Deloads & Training Age Dependent Proximity to Failure | ETP#129

[Aaron Straker]: 0:30

What's up, guys? Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to Eat, Train, Prosper. Today is episode 128, and we are going to be talking about deloads and training age-dependent relative intensity, as I believe the title, but I can't see it all and I made it before, and I don't want to make it say it wrong, but it's going to be close to that. We're going to dive into those in a little bit, but as always, before we jump into it, Brian, can you kick us off with some updates, please?

[Bryan]: 0:55

We're going to dive into this in a little bit, but I'm going to wait for you to do a try. Yeah man, just a few updates today. So last episode in the updates I talked about how my bike broke, the valve snapped or whatever as I was trying to go out for my long ride on Monday, and my bike was in the shop. Well I wasn't able to ride for two days, and so by the time I got my bike back Tuesday evening... I had this big ride planned for Wednesday morning. The idea was to do close to 50 miles at race pace. So I mostly wanted to kind of emulate what it was gonna feel like for me to go out and ride for 50 miles against other people with the intention of pushing myself beyond zone two consistently. So I did, I went out, I packed my camelback or hydration pack, I had. some protein in there, some Gatorade, a bunch of electrolytes, extra thing of water as well. And I went on my ride. And it was really hard the entire time. Out of the, it took me two and a half hours to go 45 miles. And I only didn't make it 50 because I ran out of liquid. So that happened at about 40 miles. So I had to go five miles without liquid, which isn't a big deal. I'd already consumed. over two liters of liquid throughout the first two hours. But I ended up doing the 45 miles. Of that two and a half hours, I spent 55 minutes in zone four, 13 minutes in zone five, and an hour in zone three. So that's like two hours and 10 minutes was zone three, zone four, or zone five. And then I spent like 20 minutes in zone one or zone two. And so it was... the most time I've spent in those high zones in one session ever. And I got back from my ride and I was sitting outside of the garage and I felt my stomach kind of like start bubbling up and I was like, oh, shit, I need to go to the bathroom. And I put my bike in the garage, ran to the bathroom, sat on the toilet for like 20 minutes and didn't feel any better afterwards. And for the next. 30 hours, I would say, until probably the afternoon the following day. It was repeats of that same situation. It was me running to the toilet, not feeling any better afterwards. The symptoms being waves of body chills where I'd feel fine and be like, oh, I think I'm getting better. And then like 10 minutes later, I'd get these awful body chills and my stomach would cramp up like it was seizing. And any time that I ate anything, it would get worse immediately and I'd have to run back to the bathroom again. And so this probably happened like every hour literally for like 30 hours. Not including nighttime where I think I only had to run to the bathroom three or four times throughout the night. But basically, long story short here, I still am not 100% sure whether all of this these sickness issues I was having are a direct result of the bike ride itself or if I was going to get sick anyways. I put this out to Instagram. I asked a few of my endurance friends that I have that maybe don't follow me on Instagram and it seems like the general consensus is that these types of post-workout sickness sensations may last for three to four hours after a really hard workout. but only one person reported that they would last 24 hours or longer. And I would say 30 people responded. So 29 people said that it was very unlikely that my sickness was from the ride itself. Like I said, I'm still not sure. And, um, I don't know if I want to test it again before the race, because the race is now in like two and a half weeks, I think. Now this is three and a half. I think it's two and a half. But anyway, it's October 7th. I'm probably not gonna do another 45 mile hard ride like that. So I think I just need to be a little bit more cognizant of my nutrition beforehand because I did go into this ride fasted even though I brought all of that liquid nutrition with me and I started consuming it immediately upon riding. I think I need to consume some food before riding when it's this intense and this long. And I think I need to bring the three liter hydration pack instead of the two liter hydration pack just to ensure that I don't run out. And a couple of people also suggested that maybe I bring some food instead of just liquid nutrition. So maybe I bring a bar or something along those lines. So, uh, yeah, that's, that's the initial story there. Um, since that event, I didn't, I wasn't able to eat really. or keep anything down for a couple days. And my body weight dropped as low as 184 pounds the day after being sick, which is two pounds away from the lowest I've been in the last decade. So that's pretty wild. But since then I've been biking consistently again, not getting sick, getting tons of food in my body. And as of today, this morning, I'm back up into the high 180s. So things are kind of normalizing there. And I have another long ride planned for today. Not going to be intense, but I am gonna go long and just make sure I'm hydrated and all that good stuff. I have two more quick, quick updates, but let's jump over to Aaron, see what he has to say on things.

[Aaron Straker]: 6:39

No, I want to hear about the solo dad month. I'm like foaming at the mouth for this because if I think about it, this is like a massive nightmare for me. So

[Bryan]: 6:47

Well,

[Aaron Straker]: 6:48

I'm... I'm sorry.

[Bryan]: 6:48

yeah, so I wrote in the notes that I'll be I have a month of solo dadding And it's not actually an entire month of solo dadding and to be honest. I'm already halfway through that month. So

[Aaron Straker]: 6:58

I'm sorry.

[Bryan]: 6:58

September is essentially Kim's month and October is my month. So in September Kim had a Short trip to San Diego earlier in the month Kim and I had that concert that we went to so I guess that was like one day for me as well, but Now things are getting real because Kim is in San Francisco this entire week, Monday through Friday. So I'm here this whole week by myself and then she's back for four days and then on Wednesday next week she leaves for Paris for a week and she doesn't get back from that until I think the first week in October or something like that. And so then once she gets back from Paris there's like a two or three day period. And then I leave for my bike race and so I'm gone for that for like three days And then I get back and there's like a one week period maybe one and a half and then I go to Bermuda for a week So October is my month September is her month, but I'm basically in the thick of it right now And I have of the next of the next 17 days I will be solo dadding for 12 or 13 of them with her out of the country. So that's the story there more or less. It's not the end of the world. With the kids in school, as long as they don't get sick, the hardest part is really just weekends, which are daunting even with two parents. And the morning routine, getting them ready for school, and then the bedtime routine, getting them both to sleep at night. those are struggle times, but for the most part, I should still have my eight or nine hours in the middle of the day. And so I'm not really like super stressed about the whole situation.

[Aaron Straker]: 8:51

Okay, that's a very, very mature and eloquent approach to it. I was thinking, I was preparing for worst case scenarios. Whoa, a month and you got two kids by yourself? What do you do, how do you manage? But it doesn't sound as apocalyptic as I had previously thought.

[Bryan]: 9:10

Yeah, I mean, 12 of 17 days is no walk in the park, but I think I'm gonna survive.

[Aaron Straker]: 9:18

Okay, so I'll cover mine quick and we'll get into it. So the first thing is a number of weeks now. It might even be a couple months back. We briefly discussed some of Peter Attia's kind of his like, not necessarily...his like strength and longevity thresholds is I think is a good way to describe it. And one of them was a two-minute dead hang from a pull-up bar, and this was for males. I believe the female equivalent that he likes to use or benchmark. is a minute and a half. And the other day at the gym, I was like, you know, I'm just the other evening, I was like, I'm just gonna do it. Right. I was, I had to do some, it was, it was a cardio day and so I have my upper, you know, body wasn't necessarily taxed. And I was like, I'm just going to go for it. And I set the timer on my watch that I couldn't see and I just like jumped up and hung on. And I was really quite surprised. I made it like just over the three minute mark, like literally the three minute mark. and I was quite surprised, but also my forearms were blown the fuck up

[Bryan]: 10:22

Yeah, I mean,

[Aaron Straker]: 10:22

after.

[Bryan]: 10:22

that's

[Aaron Straker]: 10:22

Like,

[Bryan]: 10:22

a

[Aaron Straker]: 10:23

and I really gave it, like, I wasn't like, okay, this is hurting, like, I'm gonna let go now. I like held on until the wheels fell off and like gravity pulled me off the bar. I didn't quit on it, which I was proud of myself after the fact, but like my forearms were in quite some pain.

[Bryan]: 10:39

Yeah, you go to that point until they just start like sliding off

[Aaron Straker]: 10:42

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 10:42

and it's like pinched, like peeling off a wall or something.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:45

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 10:46

No, I know, dude. Kim and I did it together one day. I did not do as well as you. I got just shy of two minutes. I think it was like one fifty five or

[Aaron Straker]: 10:55

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 10:55

something like that. But this was also Kim was working out and I walked downstairs to help her take 100 pounds off of the hack squat machine. And she was like. you need to do this test blah blah. And I'm like, I'm in a hoodie and sweatpants and I'm cold and I don't want to do this right now. And she's like, you know, do it whatever. So I did it. But I think I'll need to try it at some point again after I'm actually like properly warmed up and mentally prepared for the challenge instead of just being told to jump up there. But I see no way that I'm going to make 300 that are three minutes. That's, that's quite impressive.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:30

I think that my only saving grace is I've been doing a lot of hanging leg raises

[Bryan]: 11:36

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:37

since the beginning of the year, since I got my new program and I had started that literally three times a week. I'm probably down to about two times a week now, but I do feel much more capable in my grip strength because I've been doing more hanging.

[Bryan]: 11:51

Cool. Well, the next one up is the farmers walk challenge.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:54

Yeah, that one I think is...that's the one I remember being like, there's no way in hell I can do that. So

[Bryan]: 11:59

Hehehehe

[Aaron Straker]: 12:00

we'll have to test that one too.

[Bryan]: 12:02

Yeah, for sure.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:04

Second thing I guess I have here is I had a PRP injection in my left triceps tendon. I've had a number of experiences with PRP dating back like a decade now. They've been all very, very positive. So... I just kind of wanted to talk about it really quickly. If you have a tendon-related injury out there and you don't necessarily want to go the surgery route or it's not maybe quite necessary for a surgery, but it's chronic, it inflames a lot and you can't really seem to improve it, PRP can be something, a very, very reasonable approach for that. The downside, you pay out of pocket. I don't even know what it is in the States. Like I had up on my story. I was paying over $600 a pop for them literally a decade ago in San Diego. So I have no idea what it might be. I had about six, I think, in my shoulder, one in my knee. And then I've had one in my right elbow here in Bali and then one in my left elbow here in Bali. And I've, cats, you know, still, cats still in the bag on my left elbow, but all the other ones have been notable improvements. for me with joint related pain.

[Bryan]: 13:19

So what do you experience as far as rehabilitation time, if you want to call it that, or like back to training time?

[Aaron Straker]: 13:32

It's hard to say. I really don't remember a decade ago. I just don't. And I had those six over a number, maybe a two to three month period. It was like I would go every other week or something

[Bryan]: 13:45

Mm.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:45

like that for them, maybe even separated more. My knee, it was after my patella repair surgery. I was about six months after the surgery and there was still some lingering pain. And the doctor was like, let's just do a PRP injection. And then literally within a week after that one, the pain had just went away and it's never come back again. And

[Bryan]: 14:06

Hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:07

that was in 2017, you know, six years ago.

[Bryan]: 14:10

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:10

The right elbow, which is the most recent. I took it really easy on it and like didn't train any pull or push for probably about five days after and then you know make sure I warmed it up like really well and then that one just maybe about a week and a half two weeks later

[Bryan]: 14:32

later.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:32

pain just dissipated and it's been gone since. Now with this left one I'll pretty much do the same but I would say the left one is by far like the spiciest of the recent ones like if I bump my elbow on something like it's excruciating like sharp pain.

[Bryan]: 14:49

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:50

It's also set in the fastest. So we'll see. I'll give it, you know, two weeks or so and see if I notice the improvement there.

[Bryan]: 14:58

So how long ago did you do this? A day or two?

[Aaron Straker]: 15:03

Just over 24 hours.

[Bryan]: 15:04

Yeah. And what does it feel like right now? Does it feel like stiff, tense? Can you straighten your arm and bend it and stuff without

[Aaron Straker]: 15:10

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 15:10

pain or?

[Aaron Straker]: 15:11

I can

[Bryan]: 15:11

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:11

straighten it, bend it. It was very like... I mean, and I don't know if inflamed is the best term, but I mean, there was a bunch of fluid injected into

[Bryan]: 15:21

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:21

a tendon in a very small area. It was, you know, pressure is a really good way to

[Bryan]: 15:26

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:26

put it. A lot of pressure last night. I did my best to like not sleep with my arm really stretched or anything like that. And then this morning I could still feel some pressure and it kind of dissipated throughout the day.

[Bryan]: 15:38

Cool, interesting.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:39

So it feels almost normal now.

[Bryan]: 15:41

Yeah, so you said you just basically take it easy on movements for like a week or two, but you think by two weeks or three weeks, you'll be back to moving the same weights you were moving before.

[Aaron Straker]: 15:53

I may be a little apprehensive on certain things that I know will really light it up like a lengthened overhead tricep extension or something like

[Bryan]: 16:04

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 16:04

that. But pulling, I would imagine, yes, like grip type things will be pretty much normal. I will probably avoid some isolation things, at least for the rest of this week, and just do only like compound. and that sort of stuff where it's not like direct tricep work. But kind of ironically, like the direct tricep work is what would inflame it the most, even like, you know, kick like a shortened overload press back or something like that. But like heavy pressing wouldn't nearly be as discomforting.

[Bryan]: 16:40

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like your recoveries from PRP have been better than my one experience all across the board. I know we talked about this last year when I got PRP in my knee, but yeah, it was, I would say it was eight or nine weeks until I was moving the same weights that I was moving pre-PRP, and I couldn't even do anything on it at all for probably two and a half or three weeks, so. I don't know if it was like the type I got, where it was injected, anything like that. But yeah, definitely a longer recovery for me when it happened in my knee last year. So that's cool. I hope that you can get right back on track and keep going. Up until that point, I guess training fat loss camp is still going, but you're like modifying around it.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:28

Yeah, yeah. I trained legs today, so I didn't... The only thing I did to do is I swapped my heavy RDL for a very Dr. Mike-esque dumbbell stiff-legged deadlift with the posterior anterior pelvic

[Bryan]: 17:44

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 17:45

tilt and just made it so I could get the stimulus out of a significantly, significantly less load. But other than that, everything else was the same. And then tomorrow's a rest day, and then I'll test push. but without the isolations.

[Bryan]: 18:01

Cool. Well, my last quick update was that I went to the gym at Prospect yesterday. I know you love that place. So I just figured I'd shout that on here. Still doing my full body training. All is going super well with that. Jordan Lips actually just changed over to a full body program, similar to mine, as he's kind of also pursuing cardio goals at the moment. So he and I had a fun back and forth about that yesterday. But. Yeah, the gym dude the gym at prospect we got to use that super prime row that you and I both love and Amongst other of those awesome machines there, but nothing too crazy to report We did a little bit of filming for paragon training methods new cycle, which we have coming out October 9th, it's gonna be a glutes and shoulder specialization cycle with the option to turn glute dominant movements into quad dominant movements via change of torso angle and change of knee and ankle position. So you can either have it as a quad shoulder specialization cycle or a glute shoulder specialization cycle. So that'll drop October 9th for six weeks. We have a couple of cool, fun new movements in there. And yeah, I see your last update here is that you seem to be quite enjoying your morning cardio.

[Aaron Straker]: 19:22

I really have. And it took me a couple weeks to really kind of like suss it out because I'd have some days where I'm like, dude, I feel great today. And then there's other days where I'm like, fuck, I don't really want to go to... I'm going to go train at a principal, but I'm not really excited to go there. And I find that when I... I have this office here and it's like a detached room from the rest of the villa and I close the curtains sort of thing. And I like close my... If I like wake up, eat... at 6.45 and come in here and start work by like 11-ish, I just don't feel. I feel kind of cabin feverish and then it's like, I don't want to leave the villa and get outside. It's almost like a seasonal affective disorder sort of feeling. But then the mornings where I get up, I'm at the gym by like 7.15, 7.30 doing that cardio. I just have a heightened mood throughout the day. And I think it's just a little bit of like getting sweaty. With the current fat loss camp protocol, I get sweaty, I do some abs, I go in the sauna, and then I sit in the sun for like 10 to 15 minutes, and my body temperature regulates a little bit before I head home, and I feel so much better on those days, and I think it was just like really kind of honed in on that, and I think for the listeners out there who do have maybe a... control of their own schedule and those sorts of things, or have some time. And it's not like I'm grinding doing cardio stuff in the morning, but I just get sweaty, get my heart rate up, and I feel so much better throughout the day. And I think it's something I'm really gonna carry on past fat loss camp.

[Bryan]: 21:02

Yeah, no, that's awesome. I'm really glad to hear that. I have a client, Jeff Hain, who has a podcast as well, the Mind Muscle Connection podcast. I've been on there a bunch, but he just started doing his zone two cardio in the last six weeks maybe, and he just had his bachelor party this weekend, and the first thing he wanted to do when he got back from his bachelor party was sit on his bike and do his zone two so he could sweat everything out, set the head right. And he's like, man, I just felt so much better after that. And he's also gotten to the point where he like really looks forward to these zone two cardio sessions now. And much like you, I even had an entire podcast on his channel about this, but he was very much of the mindset even a year or two ago that, you know, cardio kills gains and impacts hypertrophy and all this stuff. And he's like, I have just noticed nothing but positive from it. And You and I have even talked about, and I made a post on Instagram about this a while ago, that in some ways, cardio actually has more applicability in a gaining phase to keep your work capacity up, make sure that your blood markers are all functioning properly, and that you're prioritizing health as you gain weight as well. So I think there's a place for cardio now in any state of your training periodization year. And yeah, I just think it's been really cool to see all these people kind of jumping on the bandwagon and seeing positive benefit from it.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:32

I echo a lot of that. I haven't released anything publicly or talked on the podcast or posted much on Instagram yet, but I'm turning a corner in my fat loss to where I have enough fat off now, where I can, the shape is coming in. And I'm excited, let's just put it that way. I have never been this lean at 207. Things are really fun, things are coming, and I'm very excited about it.

[Bryan]: 23:00

Very cool,

[Aaron Straker]: 23:00

And I think

[Bryan]: 23:00

yeah

[Aaron Straker]: 23:00

the cardio's

[Bryan]: 23:01

look.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:01

a... played a big role in that.

[Bryan]: 23:05

For sure, yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:06

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 23:06

Laura and I were actually just talking about you and your current physical state at the gym yesterday. I was like, man, fucking Aaron is 207 and etched right now. It was wild because I was comparing it to when you were 192 two years ago and you hit the end of that diet and you were

[Aaron Straker]: 23:22

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 23:22

pretty disappointed with what 192 looked like. And I was telling Laura, I was like, man, I don't even know if he has 15 more pounds of weight to lose right now. And if he did, he'd probably be stage ready, so. So there's that.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:36

Yeah, so it's been very cool. And maybe we'll talk about it on an episode. I don't wanna derail this one, but

[Bryan]: 23:42

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:43

what I will say is I've given this year everything. And I think that's like, I've been on a meal plan since January 1st. It's September 19th.

[Bryan]: 23:56

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 23:56

I deviate from that meal plan. I would say I averaged less than two meals per week deviation from that.

[Bryan]: 24:04

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:05

I've given it all, I've stacked all those one percenters, you know, per se, they do add up, but it has

[Bryan]: 24:12

For sure.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:12

to be important enough in your life for you to forgo dates, fucking coffee, all these other social things, which for 99% of the people, it's not worth that.

[Bryan]: 24:21

Right.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:22

But it has made a difference, I have found, which is cool.

[Bryan]: 24:26

Yep, very cool. It sounds like we have a kid coming downstairs real quick. So before we jump into the topic, hey Bryson, what are you doing up dude? All right, so I'm in the midst of finishing up my podcast here. Do you mind jumping on that iPad over there and just hanging out for that one right there? The one Vivi's just Vivi. All right. Hey, all right. We're going to, we're going to pause for like two minutes. Can we cut this

[Aaron Straker]: 24:52

Yep,

[Bryan]: 24:52

all out

[Aaron Straker]: 24:52

yep,

[Bryan]: 24:52

and then we'll come,

[Aaron Straker]: 24:53

of course.

[Bryan]: 24:53

we'll reconvene.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:54

I already noted down the time.

[Bryan]: 24:55

Okay, cool. Yeah. Give me a second. get you some food to munch on and you can use this iPad, okay? Or do you want to watch TV? Your choice. Let's see if we can get through this without another kid waking up.

[Aaron Straker]: 27:10

All right. I will note the time again about 27. Okay. So let's, let's just have you like lead us into the, the deload part.

[Bryan]: 27:22

Okay, so the first topic to discuss today here is going to be a little bit of insight into this deload study. And neither of us really want to spend a ton of time and make this like an in-depth research episode. We just kind of want to briefly spend 10 or 15 minutes on these two different topics and just kind of spit some practical application back and forth. So this first study is actually a pre-print. much like the meta regression from Robinson and colleagues that we discussed a few episodes ago on training to failure. So this one is a preprint from Max Coleman, who is a student of Brad Schoenfeld, who I'm sure all of you guys will recognize that name. And Brad is actually, he was the last author on this paper. So there was about maybe seven, eight authors and Brad was the final one, I think, because he was just overseeing the project. But the study is essentially called gaining more from doing less? The effects of a one-week deload period during supervised resistance training on muscular adaptations. And essentially what they did here without belaboring all of the details is they had two groups. One group trained for nine weeks straight, while another group trained for four weeks, took a one-week cessation or break, and then trained another four weeks. And they did this with a four times a week upper lower split routine. However, only the lower body work was performed in the lab as part of the study. And I believe the participants were told to train upper body the other two days on their own. The other interesting thing about this is that the lower body training, let's make sure I get this right. I was surprised because it didn't include any hamstring work. So it was five sets of eight to 12 of Smith squat, leg extension, calf raise on a leg press machine, and seated calf raise. So they had 10 sets of calf raises, five sets of leg extensions, and five sets of Smith squats. And it looks like they did that twice a week. So each week they had 20 sets of calf raises and 20 sets of quads. split between Smith squats and leg extensions, and it doesn't look like any hamstring work at all. It also says, to help standardize the intensity of effort, we verbally encouraged participants to perform all sets to the point of volitional failure, herein defined as the inability to perform another concentric repetition while maintaining proper form. So basically they hoped the participants went to failure, but... they don't really know, they just verbally encouraged them to do so, and just to throw this out there, if it was me trying to do five sets of eight to 12 on Smith squat and leg extension twice a week, I don't think I would be going to failure on every one of those sets. So that lays the groundwork for the study, and I'll let you jump in with some thoughts, and then we can kind of discuss the results.

[Aaron Straker]: 30:36

Yeah. So, I mean, let me... Well, hold on. Sorry. Let me move away from that. I forgot that Brad Shroenfeld was the last one on the paper and I had something to say, but that was incorrect. So, I mean, initially, like with most of these, the training protocol does leave some desires into it or questions, I would say, arise as to potentially why these things. Maybe it was cover, just test the quad and the calf. Maybe testing the size of hamstring growth is harder or something like that. So there's definitely things that are up in the air. But the thing that's kind of why I wouldn't pull too much information or takeaways from this one is because of the relative duration. And I think this was something that kind of caught my eye was... down deep down in the like discussion session where they note that the group that took the week break, they didn't feel like refreshed was the term used like coming out of it. They felt like lethargy and fatigued sort

[Bryan]: 31:54

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:54

of. And I think potentially or part of the theory that's included in the paper is because the of exercise for that week as opposed

[Bryan]: 32:06

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 32:06

to reducing frequency, intensity, load, or something like that. And that I do feel pretty confident in the takeaways. It's probably best to do something as opposed to nothing as a decent takeaway from this paper.

[Bryan]: 32:23

Yeah, I would say that that's definitely one way to look at it. Another way, like the way that I kind of look at it is that. Nobody or very few people program in a manner where. They just randomly, I guess, so I guess I should really, really say the way I'm going to say this. The RP method does have you kind of take these predetermined deload periods where it's like, Hey, you're going to train for a four or five week period, and then you're going to do load for a week and then do another four or five week and, and go from there. Most people in practice, at least people at the advanced level, I don't know too many people that pre-plan their deloads. Most people might have a general idea of like, Hey, usually somewhere between five and eight weeks, I usually need a deload and then they train. and they wait until they reach a point where they're feeling likely psychologically fatigued, as we've discussed on this podcast before. And then they're like, shit, I am losing motivation. I don't really want to go to and past failure this week. I think I need a break. So they do whatever they do, whether it's three to five days off or it's a week of, you know, lower volumes, lower intensities. And then they get right back to training and they keep going. And because this is a bit more intuitive and it's... Timeliness is dependent upon when the athlete feels the need for it. I think that changes the dynamic a little bit versus being like you're going to train four weeks, take an entire week off and go back to training for more weeks. So I think there's that element of like you said, doing nothing versus lowering intensity and volume like most people do in practice or taking a shorter period of time. Like like my favorite way to D-load is take three to five days off not to take seven days off. So that was interesting to me as far as like a practical application that people would be able to use this for. Um, I do think the idea of being lethargic and unmotivated after a week completely off is reasonable, especially if you've only been training for weeks leading into that, whereas I find when I take, you know, five days off after training for seven weeks and I feel like I need those five days, then I come back after those five days reinvigorated and ready to go. And so there's like a lot of kind of extenuating circumstances like that included in there.

[Aaron Straker]: 34:47

Yeah, I would say kind of takeaways from this one or recommendations, proactively or reactively deloading, I'm sorry, reactively is probably a better approach than like a proactive planned in week four I deload sort of thing because there's huge amounts of individual variation, right? If you're in a surplus, you have higher

[Bryan]: 35:11

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 35:11

recovery capacity, there's probably less... You know, stress, stressors with that because of the increased recovery capacity, your sleep might be better, these sorts of things. These are massive leverages that will impact the accumulation of fatigue and these sorts of things. And I think, you know, not considering those is a little bit short-sighted

[Bryan]: 35:35

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 35:36

in how fatigue accumulates and those sorts of things. So when you feel the subjective and there's objective, right, regressions in training. Uh, um, not performance is a good way, preparedness, joint pain, different things like that, but it's probably, you know, best to listen to it to yourself in the signals that your body is giving you for the D load as opposed to, Hey, I'm in week four time to D load sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 36:02

Yep, for sure. And then a lot of people in discussion around this that I've seen online and on podcasts and stuff. It seems like a lot of people are looking at this and taking from it this idea that, oh, well, you don't need to do load because you get the same results, which I guess, oh, we haven't even discussed this. But basically, both groups got the same results. Plus or minus. So aside from that psychological piece that Aaron mentioned where the D load group felt like a little unmotivated and lethargic. When you actually broke it down across groups and looked at muscle size increases. There was no statistical significantly difference between the two groups. Um, so some people are looking at that and being like, you don't need to deload C cause you get the same results. The way I would look at, at that is looking at it from a more forgiving way and saying, Hey, you got the same results and you took an entire week off, like you trained only eight out of nine weeks and you got the same results as the group that trained nine out of nine weeks. So. this opens up a whole world of possibilities, at least in the short term of, hey, I can go on vacation and take a week off and it's not a big deal. Or I got sick and I had to take a week off, not a big deal. Whereas imagine if the study had come the other way and it had been like way better results if you don't deload. Well, now people are gonna be sitting here stressing, being like, oh, I went on vacation, I have to make sure I train during this period because hashtag results. So that's the, that's one thing I thought was really interesting about it. And then it also made me think about an older study that we've referenced on the podcast before. And it literally took me like an entire 10 minute period rushing to try to find this study before we started the podcast this morning, but I finally found it. Um, and so this other study is Oga Sawara and colleagues, and it's a comparison of muscle hypertrophy following six months of continuous and periodic strength training. And I love this study because this is one you guys have probably heard or many of you have where they took two groups. One group trained 24 weeks continuously without stopping. And the other group did six weeks on, three weeks off, six weeks on, three weeks off, six weeks on. So they also had 24 weeks and they finished with a six week on period, not with a three week off. At the end of that study, they also found non not stig to stick. statistically significant differences between the groups. So whether you trained 18 of 24 weeks or trained 24 weeks, it didn't seem to make a difference. And this is a bit of an extreme case. Whereas I think the other one was a little bit more ecologically valid, comparing to things that people might actually do in the gym, like nobody's really going to train for six weeks and then take three weeks completely off. But it is really interesting that in this OSA Goara study, they were able to achieve the exact same strength and hypertrophy with the three week periods off. And the discussion around that essentially was more along the lines of what happened was these people detrained. So they lost strength and muscle, but because we know that it comes back so much faster than it's lost, that they were able to gain it back during each six week period. And so it's not a perfect. validation of being like, hey, you can do it for three weeks every six weeks. And it's not a big deal. It's more just like, hey, if you do take time off, we know that shit's going to come back really fast, and you don't need to worry about it. So anyway, those two studies, I think are interesting and have some similarities and some differences. But both of them seem to exemplify that taking time off doesn't seem to hurt your gains in the long term, as long as you're consistent over time.

[Aaron Straker]: 39:49

Yep. And you ready to move on to the second part? Okay, cool. So this, what we're gonna talk about next, comes from a graphic that was posted to Instagram by Chris Beardsley. It's also up on his Patreon and those sorts of things. Now, what I will say before we dive into this is nothing we are saying is kind of what I would recommend taking it as, like, definitive, even at the, let's call it, the most academically credentialed... level these people still have disagreements with one another. We're really talking about like theories with varying supporting and maybe unsupporting research that sort of thing. So basically what I'm saying is very few things are to be taken as definitive truths quite yet. But with this one, I thought... made a lot of sense with what many of us, or pretty much all of us, experience through your training age. And what I thought was, I would read through kind of the main parts of the post, and we'll make sure we put a link to it in the show notes and that sort of thing, and then we'll kind of open it up from there. So... At the top, we have, which motor units display hypertrophy after a workout likely depends on the training status of the lifter, with far more motor units being capable of growth in beginners. So, to kind of back up a little bit, we have essentially these different thresholds of motor units that get recruited when you are performing an exercise. The kind of gist of this is when you, let's say you're doing a set of 20 on a leg extension. When you're in set, when you're in reps like one through five, pretty much your low threshold motor units are being activated to do the work, right? Those are the ones that come in first when you are still quite far from failure. Once the reps begin to accumulate, you start to activate and recruit the next threshold of motor units. In this example... Chris breaks them down into pretty much like lowest threshold, you know, motor units, a middle threshold, and then like the highest threshold. And then after you've essentially fatigued the capabilities of your middle tier of motor units, you move into your highest threshold motor units, which is, let's call it the closest activation period to failure. How close is kind of up for debate. So I'm not going to pick a number there just to be wrong. pretty much regardless, but you won't get the maximum recruitment out of these until you are close in proximity to failure and from an effort standpoint, probably putting in let's say 100% perceivable effort. So moving along with this, one of the notes here, the first one is that the muscle fibers of low threshold motor units do not grow after any type of exercise in the gym. This is likely because they have already reached their maximum possible size by just being used constantly in daily activities of life. A very, very common place that people seem to think of this one is like the calves, right? Where you train the calves in what it takes to actually add any kind of perceivable size to them is such a high effort

[Bryan]: 43:20

Mm-hm.

[Aaron Straker]: 43:20

and volume relative to like biceps, chest, you know, back and the other muscle groups. Because your calves are pretty damn strong from just living life and walking on them It's a very, very good example. Beginners experience more

[Bryan]: 43:34

is

[Aaron Straker]: 43:34

rapid

[Bryan]: 43:34

more rapid

[Aaron Straker]: 43:34

hypertrophy

[Bryan]: 43:35

hypertrophy

[Aaron Straker]: 43:35

than well-trained

[Bryan]: 43:36

than well-trained

[Aaron Straker]: 43:36

lifters.

[Bryan]: 43:37

whippers

[Aaron Straker]: 43:37

This is a

[Bryan]: 43:37

because

[Aaron Straker]: 43:37

pretty

[Bryan]: 43:37

it will

[Aaron Straker]: 43:38

established

[Bryan]: 43:38

pre-establish

[Aaron Straker]: 43:38

fact.

[Bryan]: 43:39

your rapidly.

[Aaron Straker]: 43:40

This is

[Bryan]: 43:40

This

[Aaron Straker]: 43:40

likely

[Bryan]: 43:40

is likely

[Aaron Straker]: 43:40

because

[Bryan]: 43:41

because

[Aaron Straker]: 43:41

they can

[Bryan]: 43:41

they

[Aaron Straker]: 43:41

achieve

[Bryan]: 43:41

can achieve

[Aaron Straker]: 43:42

hypertrophy

[Bryan]: 43:42

hypertrophy

[Aaron Straker]: 43:43

in the muscle

[Bryan]: 43:43

in the muscle

[Aaron Straker]: 43:43

fibers

[Bryan]: 43:44

fibers

[Aaron Straker]: 43:44

of

[Bryan]: 43:44

of

[Aaron Straker]: 43:45

all

[Bryan]: 43:45

all...

[Aaron Straker]: 43:45

high-threshold motor units. So the lowest

[Bryan]: 43:48

the lowest

[Aaron Straker]: 43:49

of the high-threshold

[Bryan]: 43:49

of the high threshold

[Aaron Straker]: 43:50

tiers,

[Bryan]: 43:50

tiers,

[Aaron Straker]: 43:50

the middle

[Bryan]: 43:51

the

[Aaron Straker]: 43:51

threshold,

[Bryan]: 43:51

middle threshold

[Aaron Straker]: 43:52

and the

[Bryan]: 43:52

and

[Aaron Straker]: 43:52

highest

[Bryan]: 43:53

highest

[Aaron Straker]: 43:53

threshold.

[Bryan]: 43:53

threshold.

[Aaron Straker]: 43:54

It's also

[Bryan]: 43:55

It's

[Aaron Straker]: 43:55

well

[Bryan]: 43:55

also

[Aaron Straker]: 43:55

known

[Bryan]: 43:55

well

[Aaron Straker]: 43:55

that

[Bryan]: 43:55

known

[Aaron Straker]: 43:56

intermediates

[Bryan]: 43:56

that intermediates

[Aaron Straker]: 43:56

display...

[Bryan]: 43:57

display

[Aaron Straker]: 43:57

slower

[Bryan]: 43:57

slower

[Aaron Straker]: 43:58

hypertrophy

[Bryan]: 43:58

high cultured

[Aaron Straker]: 43:58

than

[Bryan]: 43:58

heat

[Aaron Straker]: 43:59

beginners,

[Bryan]: 43:59

than gibbous, which

[Aaron Straker]: 43:59

something

[Bryan]: 44:00

is

[Aaron Straker]: 44:00

we

[Bryan]: 44:00

something

[Aaron Straker]: 44:00

all subjectively,

[Bryan]: 44:00

we also try to do.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:01

you know, experience and know to be true. This could be because they cannot achieve any growth in the fibers of the lowest high threshold motor units, because you've already kind of made all of the gains in those lowest fibers of the lowest high threshold motor units. So then you're only left to make gains in the middle tier. and the highest tier of the threshold of motor units. And then moving from the intermediate to the advanced level, advanced lifters display very slow hypertrophy, which we all know to be, you know, mostly true if we make it to that level.

[Bryan]: 44:41

level.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:41

This is

[Bryan]: 44:41

This

[Aaron Straker]: 44:41

likely

[Bryan]: 44:42

is likely

[Aaron Straker]: 44:42

because

[Bryan]: 44:42

because

[Aaron Straker]: 44:42

they cannot

[Bryan]: 44:43

they cannot

[Aaron Straker]: 44:43

achieve growth

[Bryan]: 44:43

achieve

[Aaron Straker]: 44:44

in the muscle

[Bryan]: 44:44

the

[Aaron Straker]: 44:44

fibers

[Bryan]: 44:44

muscle fibers

[Aaron Straker]: 44:45

of

[Bryan]: 44:45

of

[Aaron Straker]: 44:45

either

[Bryan]: 44:45

either

[Aaron Straker]: 44:45

the lowest

[Bryan]: 44:46

the lowest

[Aaron Straker]: 44:46

high threshold

[Bryan]: 44:46

high pressure

[Aaron Straker]: 44:47

motor

[Bryan]: 44:47

in the

[Aaron Straker]: 44:47

units

[Bryan]: 44:47

room

[Aaron Straker]: 44:48

or the

[Bryan]: 44:48

or

[Aaron Straker]: 44:48

muscle

[Bryan]: 44:48

the muscle

[Aaron Straker]: 44:49

fibers

[Bryan]: 44:49

fibers

[Aaron Straker]: 44:49

of the

[Bryan]: 44:49

of the

[Aaron Straker]: 44:50

middle

[Bryan]: 44:50

middle

[Aaron Straker]: 44:50

high

[Bryan]: 44:50

or

[Aaron Straker]: 44:50

threshold

[Bryan]: 44:51

high pressure.

[Aaron Straker]: 44:51

motor units. They can likely only achieve growth in the muscle fibers of the high threshold. highest high threshold motor units. So to kind of work this one back, I know I've been kind of reading a lot and spitting, you know, verbatim Chris Beardsley at you.

[Bryan]: 45:07

Okay.

[Aaron Straker]: 45:09

What I thought was really interesting when reading this is the kind of theory that your training intensities, relative intensities, meaning proximity to failure, likely need to increase. as your training age increases to further elicit hypertrophy of the gains that you can make in the beginning. When you're a beginner and you haven't made many gains, just going in and trying and doing some work like there is progress to be made as you net some of that progress and therefore there is less total progress to be made. You need to work harder to make more. And then eventually once you reach, you know, I'm not even gonna put a date on it. I was gonna say a decade,

[Bryan]: 45:55

I've

[Aaron Straker]: 45:55

but a

[Bryan]: 45:56

been

[Aaron Straker]: 45:56

long

[Bryan]: 45:56

seeing a

[Aaron Straker]: 45:57

time.

[Bryan]: 45:57

decade, but

[Aaron Straker]: 45:57

Once

[Bryan]: 45:57

a long

[Aaron Straker]: 45:57

you've

[Bryan]: 45:57

time,

[Aaron Straker]: 45:57

made

[Bryan]: 45:57

once you've made

[Aaron Straker]: 45:58

some solid,

[Bryan]: 45:58

some solid,

[Aaron Straker]: 45:59

solid gains already, you

[Bryan]: 46:00

ready

[Aaron Straker]: 46:00

have,

[Bryan]: 46:00

to have

[Aaron Straker]: 46:01

let's call

[Bryan]: 46:01

what's

[Aaron Straker]: 46:01

it an

[Bryan]: 46:01

called

[Aaron Straker]: 46:01

impressive

[Bryan]: 46:02

a quest

[Aaron Straker]: 46:02

physique

[Bryan]: 46:02

to succeed

[Aaron Straker]: 46:02

relative

[Bryan]: 46:03

relative

[Aaron Straker]: 46:03

to your

[Bryan]: 46:03

to your

[Aaron Straker]: 46:04

genetic

[Bryan]: 46:04

genetic

[Aaron Straker]: 46:05

level

[Bryan]: 46:05

level,

[Aaron Straker]: 46:05

and those

[Bryan]: 46:05

and

[Aaron Straker]: 46:05

sorts

[Bryan]: 46:06

those

[Aaron Straker]: 46:06

of things,

[Bryan]: 46:06

sorts of things,

[Aaron Straker]: 46:06

age.

[Bryan]: 46:07

age,

[Aaron Straker]: 46:07

To further

[Bryan]: 46:08

to further

[Aaron Straker]: 46:08

make progress,

[Bryan]: 46:08

make progress

[Aaron Straker]: 46:09

your return

[Bryan]: 46:10

or put more

[Aaron Straker]: 46:11

on

[Bryan]: 46:11

on investment

[Aaron Straker]: 46:11

investment

[Bryan]: 46:11

than you're trying

[Aaron Straker]: 46:12

in terms

[Bryan]: 46:12

to make.

[Aaron Straker]: 46:12

of effort flips upside down quite high. There's much

[Bryan]: 46:17

much

[Aaron Straker]: 46:18

more significant

[Bryan]: 46:18

more significant

[Aaron Straker]: 46:19

effort

[Bryan]: 46:19

effort.

[Aaron Straker]: 46:19

in closer proximity to failure. needing to be elicited and put in to net the least amount of hypertrophy that's left to be obtained. And what I thought was very just helpful and practical from this for you as the listener is to identify where along that kind of, it's kind of like a, not an exponential graph or maybe this is an exponential graph. I don't know. It's been a really long time. since I've had that stuff in math. But anyway, kind of this like curve in... I know it's so many people get so caught up on like, well, how hard should I train? And of course, we released an episode and stuff on this, but I think it's a really good way to let you help you decide there. What are your thoughts on that, Brian?

[Bryan]: 47:10

Yeah, it's interesting because the post like says a lot. But it doesn't really give any practical application. It's

[Aaron Straker]: 47:18

Zero.

[Bryan]: 47:19

just, yeah, it's just, hey, this is happening. Probably. We don't know. But like, this is likely a possible reason why we get less results as we get older. So if you go into the comments, you have people asking like, Okay, so what am I supposed to do? And you, you listed training closer to failure, which I think is probably the most obvious solution given the way that he discussed that it's, Hey, these, these motor units, you know, we, if you go to failure, you've fatigued all of the motor units from the low middle and high threshold motor units. So going to failure is probably a good idea. Um, one thing I took from this is you have Chris and Paul. Paul Carter, both on this train of believing that the five to eight rep range is basically the perfect rep range for everything no matter what you're doing, like you can lateral raises for fives or, you know, it doesn't really matter like sets a five to eight or where it's at. And so I kind of think that this infographic from Chris and everything that you broke down, it just further goes to support that idea that they put out there that five to eight reps is perfect for everything. Because What we know about five to eight rep sets is that you're essentially recruiting the highest level, highest threshold motor units from the very beginning. Like your reps are quote effective from the very first rep versus in that example you used of the 20 rep leg extension, you know, you have the low threshold motor units in reps one through six or whatever, then the middle ones from six to 15 and then from 15 to 20 you finally have to bring in these high threshold motor units. And inevitably, there's going to be like a fatigue cost associated with the first 15 reps to get you to the 20. And if you're an advanced athlete or a trainee that has already in Chris's eyes, kind of used up all your gains from the low and middle threshold units, then you're not getting anything positive from reps one through 15. Whereas somebody that's newer and has not exhausted all of their growth. from the lower and middle threshold units, they might actually get some growth from those first reps of that set. So knowing what Chris and Paul tend to espouse, this led me to believe that they're just looking for another way to support that five to eight rep range piece, which I think makes sense. I also love the five to eight rep range, and I don't love everything that Paul and Chris put out. I think Chris puts out mostly good information, but... I do think that in many ways that use of the five to eight rep range also is supported in the Robinson and colleagues meta regression on training to failure because what they basically show is that when you're doing those lower rep sets of five, six, seven reps where reps are effective from the beginning, you actually don't necessarily need to train as close to failure because the units are all recruited from the beginning. And so I think if you kind of combine what we know from the meta aggression and from the information that Robinson has been putting out with this infographic from Beardsley and kind of the general umbrella of information that Paul and Chris are putting out, that we can kind of narrow down into this range of, of five to eight reps and realize that as long as we're training within one or two reps from failure in that five to eight rep range, it's likely that we're fatiguing. all of the desired motor units throughout the spectrum.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:08

I love that you brought that up. It's a really, really excellent point. Playing devil's advocate kind of here, not on the rep range itself, but on the quality of the execution of those reps, right? Let's say we're performing a bicep curl in the five to eight rep range. There's a way to do it wonderfully. I would say in practicality or in practice, many people, many lifters will perform those reps. at a

[Bryan]: 51:38

in a

[Aaron Straker]: 51:38

poor

[Bryan]: 51:38

core

[Aaron Straker]: 51:39

execution

[Bryan]: 51:39

execution

[Aaron Straker]: 51:39

standpoint

[Bryan]: 51:40

sample

[Aaron Straker]: 51:40

because the

[Bryan]: 51:40

because

[Aaron Straker]: 51:40

load

[Bryan]: 51:41

the load

[Aaron Straker]: 51:41

is higher.

[Bryan]: 51:41

is higher. And

[Aaron Straker]: 51:42

And

[Bryan]: 51:43

it's

[Aaron Straker]: 51:43

it's just like...

[Bryan]: 51:43

just like,

[Aaron Straker]: 51:44

And I'm not

[Bryan]: 51:44

and

[Aaron Straker]: 51:44

saying

[Bryan]: 51:44

I'm not

[Aaron Straker]: 51:45

it's

[Bryan]: 51:45

saying it's

[Aaron Straker]: 51:46

necessarily

[Bryan]: 51:46

necessarily

[Aaron Straker]: 51:47

wrong or

[Bryan]: 51:47

wrong,

[Aaron Straker]: 51:47

anything, but there's like

[Bryan]: 51:48

but

[Aaron Straker]: 51:48

an

[Bryan]: 51:48

there's

[Aaron Straker]: 51:48

asterisk,

[Bryan]: 51:48

an asterisk,

[Aaron Straker]: 51:49

right?

[Bryan]: 51:49

right?

[Aaron Straker]: 51:49

Like five

[Bryan]: 51:50

Like

[Aaron Straker]: 51:50

to

[Bryan]: 51:50

five

[Aaron Straker]: 51:50

eight rep

[Bryan]: 51:50

to eight

[Aaron Straker]: 51:50

range

[Bryan]: 51:50

rep range

[Aaron Straker]: 51:51

with

[Bryan]: 51:51

with

[Aaron Straker]: 51:52

really

[Bryan]: 51:52

really

[Aaron Straker]: 51:53

good

[Bryan]: 51:53

good

[Aaron Straker]: 51:53

execution,

[Bryan]: 51:54

execution

[Aaron Straker]: 51:54

not

[Bryan]: 51:55

and

[Aaron Straker]: 51:55

launching

[Bryan]: 51:55

launching

[Aaron Straker]: 51:56

in those

[Bryan]: 51:56

and

[Aaron Straker]: 51:56

sorts

[Bryan]: 51:56

those

[Aaron Straker]: 51:57

of

[Bryan]: 51:57

sorts

[Aaron Straker]: 51:57

things

[Bryan]: 51:57

of things.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:57

where I think this is where one of those things where like the theory

[Bryan]: 52:01

theory

[Aaron Straker]: 52:01

I think is solid.

[Bryan]: 52:01

I can solve,

[Aaron Straker]: 52:02

I

[Bryan]: 52:02

but

[Aaron Straker]: 52:02

think

[Bryan]: 52:02

I

[Aaron Straker]: 52:02

it makes

[Bryan]: 52:02

think it

[Aaron Straker]: 52:03

perfect

[Bryan]: 52:03

makes no

[Aaron Straker]: 52:03

sense.

[Bryan]: 52:03

sense.

[Aaron Straker]: 52:04

many people

[Bryan]: 52:04

Many people

[Aaron Straker]: 52:05

will bastardize

[Bryan]: 52:05

would vast device

[Aaron Straker]: 52:06

the execution

[Bryan]: 52:06

the solution.

[Aaron Straker]: 52:07

of it because of what happens when reps drop and load increases.

[Bryan]: 52:15

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's I think in the Robinson meta regression, most of the studies that use the five to eight rep range that they were referencing were these large compound movements. So you're not seeing studies, at least we don't have studies available, where you see someone doing laterals and bicep curls in the five to eight rep range, they tend to use the 10 to 15 or eight to 12 rep range for those types of movements. But when you look at Paul's training that he puts on Instagram, he's doing everything in that rep range. And he has a number of posts talking about how you, there's no reason you can't do movements in those rep ranges. Um, with that said, I think that it comes down a lot to it being a short overload movement, making it difficult to train in that rep range, especially when it's like very highly significantly short overloaded. And so we're looking at, you know, the bicep curl, the, uh, some version of bicep curls are not. as short but like a standing dumbbell bicep curl a dumbbell lateral raise type thing. Those movements I like I do I will I do curls actually in the four to eight rep range I did a set yesterday of hammer curls where I did 50 pounds and I only got four reps full reps and then I did seven partials so I don't even know how that would fit into this spectrum of analysis because I did four full reps but then I basically exhausted all the motor units by doing seven partials until I literally couldn't move my arm from the bottom anymore. And so there's a certain level of exhaustion that occurs there. And so did I do four reps or did I do 11 reps? Or did I do somewhere in between? I don't exactly know the answer to that. And I also think, you know, you can take a movement like a lateral raise and with dumbbells, it seems less feasible to do it for five or six reps. But when you set yourself up with cables coming from behind your back, and you're setting them at wrist height so it's more length and overloaded, I find extreme productivity from doing sets in the five to six rep range there. And so I think exercise selection certainly comes in and plays a major point. And so if you're gonna take this approach practically and you want to start training in that lower rep range so that you recruit more of these high threshold motor units, then I think you need to also kind of look at your exercise selection and choose movements that are a bit more conducive to working in that rep range.

[Aaron Straker]: 54:37

Agreed. And I think one last little part that I'll add on, I think this is the final part for me, is with, like you said, the exercise selection, load selection, something like a dumbbell, right? You only have five pound increments or two and a half kilo increments or something like that. And maybe you can do the tens for like nine reps, but then you go up to the 15s, which is like a 50% load increase and you're at like two or something like that.

[Bryan]: 55:04

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 55:05

So

[Bryan]: 55:05

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:05

With Brian's example with the cable lateral raise at the wrist height, the length and position, if you have like a gym pin or even one of the, like even using the default pin, many times you can bring over like a one, a two pound weight and you can increment that much more or much less, much smaller, which would be

[Bryan]: 55:28

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:28

more conducive for, you know, getting a, being able to use an appropriate load to... produce stimulus in that five to eight rep range sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 55:37

Yeah, no, that's a really good point to you. I love the micro loading. And so you, you mentioned using the standard pin that's in there. Like you can just kind of wedge that pin out a little bit or leave it as is, and just place the middle hole of the plate around the pin. Um, or what I do is I use my, uh, angles, 90 grips, and I just tie them to the stack and then I loop a plate over the angles, 90 grip. And so there's a number of different ways that you can kind of micro load if that's your jam and you're trying to kind of stay in that rep range with these more. single joint movements. And then obviously it's not as big of a deal for compound movements where loading is a little bit easier with five pound increments. And then the last thing I think on this in the comments is someone asked about whether this means that they should train, I think it was less frequently with closer proximities to failure. And so I thought the less frequently part was interesting because I didn't see any reference that so I thought it was interesting that someone would intuit that this infographic would mean that they should train with slightly less frequencies but Chris Beardley was like yeah I think that in general you know closer to failure with less frequency is a good idea and so I wonder I'd love to see like a follow-up post of some sort but it got me thinking about whether there's something to training it less frequently in that maybe it takes longer for the high threshold motor units to recover between sessions or maybe the idea of going to failure on these movements in these rep ranges somehow has like a longer recovery curve. But you do see Chris and Paul often discuss that training a muscle group every five to seven days or even doing like a bro split thing seems to be just as good as you know, the more evidence based. two times a week approach. And we've discussed this as well in prior episodes how it seems like the paradigm has shifted in that the bro split is making a comeback. But I just, I'm very interested in it because there's also posts by Beardly, like I swear there was a post by Beardly last year that said that muscle loss begins occurring 48 hours after your last session for a muscle group in an advanced athlete. So he was basically like, look. this muscle loss is occurring isn't anything you're going to see. It's not going to show up on a DEXA. Like it's just, it's just happening. Like if you're an advanced athlete and you've provided this stimulus to your body over many years, it just, as soon as MPS stops processing, which is. 24 hours for an advanced athlete or even less. Uh, whereas you get 72 plus hours of MPS elevation for like a new athlete or something like that. Um, It seems like the advanced athlete then, according to this other infographic by Beardsley is actually beginning to lose muscle within a day or two of training a muscle group, um, which is, is just interesting and kind of flies in the face of the way that people usually look at this stuff or even at the D load study that we saw or the D training study. Like it's all there's, there's all this information out there. And it's like, even if we are losing muscle in a day or two, after we stopped training, it's clear that doesn't mean that we should train that muscle group every day or two. And that's not what Chris and Paul are promoting either. But it's just interesting how there's all this conflicting information out there. And if you were somebody somewhat new to training or new to social media, you literally could get yourself in a flurry with all of the different perspectives that are coming in, in this case, even from the same person. So, so yeah, it's just a wild world out there.

[Aaron Straker]: 59:22

Yeah, it really, really is. But I think things are getting better, at least I feel that way. But maybe that's because we are fortunate that we are surrounded by pretty decent information sources and we have decades of fucking things up and learning the

[Bryan]: 59:37

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 59:37

hard way sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 59:38

I mean, in some ways it actually like breeds into the nihilistic thinking. And we can go back to episode 100 where we did nihilist evidence based nihilism, where we broke down all these studies of like, hey, nothing really fucking matters at all. And in some ways, that's like the more advanced I get. It's like train with a boy split, train three times a week on a full body routine. You know, go to failure, don't go to failure, do a bunch of sets, don't do a bunch of sets like. at some level, like if you do the shit long enough over time, you're probably going to get to the same place. And so it's fun to discuss this nuance and really analyze it and work for those marginal gains. I love that term marginal gains because it really is like putting in so much effort for such a small return at this stage. But at the end of the day, like we don't know enough to even know if marginal gains. like we're doing the right thing to get the marginal gains like we think we are because evidence says, hey, for most people, this probably will work, but you might not be that person, you might be the outlier, and then for you, something else works. And so there's just, man, there's so many roads to Rome, and that's what makes this also interesting and fun and exciting to follow the evidence-based space, but also extremely frustrating at times.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:00:58

Agreed. I think it's a really, really good spot to wrap this one up. Anything to add before we do, Brian?

[Bryan]: 1:01:04

No, let's get some kids to school, man.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:01:06

Alright, let's get some kids to school. As always guys, thank you for listening.

[Bryan]: 1:01:11

Yep.