What is going on, guys? Welcome back to Eat Train Prosper. Today is episode 222, our July 2026 Instagram QA. We have a stack of questions per usual. Thank you to everyone who submit. But before we dive in, some quick updates from Brian and myself. Brian, kick us off, please. Yeah, quick updates here. Um, I'm heading to Wisconsin on Saturday in a few days from now. I'll be there for the week. We are gonna take that week off from uh from the show, come back the next week, and I'll have one week of of episode for you guys. And then I have two weeks potentially off where we're doing a road trip to a bunch of different canyons around the US, which is gonna be awesome. Um and my only other update is that the new Brian's program cycle with that often questioned 15105 rep scheme that I've been talking about a lot is dropping on July twentieth. This will be pretty much exactly what I'm doing right now, which is not necessarily the way the program is currently operating, which is a full body program. As I discussed, I uh could not stick to my full body program. So we're on to like a bit of a split. This program will drop for the app on the twentieth, if anyone wants to join me. Cool. I have two. Uh next weekend in Dallas, Texas, I am hosting uh my first ever boys training trip, which it was born of things that after being gone for so many years on the other side of the world, um, which was wonderful, of course. I just want to start doing more things in person and getting together with some friends and other coaches to just have a a weekend of training together, cooking food in so think of it as a very health and productive focused boys weekend. That doesn't have your typical alcohol, late nights, partying. So that's what we're doing. At the absolute recomp in Frisco, which is one of the mega gyms down there. So that I am very, very excited about. And then in September, I have my first US seminar, September 18th, 19th, and 20th. This is called Refining Hypertrophy at my home gym here in Utah. Called the Refinery Gym. It is hosted by myself and fellow IFBB pro Ben Broughton. So if that is interesting for you and you are looking to learn hands-on three-day full set three, full-day seminar, get in contact with myself and I can provide you details on that. And that is all that I have for updates this week. Awesome. Let's talk uh question and answer. This first one I will kick to you because I want to see if you have something different from uh my answer. Can you discuss exercise sequencing for barbell RDLs? Some coaches program only at the end of a session. Interesting. I would actually say that more what I've seen is that coaches program them at the beginning. And um the thing is that I think that the answer to this question actually comes down to how advanced you are and what you're trying to achieve with your sequencing. So like somebody who's relatively new to training, even up to an intermediate level, I would probably always put the RDLs first because they're so technically challenging that you don't want to be doing them when you're already fatigued later on in the workout. As you get more advanced, like one of the my favorite ways to use RDLs is to put them at the end, specifically after leg curls, because now you're able to get more hamstring and glute out of your RDL for less slow back because you're using essentially a little bit less weight. Um, another thing as an advance that I really like to do, and this one is I think debatable whether other people like this approach or not, but I like to superset the leg curl into the RDL. Um Obviously the weight for the RDL goes way, way down at this point. Like I think I was doing a set of six at 295 or something like that, and it was destroying me, which is great if you can get a lot of stimulus out of less weight on something like that. But you do have to be quite advanced to be able to make that work because you do go into those RDLs very fatigued and it feels way different than it does if you're doing them even with sufficient rest between those sets. I love your answer. I I don't disagree with any of it. The only thing that I will say is I'm never programming the superset and that's purely for logistical reasons, right? I don't have a lot of athletes that have That train at a home gym. And if they do train at a home gym, they usually don't have a seated hamstring curl. So it's just like the the lack of opportunity. Not that I disagree with the approach, but yeah, the more technically proficient you are at RDLs usually also corresponds with a higher training age and therefore more sh more strength. I'm Like if I if I'm doing RDLs there at the end, I'm doing RDLs and I'm fucking going home because that means I am smoked now. So but earlier in my career or anyone, if if if unless you have a high degree of technical proficiency in that movement, I'm not going to program it for you when there's any level of fatigue present. Yeah. It's just like if you're really strong like you are, like you just don't want to be doing your RDLs with like four five or four fifty-five or whatever it is. Like if you can be fatigued and put them at the end and be able to do them with three fifteen or three sixty-five, that is a totally different experience. Yeah. All right. This one for you. Um, where will you get your TRT in the US? Any reputable telehealth companies? So yes, I am working with Vitality HRT. They are local here to Salt Lake City. They are a newer company, which is why exactly I I wanted to work with them because uh it's not, how do I want to call it? Like It if the company's not large enough where you're just dealing with your layers uh of people, which is what I prefer myself when working with companies. I've been with some of the bigger ones in in the past, and as companies scale in size, there's usually more bureaucracy and top-down, how do I want to call them, procedures, and it becomes a little bit less authentic. Or varying levels of less authentic. And for you know, full transparency, uh, the company that I used previously, which I will not name. They have a habit of trying to upsell you on things you don't do not need. And I were told abject lies about things on my blood work that would prevent me from achieving fertility, which I knew were not true. And when I played devil's advocate and put pressed them on it, they could provide nothing of substance. So when that happened, I I was like, all right, you fuckers aren't getting another dime from me with your shady practices. So um, yep, Vitality, they've been great. I've been Really, really happy with just being with a smaller company. And that's what I would generally look for ah if you are in the realm of this, because then you're closer to the actual decision makers, and you're not just working with someone who is based off of sales commission or something. So they're financially incentivized to get you on the GLPs and the secretagogues and the analogs and all this stuff. So that's my personal recommendation. ah But everyone has their own opinion. Where do you put something like Merrick Health in this spectrum? Merrick has a very good Public presentation. The few people that I know that have worked with Merrick have all had experiences that do not match that high-level public presentation. That is not I I have not worked with them, so I cannot say, but the there's three that I can immediately think of off the top of my head, there may be a fourth that I can't remember. They did not stick with Merrick based off their experiences. Yeah, I was personally curious and I think the the listeners will probably find that interesting as well or helpful. All right, cool. how often do you complete educational courses? Any in particular that you'd recommend? This is a really hard question to answer. In the beginning of my coaching career, I in my educational uh journey, voraciously consumed educational courses because there was a level of proficiency I wanted to be at. I was not at that level of proficiency, so I did as much as I could to get me to that level of proficiency. Now I would say instead of educational courses, I much rather prefer things like in-person seminars, working with a specific person that has a level of success or client result standard that I strive to create for myself and my clients. So I'm usually looking for a person to I I can go work with as opposed to a course. If you are newer, I would say something that has a combination of both. Like I look back at N1 when I went to the N1. Uh I can't, I think it was four days. It might have been three days. I can't remember. It was either three or four days. Four. It was a it was incredible. So it was a lot of it was a lot of drinking from a fire hose, but there was a lot of hands-on practical experience. There's things that you learn in person that you just don't learn from a through a screen, sort of thing. So I would definitely recommend N1. I also really like Joe Bennett, the hypertrophy coach. I know him and Cass have a little bit of a not the best history, but I think they both all offer very similar concepts and and and ultimate similar findings on things. like for example, if Joe hosts another seminar or something, I'm gonna jump on that now that I'm back in the States to go learn from. But that would be my recommendation there. What about you, Brian? Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. I voraciously consumed uh education in my earlier years and like we talked even in the recent episode about kind of my journey through the OPEX OPT certification courses in the early CrossFit days and stuff like that. And I actually think that was probably the most impactful learning that I had because it was in person, hands on. There was four of them over a two year period. So like every six months I was showing up doing like a two or three day course. There was uh further education material you had to complete at Home away from it as well and practicals. Like remember I had you and a bunch of people do these like practicals for me where I had to analyze you in a number of different aspects and then write a report on it. It was so involved. Um, anyway, much like you, I also prefer to just learn from more individual sources now and people that I really think can add value to me. and uh yeah, I don't I don't Other than N1, like other than the OPT OPEX one back in the CrossFit days was insane. I think it even has benefit for people that aren't into CrossFit. It's just so broadly applicable to training and energy systems and all that stuff. But more recently, the N1 experience has been great. And I continue to go to N1 and meet with Cass and do some of his like smaller courses there as well. Um, so I I highly recommend N1, whether you're local to the Boulder area or anywhere else, you can fly in for these and they're definitely worth it. Yeah, make that's helpful. a I have a link too. I get a little kickback if you guys do want to go to an N one seminar. So you can hit me up and I'll I'll put you a direct link. Perfect. Yeah, definitely do that. Um cool. Let me see. I think the next question is for you as well, but I don't remember what it was. Here we go. Top tips and advice for aspiring new coaches. Online coaches. yeah, online coaches. The the biggest thing is you have to be a product of your service, right? If you are a new coach and you don't have a coach or have not been coached by other people, it means that you do not believe in its utility and you want to have people hire you to do something that you do not do yourself, which is out of alignment. Okay. Get a coach. If you have not been through a very challenging fat loss phase yourself, and you are only teaching fat loss or coaching fat loss through theory, you are a theorist, right? You you do not have practical advice in this. You have theory to provide. Go through hard fat loss, right? Go through the experiences that you will be teaching others so that you can coach from the front. In the beginning, when you do not have a lot of clients, you have to be that example, right? Because people are not buying your service, they are buying you. So you need to make sure that you are the person that you say that you are going to be. There we go. Yeah, I honestly feel like I I agree with all of that, of course. I want to just refer you back to the Chasing Big Goals episodes that we literally just dropped. and we also have other episodes in the past where we've covered our journeys into the industry and like advice for new coaches and stuff like that. So um I just encourage you to kind of check those out. And if you have any sort of specific questions, you know, reach out to us and I'm sure we're glad to help you with that too. All right. Another one for you, bud. can you talk more about how people think they need reverse diets, but they usually don't? Yes. So something that I want to try and be very transparent and clear about. In in this health and fitness space, we have a very bad habit of miscontextually applying concepts outside of the population that they are representative of. Okay. For example If you are a natural bodybuilder getting on stage, you are at a dangerously low level of body fat, it is highly likely your natural testosterone levels are going to be curb-stomped at the end of that diet, right? At 4% body fat. If you diet from 20% body fat to 12% body fat, Based off of the evidence that we have, your testosterone level should actually improve because of your reduction in body fat to healthier levels, right? So don't take things out of context. The reverse diet, right? There is metabolic adaptation. That is real. The length of the diet in terms of weeks and how productive that diet was in terms of a delta in total body mass. needs to appropriately match. If you lose 10 pounds, you're probably not having much or a significant level of metabolic adaptation that requires a stepwise faction of returning to calories. The true benefit of the reverse diet, in my opinion, is psychological. Okay? And I like to use this as an example. If you give a 16-year-old keys to a Ferrari, what's gonna happen? They're gonna wrap it around a pole at the end of the week. Okay. If you give that 16-year-old keys to a 30-year-old Toyota Camry and they drive it for two years and don't wrap it around a pole, and now they're 18 and they get a 12-year-old Honda Civic, right? That's manual and a little bit faster. What and they drive it for two years, right? And they don't wrap it around a pole. And then when you're like 32 years old, you get the Ferrari. You are less likely to wrap it around the pole at the end of the week because you have been responsible with the increase in flexibility, or in that context, speed, whatever, whatever. If you've been dieting hard at 1,500 calories and you've been restricted and your food focus is high and your desires are high. And I go, okay, diet's over, 1500 calories, now we're back to 2500 calories. Even if 2,500 calories is actually maintenance, and that's within the context of us expecting a little bit of metabolic adaptation. If I'm opening the floodgates, you're probably gonna go over that 2500 and you're going to get loose. With the tracking and those sorts of things because of this new increase in you know bursting open of the floodgates. That 2500 might be 2700 a couple days per week. And that 200 calories over now is pure fat gain on the back end of that diet. So the the the benefit of the reverse diet is psychological, of giving you a little bit more responsibility that you can handle every couple weeks as opposed to that 18-year-old who has been sheltered going to college without rules and just going butt fucking wild. So that like that's that's the actual answer. Yeah, I feel like the the thing to remember is that if you're not dieting to like a super lean state, then reverse dieting out of it probably makes sense because you don't need to be like, man, I dieted down to 2,800 calories. Now I'm I really need to like now I'm just gonna go to four thousand tomorrow. Like there's no reason you need to do that. You can go twenty eight hundred to three thousand to thirty two hundred to thirty four hundred or whatever. But when you're coming from fifteen hundred, it makes a lot more sense to be a little bit more uh concerted. with the amount of calories that you're taking in so that you can actually facilitate recovery. and then I we also have an episode, episode one fifty four, which is two years ago. Aaron did an entire deep dive on reverse dieting and all of this stuff. And I think that the majority of his views are are likely similar to to what they are currently as well. All right. If protein can't really be stored as body fat the way carbs and fat can, does it make sense to set deficit macros with a super high protein as a method to create an easier way to tolerate a more aggressive deficit? Yeah, I would say it it does it make sense. It can make sense. It doesn't need to. Um, but i if you if i I like to say if if carbohydrate are getting to a little bit of what we would call a an embarrassing level, right? I if someone's on let's let's let's speak in a male context, right? If we need to push you to 175 grams of carbs per day or something like that. And let's say you're, you know, like 200, you know, 10 pounds plus or something like that. I would much rather push as much as I, not as much as I can, but a notable chunk over to protein so that we can yield additional satiety. Because at that let low level of of carbohydrate, having 50 grams of rice with your lunch or something is borderline. you know, a a a disservice as opposed to to helping at that point. And the increase in, you know, doubling the amount of chicken in a meal or something like that can yield more satiety than would be a very pathetic amount of rice. sorry, I'm on a different screen right now. Um yeah, I uh I think that makes sense as well. I have nothing to add. Okay. Next question. What is your stance on more casual use of GLP ones for gen pop to have an easier time in a deficit? Would you ever recommend to a client if they were struggling with a lot of food noise and adherence in a deficit, but you knew they had solid habits and lifestyle in place? I've I've I do find it a little bit challenging to answer this question because I I can see both sides. I personally, to to give you guys a little bit of of insight into my I guess approach to life, I am very much on it's my body, you know, I I want sovereignty over the decisions that of what I do with my body, that sort of thing. And I believe that for everyone, right? that being said, I do think we have hit a very slippery slope where the GLP ones are just a crutch for people as opposed to a tool. Right? So I think if we if we back this up a little bit and look at the end of the question, but you knew they had solid habits and lifestyle in place. And this is in the context of a Gen pop client, right? So we're talking gen pop as and with that means we're not getting on stage, we're not dieting to eight percent. Maybe we're dieting to 12% or something like that. If you're gen pop and the goal is 12%, you have solid habits and solid lifestyle, and you're struggling to the point where you need a GLP one. I don't think you have solid habits. I don't think you have solid lifestyle. That being said, if we are talking about an obese person, someone whose current level of body fat is detrimental to the overall well-being of their health, I think using a GLP1 as an adjunct to get us to health faster is a net benefit. But I think there's this mid-ground where People y mis misuse it because of its efficacy, and I think that gets a little bit of a slippery slope. Did I answer that decently? Yeah, I mean it's a complicated question and I also struggle with it a little bit. I couldn't help but think about uh my buddy Greg, who is my podcast co-host on Life Reflected. And this question may have even come from him, honestly. It could have totally been been his his thoughts. But recently on our most recent episode of Life Reflected, which I haven't actually released yet, so I should do that this week. but Greg talks about how he is essentially this person. he's probably in the two 20s for body weight. Um he just recently had to get a CPAP machine, which he also talked about on the pod. And he believes that by taking low-dose GLP one to help his already pretty good habits and um just help him kind of get to a point where he's a little bit leaner and doesn't need the CPAP machine anymore and all that stuff, and then To be able to hopefully, you know, use the habits that are already in place to sustain the weight loss afterwards and more using the GLP one to kind of help him get there to curb some of his like natural big guy hunger. As like a bigger guy in 220s, like he's just been he's been eating food for a long time. And he even when he makes good food choices, he still is, you know, he's hungry. And um, so the GLP one has has helped him kind of curb that hunger a little bit. It's it's a t it's a tough one, and and my my sense is that it probably is helpful in that situation to get him to a point where he no longer needs the CPAP machine. And then I guess it's a question of whether the habits and the lifestyle are such that he can sustain it, or does he end up right back where he was, and then it's, you know, in a continued reliance on the GLPs. Yeah, I I don't think there's a right answer, honestly. and I think the same because the same question kind of goes with should people who are like overweight be given testosterone, right? It usually has n can have negative impacts in people with higher body fat percentages, but at the same time, it can help provide that motivation that is not there to go do the things that will get you away from those levels of of higher body fat. So with the GLP one, it's Y when you when you need to make better decisions around nutrition to get the body fat off, but you don't have evidence yet that those better decisions Are going to yield a life that's more desirable than the one you have now. It's it's trying to do hard work without evidence that the hard work is worth it yet. So by incorporating the GLP one, it can get you some evidence that this this is worth my effort and then help get the ball rolling. But like I said, I I don't think there's a right answer. I think it's a very fluid answer. Yeah. It's almost like as you were discussing it, it sounds to me like the way that you and I kinda talk about how TRT is so great because it decreases friction for all of these things, like getting started with tasks or doing this or whatever, there's less friction. It kind of seems like this that might be the the exact use case for this GLP one as well. As like like this dude that I'm thinking of, you know, Greg, he he he works out six days a week. He does three days of cardio, he does three days of weights, whatever it is. He has good balance, he for the most part eats good quality food, and it's just He's a big guy and he likes to eat. And like maybe there's just a little bit too much friction with his ability to consume less food, even if the the food is cr is the correct type of food, you know? Yeah. this question, these these what are your thoughts questions always are not very helpful. But what are your thoughts on a low carb diet, Aaron? depending on the context, can be sometimes necessary, sometimes detrimental to to a goal. Uh unfortunately the question is ve way too vague for me to provide a a helpful answer, honestly. I I agree a hundred percent. And for anyone asking questions, anytime you start a question with what are your thoughts on, and then there's just like some random thing that's like a popular fad in the industry, uh, that's not super helpful for us. So if you would have said like context for um, you know, weight loss for gen pop or something, I mean at least that gives us a little bit more to work with. Um, my thought is that. If like if you want to lose weight, you have to either restrict the the the frequency at which you eat, like food timing, you have to restrict a macronutrient, um, or you simply have to move more than you burn. Like you have to eat just less food overall. So then you have to track. So there's either like, you know, eliminate a macronutrient, which could get you away from tracking fully, but you might still have to track. but it helps. Like if you just go low carb, then you're like, okay, I'm just not eating carbs. Like it's probably gonna be harder for me to eat enough food that and hence works as a diet. food timing, like that's the one I use. I pretty much eat in a six hour window every day. I love that because I can eat whatever I want for the most part, and I still uh can maintain body weight. So for me, that one works, but I think it's a matter of deciding like which of these approaches is the one that's best for you given your goals at the time. Let's kick this one over to you, because I don't think we've kicked one over to you to start yet. It seems the dog dogmatism, or what do they call that, dogmatic how do I pronounce that word? Dogmatism? All right, let's go with that. Around D-Loads has completely dissipated over the last few years. What are your current thoughts around the D-Load and whether it's necessary and or beneficial? Yeah, I think the the history of the D-Load really it it in like the late two thousand teens when RP and Mike Isratel were prominent voices in this space, I feel like D-Load had this whole thing around it of like every four weeks you need to take a D-Load week and you need to reduce your effort and your volume and you really need to recover and all this stuff. part of that was based around the RP philosophy, which was that you ramp up your volume every week until you reach a point where you're basically dying and then you're like, shit, I need a D load. Um The reality is that if you're just training smart, you probably don't need to deload every four weeks. You for sure don't need to deload every four weeks. You you might need to deload every eight to twelve if you're training smart progressively to failure, all that sort of stuff. But I also am not just not a huge fan of these like massive deloads where you just completely detrain for a week. I think that you can deload in so many ways. I mean, we've done episodes on this, but You can simply reduce frequency. So if you normally train five days a week, you could just train twice a week but still train really hard. Um, you could knock an exercise off. So you're still training really hard, but you do one less exercise per muscle group. there's so many different ways that you can go about to flush fatigue and sort of get yourself in a more optimized state to progress for a number of weeks going forward. I don't think you need to to simply do these huge pre planned deloads. I think even a reactive deload or a whatever is probably fine and that like, I'm feeling pretty run down, I'm less motivated, or my elbow hurts. This week I'll take an easy week. Um I do that all the time. So I think that that's that's the way I would recommend approaching it for most people. Yeah, I have this statement that I think life tends to delo us. And that might be you need to go travel for some trip comes up and there you're not gonna train for like four or five days between the flights and maybe at this trip somewhere like remote. Um you get sick periodically and we're not training for three to five days, something like that. I would say when I for example, this boys training trip that's coming up. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Training is going to be incredibly intense. Incredibly intense. I am gonna take Saturday, Sunday, and Monday completely off of training this upcoming weekend to give myself a little bit of extra fatigue reduction for that. Um there. So that's a a D-load decision I'm making. I tend to find when I am not finding the gym fun anymore. It means that I am I'm in need of a psychological deload because I'm not enjoying it. Because it's since I've been 16 years old, lifting weights has been my absolute favorite thing to do. And when it's not, it means something's off. Uh and and then specifically, if you do still want to go a in a deload approach that I really, really like, I don't like the intensity. reduction personally because I just struggle with that. I struggle to go do a set to a five R I R because it feels like I'm just wasting my time going through the motions. So what I'll just cut back to is one hard set of everything and move on. So that might be five sets on the on the session, but everything's still to, you know, a one R I R maybe for like a leg press. If we're doing a bicep curl, I'm gonna take it to failure. But it's such a s fatigue reduction because our volume is drastically reduced. So Yeah, I actually do like to reduce intensity, but I like to do it and increase volume. So like I've talked about I in prior episodes, but usually, you know, I might do two sets to failure as my my normal, like normal approach for a week. And then on my D load week, I might do four sets of three with an eight rep max. So I'm still like every set's at more or less a five R I R. So it's it's much easier. Mentally it's a lot easier, but the weights are still heavy. So I still have to like kind of amp up for the set, even though there's that many R IR. Like a set of three at an eight RM on a pendulum squad is not like an easy set per se. so anyway, that works for me. But I I just really think, you know, whatever way works for you to flush the fatigue both physically and mentally, uh, is important and that's what you should focus on. Yeah. All right, for both of us, what is the biggest thing you've learned since going on TRT that you think others can still apply as a natty in terms of hypertrophy specifically? It's not that I don't want to answer the question. I think it's a I I think it's like a a misframed question. I think the better the better way to ask this question would be like what were your final learnings and applications at late stage natty that would be most applicable, right? I I cause when you like when you get this new experience that com in some ways like completely changes your experience with something you're not learning about who you used to be with it. So the one thing that I think the thing that I will say, sorry that I'm not actually answering your question, is in my late stage natty years, I had this very interesting period where I was the only natty around. Everyone I trained with was on gear. That was very informative for me because there's a there's so many of these pre-conceived notions that because I am a natural, I am limited by X, Y, and Z. And I first hand realize that none of them are true. You can handle really high training volumes. You can handle really high intensities if the environment is conducive, right? So that was one of the things where I really learned. And then since, and with undefeated, right? One of the beauties with undefeated is we get a lot of the top people in the top of their game from IFBB pros, Olympians, top nattdies, all come to the gym. So you get to see that. The top naturals, they're gunning, they're swinging for the fences, they train hard as all fuck, just like the guys on gear. Right. So that was, I would say, the thing that I learned most is most people's that are natural, their limiting factor is not the fact that they're natural. Of course, yes, the rates at which you accrue muscle and and stuff are limited, but what you can expose yourself to and recover from. Unless you're in the depths of a deficit, you would be quite surprised. Yeah, I don't know if I have a ton to add to this either. Uh the thing I've been the most surprised about since getting on TRT is how much of a s like what seems like a productive stimulus can be created with what seems like such insanely low volumes. Like the fact that now I can do one work set and basically be completely blown up, it makes me like sometimes wonder why I even do a second work set or a third work set in in some cases.'Cause it's fun. no, yeah, I just like and so I don't I don't know how that applies to the natty thing, aside from like like I was noticing my volume go down easy even as a natty too. Like not in the same sense that I get now where like that stimulus is so strong from like the very first set, but more in that like I just felt like I was getting enough from the precision by which I was training with at that time. And um so I wonder if the lesson is really just to continually focus on precision of movement. Um, like we talked about recently with the foot position on the what was the last episode we did, the the volume episode. Uh we talked about the the foot position on a squat and like the internal rotation and all that sort of stuff. And like just being a little bit more uh diligent or vigilant rather with the way that you um connect with your body and movements and where you need to place various things aspects of your your physiology to to make it more effective. That didn't really say very well, but you guys kind of know what I was trying to get at. Yeah, I think so. And that I would agree with. You you get to a point where progressive overload becomes so slow that what what do you do when you're trying to get that tenth rep at whatever X weight on a row and it doesn't happen? And then you back your you take a D load and then you come back three weeks later, like and it doesn't happen, right? Like there's going to be periods like that where you can't just do simply more. or heavier, I think you have to go a little bit internally and think, how can I create better stimulus, better contraction, improve the precision of each rep. And in that I would say should prove very lucrative at in late stage Natty if you have not gone through those paces already. Yeah. I just moved a question later on to the next question because I think this actually transitions really well here, which is that is there a point in the journey where a trainee may want to completely stop focusing on progression by weight entirely? Potentially, I I don't think that I would ever just not pay attention to my performances. But I I don't think it I think it starts to matter less because sometimes there's times where I don't feel great, right? And I might think like, okay, let me just load like 80 pounds on here, right? And I'll get like 80 pounds for 10. And then I see last weekend I'm like, whoa, I did 95 for 12. What the fuck? Like, what am I doing today? You know, where I think it's one of those things where our perception of something, right? And I watched this reel. It was a a guy, there was a girl on a leg press, and and her coach was was with her, like coaching her through it, right? And they were doing like a split, a strip set, and she gets to the final rep with you know, whatever, two and a half plates on on I think if they're on like a it's a it's a leg press. And then he fake takes off the twenty five to show like, okay, I took weight off. And then she keeps going because she thinks there's less weight on the bar. But there's no but he he didn't take the fucking weight off. It's still there. So there's I I I just I don't it's again, it's a challenging question. I I think There's a way there there's a point where it stops being the only thing that you care about. But I I can't say that if you completely don't pay attention at all, that you have a good enough barometer for knowing if things are improving or not. Yeah, I I agree. I think that the importance that it plays diminishes significantly, almost to a point that like you can kind of ignore whether you're progressing, but you do need to at least use the weights that are going to challenge you. And so to do that, you have to at least be aware of the weights that you're using. As like an example similar to what you said, you know, I I do this hack press machine at home and When I'm doing it, I warm up by going 200, 300, 400, 500, 600. And, you know, when I get to the 500 set, like it's really hard. I mean, if if if I didn't know that I had to go to 600 after that, 500 would feel like my work set. but then I'm able to add a hundred pounds and I can do another set. And so obviously 500 isn't the maximum amount of weight that I could do. And I just think if you weren't at least aware of the fact that 600 is the weight you're supposed to do, then you could do 500 and just eventually 500 becomes your work weight. I don't know. I mean, maybe that maybe you could still do 600. Like maybe you do your work sets at 500 and you're like, that's hard enough. And like if someone had a, you know, one day is like, go do 600 max reps, you'd be like, you could still do it. So maybe you don't actually have to. Uh I don't know. I mean, there's there's probably arguments to both sides, but also from a hypertrophy standpoint, like if you If you can do six hundred but you don't, are you then leaving some gains on the table there? And I think that that's probably the bigger question. Yep. Yep, exactly. This one let's kick to you. If you had to build the minimum effective hypertrophy program for a busy parent with only three forty-five minute sessions per week, what would it look like? I think it would look a lot like what this next question asks. So let's just maybe slam these two questions together. If you could only use five exercises to build as much muscle as possible for the next year, what five exercises are you picking? I mean, I honestly think that creating a 45 minute per week program three times a week is sort of this. It's like pick five or six like really good movements. You could do them every day, depending on what your your uh your level of advancement is. Like you could do five exercises, the same five every day, three days a week. Sure. That's fine. I probably wouldn't do that. I think I'd probably pick two exercises that cover actually shit, why don't we just be a little more explicit with this? If you had to build a minimum effective hypertrief program in three 45 minute sessions, what would you do? So I think one day I would have a uh a full body workout with three movements. Another day I'd have a full body workout with three movements, and the last day I'd have a full body workout with three movements. And those three movements would probably have a press, a pull, and a leg hit movement on each day. I would probably have them change which movement they were doing each day so that it doesn't become cumbersome. So maybe one day is an RDL, one day is a squat, and one day is a split squat, something like that. maybe one day is a pull-up, one day is a row, and one day is a pull down. Uh, and one day is a Incline press, one day is a vertical press, and one day is a flat press. something along those lines. And I think that you have a really good full body program there, and you don't really need to directly target your arms because they're gonna get plenty of work there. And that would probably be the way that I would go about doing it. I mean, at the same time, like 45 minutes is not like a short session per se. Like you probably could do a more standard bodybuilding program over those days if you wanted to. I just don't necessarily think that would be the most effective way for somebody to get the most out of three forty five minute sessions. I don't think I could add a single extra word to that. I mean it's ver like verbatim of what I have how I would have answered that question. Sweet. All right. Well, the next question, which I sorta looped into that question, we'll kick over to you since you already have your answer here. If you could pick only five exercises to build as much muscle as possible for the next year, what are you picking? Bell RDL, weighted pull-ups, weighted dips, leg press, incline, dumbbell press. And that's like a like a true 45-degree incline. And I will answer it's a pretty standard answer, right? The reason that I am picking leg press as opposed to a back squat, I would argue the majority of people. can get a better stimulus out of a leg press as opposed to a a back squat uh purely out of t technical proficiency reasons. Like look at me. I I back squatted for like 15 years, 16 years, and I'm just not built to back squat. I can get a much better quad stimulus out of my leg press and we already have the barbell RDL in there. Would you say that a pendulum or a hack squat is also fine instead of leg press, or is there something specifically about the leg press? No, both would work. Yeah. Yeah. any reason that you you chose two pushing movements? You have a a dip and an incline press. You had to have two of like one muscle group, so like I guess it's just why not like rows and then one pressing movement, like why not two pulling movements and and two pressing movements? I really like doing dips. Okay. Okay. you know, my my my thought on this was you don't need the row because you have the RDL and so you're getting a little bit of scapular retraction work there, like on it's kind of like mid-trap, upper trap work. I actually think that this is exactly what I would choose as well. And I specifically like the choice of the inclined dumbbell press because it just adds such a a great like full upper body pressing structure movement that you wouldn't get if you were doing flat. And then I kind of think weighted dip is like the upper body squat, so to speak. you're combined with the pull ups, like if you have dips and pull ups in there, your whole upper body is is fine. And then the inclined dumbbell press is just like a little bit on top of that. So I I think you nailed it. I don't know that I would have chosen anything different here. Yeah, I kind of just when I looked at this question, I kinda pictured myself like out like outside of civilization for this year-long project and all I have is the these basics in a garage and I and I somehow get provided a leg press too. Like what am I how what can I do? And I just thought like, you know, this is what a s a dad in the eighties would do and come out like a fucking bear on after the year. So that's that's what I picked. Well, what's really interesting about this thought experiment is that the first two or three years that I trained, like from scratch when I was fifteen years old, I did, you know, the abbreviated training program where I basically picked six exercises and I did three of them one day and three of them the other day. I trained twice a week. And so it was RDL on one day, weighted pull up and weighted dip. And then the other day was uh it was a squat, but it could be a leg press or whatever. It was an incline dumbbell press, and then it was a bent over row. And so it was like these exact five exercises with an added row and just split over two days. And that's what I did for like two or three years. It was great. So um very effective way of training. All right. Given the barn door analogy for post workout nutrition, do you guys still put any value into food timing specifically around workouts? Yes. Yes, I do. Because it still has efficacy, right? There is we are f fueling a a training session, right? So if if we're let's say we're at maintenance, right? But the goal is still to get stronger and those sorts of things, placing the carbohydrate, some of the carbohydrate that you would have at eight PM would be better off placed. in the in the in the meal before training, especially if you're only training af before or after one meal or after two meals. And then post-workout, right? And let's let's let's speak at this through through the context of of the natty so it has the the highest amount of application to the most people, there are hormonal changes that take place during training that allow us to preferentially partition Calories post-training, specifically carbohydrate, because of GLUT4 translocation. And what that means is we get non-insulin-mediated glucose uptake into the muscle cells post-training. So again, instead of having 40 grams of carbs post-workout and then 70 grams of carbs at dinner four hours later, five hours later, which is what most people do, we get preferential partitioning. If we take some of that carbohydrate and move it post-training. Yeah, so I think Aaron's a hundred percent right if you're trying to hyper optimize every last variable and you know you're really trying to get that last, you know, half a percentage point or whatever. For someone like me who's not competing, I think that as long as you have a really robust pre-workout meal, I put almost zero importance on whether I eat immediately after my workout or not. so I would say in most cases, the way that I actually go about it now is I have my massive lunch at noon or eleven thirty, which is like, you know, lean ground beef, a ton of rice, avocado, maybe some fruit or veggie, whatever. And then 30 minutes later, I go work out. So as soon as the food is digested, I go work out. And then I probably don't eat again for like two hours after my workout. And I just don't worry about it. I my sense is that if I work out that close to my pre workout meal, all of that nutrition in that slow digesting meal that I ate is all swirling around in my body still and getting into my muscles. And um I I just honestly don't stress it. If I had not had a pre workout meal in as close proximity to my workout, or if I'd done it fasted, then I would put a significant importance on post workout nutrition. And so I think that. for someone in gen pop situation more like me, I think that that would be the context around it. That's a helpful answer. I think however many meals you eat too. If we're only doing three meals and you train after lunch, lunch and dinner, it makes sense to have larger. But if you're, let's say, you're doing, I don't know, five meals and dinner is usually your largest meal, but you train at 10 a.m., it it would do yourself service to not do that. Yep. Yep. what's a health habit you've adopted in the past few years that you'll probably never stop doing? Do you have one off the top of your mind? I have a couple. I have two. Um, so the first one that's very obvious to me is cardio. Like, up until like granted, I competed in CrossFit, so I I obviously did cardio as part of CrossFit, but it was always like the redheaded stepchild. Like I wanted no part of cardio, I just did it because I had to. I very much the last four or five years have instituted cardio in a way that is just part of my life now, and I think it's so universally beneficial that I will never stop doing it. Um and then the other one is avocados. I slept on avocados so hard for the first like forty years of my life. I don't even know what I was doing because avocados are like God's gift to humanity and I will never stop eating. I do, I do really I like the opportunity of what cardio provides me. And I don't think I've ever spoken about this. When I'm doing cardio, and I'm not talking like zone two is it's cardio, but it's not really you're you're not challenged that much. The time is the challenge because you're like, God, it's 30 minutes, I got another 15 minutes, I just want to get off the stupid treadmill. Like that's a bit of a challenge. But if I'm doing like zone two sprints, or sorry, not zone two sprints, like a zone five sprints, or some sort of repeat that requires a higher breath rate or something like that, it's it's hard. I want to get off. I want it to be over. And I I will I will tell myself these little compromises, like, Aaron, you don't have to do eight rounds today, only only five rounds, right? And then I finish that fifth round and there's that little voice in my head, and it's like, Do the eight rounds, you fucking pussy. And I can't say no to that voice. And I I do like that. Cause if you've ever seen me do my cardio, like I'm a f I'm falling apart for no reason, but it's that voice in my head that I never can say no to. And I always take the extra, extra rounds. And I do really like that. Because that's a I don't know, I feel like that's self-development s sort of thing, like not taking the easy way out and pushing and committing to those things. So I do really like that. When I'm done. I feel very proud of myself when I'm done. But a health habit that I would say I've adopted in the past few years, ordering my own blood work. I I think health means different things to different people. And I think we've reached this part and I'll speak about the United States because obviously that's what we feel most comfortable with where they say health is this, right, for everyone. And that means you get whatever one set of labs per year and it's a fucking CBC and a C C P sort of thing. I I decide what health is for myself, right? And and I will spend my money to go get lab work and those sorts of things to make sure that I can live my life to the level that I want to, and I am in control of that, not my GP that I see. honestly zero times per year. So that is one thing that I I would say, and I don't think enough people know about it. You can go get your own blood work. It is very it has become very cost effective. Um so if you you ever want to know or you go see your GP and they say, oh you're young. You don't need this I you can just go get whatever you want tested and most of the time it's under $200 or something like that. Yep. Yep. All right. Any idea of a purchase under a hundred dollars that has improved your training the most? I have some off the top of my head if you uh do not. So uh for me it's cuffs and straps. So I love my cuffs. I use them for every cable movement that I can. Any lateral delt movement, any Y rays, distraction type stuff. I use them for peck flies uh on the cable machine. I uh I just use my cuffs as much as I can. I love them. And I think there's so much value in those on on cable machines. And then straps, whether it's VersaGrips or regular old like powerlifting straps, like you just can't get the most out of your pulling movements, especially an RDL, but also like a pull down and a pull up if you're not strapped in. Yeah, I I I think to what I have in my gym bag, I keep my Versa grips in there. I agree with that. And one that I really like, and this is a little bit, I guess, of a personal preference, I do love the cuffs, like you said as well. Rubber D-handle grips. I hate the steel metal grips. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. think the rubber ones, they're much more comfortable. And then if I'm doing flies or something, I think this is an errand problem with a a distance to something. But the metal one usually digs into like my whatever this the the pinky side wristbone is on my right arm. And it like like fucking hurts really badly. Uh so I will always use the rubber ones and I think they're like like 18 bucks on Amazon or something like that for for a pretty decent set. That I think is a very, very good So then any like anything you would use a D handle for. I'm using this rubber one and it it feels much better. Yep, I agree with that too. All right. What's your favorite lazy, healthy meal when you don't feel like cooking? Yeah, so I'm gonna go with uh oats, quick quick oats. I put water in them, a little bit of salt, I put it in the microwave for 90 seconds, it comes out, scoop of protein powder and some frozen berries. If I have a lot of fats I wanted to add, maybe I put chia seeds in there and cook the chia seeds or a nut butter after it comes out. Sweet. I'll give you two. Um my first is is a shake I call the PB Dream, Peanut Butter Dream. the basis of it is essentially just ice, like eight ounces of milk, a two tablespoons of peanut butter, and a banana, and a scoop and a half of vanilla whey protein. so that'll get you something really, really yummy that's that's healthy. But then I'll usually add in spinach, a little bit of like vanilla Icelandic yogurt. And maybe some other berries like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, whatever I've laying around the house. Um, and I'll mix all that together and that's fucking money. I love it. Uh and then the other thing I do is I'll take a David bar, David Protein bar, and uh a handful of almonds and a piece of fruit, and that works really well as well. All right. Uh does the order of exercises matter when training? Yes it does. The your priorities go earlier in the in the day, where you have more energy, you're less fatigued, your technical proficiency is higher. I think to to really answer this question basic in in a very basic analogy, do the order in which you do the things in your day matter? Right? If it's the end of the day and it's 8 p.m. and you're tired and your child wants attention, are you going to be able to provide the same level of attention that you do at first thing in the day? Like any any any arrangement. Things that are higher priority should generally go earlier when we have control over the order. Obviously, with the analogy that I used, we have a job and things that we need to do that can impact that. But when you go to the gym, there isn't you you're not r relegated to the same control over your your exercise order. I would put the things that matter most to you earlier in the session. Yeah, it absolutely matters. Um, but it's interesting that you said the things that matter the most to you in the beginning, because I think that another way that people would often say that, which I think is actually wrong, is the things that are the the hardest or the most technically demanding go in the beginning. And so I think you can refer back to our question on the RDL from earlier, as far as like the question was, would you ever put RDL at the end of the workout or the beginning of the workout? Like where would you put it? And I think the answer to this question of exercise order mattering is exactly the same question. Like, A leg curl before an RDL could make total sense if that's the thing in your program that you're trying to to do. If you're trying to use less weight on your RDL and the leg curl is the priority, then putting the leg curl before the RDL makes as much sense as somebody else putting the RDL before the leg curl. and so order of exercises 100% matters, but there isn't a right or a wrong order. There's the order that is in line with your training priorities. I love that. I think that makes perfect sense. And then this next okay. how might you strategize a four day push pull legs upper split for bringing up chest and arms? I mean, maybe this isn't exactly you because you're trying to bring up your your back, but you're on the similar split with I anyway, curious on your response here. Yeah, so I I'll I will answer the question first. So with a push pull lower upper split, right? And what that means is we have three upper sessions. One is dedicated to push, one is dedicated to pull, and one is as a mix for the session that has both, right? The the so let's let's start with the upper session. I'm going to put chest and arms at the top of the session, right? And then my back movements would go after arms, which is sounds counterproductive. But in this context, arms, which I'm assuming means biceps and triceps for this context, is more important than back. So I'm gonna place that higher in the in the exercise order. Uh, and then if you're someone like me, Who 80% of my back movements is really just biceps and forearms, it would probably benefit my back because then I can't do that anymore. And then on the the the chest or the push day, I'm going to probably dedicate more stimulative um chest movements to that day and I might even deprioritize other typical push programs. So I might not have anything for the anterior delt. I may not even have anything for the lateral delt if we really just don't have enough exercise slots based on how long each of those four sessions can be. And then maybe on my pull day Again, I put biceps before back because it's a priority. So I probably would take a little bit of a different approach here. I think I would probably keep the push and the pull day exactly as I would anyways, where they're in the same order from biggest muscle group to smallest. I'd probably go back then bicep, et cetera. And I would simply just use that second upper body day to do just chest and arms. Um and I think either way works. I think Aaron's approach is totally fine too. Uh I j I just think uh for me, like I would rather make sure that I'm taking care of The non-priority muscle groups on those first two days, and then making sure that the last two days are more dedicated specifically to the groups I need to bring up. So that last upper day would probably have no back and no dealt work. It would just be chests and arms. And then on the push day, uh there would be a sufficient amount of lateral delt work in there for sure. Um, and obviously all the rest of the chest and the other pushing muscle groups and the other pulling muscle groups on the side. One of the things that I really like you like what you did because when I first read this, my initial the answer I wanted to give were I would change the split if that was the priority. And that's kind of what you did without really doing it instead of upper. Which chest chest and arms technically is could be considered upper, but you're just like, Yeah, that second day I'm just dedicating or that that that non, you know, f uh filled day I'm just gonna dedicate solely to chest and arms. So I I love your answer. I think I think it's great. Cool. Well that's all we got. We did have uh a really a l a bunch of questions about about pregnancy and fertility and stuff like that. but we're gonna punt those to another week as they could be like super consuming and take half the episode. So we'll let Aaron address all these questions at some point. We didn't forget about you, but just not today. So, all right, guys, that is what we have for July 2026. As always, thank you for listening. Any questions on any of this, drop below in the YouTube comments, please. And Brian and I will talk to you guys soon.