What's going on, guys? Welcome to Eat Train Prosper. Today is Brian and myself. This is episode 226, and we are talking about the hypertrophy impacts of direct abs and arms training. So this came in originally as a question opposed to Brian. Specifically around abs, the conversation then trans transpired into direct arm work. And the question that we are asking is. For these two particular muscle groups, and I'm sure we could also include some of the other ancillary body parts in there. How much impact does direct training of these have on your physique relative to the additional time investment and potential ROI that you get from them? So we are going to explore this, and I'm going to let Brian kick us off. Yeah, so this was a DM conversation we had on the heels of our Instagram QA from the last episode where uh we had a question posed from my son about training and how to develop abs. And so his res this DM that I got afterwards was, you know, I was pontificating on a question from Bryson and it got me thinking about, you know, how much are abs made in the kitchen? Have we taken that too far? And then, like Erin was saying, it kind of transitioned from there as we were talking about abs and the impact of training them directly. Make the kind of comparison to training arms. And then as Erin alluded to, it could go into like rear delts and glutes and other muscle groups that you know most people would probably not train directly unless they were trying to bring them up. Arms and abs probably slightly different than those two because they're commonly trained on their own. it's not so common to see people programming direct rear delt work necessarily. So we'll probably stick to to abs and arms specifically. But um I guess the original question, just as broad as it gets, is uh abs are made in the kitchen. Have we taken that too far? What are your thoughts on that? I to give a simple answer, no, right? Because I I think it depends on how we have to answer the question. Am I answering it for a single individual? I can give a really contextual answer. But if I was to make blanketed statements, which I generally try not to do for obvious reasons, but if I were to if if we were to try and speak to the widest, you know, person that we could, let's call it podcast listener, right? And they want abs. What is the primary thing keeping them from having the abs that they want? It's their nutrition, right? Exactly. So I I I I don't think that we've taken it too far. Can it be taken too far? Whereas if you just never train them and you get lean and you're like, bro, my abs suck, that could be, but I but I would say if I had to give one answer, I would say it's not taken too far. Yeah, I don't I don't think it is either. Um, you know, you and I have gone through this ab training discussion for years on this podcast, and you and I both went through periods where we just didn't train them at all. And grant and we probably uh didn't notice significant changes in our abdominal development. And then you went through a period maybe a year or two ago where you committed to doing abs religiously and You were dealing with that problem where your abs were cramping up all the time and you were like, This is crap. Like, I can't be training abs if they're gonna have these insane cramps for like ten minutes at a time that literally floor me afterwards. Um but I think that your ultimate conclusion at the end of that was that you did notice some positive benefits from the commitment to training abs. Is that correct? That that is correct. And I think I don't want to answer things too simply, but it like with anything, right? If you put more effort into something, you get a greater return out of it. The crux of that statement is Is the extra return on the back end worth the extra time that it costs me to produce it? And that answer is different for every single person. But I think too much as of recent, we are oversimplifying that to training them directly won't work any better, which is kind of silly, because then why would we do anything? Right? Why would we train anything if and why would we not just squat bench deadlift. If training nothing directly didn't produce anything more, of course it produces more. It's just is more worth the extra time investment for you. Yeah, I think one of the directions that I think I want to take this is whether somebody is training with primarily free weight movements that involve core stability and core activation through those movements versus somebody that's training entirely with machines and providing bracing for midline stability. So think of somebody that's training with squats, supported rows, pull downs. And uh leg curls versus somebody that's training with back squats, RDLs. And uh bent over rows along those lines where the core stability is there. It's inherent in every single movement that you do. And so even though you're not taking the abs through the stretch and contraction mechanism that you would through a proper movement, you are still getting stimulus to it. And so that's that's one area to potentially take it. And the other, I think, is about whether you have a base of ab development from the past. And if you do have a base development from years of training abs prior, and you're that person that's also doing free weight stuff, my theory or hypothesis would be because you had that base and because maintenance volume we know is super low, likely that you could sustain your prior development simply through doing these like free weight compound movements that require Whereas if you were that person that had a bunch of ab training prior, but you then relegated yourself to doing these braced machine type things, you potentially could note some some atrophy in the ab area. What do you think about that? I would agree with everything you just said. Yeah. Um, I think if you for example, the the th the the times that I have seen this in practice with with my coaching most is my ex power lifters, right? You get a power lifter who was I mean, maybe not one of the like super heavyweights or something, but I don't know. Let's call it someone in the like the one fifties up to maybe like the two the two forty two weight class or or something like that. And who's I don't I don't think you necessarily have to compete at a high level, but it was produced pretty big in in pretty outside the norm powerlifting numbers and you get them lean, th that those performances leave clues and results behind. Um Very developed midsections, very developed spinal erectors, uh and upper back, even though that we haven't done a lot of traditional upper back rowing and stuff, it it you get strong enough to perform at a high level. There has to be adaptations underneath to support those performances. so I would definitely agree with that. The if if someone did a lot of core work, you know, let's call it they're they're young and think abs are gonna get them girls or something in high school. So they do a a shit ton of abs and then transition more into a, I don't know, a power building, you know, to style of training where we're doing a lot of squat bench dead, overhead pressing, those sorts of things, I do think that they will maintain a large majority of that. And then the other part that you said that I also agree with someone like myself, right, trains primarily like a bodybuilder's not doing a lot of braced, you know, deadlifts, uh barbell squats, those sorts of things. I think you're not getting a ton of that carry over. So we need to do a higher amount of direct flexion and extension because there isn't as much what what do we call it? Like uh k carry over um stimulus from the the bigger lifts. What's your ab training look like now? non-existent I lied I lied I have two set I have two sets on one day uh as part of a spinal flexion superset because we have identified that I can't I can't move my like there's what your there's your your lumbar spine your thoracic spine what's the spine like in the middle what's that middle region called is there one is that a specific name for it okay well like my mid Okay, so I can't really move a lot like I can move my lumbar spine, but like my mid back and and thoracic does not move well at all. so that's p part of why that's in there. So I do have three absets per week. Yeah, so that's something. And I mean your abs are on point. Like your abs look great. I just saw you post something recently yesterday where you're talking about your new program with Ben and and your abs look great, man. Like you're posing, your abs are strong. So it's definitely not a weakness of yours. Mm. Yeah, I guess my experience is that I obviously did a ton of abs. He hey Brian. Your audio is like cut cutting in and out very badly. Yeah, I I I can't hear anything. It's like you I can hear you for a c a little bit and then it completely cuts out. Is your audio off of your airpods? Yeah, but what is the microphone? Microphone is my AirPods. uh I think that's what it is, yeah. D is there any way to do they have like a do you have like a not a noise cancellation, but what do we call it? like a sound filter or something because they're just cutting in and out really badly. No, I don't think so. let me see if I can change to my other headphones. Um, can you hear this? That's much better, yeah, but now I don't have your audio or your video. Um shit. Um I guess now I'm on the MacBook speakers, but that obviously isn't gonna sound very good. Can you than the the AirPods ones. It sounds better than the AirPod speakers. I can actually take my computer downstairs and I can plug it into the microphone and then we'll be like the way we always have been. So let me just take like two minutes and run downstairs. Yeah. I still don't have headphones. Um can you hear me? I can, yeah. You might maybe just jump out. let me see if I let me log out and go back in. I need to order new ones, but I should be able to use the microphone and you should be able to make this work. Is that okay? Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can't hear you still. Is that is can can you talk? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can. It looks like I'm now just using my Mac though. It's not connected through the microphone, I don't think. How's the quality? It's still better than it was before. Alright, well then let's just roll with this and uh I guess we will do our best here. and I'll I'll get new headphones for next week, I guess. Sorry, you're gonna have to edit this out. I think it shouldn't be that that bad. Okay. I think you were speaking. You were speaking and I was talking about my own ab training, I think. Potentially, yes. Yeah. So I'll just go back to like stalk starting to talk about when my experience. All right. Yeah. So my experience with ab training has obviously been that I did a ton of it during the CrossFit days as it was inherent in everything we did from G HD sit-ups to toes to bar to kipping pull-ups and all that stuff. And so uh through that period of time, I think I got substantial ab development. And after I quit CrossFit in 2016-17, I more or less just stopped training abs. Um, I would say I averaged maybe one ab session a month, and it would just be when I was inspired to do them, and it would be, you know, four to six sets. I'd get extremely sore from it. It would last a few days, and then I wouldn't train them again for, you know, another three or four weeks. And in my mind, I was like, okay, well, I already have a base. This little bit of ab training at a minimum. should keep me at maintenance, um, which I think most people would say training something once a month is not enough to maintain it. But when we're talking about all these other factors that we mentioned between the bracing of other movements and the prior development and the maintenance volume and all of these aspects, um doing that once a month training. I would say has left me in a position where I have the same abs that I've had through the CrossFit years, through the post CrossFit years. Um, and it really is just a matter of how lean I am more than whether I'm training my abs or not training my abs, which goes back to the idea that they're probably made in the kitchen. Yes. And the one thing I I will say is how are we defining like ab development? Or you as the listener, to what degree do you want exceptional abs? Do you want influencer abs, then you have to give them the dedication that another muscle group is going to to get. Or do you want six pack? Right? Like I would say Brian and I fall in that six pack category. I I don't care that they're not this like like for example, Ryan Terry, right? The the the men's physique Mr. Olympia. Insane abs. You're not gonna get Ryan Terry abs just squat bench deadlifting and being lean, unless you won the genetic lottery, which, if that were the case, you wouldn't be listening to us here talk to you about training your abs, right? but if you want something extraordinary out of them, you're gonna have to give them the dedicated time to produce extraordinary. But for the lay person, I I would put Brian and myself in the lay person in terms of desirability of ab development. It's largely, very, very, very, largely body fat driven through nutrition mediation. Yeah, yeah, I think that that's right. yeah, I guess the next kind of step to take this is kind of extrapolating this out to the arms, which I think make actually for a bit more of an interesting conversation. And so, uh, when I was having this conversation with this guy on DM, uh, he actually asked whether th I feel like there's a correlation, same thing similarly with arms. And after kind of thinking on it for a little bit while I was on this walk, I had this idea, and I think I think that it's right, at least from my experience it seems right, which is that if you have a natural lifter that has gotten strong enough, and the numbers that I used for strong enough would be A 200 overhead press, a 300 bench, a 400 squat, a 500 deadlift, and then also having uh strong weighted pull-ups and weighted dips. And I think that those are super important for this thought experiment. And I'm not saying that this person needs to or should even necessarily train for one rep maxes. Those numbers are simply representative of the fact that they are strong enough. So this person might be doing, you know, 150 pound overhead presses for sets of five to eight. Which could potentially equal a 200 single. They might be benching or similar chest press machine, you know, 240 for sets of six, which would equivalent to a 300 bench. So the idea is simply that this natural lifter is strong. They've put in the time, they've gotten strong. They do these other movements that I mentioned, which are the weighted pull-up and the weighted dip. and especially I like those two because those, while they're not direct arm work per se, they do involve elbow flexion and elbow extension. in a more direct manner than you get from doing bench pressing, deadlifting, squatting, and overhead pressing. So I think if you take those six movements and you have someone that's strong across the board on those movements, and then you compare them to somebody who is equally strong, but has, you know, committed an extra, call it an hour to an hour and a half a week of dedicated direct work to the smaller muscle groups, My theory is that over the course of a lifetime of training, you know, getting to those big numbers, nobody gets there in the first two years of training, unless you're a freak. But um, you know, getting to those over a lifetime in my mind leads to a very similar arm size. and I have some some additional thoughts too, but what are your your general thoughts on kind of that first statement? Yeah, I I I'm inclined to agree with you pretty pretty hard there. Those are those are pretty impressive numbers. Like th they're not that's not your average person. That's probably like you're the top eight percent of like a a your local gym sort of thing. Um so those are those are ambitious numbers. Um The only caveats or things that I think could have additional little bits of wrinkle is your performance on your pressing and rowing movements. For example, I am a very bicep heavy rower and pull-down person. It's great for my arms, it's not great for my back, right? So I think your execution lends itself in there. If you have a sick back, And your arm and your biceps are still kind of not the the best. You probably don't recruit much bicep in your rowing, but if you're me, sixty percent of my rowing is my bicep and twenty percent is my forearm. You know what I mean? So I I think it I think that that could can influence you a little bit, depending on even it at those numbers. Yeah, for sure. There's definitely differences in the way people execute stuff. You see that on pull-ups with people, like obviously, even the grip you have, whether you're doing them overhand where you're getting a little more brachialis and uh forearm in there versus doing them underhand where you're getting a more uh concrete stretch and contraction for the bicep. And then same with the dip. Are you doing them lean forward where you're really emphasizing the chest more, or are you doing them more vertical where you're gonna be emphasizing a little bit more tricep? And so I think those variations matter, but at the end of the day, when you're talking about somebody being X amount strong for these movements, at some level I think it kind of gets washed out. And like if you're doing a hundred and a hundred pound pull-up for sets of five or three or whatever your your number is, um it it it's like your back and your biceps have to be strong. You can't get to that point without having both. And so there might be subtle um advantages or Or stimulus that you're getting to one over the other, but at the end of the day, both are gonna develop through simply getting strong at those movements. I agree a hundred percent. Yeah. And then we can even look at like the experience that I had both prior to CrossFit, where my first three years of training, I didn't do any direct arm work. I just did basically these six compounds that I listed. And then During CrossFit, I also didn't do any direct arm training because it was looked down on almost as being like a faux pas. That why would you waste time and energy doing direct arm work when you need to be building all these other skills and strengths and stuff? And so from 2009 to 2017, I didn't really do any direct arm work. And if I look at my physique through the CrossFit period to post-CrossFit and now I I notice very, very little difference between my arm development and I'm talking like the definition, the size, like all aspects of it. And the arms are an interesting one more than the abs because abs are so dependent on being lean because people hold a lot of fat in the midsection. But most people don't hold fat in their arms. So like some of my best arm development has actually been, you know, now at 210 pounds. Um, even though I'm not the leanest I've ever been, my arms look more jacked simply because I'm bigger and my arms are bigger. And um yeah, so I think there's there's certainly that factor of of body fat distribution there as well. That's a really good point to bring up, and I do want to extrapolate a little bit more around that. The body fat pattern distribution is largely hormonally driven. So, as males with a male typical male uh hormone pattern. We are going to store predominant amount of body fat in our stomach and androgen region. So, stomach further down the stomach towards the belly button, fatter around the sides, like the love handle area, low back. That is where we are going to first distribute body fat, and then it goes up through the midsection. But as males, like legs will stay pretty pretty lean. Your arms are going to be some of the leanest body parts that you have, biceps and triceps. So the first places that you're going to see vascularity and veins and stuff is going to be that anterior bicep vein that runs north and south. Females, on the other hand, or women. The difference there being they will largely stay leaner through the midsection, below the waist, a higher distribution of body fat because of that hormonal distribution. The other caveat that's relative to this conversation is triceps. Women tend to store more body fat in the triceps, um significantly more comparatively to men. And again, that is hormonally uh driven. Yeah, I think the individual differences is important. And you noted, you know, the the gender differences. But um I'm actually sort of an outlier on that general distribution because when I've had my DEXAs in the past, it'll say my uh my torso body fat will be like, you know, 10% and my fat in my hips uh and lower body like quads, hamstrings, glutes, is more like 17%. So my total body fat would be like 14 or 13%, but there's a extreme variation between where it is in my midsection versus where it is in my lower body. And in some ways I think that that's probably ideal. Like I'm I'm really happy that this is my body fat storage pattern because having a lean midsection is great. But if I were to compete in bodybuilding, I almost think this would be a detriment because I would get to a point where my midsection and my upper body were already lean enough, but I would still have to drop seven more pounds just to get my glutes and hamstrings lean enough. And then I would end up losing hypertrophy in my upper body as a result of the degradation that occurs through the deficit to get the other muscle groups lean enough. So from like a, you know, be 10 or 12% body fat and look really good at the beach. My my distribution pattern nails it, but to be a bodybuilder, not so much. And I think that was actually probably my biggest deterrent when I considered competing uh in 2021. I got together with Alberto Nunez and Brian Minor and they did some like physique assessment for me when I was a hundred and eighty-four pounds. I was kind of near the bottom of my diet. And, you know, my abs were in as they come. Like I had an eight pack, my delts were striated, like all that stuff. And then Nunez looked at and he goes, Yeah, you still have about like fourteen pounds to lose and most of it's in the lower body. So that's certainly a factor that you need to discuss. But I think ultimately at the end of the day, the fact that most males specifically are not going to hold body fat in the arms does make them quite different than the abs just from a a one to one comparison. I would agree. I I do have a a a question that more of a a a curiosity. I am very interested to see the longer that you assuming that you decide to stay on TRT and stuff, if that body fat distribution starts to change the longer that your androgen levels are are are different. I would expect a lower body to lean out. the lower body to lean out. And you don't think that that would coordinate with a with more fat storage in the midline love handles low back. I mean rel if from a relative percentage is is basically what I'm getting at. I I would expect as we're on androgens longer and and be because because of how it shifts the the the the pro the the profile, I would expect the lower body to get leaner relative to the upper body, right? And if I and if if I extrapolate I mean there is a genetic component to it, but I but I I would expect that. If you look I don't really want to talk about this, but I will. If you look at your older women, uh let's call this maybe 40s, 50s, who've uh I think we could use potentially the term abused steroids for a long period of time, they start to their shape starts to look like a male shape. Their legs get really, really lean. They get more of that stomach similar like relative to a male. And I think that that's why, like over time, if our hormone profile gets shifted like this, we start to distribute because there's there's things that happen, right? Voice changes, we get the more male characteristics, ambition drive, like these testosterone earth sorts of things, that cascades into other areas of the biology too. It's not just, you know, more muscle and more ambition. There there's things that change like hormones and the relative differences. of hormones in relation to each other change other things in our biology and body fat distribution is one of them. So that's why I'm saying I think the longer that you're on TRT, I would bet it starts to I'm not saying it's gonna flip, get closer. Yeah, that's interesting. I uh I will obviously keep you updated throughout the the months and years as this continues. Um, but I guess as we continue discussing kind of the arms in relation to that hypothetical person that just does those six compound movements, including, you know, the dip and the pull up. One of the things I I wrote back to to this question asked was uh that It's possible, and I don't know, I don't feel like extremely confident with this statement, but it's possible in my mind that somebody that's that developed, that has those numbers, that has been training that long with compound movements, versus somebody that is doing direct arm work and uh training more like a a standard bodybuilder, you know, with an arm day or with arms thrown in on upper body days, whatever. Um, that it's it's possible that both people might end up with a 16-inch, 16 and a half inch. Fully muscular, call it myofibril um hypertrophy in the arm. Whereas it's possible that maybe that person that trains them directly might get an extra third of an inch, half an inch, something like that. But it would be difficult to be confident that that additional arm volume isn't strictly sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which would be the type of hypertrophy that comes simply from like. more nutrient delivery, uh more blood flow, and simply like having the pump from training the arms, you know, twice a week or whatever. So the pump will stay, even if it's not the pump that lasts for one hour where it's like really big, where you get that full inch. it's like a little bit of residual inflammation that kind of exists permanently simply because you're putting those arms under that type of training duress. Yeah. I I I agree. I I and I and I'm I don't want to say I'm afraid. Uh I I I think where the conversation is is shifting a little bit into like technical answers, X's and O's, versus like practical, what you would actually see. Um and I agree. And I have a hard ultimately where I kind of land on it is if your training is very much I'm A big three guy plus weighted pull-ups and dips, and I wanna just train in my garage and I'm only gonna squat bench, uh incline bench, dip, you know, deadlift. You don't really care about how big your arms are. And if you did care, you would start doing arm work. So I I've I kind of feel like we're getting pigeonholed by a situation that wouldn't really it's like a hypothetical. Mm-hmm. it we would never approach this in practice because if you trained like that, you wouldn't care about your arm size. And if you did care about your arm size, you would do things to improve your arm size. So I I feel like we're uh kind of in a little bit of like a purgatory sort of thing. Yeah, or maybe you do care about your arm size, but those movements are sufficient and you feel like your arms are not an underwhelming body part in comparison to the rest of your body, and you were able to get there without ever doing direct arm work. Yeah. I also, before we move back to abs and talk about muscle versus fat space, which I think is an interesting conversation, I just want to remind everyone of the the one arm experiment that I did, which I think is relevant here. so if anyone, I mean, most of you guys following this podcast are probably aware, but I have a three-part series on my Instagram where I did a six-month one-arm training experiment. I talked about it last week a little bit. Six months I only trained my left arm with direct work for biceps and triceps, and then I let my right arm be trained by pull downs, pull-ups, rows, bench presses, etc. And um Essentially what the end result of the experiment was is that over the course of those six months, my left arm made a little bit of progress to move closer to my right, which was about half an inch bigger before starting the experiment. but then within one or two weeks of going back to training both normally again, the disparity went back to exactly as it was. And my left arm was half an inch smaller than my right. And s and neither of them moved much. Like even over the course of the six months, like. I measured them manually, so who knows how accurate it is, but they moved like, you know, a quarter of an inch over the course of six months through the direct work. and then this is why I have that theory of it being sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, because if it simply just goes back to the same way that it was two weeks later, there isn't actually the period of time to develop true myofibril uh muscle fiber. So it would make sense that that additional arm volume is more like sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and it's transient. Yeah, agreed. Alright, cool. Um, so one of the other questions he had as we continued the conversation was about whether muscle and fat can compete for the same space. Um, and so the idea here is that if you didn't have developed abs, and then you really focused on developing your abs and you built them up, I guess in whatever way that that means, you know, improving ab hypertrophy in some way, training them regularly. Um that then if you were to go gain weight, say back to the weight that you were prior, would you now have less fat that can accumulate in the space that you've built the abs? Um, does that make sense? Do you need to clarify that in any way? I think I think you explained it well. Yeah. I I I don't think they compete for space because they're in different if we call it what maybe layers in our body, right? We have like our subcutaneous layer, which is where predominantly body fat is stored. The the difference with the abs specifically is we also have um visceral adiposity, which is like in around your organs, which that That takes up space as well, not not the way that you want it, but the abs are in a completely different layer or or or or frame of themselves. To to play into the example, I think if we had not great abs, fat, then built great abs under the fat, you would actually look fatter. Because now we just have more surface area or a bigger delta of this region. Um yeah, so I think if anything it would actually kind of work against you because let's let's say let's let's say 15% body fat as a male would which is a pretty that that's not fat, but you're not lean, right? It's healthy. Let's call it that. if you just put more space behind your abs, the ab the but the but the but the subcutaneous fat is still sufficiently thick that you cannot see them, you're just making your stomach wall kind of bigger. So I I think if anything, it works against you, to answer the question specifically. Yeah, I think it's an interesting parallel too to one of the things that we talked about when I first started TRT. And I was noting that my midline just seemed like bigger and bulkier. And you noticed there's si you noted that there's kind of some uh underneath kind of hypertrophy of the various stuff around the midline. And it's not just the abs, but you know, there could be like a little bit of hypertrophy of other tissues and maybe organs. I'm not really sure. Um, but various hypertrophy stuff that can make that belly. seem bigger even if it's not necessarily adding fat. And so hypertrophy itself of those areas can essentially make that waist look bulkier. And then if you're not lean enough to show the abs underneath, then it can actually appear like you are bigger and bulkier in that area than maybe you want to be. Yeah, I definitely think there is something to say about I mean we're we're we're changing the topic a little bit away from like the natural, which which I don't really want to do, but I I do think that at that that does play a role. Um and just to kind of put a bow on it, that was something that I was really concerned about when I was starting my prep because I was using a a little bit of growth hormone and I was like,'Cause I've always had a really small waist and I know what it looks like. And I'm like, it's it's bigger now. And I'm like, did I mess mess it up with muff my off season stuff? But like it was just the body fat of being a higher body weight. When I got lean, my waist was just as small as it had ever been and stuff. So but yeah, I I think yeah, if there's more tissue, even though that tissue is abs and that's a good thing, but it's under the same amount of body fat, it just makes everything bigger and would work against what ends up being the desired look. Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's right. I love the way that you phrase that. And I think that that takes it away from it being about the TRT or whatever. And it's simply about if things are bigger and more muscular and you add fat, then you're going to have a bigger midsection than you would if you didn't have abs developed but had the same amount of fat. It's like the t shirt thing, right? And what we say like in a in a as a natural, you can either look really jacked in a t shirt and and not that jacked with your shirt off, or you can look absolutely insane with your shirt off and really freaking average with your shirt on. So so it's like a little bit of pick your poison uh of of which one you really want or matters to you most. But ultimately to answer that question of whether they compete for space, the answer would be no, that they both take up space and uh they're not going to uh you're not going to because you have bigger abs, it's not going to make the same body fat seem less fat. The the agreed. The one little caveat I will say is I think around the like ten, eleven, twelve percent body fat as a male here, having more developed abs does is it does show favor in that range, right? For as like the person like you you and I I think are pretty similar in this. We have to be about ten percent body fat before abs are like prominent or what w what I would say I am not disappointed with is a very good way to put it. Not disappointed. Whereas if you have really developed abs from a seven hundred pound deadlift or something like that, I think that can be about twelve percent. Mm. It may not seem like a lot, like up 10, 12%, like that's the same thing. It's not. That's a 20% difference of body fat on your body, right? So it's the numbers are close, an absolute standpoint, but from a relative standpoint, that's that's a 20% difference. and you're looking at, let's let's say we're talking about in a dieting, that might be, you know, six weeks of dieting or something like that, additionally. Yeah. I know I at like around fifteen percent body fat, I still have a close to a six pack, a four p a full four pack, almost a six pack when I flex. But like to your point, if I want to see abs unflexed and have that leanness where like, you know, you can see your serratus and you can kind of see some of those insertions and stuff like that without having to really flex hard, I do think it st starts to get more to that like ten percent range. Um So it just depends on, you know, are you looking to have your abs be apparent under any circumstance? Or is it simply like, you know, you flex them and you're like, cool, they're still there. Um but I do think that that potentially is a factor of whether your abs are developed or not. In that, like if you don't have developed abs and you're 15% body fat, you could flex and still see nothing. Whereas if you have developed abs underneath, you you might be able to see the abs at 15. But I also don't know if this is simply a factor of I trained my abs and therefore I now can see my abs at 15%. I think there's so much more genetic there. Like, like any muscle group, the amount that you can develop your abs even with direct training is going to be dependent on your genetic base. Of abdominal development. Like nobody would be like, you have 14-inch arms. Well, if you just train them directly, you're now gonna have 16 and a half inch arms. Like nobody would ever say that. It's the same idea with abs. Like you have to uh have a genetic base of development that that's going to be there or not be there based on you know your genetic profile. I do like that. The one caveat that I I I would like to add is I think that like the genetic base what we are talking about is going from like pretty decent to to exceptional, but I don't you can have the worst genetics in the world. You can still have a six-pack. You just have to be lean enough. But but I've seen people say that, like, oh, I'm just I'm really lean, but like genetically, I just don't have any abs. You're not as lean as you think you are. They might not be exceptional, but if you're lean enough, they will be there. That that is a that is for certain. Yeah. Um, well, do you have uh an day idea of kind of where you would want to take this next? I feel like we've covered the majority of kind of the big points in the outline here. The the the kind of the thing that I would like to close on is the this one question in the outline here is how much optimization is worth pursuing. And that's where I I always like to try and take things because this is of this great hypothetical, uh theoretical conversation and tie it back in into practice. And it there is no correct answer. It the the answer is is different depending on the listener of who is lands on how much optimization it is is worth pursuing it depends on how important the abs are for you or the arms are for you and where you a genetically b from a history of execution fall on that spectrum if you really care about your arm size If you're looking at your physique and you're like, man, my arms just I want them to be bigger. I still think the answer is direct arm training, right? That that is the that is the fastest way to close that gap to something that you want. But if you're like me, like I said, from from young, I trained my arms a lot when I was young, and I just do a lot of like yanking and pulling with my back movements. And I also happen to be a little bit of like a triceps presser. I don't really have to train my arms because they're bigger. Relative to other things, it's not worth extra optimization for me. I would rather dedicate that time to things that need it. So I the answer is different for for every one of you. And that I would say is what do you care about most? Is pursuit of things that you don't necessarily care about that much worth the extra time investment to pursue them? And the answer is different for everyone. Yeah, I actually have a an interesting uh another thought experiment here. I'm curious your take on if you'd agree with me. But um, like obviously I agree. If you're at the 200, 300, 400, 500-ish, and you do you have the weighted pull-up and the weighted dip, and you do all those things, and you still want more arm development, then I 100% agree the answer is obviously start training your arms directly because all the other stuff getting really strong on that didn't get you to where you want to be. however. You know, you were like you arbitrarily kind of threw out like, hey, if you want more arm development, do more arms. But my thought on this would be that if you're that person that say is the equivalent of not the 200, 300, 400, 500, but maybe you're two-thirds of those numbers or or half of those numbers. So it's like a 120, whatever, whatever the whatever it breaks out to. You're not at those numbers I mentioned. You're probably still earlier in your journey, whatever, whatever. And you want bigger arms, my view would be that you would still probably be better off focusing your time and energy on getting stronger in the hypertrophy rep ranges on those big movements because arm development is going to come through getting stronger on these compound movements. And that person may not be at the point where simply being like, well, I have a, you know, a 210 max bench press, but I really want my triceps to be bigger. I should spend a lot more time on pushdowns and overhead extensions or something like that. My response would be no, you should probably continue to focus on the big movements, get strong. And sure, if you want to throw in like a little bit of armwork to make yourself feel fine, that's great. But don't expect armwork itself to move the needle much more than simply just getting stronger on those big movements to the point where you're at the top, you know, five or 10% of where you could expect to be. Yeah, I would agree. there what and the way that I'll answer it is there's there's two paths, right? There's two paths from like beginner to like where you where you ultimately want to go. The first sixty maybe percent, whether your path is like elite power lifter or top level bodybuilder, the first sixty percent of that path is the exact same path. Um Obviously 60% is a bit of an arbitrary number, but maybe it's anywhere from like 40 to 70, something like that. If you're not at that 40 to 70, you just have to get on the path. And that path is get stronger in your compound movements. Your body weight should be increasing. Your performance should be increasing. I think I at the At the at the disadvantage of of what I want to sound like, I I feel like I'm one of those old heads right now, just being like, you don't need all the special you don't need the prime settings in in in changing your resistance profiles. Like, you need to fucking get stronger and eat, but unfortunately, that is the answer. You need to get fucking stronger and eat. Um, I see it a lot with the I mean, I love it that the that the kids are into training and stuff because I look back at how how fond and you know formative those years were for me. They're placing the emphasis on the wrong syllabus to per se. You see people who are a hundred and forty pounds doing the specialized rear delt work and they haven't had a meal in six hours. Like you don't need the specialized rear delt work. You have to just fucking eat and train. Um, so I I do ultimately agree. Don't specialize when you need to generalize and those numbers you provided are a very, very good benchmark for that. Yeah. Like if you're a 210 pound bench presser or the equivalent on a machine and you're doing weighted pull-ups with 30 pounds or something like that for a few reps, uh it is impossible for your arms not to grow if you get stronger on those movements. Like the body just doesn't prioritize growth on only, you know, it's a pull-up, so I'll just grow your back, or it's a bench press, I'm just gonna grow your chest and front belts. Like As you get bigger and eat more food and gain body weight, that weight is going to disperse across your body. And doing those compound movements is stimulating your arms at least enough that the overall growth that you're going to experience is going to increase your arm size too. So you could go from a 14-inch arm to a 16-inch arm simply by doing compounds and getting really strong at them. And then if you want to go to 16.5 and you're stuck there and you can't get stronger. and bigger and you know whatever, then at that point, maybe the the idea is to spend that time arm training. But again, like we we opened with, a lot of it comes down to just your t time allocation and how you want to spend your time. And like if you have three hours a week to train, you probably should do almost all that training on basic compounds. But if you're training five hours a week, you could easily get your three or four hours in of hard training on compounds and still have a little bit of leftover to then put in that auxiliary work for the arms. So it really comes down to your time commitment and what you want to get out of your training. Yeah, I I love that. I think that was a nice, nice tie-in there for us. Sweet. Okay, guys, as always, any questions about this? Drop Brian or I a message on Instagram. With that, we'll talk to you next week.