What's going on, guys? Welcome back to Eat Train Prosper. This is episode 229, and it is our October 2026 Instagram QA. So per usual, with these episodes, we get questions submit to our Instagram from followers. Some people like to get ahead of them and also reach out. And we're going to dive into it. We have 21 questions. So big packed full episode. We're going to skip updates so we can maximize the time answering the questions and we're going to jump right into it. So the first question is how much difference does training five days per week make compared to four? If I go, if I drop from five days to four, am I just packing the same amount of volume into fewer sessions? Or does the fifth day add something on its own? I'm also planning to compete in men's physique next August. In a prep, how much would get keeping that fifth day actually be worth? So we have a number of questions kind of compiled into this first question. I would say in most cases, I don't truly think that training five days is inherently superior to a significant degree relative to four. Yes, typically from a volume standpoint, we take that same amount of volume and stretch it down into four days. So those four sessions are typically a little bit longer in duration. The time that I find Most people opt for a fifth day is purely out of enjoyment because they like going to the gym and they would rather go four days as opposed to five days if schedule allows. Now, in the context of this question, in a prep, how much would keeping that fifth day actually be worth? This is a small right if if you go back to earlier and how I answered the question, I said in most cases, I don't think going from five to four is that much of a difference. In a prep, I would generally recommend five. And there's a few reasons why. In a prep, we our energy levels are going to be lower in those sorts of things. And that fifth day allows us to keep those training sessions shorter, which typically is going to increase performance of exercises later into the session, which does matter in a prep, especially because I know this individual, this would be a natural prep. So maintaining as much muscle mass as possible beg becomes the game. And then if we do have that fifth training day, we can generally eat a little bit more food, which makes prep slightly less unenjoyable. So that is why I would generally opt for that fifth day. Uh and we may also add in more volume that we wouldn't otherwise do, specifically around like abs and posing. And having that fifth day allows us to spread that out, which keeps those sessions shorter. What do you think, Brian? Yeah, I think you nailed most of that. Um, I think the part specific to the prep I'll leave mostly to you as that's more your domain than mine. but I think the question is interesting because it also foreshadows what is our twelfth question in this QA where someone asks I won't kind of give it away here, but it's it's kind of a question about uh volume versus frequency and and how that matters or if it matters uh over the course of the week and long term. And so I think this is a similar question. I really liked what you said about that fifth day potentially being a place where you can target things that maybe get left or uh unfulfilled fully in other days. And so it really just depends how you organize your split and how much time you want to commit on each given day. Um so as a simple example, like during cardio season when I'm doing my three day a week training My sessions tend to be around an hour because I'm combining multiple muscle groups together. Whereas now, currently, while I'm doing this bro split in the colder season, I'm working out five days a week, but my sessions are only like 30, maybe 40 minutes each. Um, and so I think at the end of the day, most of it is just about how you want to kind of partition your volume across the week and whether you prefer slightly shorter sessions, but more of them, or fewer sessions that are longer. And I think much of that is a personal preference. But I do think for the most part, and obviously there's nuance in context, but I think for the most part it's really just a decision of of the volume being more or less the same, but how you want to spread it out across the week. Yeah. One final thing that I'll add very quickly. What the next season of the goal also matters. So for example, Brian, you alluded to this a little bit. My plan once baby gets here is training volume comes down to pretty much nearly a an absolute minimum just to hold tissue. And my plan is to train every other day. I get 45 minute running clock when I when I get to the gym. I get four, maybe five exercises in and I get the fuck out because it's a different priority of my life. So my volume is going to, I wouldn't say get cut in half, but maybe 60% of what I'm doing now. But the goal isn't to grow. The goal is to be a decent father and not be at the gym for a really long time so that my wife doesn't leave me. So the goal changes. So therefore my volume changes because of the goal is different. I've briefly touched on this in the podcast prior, but just to kind of reiterate it for those that don't follow us super closely, when I had my kids, I had two completely different approaches. And it kind of speaks to this question a little bit. the first kid, I was training two to three days a week, but I would spend two hours in the gym each time because that was with my wife. She was like, Okay, like you can get out a few days a week, but but I want you around like more days than not. So was like, okay, well, I'll go to the gym, I'll hit these really long sessions, I'll get a lot done, and I'll be home most of the time. On the second kit, it was during COVID, and I had just begun building my home gym in the basement. And so I did a completely different approach where I never had a session more than 20 minutes long, but I was doing something like 12 sessions a week. So I would do like an AM for 20 minutes and a PM for 20 minutes, and I'd do that like six days a week. And that is also a completely reasonable way of going about it. and and dealing with, you know, the situation of having a a new baby. And so this person obviously isn't in that same position, but I think it more just speaks to the fact that like there's many ways to skin the cat. All right, let me kick this next question over to you as it's a nutrition specific one. how much difference will nutrient timing make to muscle fat accumulation? Example, one hits their target calories and protein and carbs, but has three to four protein meals, but consumes a large majority of carbs in the evening before bed, versus somebody who spreads them out equally puts more pre post workout. How much of a difference does this affect the results? So I asked this person to to clarify based off of like what's the goal, right?'Cause it it it can matter more or less relative to what the goal is. And he said that his interest is more so during a gaining phase. But I will briefly allude to the the deficit as well. In a gaining phase, I think nutrient timing matters much less because of the very simple uh Analogy that I like to use, like if you're wet, you're wet, sort of thing. Um so with uh a caloric surplus, we are already in a surplus state. So things like the timing of nutrients um in terms of getting in carbohydrate in a training session when we might start flattening out or something like that, isn't really much of a concern because you are day day in and day out in a surplus environment with ready available amino acids and glucose and. stores. So I think it matters much less. Where it can start to matter a bit, I believe, is later in a gaining phase once you've already gained a significant amount of weight and body fat is rising in the management of insulin sensitivity. So if we are already working towards worsening insulin sensitivities and we're doing a large bowl of, you know super sugary cereal and stuff before bed, that's going to s you know spike insulin at a time where you don't really want that to happen. So if our insulin sensitivity is already declining. Which it typically does as you get fatter and body weights come up and the diet or the bulk goes on for uh a number of months. I would start being a little bit more strategic just in the preservation and management of that insulin sensitivity. Because if your insulin sensitivity does go to shit, your partitioning ratio also starts worsening. So you end up gaining more fat per each new unit of weight gained. So it kind of doesn't matter. Until you get like pretty far, and then it does kind of start to matter as health worsens pretty much. Um, but in the beginning, I don't think it matters too much. Now, in the deficit, I believe it does matter because things are a little bit more dynamic. Again, in the beginning of the deficit, I don't think it matters as much because we are still close to that middle ground. As you get leaner, Energy available becomes even lower, training sessions start to get harder to maintain performances and such, and overall energy levels decrease, and our margins for fat loss continue to get smaller because we've had a lot of success. I do think the meal timing matters because we want to try and move as much of that carbohydrate as reasonable to fuel and preserve training intensity, which will help with the management of retaining as much muscle mass as possible. And you just don't have as much of a demand, even though the desire is there at bedtime, the physiologic demand for nutrients around that window lessens. So it kind of doesn't matter in the middle. As you get kind of closer to the extremes, I think it matters more. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree with that. I like the separation of the the surplus or maintenance versus deficit. And I think it it's just a universal truth that food timing and all food quality and like all that stuff matters a lot more when there's less to go around. Um so a hundred percent agree with that. I'll also say that a lot of the same things that you were mentioning that are negative about eating carbs late at night, like the kind of glucose sensitivity and the the the metabolic processing and all that stuff that takes place is also probably why eating big meals close to bed seem to negatively affect the quality of sleep. Um and so I think both of those kind of go hand in hand. And so for that way, I would even say, like if you are gaining. And you're somebody that is affected by like your sleep is affected by eating too close to bed. I've kind of harped on this for years, but I notice a significant difference in the quality of my sleep when I stop eating three hours prior to bed versus, you know, one and a half or two hours prior to bed. And so um I would just keep that in mind too, that regardless of what phase you're in, that quality of sleep is crucial and you don't want to do anything that could potentially uh decrease that. Yeah, especially l in the surplus. It 'cause one of the things like in the surplus, your body's already gonna be running a little bit hot because you're feeding it in an overfed state. if you eat close to bedtime, like this is in full transparency something that I continuously fuck up because I'm just busy and and I have to get the food in, I'll have horrible nights of sleep. I wake up literally just on fire. My body is so hot because of my my body's just trying to digest that food. So it's one of those things it's The meal timing is in in in that context not necessarily an insulin sensitivity thing. It's just like almost like a quality of life thing because you get poor sleep because your body's just pumping heat at night. Yeah. Next question. How to eat healthy on a budget? My biggest problem is stretching my money to eat. This one is always interesting to me because I'm a firm believer that eating healthy is one of the cheapest things that you can do. And I think the the root of the answer or the mismatch is in you don't need to be buying organic meats in and all of these things. You need the basics, right? Like ground turkey, ground chicken is pretty cost effective. If you're buying bulk bags of a white rice or something like that and getting a cheap rice cooker, it's I I think I buy a like an 18 pound Or $18 bag of white rice from Costco, it lasts me like five months. And I eat an absolute metric fuck ton of rice. get frozen vegetables just like your pea, carrot, green bean medley sort of thing. Just get eggs and some basic fruits and stuff. It it can be really, really inexpensive. I think the problem is people are using food prep companies and stuff that, hey, I mean, these are the margins that these people need to. Do for their companies with the rising uh food costs and stuff, but don't fucking buy them, cook the food yourself. You don't need tenderloin steaks and stuff. Buy frozen chicken breasts, buy four frozen chinder chicken tenderloins. They are not as cheap, but gives you a lot more flexibility. I am hardcore believer that eating healthy is very, very, very cost effective. I believe it's the most cost-effective thing you could do in terms of food. Yeah, I Kim and I have actually been talking about this a lot recently because we have gone through periods where we tend to order DoorDash or go out to eat a few times a week. And obviously that's completely cost ineffective. Um, but we both have eaten at home literally for the last two weeks, every single day, except we went out once last week. So it's been like thirteen out of fourteen days we've eaten every meal at home. And not only have we been like feeling so much better because the quality of food without the shitty oils and all of that stuff is so much better, but like you just put in, you know, such better quality nutrition and you control it much more effectively, even though we're not really tracking. It's like you can just feel the kind of mental clarity and physical energy that you get from eating like higher quality food. And so that doesn't necessarily fix your problem because you're not asking, hey, I'm eating out too much. Why is it expensive? You're saying, how do I eat at home and and keep it, you know, price effective. And so I like a lot of what Aaron said. I think doing uh bulk Frozen meats is probably the most effective way. Um, especially Costco. Like, uh, I get that beef now is an insane price with all of the kind of tariff stuff that's going on. So beef is crazy. Even at Costco, I think the five-pound thing of ground beef was $37, which like at seven or eight dollars a pound isn't the end of the world, but it's way more expensive than it was a couple years ago. And so, um, at Costco, you can get these Chicken thigh packs that I think are three pounds, three pounds, three pounds. So like nine pounds of chicken thighs. And it is, I want to say $25. And so if you can get nine pounds of chicken thighs, or you can do the same thing with breasts if you prefer white meat or want to be on a diet or whatever, um, that is way more cost effective and is gonna go a lot further than doing uh the ground beef. So, so definitely like Costco chicken, the way to go if you're trying to save money for sure. Um, and then As far as carbohydrates, like potatoes and white rice are like the cheapest food you can possibly buy. I like even people that are that are extremely poor and living in in poverty are able to eat rice and potatoes because they're dirt cheap. Like you can have rice and potatoes for a whole day for like two dollars. so I think between those two and then chicken thighs or chicken breasts, you have all your protein and starches more or less taken care of. And then you just need to figure out how to get in kind of some fruits and veggies. And yes, those are a bit expensive these days, depending on what you get. Like I couldn't believe when I went to the store the other day and avocados were like a dollar sixty each. Um, which is wild. But like there are also cheaper fruits, like you can get bananas for 70 cents each or something like that. So you just kind of need to look around and see what fruits are maybe on sale or reasonably priced for the season. And Again, like at Costco, you can buy your veggies in bulk and you can get huge bags of stuff, especially frozen, for a really reasonable price. Costco is an absolute cheat code. I I don't I will die on that hill. I go there weekly to do the bulk of my food shopping. It's like the bananas, the six the six bananas is literally a dollar fifty. Yeah, yeah. fifty for six bananas. Even the egg whites and stuff are are are pretty inexpensive, or very inexpensive, actually. That's I I buy all my frozen vegetables there. That's where I get my my frozen chicken breast. I will do the they have a 90 94 6 ground beef, but I don't do a lot of beef. I'll only do maybe one meal every other day, purely because of the fats and and how much total uh calories I need. But it's it's pretty damn good. Costco is by far the best deal if there's one around. I there potentially Sam's Club as well. I've just always been a Costco person, so I don't I just don't know Sam's Club, but it's pretty hard to beat, honestly. Yeah. All right. I'm gonna let you take this next one and I'll be back in like less than a minute here. digestion, gut health must haves. In terms of digestion, i it most often it's you don't there's foods that you are eating that exacerbate digestive issues unless you have significant and present dysfunction like uh H. pylori, which is pretty common, or SIBO or something like that. If you have act app if you have like a clinically defined dysfunction, you're gonna have issues pretty much across the board, or something like celiac. But if you do not Most often it's not things that you add. People always ask me and want to add probiotics and stuff. When I'm sorting digestive issues for clients, for old friends, and things like that, I'm always peeling things back, doing a bit of an elimination diet, and that much more than 50% solves all issues. So if I think of the most recent two, A friend from high school was having a bunch of digestion issues. And this is like an old, you know, a long-term healthy type guy. He had succumbed to a lot of the protein in everything. So he was doing the protein quests, you know, cupcakes or cakes or cookies or different like everything had added proteins in them. The super high protein yogurts, which they just add whey concentrate to, if you did not know that. So I just pulled all of that back. gave him a way isolate instead of the super old school nitrotech or whatever he was still doing. And they within seven, eight days, all his digestion problems were gone. So oftentimes it's a lot of low quality additions on top as to removing things. And then some guy like two weeks ago paid me to just build him a game diet because he was having a bunch of issues with his digestion and his build. And within four days, all of his issues were gone because he just had, again, a lot of these lower quality, like hack-type foods that just usually exacerbate issues. So I just gave him very straightforward and more calorically dense options. It were still very simple ingredient type things, and everything was perfectly. fine within a handful of days. So uh again, if you have structural issues, dysbiosis, H. pylori, SIBO, or something like that, you need to go through the the necessary mechanisms to get those things addressed. You can go through your doctor, you can get a GI map to help identify some of these things. But if there are not actual issues there, most of it it's just removing things that you're currently doing as opposed to adding new things on top. Yeah, I think that that's that's pretty right. we are probably not destined to all have like shitty digestion. Like most of the reason that we're having shitty digestion or gut health issues is probably because of things that are in our life that shouldn't be there. and so the the added proteins in bars and things like that is a great one. That stuff is always bad, especially with like the fake sugars. A lot of people really struggle with like those those kind of sugar additives and stuff. and then I would just say like on the the topic of elimination. The other two biggest culprits aside from those fake sugars tend to be lactose and gluten that I've seen with people. And so maybe just short term elimination of lactose andor gluten, and then maybe adding in one back in uh in a week or two could be a decent kind of A B test that you could run on yourself. Yep. I am super lactose intolerant. So yeah. are you with with cheese since cheese is casein and no lactose? Casein also messes me up. Like I can't do the casein protein powders or anything. Certain cheese so it's actually interesting. If I just have a little bit of dairy, so some yogurt maybe two or three times per week, the first thing that I get is like sinus. I get like snotty and stuff. But then if I have milk or continue to double down on it, then I get actual digestive issues. Unless I get a very large influx of, let's say I go out to eat and they use butter. That's going right through me. Provolone I can do without issue, but I'm never doing it more than like two days per week. So it's a very low threshold sort of thing. yeah. I love provolone. The pizza that I make at home that I'm trying to emulate from DC, it's unique because it's made with a hundred percent smoked provolone cheese. There's no other cheese on it except smoked provolone. And not only is that in like an insanely good flavor, but it's also uh like you said, maybe one that doesn't wreck your stomach quite as bad. Um, anyways, let me kick this next one over to you, and then I think there's a slew of them that kind of come my way here. Um, so this is a testosterone question. The question is about taking testosterone and any potential negative health consequences. He says, I've had my testosterone checked and it's 361, which is on the lower normal range. It says, I know I need more sleep. 6 to 6.5 hours is the max. I have three kids in sports and I run a PT business. Clients start at 5 a.m., late nights, etc. I have a history of autoimmune disease, celiac, and doctors believe two different experiences with myocarditis are tied to pre-celiac diagnosis. My heart is healthy, but do you feel there's any health concerns taking tea? I'd love to try and feel more energized and optimize my tea levels, but I think my main lifestyle factor to help out with is my control, better sleep. But I'm very tempted by the idea of getting on tea to feel better and maybe build muscle easier. So the the first way that I will answer this question is I am always very uh flattered is the term that comes to mind, but it it it does by no means does it not I'm very man, I'm having a hard time finding my words. The fact that people uh imp in value my input on things like this is pretty it's strong with me. So I make sure to very carefully choose my words here. Do I think That there is potential negative health consequences at an actual low moderate testosterone dose. My initial answer would say I am inclined to say no. I do not think it it would have that. But massive asterisks that immediately come in play. If I were in your shoes, before I would take anything, I would get a massive cardiac workup that I chose, not just went to my GP. I'd want to see an echocardiogram with speckle tracking, right? Coronary calcium score, kerotid artery evaluation. I'd want to see the works for a few reasons here. We have the myocarditis, myocard myocarditis that's happened twice preceliac and in myocardis. Geez, I cannot say that word. Myocarditis does have a have a history of showing up with autoimmune things in certain individuals. But at some of the largest uh evaluations here. You have three kids and and I would never want to encourage anyone that does anything to jeopardize something like that. Um so that's why I would get that gigantic workup. But then to a actually answer the question, but I f I would love to try and feel more energized. I'm not confident that the testosterone is going to help with that, unfortunately. I just don't I didn't see it. Brian, did you see a large increase in your energy levels to a notable degree? And believe me, that's something that I wanted. I just got all the muscle and some ambition and drive and did get zero fucking energy, unfortunately. Uh you're muted, Brian. Sorry. I would say energy on its own, no, like it's not like taking Adderall or some sort of like amphetamine or something like that. Um, I think what you noted is like the increase in ambition, and you used the word when I was getting on it with a decrease in friction. And so I would say that the the decrease in friction is maybe what people are taking as energy. Because essentially it's like, I don't want to do this workout or I don't want to do this work or I gotta take my kids to the sports game and I don't have the energy for it or whatever. And so you can misinterpret energy as simply just friction that's keeping you from doing the thing that you want to be doing. And so if you're looking for decreased friction, then yes, things might seem a little bit less exhausting in the pre than they would otherwise. But I wouldn't necessarily that say it's because you have more energy. It's maybe just a little bit more of like life optimism or something along those lines. Yeah. There was I I wanted to put a note on this and then I I I forgot and I apologize. So if you are listening to this, just DM me and and I'll find you the study. There's a very big study. I think it's two, maybe three years old at this point, where they actually looked at like does low dose testosterone, exogenous testosterone ha have an increase in un undesired, like health, like the deleterious health um consequences sort of thing. that could be something to really, really look at. I would approach a like you you're your PCP, I would not go to a a TRT clinic and ask them if they think that it's going to be, you know, increased risk for you or anything because they're financially incentivized to say no. And and and I'm not questioning anyone's morals there, but I would go to someone who doesn't really have a financial investment in what the answer they give you and and check some things. And I would lead that cardiac workup under my own volition if I was in your situation. So that it to feel very, very confident with whatever you decide moving forward. Yeah, I don't really have anything else to add there. This one let's kick over to you. Do you think someone could do trap bar deadlifts from the floor to replace barbell RDLs indefinitely and get the same hamstring posterior chain gains? I wouldn't expect them to be exactly the same unless you're performing that trap bar deadlift from the floor as you would perform an RDL, meaning that you're not letting your knees flex forward. You're focusing on uh the hips kind of moving backwards as you descend, keeping your shins relatively vertical and uh obviously making it a much more posterior chain move. The way that most people perform a trap bar deadlift from the floor. is to perform it like a conventional deadlift where the knees are flexed forward slightly and you're getting a quite a bit of quad drive directly off the ground. And so it really just comes down to how you're performing it, how you're executing it. And I actually think the trap bar RDL is a fantastic movement if you like that. Um I have experimented with it over years and I keep wanting to go back to it and being like, the trap bar is like so much better because it like if it's in my gym better, I don't need this like seven foot long barbell that I have to load. Like a trap bar is much more much smaller and takes up less space. So I've always wanted to do it. But every time that I go too many weeks in a row of doing a trap bar, I eventually end up tweaking something in my back. And I think it's because the handles are too wide. They need to make a trap bar with handles that are in tight next to the body so you can really brace properly. And when your arms are splayed out a few inches outside of your legs, I feel like that just puts you in a relatively compromised position where it's harder to get tight through the posterior chain. Um, so I actually for RDLs, I love the barbell because I love the tactile feedback of it sliding up and down my legs. whereas I don't get that and I feel like I'm kind of moving through air a little bit with the trap bar. So um that's my personal experience, but I do think if you're going to use the trap bar and expect the same gains as barbell RDLs, you need to perform it more like you would a stiff legged deadlift or an RDL than like a standard deadlift. Yeah, I agree with you. I I think this is one of those questions it's uh it's like theoretical more than practical. Because so I think if you could modify let's say for some reason you you could really only have the trap bar deadlifts. You couldn't get a barbell or something like that, and you're performing this over years. I do think you could perfect. your trap bar execution in a way that would allow you to to recruit the same amount of like tension and and bias your positioning and that sort of thing. So I do think you could learn over time to to in your per personal setup and execution of it to tweak it sufficiently to produce that. So I I would say yes, I think you could, but my real answer would be like I I would just get the barbell so that you don't have to spend all that time doing it. So that's a kind of theoretical versus practical. This one I'll kick over to you as well. Do you think a lat pull down setup with two pulleys is better than the single pulley for seated single arm lat pull-downs? I guess it just depends what you're trying to achieve with that single arm lat pull down. Like if you are looking to do that whole kind of N1 CASM type thing where you're twisting your torso away from the resistance so that you can adduct your arm more across your body and essentially stretch that lat across the sternum a little bit, then I think that yes, having two would probably be better because it would easier allow you to orientate your body in a way that maximizes that kind of lengthened position of the movement. but I don't think it's that big of a deal. I wouldn't make it like a priority to find one with two pulleys because you can still uh adjust and arrange your torso in a manner that stretches it with a single pull down as well. You're literally talking about a few inches of distance being the difference between having one uh pulley setup or two. So I wouldn't overthink it, but yeah, if you have two, I would try both of them and just see which one allows you to kind of get that better connection with the muscle. Agreed. If you have two readily available. it probably makes things two, three inches a little bit more optimal from a a very basic setup. But like Brian said, if you're really trying to get specific and nail that setup, you're gonna be modifying like the bench position and and things anyway. So one versus two wouldn't really be that much more of a benefit if you're really trying to, you know, mod nail that setup by modifying other variables. Yep. All right, Nutrition One, let me kick over to you. Is it easier in terms of cravings and willpower, et cetera, for a hundred and fifty pound person to be in a ten percent calorie deficit or a two hundred pound person? Or does a proportional deficit hit the same across weight classes? Assume these hypothetical people have similar interest in food, et cetera. Okay, this is a really good question. Assuming that we are starting at the same body fat level, right? So a fifty per 150 pound person with uh whatever let's go 15% body fat and a 200 pound person at 15 body fat, I I and we have the same level of control over our food sourcing. That is the crux of the answer, in my opinion. I do think it's the same. If you're, let's say you're you're cooking 100% of your food, you're never eating out, those sorts of things, you have a hundred percent control. I do think it's I think the proportional deficit is is largely the same. Same cardio, same step output, that sort of thing. Where I think, and this is the the theoretical uh on paper answer. Where I think it breaks down a bit in life, real life, practical utility, is whenever we go out to eat, because the way that the restaurant and is things are structured, it's favorable to be a larger human because you can't go out to eat and get a 250 calorie meal. And this this most practically shows up in my women clients who are just smaller in general, where you want to have a date night with the husband or whatever. That date nights probably over half of your calories for the day. Even if you try and manipulate, you know, some of the oils and sauces and stuff. And that's unfair, but it doesn't make it the the the real dude realities of of it being a a realistic thing. Whereas like me I can go have a seven hundred calorie, eight hundred calorie date night, and that's not that different than my normal dinner, maybe a hundred calories or something. Whereas, you know, if Jenny, my my wife, who's like a hundred and twenty pounds or something, that's like three of her meals. Um, so that is where I think the difference actually shows up is in real world application. But let's say you're sourcing a hundred percent of your food, you're cooking all the same, uh, and and body fats are the same, I think it's The same. Where it breaks down is most often if you're a smaller person dieting, your body fat levels are already lower as opposed to if you're like a normal standard 240-pound guy, you're probably 200, you're probably at 20 plus percent body fat already. So we're carrying higher amounts of body fat. Yeah, I think the point around uh being able to just eat more food and therefore it being slightly easier to diet is probably like the number one factor. And so I would gravitate as well to saying that the heavier person has it slightly easier. Yeah. Imagine you had to take a long break from training. How would you go about coming back? How would your training look like? What would you prioritize? What if it had to be a year or two since you last trained? Yeah, I actually think that this is almost like I would approach it as I would somebody who's a beginner, but less focus on execution and technique and more focused on just managing volume and fatigue. Um, so the the recommendation I would have would simply be to do like a two to three times a week full body for a couple months, call it like a cycle, like eight to twelve weeks, something like that. And that would allow you to control your volume per muscle group so that you're not getting extremely sore in any given area. I would probably just do like Two sets per muscle group, choose like one exercise and do two sets of each across an entire body. That's like 14 sets. If you do that two to three times a week, I think that you'll be able to kind of mitigate extreme soreness and fatigue while also being able to maximize the response from the weights because you're essentially detrained at that point. Anything you do is going to create like a massive change for you. so I definitely would not. immediately go to like some sort of split routine where you're hitting, you know, six to ten sets per muscle group because you're just gonna be completely destroyed, especially with your background and the fact that you used to be able to push and your execution is good and you know what failure feels like. Um, I definitely would not want to take you to like many, many work sets on a split routine like that. So I think the most prudent move would be like I said, two to three times a week full body, 14-ish sets per session. And then after you get through a cycle there, Maybe you can gravitate toward see how the response is. Maybe you do another cycle, but you could also potentially uh lean towards something that's more of like an upper lower split or something like that at that point. Yeah, I I th from a X is a no standpoint, I think everything that you said is is absolutely perfect. I wouldn't change any of that. The only thing that I would change is uh it depends on what the long break from training would be. ah and if I'm trying to put something back in my life that hasn't been there, that used to be there, I'm gonna typically double down on the enjoyment factor in the beginning. So find a way that allows you to enjoy it so that you're able to the resistance to going is lower. And I think a lot of the X's and O's matter much less in that first bit as long as you're back in there doing it consistently and and it's providing to be valuable on on your time investment. And then once you've gotten into that all the answers that Brian said, I think. But in the beginning, like you just have to find a way to enjoy it. so that you're going consistently. Yeah. All right. Let me kick this next one over to you, even though it's a training question, because it's about dynamic double progression and that was kind of your that's the thing you're kind of big on these days. So, for dynamic double progression that you talked about in the last pod, I feel like I fatigue faster than I should where my reps fall off to hit the same RIR. When I have followed plans that have built in progressions, I usually can't keep up with what they have written, even if I feel like I'm hitting the intended RIR targets. I'm more of a beginner. Would this get better with training? A sign I'm not resting enough between sets or going too hard on the first set. Well, I like this question. I if you you said you're hitting the same RIR, and one of the things that I think in the first set we don't have the accumulated fatigue of set one and potentially set two, so I don't think you're going too hard on the first set if your RIR is appropriate. What it sounds like to me is you're not resting enough between sets, which in my coaching experience I see a lot. In clients, because I will give them a certain threshold of volume that I know will take about an hour, an hour, 10 minutes. And they're saying, Can I do more? I'm completing the workout in 40 minutes. And I'm like, Fucking how? How are you doing that? It's because they're rushing through it and not resting. So that that is what I would say I am inclined to to think. If because there's going to be some degradation in performance from set to set, uh Estimating the RIR gets a little bit harder when there is a little bit of peripheral fatigue that's already accumulated. But one of the ways that you really make that worse is by not resting sufficiently between your sets. So from my evaluation of everything you've asked here, I would increase your rest times to a standardized rest and then reevaluate from there. What do you think, Brian? Yeah, my inclination too is that she's not resting enough. Um my thought here is that as a beginner, you actually should be able to keep up with progressions quite well. And so really the only explanation here, aside from just not recovering enough, not sleeping enough, not eating enough food, all of these things would simply be that you're not resting enough between sets. And that's actually a problem that I see more with beginners than I do with advanced people, because I think beginners are looking to feel some sort of effect from the training. That maybe they associate with resting less, like more pump, more burn, more systemic fatigue. And so these things happen more effectively when you're resting less. But the thing with weight training is that it's kind of the reverse of that. Like you don't want to feel like you're getting this amazing systemic workout while you're weightlifting. You want to focus more, especially for hypertrophy, on the like local muscle fatigue that you're feeling. And the progress that you're making on the lifts that you're doing. And uh there is no benefit to resting less in that situation. And the studies will show that resting two to three minutes is going to be a much more effective approach than one to two minutes as you look to kind of gain hypertrophy and strength over the course of time. So I would make sure that you're resting enough. and then I would also just point out that there is a difference in kind of muscle fiber type and how your body responds to. subsequent sets after an initial set. And so somebody that's like extremely fast twitch muscle fiber is going to need more rest between sets and they're going to fatigue quicker from any given set than somebody that's more of an endurance slow twitch muscle fiber type person who probably is going to be able to match RIRs or match reps with um with less rest. And so you might just be person that sits on the other side of that spectrum. Yeah, really good. Okay. Brian mentioned that he's doing a more volume with the bros split than the upper lower. How do you make sense of your experiences and the research in determining whether more volume is better than more frequency, even if the volume is once weekly? Yeah, this is a tough one. And I don't know if I have like a full answer, like a very confident answer for it. Um the research has kind of oscillated over the years where initially, you know, ten years ago it was or seven years ago, you know, volume is the primary driver of hypertrophy and it's all about the amount of volume that you do. And then there started being all this research. um from James Krieger, where he was showing that eight to ten sets per muscle group per session is about the most that you can do without getting into junk volume, where essentially the sets aren't actually producing much for you at that point anymore. And so then frequency became this variable that people started manipulating because they're like, well, if I can only do eight sets in a session and I want to do twenty four sets for my chest, then I'm gonna need to do three weekly sessions of eight sets each or whatever. And so then frequency becomes this really important factor that allows you to accumulate more effective volume. So my response to this is essentially that if your volume needs require you to do more than nine or ten sets weekly, then you should probably split that volume up over multiple sessions. If your volume needs don't require you to do more than nine or ten sets weekly, then you probably could get away with doing it all in one session. Uh my situation is interesting because I was actually doing more volume with the bro split, or I am doing more volume with the bro split than I did when I was doing the upper lower split. So I was doing like three sets or four sets for a major mu major muscle group twice a week. So six to eight sets total. And now I'm doing eight to ten sets or nine to ten sets per muscle group, but I'm only doing it once a week. So the volume is slightly higher, but I'm still kind of under that threshold. And so, like if I really had to split hairs on where I believe the research is at this point, I would say that it's probably better to do five sets twice a week than 10 sets once a week. And my rationale there would simply be that. It allows you to have five sets that aren't under as much fatigue as they would be if you did them three or four days later. So you can input more effort, get more mind muscle connection, a little bit more stimulus than you would if they were all crammed together. But at the end of the day, I'm not super confident that that really matters that much. And I think practically it's really a matter of what vibes with kind of the way you like to train and what works for you, as long as you're not hitting more than 10 sets in a given session for a given muscle group. The way that Brian answered the end of that is exactly how I feel. Yeah, I I'm inclined to think taking that 10 sets and splitting it up, you know, five sets over over two sessions is best. But if you personally love that muscle group and those five sets, if you're doing it all in one day, you still have a super high intensity, you're still really laser focused and enjoying it, I'm not confident that splitting them up is that much of a meaningful improvement. The other side of that, let's say you're doing all 10 and like you're dragging ass towards the end and you're just like looking at your clock, trying to hurry up, and you're like, fuck, I just want to get out of here. Then it probably does because your mood and enjoyment just isn't that it's just spent on that day. So I think it it's it's personal, depending on how much you can really put into those final sets, if it is all in one session versus split across two. Yep, yep. All right, cool. For twelve, we're on twelve. okay. Ooh, I like this one. I wanna kick it to you f I'll take it if you want first. Okay. given amount of volume, do you think that it's better to achieve it with more or fewer exercises per body part? I.e., ten sets of chest with ten exercises versus ten sets of chest with two exercises? I think 10 sets of chest with 10 exercises is a little bit too much of an extreme. but let's uh you know for practical purposes, let's change it to 10 sets of chest with five exercises. So each exercise has two sets versus the complete opposite. Two exercises with five sets each. I am a firm believer that this comes down to your gym and what equipment is available to you. If you train at one of these incredible gyms where you have amazing pieces of equipment and there's A really good fly machine that you can modify resistance on. You have a really great, incredible incline press, you have a seated cable chest press, and you have these like really incredible options. I'm gonna take more exercises at two sets each. If you're training at your standard. Whatever, Jim, that has a single chest press that doesn't converge and you have limited options, then I'm going to choose two exercises, the two best exercises and increase my volume on. So unfortunately, my answer really depends on what equipment is accessible for you and how good is it. Yeah, I think that's a really good answer. I would also just add that for hypertrophy, uh, you want to target the muscle from as many different angles as you can. And so if you're just trying to hit a body part with two exercises, it's not to say that you can't thoroughly do it because I'm sure that Like there there's no reason you couldn't have an extremely impressive physique and reach ninety-eight percent of ninety-nine percent of your genetic muscle building potential by doing two exercises for every muscle group in the body. Like they're for sure you can the quads are a great example, like a leg extension and a hack squat, a leg press, or a a pendulum squat. Like that is sufficient for your quads without a doubt, a hundred percent for sure. Would adding in some lunges and maybe like some sort of angled other single leg thing uh be beneficial. Like, yeah, probably for someone later in their year years for sure. Um, but I like what Aaron said about it, depending also on the quality of equipment that you have available. And if you have five really good pieces of equipment for a muscle group that target kind of different regions of it and stuff like that, like absolutely for hypertrophy, that would be great. The exact opposite is true for strength. If you're trying to gain strength, you want actually fewer exercises and more specificity on that exact exercise. So it really kind of depends what you're going for and kind of how you partition your your volume as a result of. Yeah. Yeah, really good. for you. What do you recommend for coming off a 12-week cut? Go straight to maintenance or increase cows 10% a week until you hit maintenance. Additionally, how long should you stay at maintenance if you have more weight to lose? Um, before you jump into that, I'll just add that I think we've discussed this in a lot of detail on an episode that we did. We did two episodes on reverse dieting. Uh, one we had Jeremiah Baer on, I think, to discuss it back in the day. And then more recently, we actually did another one, I want to say in the last few months that was just you and I. talking similarly about this topic. So uh maybe we can go back and find that and drop it in the show notes. Yeah, I really like this question. And I think my answer is going to be a little bit different, but I what I hope is to just encourage people to to think a little bit. What is your ultimate goal? Because from my reading of this, how long should you stay at maintenance if you have more weight to lose? If you're not happy with where you are, why are you stopping the diet at only 12 weeks? There's nothing magical or there's no hard line that says you can't diet for more than 12 weeks or 16 weeks or 20 weeks or something like that. If you're still above a body fat percentage that is healthy and desirable for you, I wouldn't go to maintenance. I would keep dieting. Now, if you're at a point where calories are so low and your energy is absolutely destroyed and you're falling apart, yeah, it's a great time to go to maintenance. And in that context, I would go right to maintenance so that we shorten the distance to completing the ultimate goal, which is getting the rest of the body fat off. Now, if you are so with that. And and because you said you have more weight to lose, I would not do the slow reverse diet because all it does is push out the timeline of you accomplishing the thing that you want most to accomplish, which is getting the body fat down to the level that you desire. Now, if the the the only times where I increase weight, increase calories slowly is when people cannot be responsible with having them all at once. But if you can be very, very responsible with it, I would Take a conservative maintenance. So I would maybe take run your maintenance numbers and then pull five percent of them off because there is probably some level, uh, a bit of of metabolic adaptation that happens. So it's just a little bit conservative of a of a maintenance target, but I wouldn't stay there. I would stay there until energy levels have improved and you get that itch to really finish the diet. But I don't there's people that say you need to stay there for three months or or six months or things like that, which I don't think I'll I think they're just arbitrary numbers that people make up, but my my real question is if there's more weight to lose, why has the diet stopped? Right. Again, just uh I'm just trying to get you to explore things and and think about it from a from another level. There's nothing magical at eight weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, anything like that. Those are secondary order metrics or or factors that go into how long does it take to complete the goal. What do you think? Yeah, I tend to agree. I would um I definitely think that like it depends how much weight you have to lose. Like if you're if if you are uh have a lot of weight to lose, then it doesn't make sense to stop. Whereas if you're getting close to your goal and it's getting really, really difficult now and you're really struggling, then yes, going back to maintenance for a brief period of time and then re getting re restarting the diet could be a super effective way, both physically and mentally, psychologically, to be able to go about that. but like Aaron said, if you have a bunch of weight to lose and it's not super hard for you yet, then you can just kind of keep chugging along and do the thing. Um and as far as when you do go back to maintenance, it also depends how deep you are into your cut. Like we've talked about on prior episodes, if you're a physique competitor and you were at five percent body fat for a male or you know, twelve percent body fat for a female. then you just want to get back to maintenance as quickly as possible. I would not mess around with 10% cals a week or whatever. I would just go straight to maintenance and let your body begin to recover because it's in this super depleted state. Whereas if you are a male dieting to 12% or a female dieting to 20%, um, then you can probably take a slower path back to maintenance as you're not really in a super depleted state. Yeah. The only final thing I'll add there that I think is relative based on this month is November and December are the hardest months to diet in North America because of the string of holidays and stuff that are all that are that most people, you know, practice and and all that other shit. But then also time of the year, it's fucking cold in the overwhelming majority of the United States. So if if for for you, like let's say you're gonna go to maintenance right now for six weeks or eight weeks and then go back to dieting, you're you're walking into finishing the hardest part of the diet. at the hardest time of the year. So I I think that's another part to to to look into where if it's di hard if it's easier to diet, continue dieting through October into up to Thanksgiving and then take your maintenance from Thanksgiving to the first of the year, that's exactly what I would do because there's these other pressures that make dieting through November and December just harder. Okay, sports specific questions, sand volleyball, training and recovery. I find my feet and calves get super tight and sometime extra tired from all the sand time. This is even worse than the spring when I'm back out on the courts after a long winter of no sand time. Yeah, this is a little bit of a foreign question for me. So I'm just gonna kind of do the best I can here. I did a little bit of research as well to kind of help you out. But the first thing I'd point out is that sand volleyball creates really unique demand on the feet and calves. You're barefoot and constantly stabilizing on a unstable surface. So every jump cut and acceleration requires you to generate force against a service, a surface that's giving way underneath you. so even if you're in fantastic shape from lifting all winter, and even if you've been doing cardio, you haven't necessarily maintained that specific muscular endurance adaptation and tissue tolerance that would be required for that. I'd kind of approach it from two directions. First, I'd prepare the first uh before the season with four to six weeks of uh dedicated kind of work on those regions of the body. So uh straight leg and bent leg calf raises, as well as foot strengthening drills and low-level plyometrics. When we talk about foot strengthening drills, you can definitely get on Google or ChatGPT or whatever and to find some stuff that would be really good there. Um there's also a a great uh foot specialist on Instagram who's been on like the Peter Atia podcast and stuff. I think her name is Courtney Conley, C-O-N-L-E-Y, if I'm not mistaken. she specializes in foot stuff. But one of the things that I had great success with when I was recovering from uh some foot stuff that I was dealing with is is something called a MOBO board, M-O-B-O. And it's this like really unstable board that actually has a a slit for your toe. So your big toe isn't able to push. And it on an unstable kind of uh It has like an unstable bottom and it's like a board that you're on. And you can do these like one-legged stabilization drills on it. And there's so many things you can do. Like it comes with a training manual too, but it's basically like, you know, you can do balancing with one foot, then you can progress to twisting and balancing. You can progress to doing like single leg RDLs with no weight while balancing. Um, and all of this stuff requires extreme control of your foot and ankle. Because of the way that the board is designed with the hole for the big toe and with the kind of unstable surface. I think the board is like a hundred bucks on Amazon. And it was really effective for me recovering from footstuff. And I think that it would be really effective as well for beginning to strengthen the feet and force them to use uh the toes and just the gripping muscles in a different way than you usually would. Um so four to six weeks of prep before the season begins. And then I would try to gradually reintroduce sand exposure instead of jumping straight into like full bore volleyball as soon as the weather's nice. Like you don't need to jump into a 90 minute session immediately. I would try to start with 20 to 30 minute sessions just a couple times a week. And as you gradually adapt and strengthen those areas, I think that you'll find that it's not as cumbersome on your body and stuff. So uh that would kind of be the main pieces of advice I have there. Absolutely nothing I can offer, I am sorry. Okay, perfect. Let's see what the next question is. here, how about this one for you? Hypertrophy and strength training during perimenopause. How to navigate training loads during this phase. Some people say to stay in the five rep range, but I like hypertrophy ranges for body composition. I think at the end of the day, what you enjoy is going to have the largest implication on the things that you do. So I would stay in the rep ranges that you enjoy. Now, something that could be a little bit different. So with perimenopause, right, we we obviously get FSH and LH start skyrocketing to try and drive the signal to like, hey, produce more things. Estrogens up and down, progesterone's floating around, even testosterone can start to climb, which is which is quite quite interesting. So let's say you like super high rep ranges, like 15 to 20. If your estrogen is is surging, you might get some of those like heart flutters and and heart palpitations and be shorter of breath. If that's happening, lower rep ranges are gonna lend themselves to be a little bit more favorable because you're not fighting that that breathing um as the heart rate increases during those higher reps. So that's something. could be again if you're training at what we might call like an extreme of the hypertrophy rep range 15 to 20 maybe coming down into a a six to twelve makes a lot more sense but I think doing what you like to do is is first and foremost. Because hormones are changing and how that can impact excuse me, preparedness, uh acute strength out strength outputs and stuff, I think I might be inclined to encourage you to be a little bit more dynamic in your approaches and know that some sessions may not progress or you may just not be prepared for certain sessions based off of if sleep is in a terrible swing because of your floating uh estrogen and things like that. But I would try and keep as much of what you're doing that you enjoy doing. the same and just accept that there's going to be a period where things are a little bit less predictable because your recovery, your preparedness, uh, and your heart rate is going to be variable based off of the the perimenopause fluctuations. So I wouldn't I would be more reactive as opposed to proactive because if you're proactive that that you have to assume that you know what's going to go on and you kind of don't, but just put less pressure on yourself to be as you know, meticulous about performance because there's gonna be these things that you kinda don't have control over that can impact your performance on a week to week base. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's well said. Definitely lean into auto-regulation there. I think my understanding of the research is that the low rep targets for perimenopause is really about making sure that bone density is a priority. But the truth is that any sort of weightlifting close to failure, regardless of rep range, is going to create similar bone density adaptations. And so I think if I had to conjecture as to why that advice is for women, I think it's likely because. As a general population, making an assumption here, women do tend to prefer to train lighter and further from failure. And if you're training in higher rep ranges, not getting close to failure, you're really not getting a lot of those bone density benefits. Whereas we know from research that if you're training with like a one to five rep weight, even if that weight is something you could do for five to eight reps. you're still getting insane levels of bone density adaptation simply because the load is heavier. Whereas if you're gonna train in higher rep ranges, you do need to make sure that you actually are really getting and butting up against failure. And it's just gonna be easier, I think, for most women to get the benefit of the training if they're in lower rep ranges, lifting what would be considered heavier weights. I think you nailed that right on right on the head. How to balance weight training in cardio when you don't have unlimited hours to train. You want to be strong, but also not be out of breath walking up the stairs. Yeah, Jordan Lips and I did an entire episode on minimalist training and what would be our recommendation for literally this exact scenario. I think the question specifically that we addressed in the podcast was if you had 45 minutes to train, I think it was if you had six hours. No, no, no, what was it? It was if you had 45 minutes to train six days a week. So what is that total? One and a half, four and a half hours a week or something like that. Um For all of your training. So you're willing to commit forty-five minutes a day, six days a week for everything. What would you do? And I believe that our conclusion in that pod is that we would do something like forty-five minutes of weight training three times a week and forty-five minutes of cardio three times a week, where one of the cardios is like slower endurance, one of them is like longer intervals, like you know, 15-minute intervals or something, and then one of them is like more kind of VO2 max, like long rest sh short work periods. And Yeah, I would I would go listen to the episode because we kinda went down some different paths and meandered a little bit. But I I do think that that recommendation of three short lifting sessions and three short cardio sessions is probably going to be the most bang for your buck in that situation. And you could definitely shift that slightly based on where your goals lie in any given moment. So if you're in a period of time where you want to focus more on lifting, you could go. four lifting sessions and two cardios and you could switch that to four cardios and two liftings in a different period of time. And I think that as like a general health and wellness and wanna be pretty jacked type situation, that will get you close to that goal. Yeah, I think that's a perfect answer. Specifically because they said strong, I think that three sessions per week focused on the larger compounds is the exact way to go there. It's lower volume inherently in nature due to progress because you want to progress uh in those lifts. And then you have the three cardio sessions, and then let's say you have a season where you want to be a little bit more focused on hypertrophy and less on absolute strength, you could go to like a two-day upper lower, or I'm sorry, four four session per week up. Or lower, a little bit more hypertrophy-esque type movements, and then drop to two sessions per week. And then you can oscillate that back and forth in your year through seasons of more hypertrophy focus, more strength focus, and then that keeps things a little bit more dynamic and less mundane as well over a year. Cool. kick this one to you because I'm sure the answer is a lot uh a lot more forgiving than the one that we were given. I just started the strength cycle. Holding the barbell on the low back squat was uncomfortable. Any suggestions on how to fix that? Yeah, the first thing is that it just is uncomfortable. I would kind of mentally accept that. but beyond that, there are certainly ways to make it more comfortable. And so the first thing uh that I find in low bar squatting that's been super helpful for me is making sure that I have three to four warm up sets and that each warm up set I gradually move my hands in. So yes, ultimately when you're doing a low bar squat, you wanna be in nice and tight, elbows in, uh lats braced, the whole thing. Through the whole chain really tight. But because the shoulder doesn't want to get into that position so readily at first, I'll usually do my first warm-up set with just the empty bar. And I'll like literally drape my arms over the bar. Like I'll put zero stress on my shoulders, make it super easy, just warmup set. And then between every warm-up set, I will grind out the area that feels restricted. So for me, that's usually like mid-trap, rear delt, rhomboid area. And so between my warm-up sets, I'll take a lacrosse ball, I'll jam that out. I might jam my traps out with the barbell itself while it's in the squat rack. Um, and then I'll also do a series of banded pull-apparts and banded face pulls to flood a bunch of blood into the shoulder region. And then the next warm-up set, my hands move in maybe two or three inches, and I'll repeat that whole warm-up process with the lacrosse ball and the banded pull-uparts and stuff, and then move my hands in another two to three inches. And by the time that I've added weight set to set, and gradually moved my hands in. By the time I get to that first work set, I am, if not comfortable, I'm at least not completely uncomfortable. And uh the unfortunate fact is just that you have to be diligent with that warm-up and preparation process because our shoulders are not meant to go into that position with the bar that low on the back without some sort of proper preparation. Yeah, that's such a good answer. Preparation. Eventually, as you get into that position more and more frequently, it will become less uncomfortable. I I don't think it will ever become comfortable, but less uncomfortable. Your sp your specificity in the mobility required to achieve that position will continue to improve, but yes, it is very uncomfortable and you're not uh anything in the wrong or out of uh understanding. It is uncomfortable. Yeah. All right. At this point of the game, are there still pieces of fitness and nutrition that excite you guys? Certainly for me. I have been more recently fantasizing, I think is a proper term to use for when bodybuilding is over. And a large part of that is based off of where we moved to here in Salt Lake City. You go up the canyons, and there's so many people riding road bikes and stuff up the canyons. There's such gigantic, you know, crazy, beautiful hikes and backpacking and stuff here. And I have been romanticizing. I'm romanticizing is the word I wanted to use, not fantasizing, romanticizing about when bodybuilding's over, when I can be a little bit lighter, when I don't need to spend an as many hours focused on hypertrophy so that I can have times to just go move my body and go experience, you know, being outside and in other aspects of fitness. Other things that excite me that are a little bit more nuanced is my 40th birthday is looming in the next 18 18 months. It excites me for what I will be able to look like at 40. I am excited about what I think I will be able to look like at 50. Uh One of the things that I've said numerous times on the podcast is as I get older, my coaching roster age gets older. And I have a handful of clients that have really changed the game of what I, you know, have been able to see that is possible at fifty years old. And that does really excite me for aging to see like just because I'm f will be fifty doesn't mean that I have to look old, right? I can still be in an absolutely incredible shape in all these things. And it excites me to just double down, you know, o on this fitness and nutrition aspect of life where I've chosen to to make my hobbies and stuff my profession and just lead as an example of what can still be possible at quote unquote older ages. So while I'm not overly excited about, you know, bodybuilding currently and I think that's because I'm in the throes of of it and and just really busy and stuff, I'm very excited about these different seasons that that I will eventually get to of moving my body in different capacities, using my body, staying as active and and as healthy as I can especially post bodybuilding. Yeah, that's a great answer. And I I resonate with most of that. first off on this question, there is very little in the bodybuilding or strength training research or fitness nutrition research field that gets me excited. So if this question is like, do you see a new study and you're like, this is the new thing that's gonna create all these gains for me, um, I think the last time I got excited about something like that was all the lengthened research that was coming out in like 2020 and the the subsequent years. And even that, which had its super heyday and everyone romanticized the gains they were gonna make from targeting the length and position more. that's all come back to center and we've realized that yes, there probably is like a little more gains to be made by emphasizing the length and position, but the reality is that most quality well-rounded training has already a sufficient amount of lengthened overload training in it. Um And so there's never I don't I can't imagine there's gonna be a study that comes out anytime in the rest of my life where I'm just like floored and I'm like, wow, this is the game changer that's going to change results for everybody across the board. Um, I I just don't I I I my nihilism is at the highest level when it comes to this type of stuff right now. And I just think like I've been saying over and over the last few years, like train hard relatively close to failure with enough volume. recover super hard, you know, sleep well, eat enough food, and uh and that's more or less gonna be the keys that get you to like 98% of of where you wanna be. And so my my focus on getting excited about this sort of stuff, definitely not. My personal involvement though, I am excited about because I've gravitated to an extreme level of balance In my training and life, that I don't think I've had a lot through the first twenty-five years, as I'm now at like twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of training. The first twenty-five years, I really was going about it thinking that every little change that I made or nuance or research study or something that I implemented was going to be something that made a difference. And it's almost peaceful to realize that you don't need to worry about that stuff. And uh I appreciate all the guys doing the research because they're passionate about it and trying to find that little like extra half percent point increase. Um, but more what I'm excited about is what Aaron was saying, which is that I am in my mid-40s and I'm still in as good a shape as I was in in my 30s or 20s. Um, I'm just as strong as I was in my 30s and 20s. And I look forward to the opportunity to be able to stay in shape, look good, be healthy. and use my fitness in a way that allows me to enhance my life as I age by continuing to be active and explore parts of life that I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't have this type of fitness space. So um that's where I stand on the issue, I guess. Yeah, such a good answer. One of the things that when when you were explaining it it kind of thought uh at least conceptualized to me You're kind of at this point where you're cashing in on the investment that you had made on all of those years and stuff. Like you have all of the muscle, and now you're just maintaining it, right? So but for so many years we're thinking like, I want more, I need more, I need to do these things to have more. And then eventually, like you have everything that you need. And you through the through the years of the investment, now you're just cashing in on that investment. There's a maintain maintenance aspect of it, but it's so much less. It offers such a better balance, and now it's just like the ball is in your court to completely lose it, which I don't think you would ever do. And as long as you maintain it, like all of those years of building, you get to ride out the investment of and and still have, which I think is awesome. And I'm that's another thing that that kind of th hit me. And that's where, you know, babies do in December. Like I'm gunning to get this this build done. Because then that can be like, that's it, that's my final build. I'll never need to be bigger than I am right now. Everything just becomes maintenance on the back end and and staying lean and peaking for any seasons and stuff that I want to do. So that does really excite me. Yeah. I used to be scared of reaching a point where I wasn't making progress anymore. I remember in my twenties being like, man, it's gonna suck when I'm in my forties or fifties and I'm just like watching myself deteriorate. But I think I'm now kind of excited about the opportunity to not deteriorate and to to sustain and maintain for as long as I can. All right. I'll kick this one to you, even though it's a training question. I think it's an interesting one that you you use a similar split. So how well would a split of push pull off legs arms off work for an advanced trainee? The first thing that I noticed when when reading this is it's a six-day rotation. Push, pull, one, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah. So assuming that on Monday, you know, so it would be on on Monday we'd run the first push, and then on Sunday, we run that push again. So it's a little bit shorter. I think it could work really well. I think where it stands to probably benefit you the most is if arms are a lagging body part because they are getting that that twice per week or twice in a six day uh r repeated um what's the word I'm looking for here? Yeah, rotation stimulus there. I think as long as your Whatever the goal is, if the goal is hypertrophy, as long as calories and recovery and the other aspects are are efficiently are sufficiently accounted for, I think it can work really, really well. The thing that it seems like it would work the least well for, lower body, because there's only one repeated one frequency in there, but I think that can be perfectly fine. Again, relative to your goals. If your goal is to build the biggest legs, I don't think it's the best program for you, but it depends on what the goal is. But I don't see any reason it it could not work really well ultimately dependent on what the what the goal is though. Yeah. I mean, I've even talked about how I've found that training my legs any more than once every five days, like, really isn't good for me. Like, even though soreness might dissipate prior to that, I really struggle with um maintaining or progressing performance if I don't give myself at least five days between training the same part of my leg. Um, so for whatever that's worth, like everyone's just different. And uh maybe that does work best for you and could maximize your leg development. But on the other hand, like this might just be like you care more about the showy muscles or your immense physique competitor or something like that, and that legs don't matter as much. And so uh there's always that aspect too. All right. Aaron, any plans to bring an undefeated gym to the US? Yeah. That's kind of what I figured. a one and done on on gyms. Yeah. All right, I'll kick this last one over to you because it is about men's physique competition. I'm running a push, pull, rest, legs, rest, upper rest. So similar to the last one, but seven-day cycle and upper instead of arms on the second upper body day, with the goal of bringing up my upper body for a future men's physique competition. Would it make sense to move legs after push? to give my upper body more recovery between sessions rather than running push and pull back to back. So the crux of the question is right now it's structured as push pull rest legs and would it make sense to move um to go push push pull legs, right? So that we're it make sense to go push legs pull? sense to move yeah sorry sorry instead of push pull legs push legs pull um you could i that there's nothing wrong with doing that that being said i am not inclined to think training a push session and then a pull session back to back have any impedance on your recovery or performance of the the second session um the one thing uh that i will say is depending on what the one so sometimes right I I I I can find that if we have pull and then legs, there can be some impedance on leg performance, especially with anything RDL or hip hinge related by having pull immediately before. So i in my situation, like I don't think I would I I normally structure it as legs push pull actually. But th I I don't see any reason that it I I don't think you're gonna have any recovery issues by going push and pull back to back. No. Yeah. I agree. And I I also think that doing legs push pull is probably best as well. But also I think that when you have these types of five day setups where you input your rest days to make it seven week days a week, I feel like a lot of times life just happens. And the cool thing about this split is that it's a little malleable where you can be like, I'm not gonna be able to train tomorrow, so I need to do it today, or vice versa. And so rest days kind of get moved around and the order stays the same of the lifts. The rest days might be input at different places. And so I just think it doesn't really matter. Like we're really being a little too nuanced and and worried about things that probably aren't gonna matter that much. And so yeah, if you want to have even more freedom here, legs push, pull, rest, or legs, legs, rest, push, pull, rest, upper body, rest, then back to legs. would probably be the way I would go about it. But again, I just don't think it really matters that much at the end of the day. Yeah, one final thing that I'll add here because the context to the question says with the goal of bringing up my upper body for a future competition, I'm assuming that means we're not dieting right now. So if we're not dieting, it means we're at an increased capacity to recover, which means it matters even less because we have more recovery capacity. So yeah, I I don't you could, but I don't inherently see any any inherent benefit. And I like what Brian brought up, because right now mine is set up effectively pull, then push. legs rest, which is legs rest is Thursday and Friday, but depending on what happens, right? For example, like I trained legs yesterday, but sometimes my Wednesdays just get too busy and I'm like, all right, well, I'm not gonna make it. I'll just do it tomorrow. But it because that legs isn't gonna impede my performance on like my Friday or Saturday sessions. Like it I can be malleable with that day and it really doesn't matter, which is a a nice benefit. Yep. All right, cool. Well, I think this was an awesome session. I'm really glad that we got so many good questions after we got fewer of them the last QA. So this was great that you guys came through, got us twenty one amazing questions, and hopefully we can keep up this for the next QA in uh November. Yep, all sounds good. I have nothing else to add. Thank you, Brian. We'll talk to you guys soon.