I just pick up with week five or even worse? It's like, Oh, I missed D load week, should I just jump into week one? And we're like, ah, you know, chapters of a book, like, sometimes you just really need to stay in order so that you can make sure you don't miss the information and the stimulus and things like that. And it becomes even more significant when it is percentage based. because you don't have that buffer for daily preparedness with RIR and things like that. And so yeah, I think that that's a really, really good point. Another one I'll bring up too is that a lot of times with percentage work, especially with the people that the percentages are over-programmed. So say you take that 85% for four by four guy who can barely complete the four by four, a lot of times you end up seeing that person hitting a bunch of failed reps. And so now we're not just talking about the increased level of fatigue from barely being able to make the protocol at hand, but you're potentially failing a bunch of reps, which is taking you deeper and deeper into the fatigue cave, also reinforcing bad habits. So that's one of the really big things that comes with failure, is that you're so close to failure or at failure. there's all these compensatory mechanisms where different muscles are coming in to take over different compensation patterns. And so now we're actually training our body to do the wrong stuff. My basketball coach years and years ago, and it's always stuck with me, he was like, practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. And bad practice makes bad habits permanent. And so I think that that's just, it's It's so beautiful on so many levels and has so much application to strength sport as well. And we really wanna be reinforcing the movement pattern that is best for us, whether our pursuit is strength and that movement pattern requires certain central nervous system responses at certain times and certain speed and et cetera, et cetera. or it's hypertrophy and we want to make sure that we're targeting a specific muscle, like we're doing a bench press and we want our chest to be doing the work and not as much the triceps and the front delts. When we get close to failure, we don't have a choice. Studies have shown this, that as you get close to failure or you fail, that these other muscles just come in to do the work because you have to lift the weight up. You're basically in a fight or flight response. And so your body is gonna bring all of its resources together to get that weight up. And this is just another factor of this whole presentation of percentages where so many things can go wrong and it takes a lot for everything to go right. And that's why I think that really, you know, to tie a bow on the conversation from earlier is, you know, individual programming with a coach that really knows you as an athlete, there is good use case for percentage work there and tons and tons and tons of strength athletes and coaches have had really, really good success. using this approach. Um, but when it comes to group programs, which I just see so often across Instagram and social media in general is, um, it drives me insane that coaches are doing this in group programs. And then it drives me insane that athletes are coming to my program and asking me why I'm not using percentages and almost looking down on the program as if somehow it's a faulty program because, because we're not doing it the way that their prior coach did. And so, yeah, all of those things kind of come together to create a bit of a frustrating process.

[Aaron Straker]: 47:04

I don't have anything to add onto the back of that one. I like that kind of rant. I think it was very, very warranted. There's nothing that I disagreed with in there. I think that is a wonderful place for us to wrap this one up.

[Bryan]: 47:14

Yeah. So I think ultimately at the end, just to add one more thing is use percentages if you're gonna use them with a rep range and with reps from failure. So it might be, you know, 85% for four to eight reps at two reps from failure. And now you've given your athlete tools to actually achieve the objective that you want them to achieve. And so it makes everybody's life easier.

[Aaron Straker]: 47:41

Yep, really, really good point there as always, Brian. All right guys, as always, thank you for listening. Brian and I will catch you next week.