Latest / Project StrengthCast / Tapering, Deloads & Athlete Mindset | Ep.5 (Pt-2)
Transcript
- speaker-0: Build strength and then express it and then what it means to taper into a competition. Because like some people think like the taper is going to give you magical like fifty kg jump or something. Just a small bump in your numbers. Like what if you did like, for example, a successful taper would be something like if you could do two hundred kgs on your final week before the taper week, like last TV session, and then you taper into the comp, you know, during that you during your taper you will probably get like a good 7.5, maybe 12.5 kilos. Maybe. That is like, you know, very good case scenario. In some cases, you will just get 2.5, maybe the same number, maybe like 5 kgs. Very rare cases I've seen like people get like 15, 20 kgs on a l on like what they could do on the last week. So it's not like a taper is going to significantly change things for like your whole life or something like that. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: Can you can you just like for like people like like from like a theoretical s again, this way this is where like understanding the thing may help people a lot more. A taper is essentially a reduction in the stress to like show the fitness built onto it, right? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So basically your peaking sessions or your peaking block is where you are doing ⁓ a block of training or at higher intensities and maybe more specificity than you were used to, which means maybe more volume or maybe workloaded SBD. So that on Crom Day you are having like the best case scenario to be able to show that SBD show up on the comp day. Yeah. Right? That performance should show up on on the comp day. Now that's the whole point of a peak. A taper is going to be like A one week usually a one week period, normally a one week period depending on how much stress and like fatigue you've built up from your peak, where you will take a little bit lesser load, like you know, opener range or maybe even lesser than opener range, depending on how much fatigue you want to dissipate. And you'll kind of just have ⁓ mostly fatigue reduction. At the same time, you're looking to make sure that you have just enough stimulus while reduction of fatigue to make sure that you're showing up on the calm day. That's basically what we do. speaker-1: So trying to bring it down so fitness shows up a bit more and then speaker-0: That's it. It's just a supercompensation effect that you're looking for during ⁓ peak and a taper ⁓ situation. That's that's all you're looking for here. speaker-2: 'Cause I think sometimes when people you'll not trust the taper kind of a situation, you kind of also w wanna ki I I would argue that you may wanna kind of ensure the fact that it's not just you like maxing out randomly and then just like reducing stress, you may run the risk of getting detrained in those situations. Like you wanna hold on enough stimulus to kind of hold on to strength. Yeah. Like that that that that's the thing, like maybe like I think again, if people understood that it is nothing magical happens in a taper other than a reduction of stress so that what you've built will show. It's not like magically it's like rando, you know. speaker-1: And ⁓ while talking like initially, ⁓ mentioned a point about ⁓ how people see it online and then like off the basis of that, I don't understand the taper thing. I wanted to add to that, just like explaining the off season as well. Like like we discussed previously as well, newer lifters coming in, not exactly understanding, and if they had a little bit more knowledge, they would get that two months is not an enough like time period. You only see online what happens as a result of maybe like a twenty-week accumulation phase or something like that, where like at the end We show the they show the results and then they make the reels out of it and then people see that. People see the competition reels. So having like a an understanding outside of that on actually how you get to that point, because that's just the end point. Like that's something which occurs after the whole process is already finished. The process itself is something that I feel people should know more about on how it actually works. Because like I don't know if you guys agree with this, but like from a few from the very limited number of programs I've seen from other people, like just random people who try to make it themselves or all. I've seen off season structuring to be very similar to just comp peeking. Like they kind of make it in a way that is just like a longer version of that. You don't really see much accumulation comparatively to what ⁓ you may actually want to see. I feel that's an issue. What do you think about that? speaker-2: the if the entire emphasis is only focusing on strength expression into a war at some point, right? Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, that's right. speaker-0: Eventually you'll end up hitting a wall there because you can't you can't just keep expressing like I told you, like like right, like one of the guys or like multiple guys that I've coached have have had this problem where they were forced to do come like five five competitions or six competitions in a five month period, which is extremely high. So we have to consistently keep focusing on like, you know, expressing strength at the end of every three, four weeks. Right? We don't have an option there. So that's never a good thing when it comes to your lifters or any lifter doing that. They they're just gonna burn out and they're just gonna struggle a lot with fatigue. There is a there was absolutely no real increment in their training. Like ⁓ meaningful progress. Like i in one case, all I I can think of is like total wise the guy put on like forty kgs or something, but his high end actual what he could have put on was something like sixty to seventy kgs more than his actual like previous total. That sixty to seventy kgs or even eighty kgs that we we could put on as total was something that we couldn't put on as a result of him just completely, consistently, you know, competing. So that's where we lost a lot of total, right? Like you are losing another an additional other twenty-five to thirty kilos realistically on the total had he just had the opportunity to build into that. But he wasn't allowed to build into that because he had to keep competing so many times. So he ha we we had to like just go off of ⁓ Whatever he could do and keep trying to bring that out. That's it. Yeah, that's how you kill like somebody's interest in the sport also. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like as pass see when people say things like, ⁓ you're doing your dream job or you're some something like that. No, even that for that that matter, there's a point where it can get too much and you start getting so burnt out where you're like 'cause I have like sometimes I'll have people who'll say something like, Why do you take on more clients and you make it'll make you more money? I'm already like filled out. speaker-2: That's how you kill an athlete. speaker-1: And just back speaker-0: I don't why can't I I don't want to take more on because any more will be like very stressful for me. Like of course I can handle it. It's not like I can't take more. I can't do more. I can always do it. Yeah, but is the cost worth it? Because I'll I'll stop sleeping entirely, even the little bit that I'll sleep. Then what? Like how long can I do that? Yeah. I already sleep so less. So then what? Yeah, like after that what am I gonna do? If I if I take on more people and I start str struggling and stressing myself out even more at some speaker-2: Both are also different, right? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Even my quality of work will dip. I'm gonna stop responding to anybody at some at some point I'm just gonna be like, bro, I don't wanna do this at all. Yeah, yeah. I'll just be like, I don't wanna do this at all. I'm just done. Bro, I don't care about this anymore. And I'm just gonna like flip. Right? So we don't want that happening. speaker-2: From from like like an athlete standpoint also, like ⁓ this is why I track training motivation in the sheet as well. Simply because like as this central stress just starts to build up a lot, right? You may not feel beat up, but you just feel like this haziness in your head the whole time. You don't feel like this element of like wanting to do stuff and training just becomes like forced almost and then the buy in kind of dissipates and then you're like, ⁓ well, I don't care, right? And th again, like I always gotta kinda think about this if powerlifting was interesting to me because it's data analysis and it's programming at the purest sense, I would say. Like when I work with that SNC guy or something, you're trying to get general baseline up, right? You're you're just trying to find the gaps, general baseline up. You are never peaking them into like pure like the skill po 'cause the skill performance and like the the the the base the required ingredients are so separated apart. speaker-0: No, that's just like th for them it's just that for them it's just a sport. That is the skill expression. Yeah, I need to get away from the Yeah, i it is not the work that they're doing inside the gym that's adding to their skill on the field. Yeah. That is just filling in a couple of gaps for them to express that a little bit. Yeah. Maybe like you know, like build a better b gas tank that we talked about before. Yeah. Something like that. But you're not r like it's not stimulating work for you as a coach to work with somebody like that. Because you're just making them do the basics multiple like in different like speaker-2: That's speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So the it's not like when you're dealing with powerlifting, it's a bit different because you have like that purest aspect of programming. When it's directly more potent. That that's also why like I've never understood when people who do general basic hypertrophy work for anybody like a badminton player and be like, Yeah, because of me, this guy won nationals. No, it's not you. You didn't do shit. ⁓ speaker-2: Carrier is more important. Just You're in in all theory, you're just building their general physical preparedness. And I think my primary objective. Yeah. No, I was just saying like the the objective there is to just drive enough adaptation on everything and stay away from it impeding the skill. That is their sport, right? Like but in powerlifting the oneness to one can like for example, we're never gonna sit here and think for like pen from Moetaya and be like, Well, can I drive stimulus locally through the leg extension? speaker-0: That's all you're doing. Sorry, go on, go speaker-2: And kind of help him express better like strength on like this day. Right? It's it's just gone over. But you for a powerlifter you can do that, right? speaker-0: Same thing, like even if you talk about any anybody who's into like cricket or badment or any sport. Well hypertrophy work is just like it's going to carry over a little bit, but it's not a skill expression based thing. Yeah, it's just an add on kind of a thing. It doesn't make them like significantly one billion percent better. For them, they have so many aspects of fitness that they can focus on. Like they can go do some cardio, they can do a little bit of hypertrophy, a little bit of strength. When both hypertrophy and strength are very similar anyway. But if you do i if you're gonna be doing any of these things, you're kind of set and like that'll Your your main thing is still going to be the sport. So whenever anybody who starts taking credit and they're like, No, no, no, this is the reason why this guy started doing so much better. We it's because of my thing. Unless and until that specific thing is a bottle cap, which is their fitness overall, then it's a problem. Like if you have a person who can't run, yeah. But they're really good at like playing cricket as a batsman, right? But they can't run, you get them to run. That's when that bottleneck is fixed. But that's not like you you you are not doing anything, any kind of like excellent speaker-2: Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: Stimulating work as a coach. You're just making them do a little bit. Whereas powerlifting is a little different that way. It's speaker-2: It's a pure sense of like like stimulus to ⁓ impact. speaker-0: Yeah, that's why I don't like doing like working with anybody who's just gentle fitness or hypertrophy. 'Cause there's not much to change also. It's very simple, basic stuff and then just regular, you know, focus on progressive overload over time. That's it. speaker-2: Yeah, 'cause like well, when you get like I I work with a couple of Muay Thai guys and they sometimes will ask me why isn't the program more complex? Like 'cause they would have come from a guy like making them jump on a post super ball and do like sports specific kind of stuff. And you're like, dude, ⁓ like we need to get you jacked. We need to get you better like expressing strength, not top end. Just like repeated expressions of strength, aerobic, a lactic, like an aerobic work, right? And just some general athleticism through like biometric stuff. And this should cover. And my job is to not interfere with you play the sport. Like I once had a guy because like I I boxed growing up. A guy asked me, like, should I change my punch? I'm like, I am not your skill coach. It is not my place even to remotely tell you, should you do this or this when throwing a hook? Like I I I should not be doing that thing. And like like Kaushul said, sometimes like you'll work with a guy and you'll you may talk to someone in the strength and conditioning aspect and they just overcomplicate the ever living talk shit out of something and you're just like, dude. You're just making it complex to justify the price you're charging, if I'm being honest. Yeah. Yeah. This is why like whenever you see Bosu Paul stuff, you're just sitting there going like, Well, mm-hmm. speaker-0: Yeah. Also like ⁓ this also probably comes from the fact where like most coaches feel like they need to change something to keep the athlete with them. 'Cause otherwise the athlete will start questioning and be like, Hey, you haven't changed anything. Yeah, you haven't changed anything like the last like two or three weeks. Yeah. And then the athlete will be like, Yeah, it gets a little boring. But like most good coaches see that's the thing, like everything is like a double edge thing here. Cause if I say like if an athlete is good sorry, if I say that Coaches change it because an athlete may or may not like the program. So they change it so that the athlete will stick with them. That doesn't and then I say that good coaches will usually keep the programs similar and make only meaningful changes. That usually leads to people being very lazy and not making any changes at all. Right? So you have pe like that's the thing, like everything, there's a there's a there's a there's like multiple sides to the same statement where like if I say that a coach can be good and not make changes because he knows what to change. But at the same time, a coach may not make any changes just because he's very lazy. And then he might just off like offload everything on the athlete and be like, Yeah, I'm not changing anything because you're not doing anything right. Yeah. Because there are coaches like that who gaslight their athletes. speaker-1: To a point it's your job. Like I mean, it's like a coach's job to make sure that adherence is the present. Like if they're doing stuff good. But after a point, like yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean see the adherence part that a coach coach likes to look into is usually just taking off communication like, can you train five days a week? No, can you train four days a week? Yes, then we'll do a four-day program. There's no point in me giving you a five-day program if you can't train five days a week. That's not what we're talking about when we talk about adherence. Adherence is like the coach has to understand what your lifestyle constraints are and then try to program around it. But we still try to make your lifestyle much better as you know as much as we can. Like as we said, like try to sleep properly, eat properly, make sure that you're doing things properly, being disciplined with your lifestyle, things like that. But everything else, as a matter of fact, like adherence doesn't mean like I g I think like six days SBD a week is the best because Austin Perkins does it. So you also have to do it and then I give you six days. But your job just doesn't allow you to go to the gym six times a week. Like there's no way you can even do that. So Then what's the point of me giving you that six days a week? There is no point you can't follow it. I can't give that to you. So there's no point in me giving it to you. So then I I have to adjust things into four days a week. That's what I saying before. You know, in situations where you can't train four days or five days a week, then even three days we'll have to see like how I can adjust and see whether we can get an appropriate amount of stimulus and workload being done, you know, throughout the week. That's kind of how we look at it. speaker-2: Can't like f again, like people can only recover I think the people can need to understand that like again that SRA thing, as much as like people may think that you're har I I harp on it a lot, I'd say like I think we'd also kinda harp on it. You can only there's an order of operation. You can only adapt from what you can recover from. Austin like like you saw Elliot size and Austin Perkins like have this friendly banter, right? Where Elliot was like, Well, you don't have a job, dude. All you do is trade. That's six days a week for it, right? And like so like his his lifestyle allows for that and Joe Stanic kind of str altering stress the way it is will allow for that kind of situation to happen. And it's not like Joe does that for every guy. Right? Then why doesn't Joe just like why is why are there so many podcasts of Joe Stanic just saying, like, well I don't I don't agree with six day or seven like Agatha's like seven day S PD stuff. Like people won't like it's again comes down to that fundamental like miscommunication on like you You need to understand physiology to a great degree, ⁓ to some degree, I would say, so that you can make meaningful choices. Like like Cowshell again, we go under the thing of like Anthony McNaughton and John Song, right? Three years, four weeks, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, and same same program for like three years. speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah. And now that that that like if he's the one ⁓ five champion, does that have to be like Elliot Sykes for example, like he ha he has a pure static emerging strategies type of approach. All right. He's kinda mentioned that thing in his like ⁓ like Instagram stuff. But again, like how many people would you think in India could ha handle like a static block, right? speaker-0: Yeah, most people don't have that kind of maturity. speaker-2: Yeah, but like someone like Elliot, you can see like Aaron Jones can get the most out of Elliot because Elliot understands the process and like can easily buy into it and kind of understands when like I I I would also just say this thing here is like before we come into something like a delay kind of situation, right? ⁓ like if you look at when I did the RTS mentorship, you can kind see like Mike is someone who's an example of like he'll have three days, three weeks worth of good progress and he dips hard in the fourth week and then he spikes super hard in the fifth week. Like the way he'd structure his like stress index, right? But like ⁓ when when when like so Mike knows it's like that like that pivot block that they have in their system, right? It's kind of fine tuned to his own thing. But he you can't apply that to everyone, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that w when you kind of come into something like like the topic of like a deload kind of situation, right? Like like House, what do you think? Like Tapos Kaush, what do guys think is like proactive, reactive, or like like over time it becomes reactive with like proactive with nature. speaker-0: Depending on the athlete and how they're doing, most likely I initially I kind of keep things reactive and see how well they're doing. Where I'm like, Yeah, we start off week one, we'll see, and then week two we'll see, week three we'll see. If the person is doing a very good job with respect to the given RPs, then you can then most likely you will end the block as you intended. But if the person like there are two people, like there's always two ends of the spectrum, right? There's one guy who's like one person is always going to be somebody who's gonna be overshooting. So you're gonna have to like react like you have to proactively give a delo before they start shooting themselves. Yeah. Where they start shooting themselves into the foot, you kinda have to proactively change and give them a deload so that they don't overshoot consistently for a long period of time. And then there's one type who's like either they're coming off and they're worried not to overshoot with a new coach, or there's somebody who generally doesn't overshoot. So they undershoot a lot. And then you see that, yeah, even on something like a week five, they've not really pushed hard. So you're like, no, I'm gonna push you to week six and a seven if required. Because I've had like one guy like that, like the longest thing that I can remember is I had one guy consistently linearly just pushing things for fourteen weeks straight. 'Cause I was like, You're not doing what I'm asking you to do RP wise. Like this is too low. And the guy also continued to just keep milking that same structure for like fourteen weeks straight without a D load. But that that that's only allowed because the guy just kept allowing that to happen. Like he he kept keeping the stimulus low enough for him to just not have any effects of that fatigue of any excessive fatigue accumulate. Yeah, because he kept undershooting also quite a bit. So like fourteen weeks or sixteen weeks straight, we just kept doing the same program. Like the same exact thing, RP wise. And every every every week he'd just do that and he'd be like, Yeah, I I increased it by like five kgs or set like seven kgs this week. This is what it looked like and I'd be like, that's still not seven. I wanted to push more next week. And then he'd do the same thing again and then he'd come back and be like, Yeah, I tried to push a little bit more but I wasn't sure speaker-1: With time. speaker-0: I don't know what this is and I'll be like that's still not seven. So we do again, right? So depending on how they do things, we'll, you know, give a D load. speaker-2: Like like like if you if you kind of like h from from a like verbal standpoint, like the the difference between D load intro week, like when do they kind of like cross paths with one another? When would you kind of like separate them entirely? speaker-0: They're pretty similar to each other in the sense that they're both low RPE workload and low volume workload. But one is to introduce you to a new structure, and one of them is to allow you to recover from the previous structure. So an intro week is basically where you give either two by three or one by two of the whole workload that is intended on a week one, but you give it as an intro week, which is like an introduction to the po to the new block where you've made some changes. You have a couple of changes, you have a couple of adjustments. And you want the athlete to just start understanding that structure a little bit and also you want them to physically start adapting to that structure a little better. So you give them an intro week over there, right? Where it is either two thirds, two thirds of the actual workload that is meant to be, or one by two of the actual structure that's meant to be. Whereas a D load is going to be usually one full week of training where you have to take like either volume cut or intensity cut or some or even both cut down enough to a level for you to start recovering better. Right? That's just that's just ⁓ usually the way you recover after like a heavy work stress week. Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah. And and like when the guys use to things like front end or back end dayload kind of situation, right? Mm. On a principal level you're just trying to do the same thing, right? You're just trying to create a reduction in stress. And like if you were to kind of think about like front end and back end deal out, when would you use them? Like like yeah, like is there a pr preferred strategy you have? Do you not stick to either strategy or like like do you have any thoughts on that? speaker-0: If I'm looking for any multiple training blocks overlapping each other, like where I'm looking for multiple training blocks leading momentum into each other, that's kind of when I'm looking into back end deloading more. Cause that back end deloading b back end deloading is basically like where ⁓ you start deloing in the final week of the block, right? In that final week of the block or even within like week to week, you kind of just start adjusting volume as well as intensity in other areas so that it starts showing up a little bit more on your Primaries and then you kind of just like start adjusting things according to that. Like so for example, if you have your week four being like high RP workload, like an RP eight session, right? You have primaries as RP eight. On week three, you might push the secondaries a bit, and then on week four, you'll kinda taper that out so that you can get the primaries to move better. And that is usually done when you want primaries to move better, but at the same time you kind of want to move into the next phase of the block or the next block. or the next phase of the macro or the next block in a more like momentum based thing. Sustainment. So so yeah, sustainment. So what you do is like you have a four week structure where you're kind of starting here on week one, and week two, week three, you're kind of somewhere here. And week four you push somewhere ⁓ above. If you push too hard, what'll happen is that week one of the new block, because you ended week four of the previous block here, week one of the week one of the first the next coming block has to be a D load where you start much lower. Whereas if you do something like a backend deload, you'll end somewhere maybe not as this high, you'll sa you'll end somewhere here. But as a result of saving yourself a little bit, you can kind of start week one here, whereas week one of the first block is somewhere around here. So you're slightly above in the second block, you're slightly above than what it was on week one. Right? So then you have the opportunity to build again. And maybe this time, week four, you'll end a little ahead of what you ended on week four of last block. And then because you haven't still push to top end max here, you can again on the third block, if you end week four here, week one again you can start here. Whereas week one of block two, you were here, week one of block three, you're slightly higher. And then week four of block three, you end at a point where week four of block two, you're still slightly higher, but you're still saving yourself. And then you continue to gain momentum like that from block to block. So that kind of a structure is usually where we use block end deloads where we're not looking to take full fledged Deloads at the end of each block, right? speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: And then like a complete deload is when like you have more you have somebody like the one person that I can think of that does this is that I have a lifter who does a very good job of using RPs as intended, but he'll also kind of have that mindset of like, yeah, I'd rather slightly undershoot than overshoot, right? Which is good. No problem with that. But as a result of that, what I can do with him is push him to an RP workload and he'll still be at RP seven, right? So I can still push him to an RP eight or nine and then take a full-fledged D load for him because he overall isn't accumulating the kind of fatigue ⁓ by pushing too hard. So for him, it was that that works really well where I can push him hard and then take a D load. Whereas for like a good number of other people who have a problem with stringing good training sessions together or training blocks together, for them I will most likely use a back end D load so that they can continue to build momentum from week to from block to block. speaker-2: So it's like you kinda have to have a solid understanding of the macro cycle objective there. Like you wanna kinda look at like not what you can build in like four weeks, but what you can do in like a twelve week like ob objective, right? Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean you're always looking for long term no in training. You shouldn't be looking for short term either. Unless you have like time constraints or something of that sort, I don't think you should be worried. Like you should be thinking about short term. speaker-2: Yeah. 'cause a lot of people ask me about like what what do you look at like what what is a deload? What do you want to do in a deload? And like sometimes people pull all the stimulus out for no reason. Like for example, like I've noticed like a lot of females, like, they get these massive deloads and then they'll come into the next block feeling flatter than a pancake because there's just no stimulus in the system for them. Right? Like again, as the athlete, like for example, we can't account all women into this situation because you'll have someone like Wallstrom or like Agatha Sitko who like have so much absolute stress because of the load they're exposed to. But if you're someone who's like totaling less than two hundred kilos, you may not need this. Right? It may not be your thing. Yep. Is there any other topic like I'm a thing? Yeah. speaker-1: I was just gonna say like that's also like why we look at other like our next thing was what you kind of do in the off season other than just lifting itself, right? Because I'm pretty sure we did cover ⁓ the point bit on ⁓ the lack of fro like just proper off season culture in Indian powerlifting. We just spoke about that completely, right? ⁓ just like just like a point, do you think there's like a cultural shift as well, like just kind like a overall mindset shift that you guys would want to convey that like if we just put out there that should help people just look at things better. speaker-0: Yeah. So as Jay said before, like you don't want to think of off season as off season at all. You're thinking of in season and comp season. So instead of calling it off season, just call it in season and then off season, right? When you do that, you're incorporating training as a part of your life and you also have the opportunity to have like regular hobbies. Yeah. Like if i if you want to do something else on the side, like on your wrists. Yeah, just go outside, go for a walk or something. Maybe you like going for walks, maybe you like going for movies, maybe you enjoy going doing something else. Something that's not like You know, self sabotaging, something that's not like that has an opportunity to sideline. Smoke, something yeah, something like that. Just don't do something like that. So e you are most likely looking towards doing something like simple stuff. You're just enjoying going outside. You go outside, explore some new place, go to some new restaurant, some shit like that. You just enjoy doing something like that. So that you don't feel burnt out on like every single day, no. Like that's so much better when you do things that way. Not like like speaker-1: Training in that way. Just living life. speaker-0: And out in the sense like like you should you you'll start feeling so much better about training days 'cause it's like it's a thing you're doing then on a l like you're you don't feel like you're in the gym twenty four seven then. speaker-1: It's a part of your life but it's not all of your life. speaker-0: Yeah, and then you can just actually relax Sorry. And then you can actually relax also. You can just be like, Yeah, today is my chill day. I'm just gonna chill out, you know. Just sit settle back, relax, not do anything at all, maybe. Something like that. speaker-2: This kind of mental bandwidth allocation allows you to when you wanna compete, right? And when you wanna kind of like make it about everything, you have enough free brain space. But if the entire year you're like, Man, I had a bad week, I'm just gonna commit like like like completely atrocious activities. You i it it just becomes like a like a self fulfilling prophecy of failure. Yeah, yeah. speaker-1: And ⁓ this is also like true after I would I would say like this is ⁓ it's a point we had on the board as well. Like after a bad meet especially, like something somebody has like a super bad meat, them I feel like if they're the if they don't handle that well mentally or just like after comm, just the way that they handle it, they could like they could get a lot more damage, like they could damage their progress after the meet a lot more just by getting in their own head and the way that they react to training if they don't manage it well. What do you guys think about that? speaker-2: Can I just throw a thing here? Like like if if you get your ass beat, sometimes you just gotta l look as to why it happened, right? You're allowed to be emotional about it. But I think true great athletes will go back to the drawing board and be like, why did this happen? 'Cause there there is a lot of information that resides in the data, right? Like if you can think about it objectively. For example, are you consistently overshooting? Is that something you would do did you come into the thing burnt out, right? What cue do you have done better? Of course you can like crash out on things, right? But like after a while you just have to kind of think about it objectively. Because at the end of the day, like choices resulted in outcomes, right? So like can you make better choices is what I would argue. Yeah. speaker-0: That's what we were talking about before also, like the discipline aspect of things. 'Cause that's what it means to make good choices just being disciplined. Like I feel like eating out every single day, but I don't like I shouldn't. That's just you being making better choices, like I yeah, I probably shouldn't eat that or I probably shouldn't do this. I should probably go to bed on time, things like that. That's just just you making better decisions, right? So the better decisions you make, the better you'll perform and the better you'll perform, the more progress you'll see. speaker-2: From a cultural standpoint, I'd say like I I was just talking to like Alex Kano, like and he was just telling me it's like the biggest threat to like progress in the modern world is the internet because it records everything, right? One bad week and you're like kind of washed. This is where like you c you kinda have to think like great athletes seldom listen to like people around like people who don't impact them. Like Canelo Alvarez was the face of boxing for like ten years. He lost a fight because like at in in the end you meet a guy you can't beat, right? And like everyone said he's washed, right? So like in powerlifting it's almost like, well, your week four didn't show up, now you're washed and then you start catastrophizing. That that becomes dangerous. I think from a cultural standpoint, you kind of should listen to the people that are actually worth listening to, being your coach and like your friends and family, maybe, right? But random Josh Mo on the internet says like, ha right? You could have done better and you kind of catastrophize on that. And in order to appease these people would be the biggest cultural thing I would like say get away from. Stop trying to appease other people, right? Like if if you if you just want to highlight real and then you just consistently do that stuff, you're gonna become like a talking puppet for other people, right? And then you'll just lose yourself in the sauce. So stop making everything about like real magnification. Yeah. I'm just gonna crash out on this thing and say one thing. A lot of these supplement companies compel their athletes to do a lot of dumb shit as well. Yeah. Right? They they will just say like, ⁓ you need to like make a spectacular reel and like Again, I'm I'm going on a spiel, my apologies, but I want to say this thing. You see this with stuff like hierarchs and all this stuff. Athletes are no longer the focus. Spectacles become the focus. All right. And that is how you cook an entire sport very simply, right? Nojo's a great example of this thing. Could that guy beat Rondell? I very well think so he could. Right? But like if if it's all YouTube and like clout kind of a situation, you may run the risk of this thing. I don't think Rondell is the kind of guy who does anything for clout, right? Like in in all his years of training, from what I've seen, the guy is just structured. He has his fun. If he has a bad day, he has a bad day in the office. Right? But like in India what I've n noticed is like companies will sponsor someone who says, Well, my pre workout, we need a reel about this thing. And the guy goes off plan and just fucking overshoots by like five hours. speaker-0: Because the only way the most like the people are only so creative. No, they they like the only way they can show that this works is by hitting a new number or something. Yeah. That's basically how you show. Because when you you'll take a pre vocal and you'll be Yeah, because of this due pre work order I was able to do this number. Is what you you kind of want to say, right? That's the way it works. Because if it's not that, then nobody wants to use that word pre vocal also. They like, ⁓ does it work? Does it not work? But you haven't hit a PR, so how do I know it works? Which is why they'll just force themselves. So supplement companies usually throw people under the bus this way, the athletes like the athletes are just forced to Yeah, they're also forced to just do something that they're not supposed to do. Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, this is where like advertising and this whole thing about like this manufacturing concern, this narrative thing becomes very risky. Right? This is why like whenever an athlete like pedals a thing and says, My reason for success is because I took this stuff, there's this thing about creatine in India where like people will advertise creatine and saying, This is the reason why I am the second coming of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Probably not, dude. Probably not. Right? But this is where like again, if you can culturally separate yourself From the internet you become a lot better, I feel, as a human being. speaker-1: That's true. And ⁓ like you spoke over this last time as well, just anchoring it to that is just it's just not I wouldn't I wouldn't even say it's not just the optimal one, it's just it's it's also going to be degrading a little bit. ⁓ putting putting all of your work together. speaker-2: Conscientious prostitutes should do it. Like for a lack of a better term, right? You're just selling yourself in the worst ways possible. speaker-1: And ⁓ it's socially validated, if I were to say it like that. speaker-2: Yeah. Honestly, yeah, yeah. Like like that's ⁓ this is why like why you'll see these guys from Darwistan and like the caucuses come and they have no social media and they just come, nobody's ever heard of them, their last name is something off and they just like maul like guys for no reason and then they go back to their villages. speaker-1: On like our list itself, we also had this thing which I think we do not need to discuss right now because we've already discussed this kind of last time, but like it was a major point there. How much you think self-regulation and intervention, like what do you think should be like the gap between self self-regulation and intervention when it comes to like a coach client relationship? Like when would you say that like you should stop intervening and just let an athlete figure things out themselves with regards to trainings? speaker-2: May may I say something here and then it's based on like a comment on like one of the videos you posted, right? If if you have access to your coach twenty-four-seven and like like the guy mentioned that his course is willing to be there the entire time, right? There is a risk in that behavior, I would just say, right? Simply because it takes athlete autonomy out of the picture significantly, right? ⁓ making decision making extremely difficult, making like an understanding. It's no longer collaborative. I think coach athlete relationships. are not purely top down. There is an element of collaboration that requires you to be kind of self sufficient to some degree. Right? So I I again I think Kaushul would say this like again, any coach with a dearth of XP, like RP is not a perfect science. It is a skill that you acquire over time. Right, if I'm not mistaken. Right. So you would want to give a person the bandwidth to make a couple of mistakes on this thing. Right? Yeah. If you baby them through everything, it becomes very difficult, I find to kind of get long term progress because the second you separate themselves from the athlete, the athlete will start to catastrophize themselves. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. I think like ⁓ second like my my point of view as a coach, like when I saw that thing, I was just like, Yeah, your coach is gonna hate you soon. Absolutely. Like if he if that's if you say something like, I love my coach because he's like my brother and I can talk to him twenty-four-seven anytime he'll answer my call, he's gonna hate you very soon. You're gonna call him randomly one day about some bullshit. Sooner or later the guy is gonna be like this guy always keeps crying to me about his nonsense. It's not gonna work out. It doesn't work out like that. Even friendships don't work out like that, dude. So sooner or later you're going to be like, What the hell is wrong with this guy? All he does is keep crying. Yeah. Like I d I don't I wouldn't want to be friends with somebody who keeps crying all the time. Like once in a while you want to went and sit and be like, Yeah, you know, this happened to me today. I'll be like, Yeah, I get it, I understand. But if you're not doing anything about the situation, I'm just gonna like, Yeah, this guy just loves being in depression. He's not doing anything about it. He's not doing anything to fix his problems. Like all he wants to do is just cry. So I wouldn't want to be I wouldn't want to talk to anyone like that. But speaker-1: Absolutely. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: And and and I would say like intervention auto regulation kind of thing, right? Like like e even if you think if you don't have the ability to auto regulate, the the okay, like if you're working on a combination of pure RP based programming, well, you need the athlete to have some degree of auto like a high degree of auto-regulating capabilities. If you wanna have an RP like percentage based interaction for your programming, you would want them to have like a good degree of auto regulation kind of situation, right? If you kind of have like a load range given with like an amalgamation of load range RPE kinda crisp you would want them to have this thing. Like if if you cannot let your athlete stand on their two feet, on two feet, at some point or the other you're not gonna be able to carry this person forward. speaker-1: This thing like I feel there needs to be like a very fine balance as well. Like f with ⁓ for me for example, like I like to move people from when they're absolute beginners, suggested loads are like something which is very helpful for them. But moving from that to load caps just as between and then from load caps to complete, like just letting letting them choose their own thing. I feel like something like this where like there there's like a bridge between that that it just helps them just be more comfortable while moving into an autor regulated structure more. And having this sort of balance I feel it also just helps with it just helps overall because they're able to have that aut autonomy when they need it. But yeah, if you don't have any intervention, that is also bad because I feel like they're gonna they're gonna want to just stay in their comfort zone for a lot of people. And in that case you you do need some intervention to like tell them and like just guide them from there. speaker-2: Yeah, like like how should example of like the fourteen, sixteen week block guy, right? Like he was actively intervening while allowing that guy to get better at auto regulation. Did he get better in the end? How should ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, Eventually understood, like, yeah, we don't want to keep pushing. Unless the block itself is showing up for that long, we don't want to keep like undershooting so much. Because you're limiting and cutting off like the amount of overall stimulus you're getting, right? If you're undershooting by that like that extent, to the point where we're taking fourteen or sixteen weeks for things to actually push to the level we want to push to. Yeah. Then you're kind of like you're essentially putting down like what, ten to twelve weeks of training aside. Sort of. speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: Like where you're actually pulling yourself back and holding yourself back. And only in those last few weeks did you allow yourself to show up a little bit. And now you're like, I didn't know I was capable of doing that, so now I know better. speaker-1: Like you may look at that and think I've done fourteen weeks of progress like ⁓ in the same way but speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: So the the the one one thing when it comes to Yeah, one thing when it comes to this is like the way you intervene or don't intervene is very, very athlete focused. Like the athlete psychology is so ⁓ important here because the person that you're dealing with is who you're dealing with. And you're going to deal with different people in different manners or different ways, right? You can't just ⁓ like that's the thing. Like people will see sometimes they'll be like, ⁓ this guy's very strict. But I'm always strict with the people who need that. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: And then there'll be some people who'll genuinely have problems. And I'll gen and I'll genuinely be empathetic towards them. I'll be like, Yeah, I totally understand what's happening right now. There is no problem at all. You can take speaker-1: Like a one size fits all for this. speaker-0: No, no, you can't do that. It's not possible to do that. Like they'll and depending on that also, like you kinda have to draw boundaries and not draw boundaries. Sometimes you have to talk, sometimes you shouldn't talk. Sometimes, you know, in a lot of cases, especially with the athletes who are very neurotic, you're enabling them even further by sitting and having conversations. Sometimes you just have to shake them and be like, shut the fuck up. speaker-2: I made that mistake. Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: And they'd be like, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, and I'll like, It's okay, I'll help you, I'll fix it, I'll fix it for you. Right? And then one time I was just like, every single time this person thinks that they can do this and get away with it because I'm allowing them to do it. Yeah. And I'm allowing them and I'm telling them that I'll fix it, don't worry. Anytime something happens to you, I'll fix it, don't worry. So eventually like one time when the same thing happened, I was just like, Okay, I'm not doing anything about it, you fix it. And then they were just like, But how do I do that? I You'll figure it out. Just like how I figure it out, you'll figure it out. And then sooner or later they s they understood and they stopped. They stopped making that mistake. Like it took them it took them much shorter period of time than me sitting and hand holding for them to just figure it out themselves. Like they were just like, like, okay, I guess I just need to stop doing this and that'll stop happening. Like he that's all he does, right? Like so and then they fig figured it out and then they stopped doing it. So they stopped being as neurotic. They're still neurotic to some degree. But not not to that degree as they were before. So you kind of like allow that neuroticism to occur and then push them towards that. speaker-2: I think that was like one of my biggest failures. Like I like when I was coaching someone. It's it's just I thought I could kind of hand hold them to the end and then speaker-0: Yeah, you can't do that. Yeah. You can't do that for everybody. speaker-2: And I would also say there's like a cultural thing like between countries. Like when you when I was abroad, like I would notice like people who are independent a lot longer, like at a y a lot younger age. Here, like a lot of guys are like mama's boys, right? Like they need everything kind of like fed to them kind of situation. And like that the sooner you can create that independence, the better they become. Right. I think independence allows you to also accept consequences. I think that is probably one of the most important. Dependence allows you to share consequences. Independence allows you to bear them. And like like I think That is like a thing. Because a at at the end of the day, like Norman recently tagged me in this stuff because he was roasting me in one of our calls where he was just like, Well, like Jay, decision making, like it's it's at the end of the day, it's always gonna be informed decision making. And I was thinking, dude, I'm looking at only as an coach decision making. The athlete also needs to develop that skill, right? I'm sure like tapas, when you work with Kaussa, there'll be weeks where you may repeat a load and see, can I clean this thing up? Yeah. Right? It's just this good decision making kind of situation, right? Because you're like Load progression isn't the only way I can progress. Alright? speaker-1: Yeah, technique especially. Movement quality improving that has been kind of focused. And I feel that is also something ⁓ to keep in mind. Like, yeah. I mean we've talked about this multiple times. I don't really want to, but like, yeah, load progression is not the only thing. Yeah. Yeah. And like, do you guys think especially Kashul, just with your experience, I think there's like certain people, certain exceptions where you feel like you always need to intervene. And do you think that's like worth it keeping them on? Like there's certain, I don't know, personality types or like just people speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it depends entirely on the kind of person you're dealing with. See, even people are not like they're not ⁓ rigid, right? They keep changing from time to time. Sometimes they need that, sometimes they don't need that. So you're always going to be di depending on how they're currently doing, you kind of have to you you decide whether to intervene or not intervene. You you don't you can't like give a like an absolute answer in this situation and be like, Yeah, yeah, I mean, I always have to intervene with this guy or I don't have to intervene with this guy. Most of the time if the athlete is doing well, you don't have to intervene too much. And if the athlete is doing somewhat good, somewhat bad, that's when you intervene more. If an athlete is doing really bad all the time, then they're just self sabotaging. There, you have to intervene once or twice, and then after that point, you have to understand that there's no point in you intervening anymore. Like that's where you you probably have to pull back and say that I've done everything I can. I don't think I can help you anymore. speaker-2: I wanna say something so corny here, but like I feel like y'all both hate me for this stuff. So I won't like it involves Drake. No, it's involves Drake. Like you can't save you you can't save every person in distress, dude. Right? ⁓ Yeah. speaker-0: No, there's that thing, no, like even God doesn't help someone who can't help themselves. speaker-2: Yeah, absolutely. Man, like like I I I I I would say this, like I I I'm I'm I am nowhere near as experienced as Causchal. I I I think I've been a couple of months I had like Taperson does the coaching. So I'm like somewhere like in this and I would say like this is the biggest mistake I made. Like if I could go back to myself and I'd say like there are some souls you cannot like do anything about. speaker-0: Some people people are not coachable at all. speaker-2: Yeah, and I'll say this, a cowshal. Like remember like the last time like I crashed out. Like I I just told you, right? Like every single thing, like ev dude, everything. I wrote everything out. I I typed everything out. I sent videos. I did everything. And in the end they would still like not do this again. You're like, you just cannot save this human being. Right? Not not as a human, but like as a as an athlete, you're like not everyone's meant to be a high level athlete, dude. Like if you come to the aspiration of saying I want to go to Nashals, but you like do dumb shit like s eight days of the week, right? There's nothing I can do. speaker-0: Yeah. There's nothing we can out you can't out program stuff like that. Yeah. You can't ⁓ out program stupidity. speaker-2: Dude, the crash that I had was like hilarious dude. I I just told them like I wanna like sell everything and go to the mountains. speaker-0: No, because like you're doing your part, you're putting your effort and then you don't see the result because it's also your job also that's like yeah kind speaker-2: And you just don't want to ca like I didn't just wanna like take his cash and just like like feel like I was failing the guy. speaker-0: ⁓ So you try your best to make it happen, but when the person themselves they don't do it or they're not making it happen, there's not so much you can do. You kinda have to be objective about these things and be like, Yeah, I tried my best. I I don't think I can do anything more than this. Like if you genuinely try it, then you have to you know accept it. Yeah, just accept it at one point and be like, Yeah, I mean that's about it. I tried, I can't do anything more than that. speaker-2: Yeah, that's that like i I I would say that's my biggest failure. Like that was truly my biggest failure to a point where like even Norman once told me, like, you're giving ninety percent of your energy to a single human on your roster, right? That will kill the remaining like ninety percent off your roster. Because you can only give them ten percent effort. speaker-0: Yeah yeah. speaker-2: If you could avoid anything, guys, as a new coach, make avoid that mistake I just made. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I dude. speaker-0: You set initial boundaries like people will not bother with them for you. Like they don't speaker-1: Second boundary initially is pretty important. speaker-0: You should have like see there's a time and place. Longevity as well. Yeah, there's a time and place for you where you're like you kinda have to do the grunt work now when you're new to the field. So you kinda have to do things you have to work more, you have to do things more often, you have to do things you might not like. But like you still have to set certain boundaries where you're like, Yeah, this is not okay with me where like you're doing you're doing things like this or you take And I'm telling you, like the more people don't respect you as a coach, the more they'll start overshooting and the more they'll max out randomly without telling you. That's the reason that is kind of the reason why most people think I'm so strict and I'm so this thing, right? It's because like I won't let them go if they do something like that. I'll just tell them they can they can just go fuck off. And people don't expect that because they're like, But like how can you remove a client? Very easy to do that. speaker-1: Like a I asked us. Yeah, one one. speaker-0: No, because people think like usually it's a lifter that fires the coach. The coach doesn't just fire people, right? So when I do that, it just g it's it's like a complete shock for No, it's a compl yeah, it's a complete shock for them. They're like, ⁓ I didn't know I could be removed. speaker-2: Nah, and and as someone who recently did that, I would just say like it is very, very relieving for your mentality. speaker-0: It is, it is because then you understand that you tried your best, they are not doing their things, you are still under control of what's happening here. Yeah. You are not okay with speaker-2: And from your head slowly just lowers. speaker-0: Yeah, you have some in you have like that integrity where you're like, I'm not okay with certain things of these that the way that these people do. So you don't you don't tolerate it anymore. You're not you're you're you're okay with you're not okay with being disrespected anymore. Because that's also one way of being disrespected where you're like, you know, like you're the guy doesn't listen to you and he's just doing whatever he feels like, whatever he wants. Yeah. It's not a good thing. speaker-1: Because speaker-2: Yeah, but sorry. speaker-1: A friend of like ⁓ we all like know him, like Akash. I asked him if I could talk about this here. He was telling me about Yeah, it's ⁓ my god bro. So there's like a guy that he had and this is like something it's just a very cool it's it's a very cool example that ⁓ it shows what we are talking about here. Guys it is a guy he had who who's currently at like a five hundred kilo total or something, he has like heavy external frit like not not really a young guy either, and ⁓ speaker-2: Why it's not Jesus. It's insane the world. speaker-1: He just sent him a voice note saying that I want to reach a seven hundred total in eight months and I'm gonna place first in my states. Which is like, you know, at a point you'll be Yeah, okay, whatever, like you're a new guy. Okay, I'll help you understand why and what like the issue is with that and how we can approach it. You know, just setting expectations. Then like th as like Cauchel said, there needs to be like a point of respect there because like this guy then replies by saying that like you're my coach and I expect the best. So like you telling me that this is not possible is just I can just take my business elsewhere or something like that. And then After a point you're like, you know, excuse me, what speaker-2: But his question is. speaker-0: I mean if the guy says something like that, if the guy says something like that, your response should just be like then go somewhere else. Go take your business someplace else. No, you have to say that. You can't just say that like no no no no no no, don't leave, don't leave. I don't know what I do without you. You you should never be like that with these people. Yeah. People like that, you should never be like that. You should always let them know that they're very easily replaceable. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because what they will do is like they'll go to someone else and someone may enable that behavior. And I will I will gather speaker-0: I don't understand. That's them getting scammed. They can go get scammed elsewhere. They can go get scammed elsewhere, not here. ⁓ speaker-1: Because like even setting expectations and spending that much effort and like the way he did it as well, like that much effort and trying to make them understand, that by itself is like a sign of just you caring. Because as you said, like if there's somebody else who just doesn't care as much like, Yeah, sure, whatever, but you can get to seven or just stay with me for eight months. speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah. And I saw the paragraph Akash wrote dude. Yeah. speaker-1: Exactly. speaker-2: I would've like replied in low. speaker-0: I mean those are things those are the things you do when you're kind of new in the industry and you're young because I also used to reply like that. I used to send people like big, big explanations explaining things, and some people just don't want to understand. They don't care. Like they want to hear what they want to hear. That's true. I've had many conversations with people as well. And then at some point I understood that it's absolutely useless. Like I don't want to argue with anybody who's stupid. I just say you're right and I move on. Yeah. I just want to be like, yeah, you can do that. There are times when even I have told, like, I don't think I'm good enough to get you there, so you should go somewhere else. It just makes them feel so much better. They can't blame you for it because you are accepting that you're not as good as that. And then then you they can't say anything. So everything is on their code. You're like, Yeah, I mean it's not I I don't just like it. speaker-2: I should bit speaker-1: With the drug directly, there's no sugar coating. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. You're just like, I don't maybe you can do it, but not maybe I can't I I don't think I can do it, so maybe you can just go to somebody somebody else. Yeah. And then they can't sit there and blame you and be like, No, he said like this, he said that. He just said that. Yeah, he can't do it. So I'll go somewhere else. Yeah, you can go. Just go. speaker-1: If you wanna go you can go this way. speaker-2: Yeah, I think one of the most important thing like ⁓ like I he told me like early on cowshall is that if a guy gets into a lengthy DM debate with you, just just say, Yeah, you're right and double thumb double heart that thing. Yeah. It's the it's the best. Just do that shit. 'Cause a guy once messaged me out some biomechanics stuff and I was just like he wrote this long paragraph and I was like, Yep, that's it. speaker-0: I refuse to waste my time with that. I'll go do something else. I'll just be like, Yeah, yeah, you're right. Whatever it is, you're right. I don't even know what you're talking about, but you're right. That's the best way to go go on like with your this thing, 'cause mentally you'll also be like 'cause then you don't have to go to your friends and be like, Man, I talked to this guy, it's fucking irritating motherfucker. You you you don't even have to do that. You're like, Yeah, I just got this DM. I don't know. I just said you're right and I moved on. That's it. Yeah. You'll you'll be so much happier that way. You don't have to sit there and be like the kind of people that have to deal with my God so irritated. You don't to do any of that. 'Cause I used to do that before. Yeah, yeah. I used to do that before where I used to get like so frustrated and be like, Why don't these people understand? Why don't they listen? I'm trying to help them out. But then at some point you're just like, they don't want the help. It's okay. It's fine. We can be happy. speaker-1: Become more zen over time, you're like yeah, I don't really care about anybody outside of like Yeah. speaker-2: ⁓ DM me about arthr kinematics and I was like ⁓ he asked me about arthrokinematics and implementation on human bi I I remember this because he b human biomechanics in a dynamic environment. I was just like listening to that and I was like the f the the guy you're coaching who doesn't listen to any of your instructions does not care about the shit. Neither do I now. I'm not gonna sit here and read the paper as you cited. I'm just not interested in that shit. I have to go pay taxes. speaker-1: Yeah, if you if you pay me to read the papers. speaker-2: I still wouldn't do it. speaker-0: I don't know. I won't do that even then. Even no amount of money is gonna make me sit here and argue with idiots. speaker-2: No, because because like why while I was not in the field at that point of time, it's just it's a thing that like Kausha and I would just sometimes discuss where he'd be like, Sometimes people will argue fundamentals, right? Like they'll they'll just wanna argue fundamentals for the sake of having a conversation, right? Mm-hmm. And you and you and enabling that will like ruin your like mental peace. Right? When Akash sent me that thing, I like Akash, if you're watching like this part, like I prayed for you, dude, because You you legit gave that guy the most respectful response humanly possible. speaker-1: Literally, I think I did reply with like when he sent me that, the first thing I think I sent him was like LOL. I was like, What the hell? First thing I sent the model. speaker-0: Have I thought. speaker-2: Yeah. The way he was trying to gaslight Akar saying like this is ⁓ this this is not I expect from a coach. What do you want to do? Like Akash should have just told him, like, Okay, listen, I have a secret program that but it it's ten lakh rupees. ⁓ speaker-1: I'm just gonna charge you like five times extra. I'm gonna change your program a little bit and then like yeah. I can give you like a speaker-2: Dude, that's crazy, dude. God bless Akash. speaker-1: Honestly, yeah. That's nice. And ⁓ what else? But this was like a this like a little here and there, but like I actually like this one. Like we did talk about D loads as well, right? We did ⁓ that as well. Do you guys have any have anything else do you that you want to add right now, talk about? Like related to the off season, the D load, you athlete mind. speaker-2: It's a hobby outside of lifting. Yeah. speaker-0: Please. Yeah. Just make sure your daily routine is the same. As in like wake up times and sleep times is the same and the way you eat relatively is mostly the same. But also during your rest days, just have something that you can do outside of training. Mm-hmm. Because then when when you're in the gym, then you're just focused on finishing and leaving. You shouldn't feel like you're at the gym the whole day. Yeah. Or like most of your life is just consumed. Because then you feel like you have no no time for yourself. Yeah. And then you start making time and that's where you start eating into your sleep schedule. You're like, ⁓ I want to stay awake a little later 'cause I felt like I don't have the day for myself. That kind of truth though. No, that that's something that I faced a lot before. Cause like I would work so much 'cause I was responding all the time to people. And at one point it felt like what the fuck I have no time to do anything for myself. Yeah. So it just got so annoying to the point where like I don't have time to go spend with my wife, nothing. Like we wouldn't be going anywhere outside, we wouldn't speaker-2: That is the ⁓ speaker-0: Watch any movies, do nothing. You know? At that point of time you're just at one point you just sit and you're like, I've d I think I've done enough here. ⁓ your own when your own life feeds like, ⁓ I'm not doing anything else other than this, like I just want to break, that's when you you you need to take a step back. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: Coach a human, no. Yeah as well. Alright. Like I I would say that ⁓ do do things out outside of like lifting as well, guys. Like because at some point or the other lifting will involve the element of plateaus and back injuries and if your entire existence is like anchored into this one outcome of like E one RMs or like absolute load, I some absolute dog shit that's gonna happen in your life. Yeah. speaker-0: Which is a human. speaker-1: Alright. So yeah, I think we did ⁓ we did all of the topics, right? Let me just like double check once. And like we can do the questions ka thing. I got like a few questions here for today. Not really a ⁓ I should have posted the question thing yesterday, honestly. But ⁓ yeah. speaker-2: Sir slots, sir back pain. speaker-1: Yeah. Managing expectations between meets, I think we did ⁓ touch upon that as well. Yeah. We did everything. So when it comes to like questions, I'll go about I'll just go about like them in terms of like how interesting kind of they were. One of them if I scroll here. It was there. What do you what for you you is the minimum amount of time that you'd keep somebody on a program, like before considering a change? Like is there a minimum amount of time? For ⁓ like yeah, I I actually let you guys go. speaker-0: Minimum amount of time obviously will be just one week. Because if you sent out a week of training, depending on again, depending on whether that person needs anything urgently to change, we won't change stuff. But yeah, a as as it's alwa it always comes down to that. It's like depending on the communication of the person, depending on what's happening, why it's happening, then we'll make the change. If see, because like the question is a little vague. It's it's it's not asking whether there's a specific scenario here. There are multiple scenarios that we can think of, right? If a lifter needs a change because like, ⁓ for example, like they'll say something like, ⁓ suddenly my parents are forcing me for a trip, I don't know what to do. Then there is a change there. Like what can you do on the trip? Can you go to the gym in the first place? If you can't go to the gym, then maybe we do something else. Like no SBD, you don't have access to SBD, okay, then we just do something else. Right? If you like we just do whatever you were you were capable of doing at that with within that constraint. But if you don't, then we don't have to change anything unless and until we feel like at least we run one or two blocks with that structure. And then see whether you're you're responding. And again it comes down to communication based on like how you're feeling and what's happening. Like suggestions also on your end have to make sense. Like you have to be able to tell the coach like why you feel like this needs to change. And only if it makes sense then we'll make the change like that. speaker-1: Yeah. Weird question. It's basically asking that like some people seem weaker after their off season. Why do you think that occurs? ⁓ I they don't understand the full point of it. speaker-0: Week or after the offseason as in? Yeah. Yeah. Probably just bad trading in general then. Yeah. The quality Yeah, post post a competition you kind of just go back to the drawing board and then you're sitting there and thinking about what you can do better. speaker-1: Like maybe they're asking why do like some people perform well maybe during the s off season itself and then like they perform worse during the meet. I think that's kind of what they were trying to ask. speaker-2: I would argue they change their program too much. Like they they would think like like when you're getting in season, like again, Anthony McNaughton's like a perfect example. Right? You you you you think like he would have that structure and they would just like taper into that stuff or train into meet like Sean like Sean Norreg has a lot of examples. I think people sometimes will take what works and they'll think, okay, now I have to intensify this thing. Yeah. You may just need a bit, right? But people will take a program like this and then do that and they'll just like do speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: This insane amount of intensity out of nowhere. And then you're like, ⁓ hey, Kaushul, like traditional like block periodization kind of this pure block periodization kind of approach, right? Where you need to have like the programs have to look significantly distinct, does more harm than good to people, right? Yeah, yeah. Because the dose, yeah. speaker-0: That's why no one does that anymore. ⁓ Like pure block periodization anymore. speaker-2: Exactly. No speaker-1: And well. speaker-2: 'Cause like the dose response relationship that was helping your E one RM stand up is the environment for the athlete to grow. speaker-0: No, that's what people don't understand. It's like it it it is the overall structure within the whole week that allows things to show up on the primaries, right? Exactly. The coach has to like heavily intensify something now. They have to do it for the sake of peaking, right? You don't have to change multiple things or many things too much when you're peaking. Maybe just a little bit here and there. If things are already allowing the E1RM to show up really well, then you don't really need to change anything there. Even if it's even if you're like heading into a peak. Unless maybe you might want to see in situations where like certain exercises might be giving more fatigue. So maybe kind pull back there so that the SBT can show up a little better. Or even in some cases, J said like BL is like very in its purest form like of programming, right? It's very good that way. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: If like I had a guy who who who would whose squats would like really show up if he would do fr front foot elevated split squats the day before. And when we remove that, his squats like would feel very flat. So then in that situation, if you're peaking and then in most traditional peaks, you're like, ⁓ yeah, I don't need these accessories. I'm just gonna focus more on S B D work. And then you remove that front foot elevated split squat for somebody like that. Yeah. Then his squat just tanks. And then he's like, Why is my squat looking like that? It's not feeling too good. And then you start looking for the solution elsewhere. Whereas if it's already showing up, then why would you remove it? Yeah. Right. And that again has to be from the athlete. Like they have to tell you, like, yeah, when we had FFES in the program, I felt like my squat would feel a lot poppier. I would feel a lot more pop in the leg. They have to tell you that because you can't magically just decide, like, ⁓ I don't understand. It's not like we change too much because it's only the front foot elevated split squat that I changed. Maybe the secondary day I have put in too much volume or have not put enough volume, something like that. Is that that's where your mind usually goes to. Because end of the day, you're looking at that S B D frequency and hyper like speaker-1: Sort of awareness as an athlete should have speaker-0: Yeah, that should that that's what the good communication part is. Like the asset should be able to just be like, Yeah, this is what I did coach last time and this is what we did this time. I feel like maybe that could have been an issue and then you're like, ⁓ yeah, that could be, right? speaker-2: Yeah, 'cause I I think I I think people wanna like like I said, they they just throw away the entire environment or ecosystem that allowed them to grow. Yeah. And and then they just like you see I I would always tell people like there's a dose response relationship, right? If the dose administered through the current mic microcycle structure is allowing for a positive response in terms of performance, like you just changing the entire nature of the dose, right? Like Norman's recent video about like like You're changing the goalpost about like each block, you're changing this top and thing, right? And you're kind of almost like load like forcing load. Like you'll you we all know guys who run triples and like doubles and then singles, and you always realize when they run run the triples, their structure was like really good that they were making, but like they would try to force and like intensify everything for no reason. They burn out. That toast response relationship might not be a requirement for that person. Yeah. speaker-1: ⁓ the next one I I have a feeling this was and we've answered this throughout the episode, but how would you coach someone to gauge RP and teach them how much load would go on the bar on a day? Teaching someone how to gauge RP. speaker-0: Yeah, it's like entirely purely skill based, like you give it time, you learn what it means. So for for you to even understand like what you can considerably capably push, you need to know what your actual limitations are. So for that, usually in your initial stages of your career, I would suggest like actually knowing what failure feels like. And not like actual failure in the sense that you go and die. I mean to say like push sets close to failure or at least like an actual RP ten where you don't fail the set, but you're like You know, you're actually like grind learn how to grind things out and then you'll understand like this is this is what I'm capable of. This is what I can do. And then you'll understand like yeah, this this is a range that I can play within to you know, sh make things show up. speaker-2: Yeah, because you y ⁓ you you will never understand your limitations if you don't like at least dip your feet in the water, right? But then again, like you will kinda see like sometimes and now this will be like again, sometimes guys will just use this as a proxy to just like consistently do dumb shit and like consistently push their limits and it's like a fine line, I suppose. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So speaker-1: And for the auto regulation thing again, like as I I mean, this is just something I like to do. I don't know, like Ajay, I think maybe you do that as well. Like you begin with helping them with more of like ⁓ suggested loads and then then moving on to instead of suggested load ranges, just putting a load cap and then h allowing them to choose below that and then eventually just like allowing them to choose on their own completely. I I've I I found that to be pretty effective. ⁓ just to teach people How to actually just choose weights on their own auto regulation. ⁓ there's only one more which was like askable. There's like a few other rote like that. Pretty stupid. One more, which was like why do coaches have coaches? I think this is like a very popular question. Like a lot of people ask this. And ⁓ if you guys wanna begin, yeah. speaker-2: Because speaker-0: Yeah, you always have somebody else who knows more than you who's better than you so that you can learn from them. And also when it comes to your own training or your own ⁓ life, don't you're not you might not be as objective because you have your emotions coming to decision making. So you might sit there and think like, ⁓ this thing even if one week doesn't go well, you'll start sitting there and thinking like, No, I need to change everything. 'Cause that's not required maybe. So you'll just sit there and be I d I need to do this, I need to do that, and your coach will be like, You need to relax. And then you'll just relax. Because you're like, Yeah, my coach told me he'll handle it, he'll handle it. Right. So you don't have to think about or stress about your own things. You'll be feeling a lot better with your own things when you have somebody else handle these things for you and you get the opportunity to learn and see things from a different lens. Like you you might have the same education baggage on and understanding as your coach, maybe because most Most people maybe they graduated from the same university, they did the same degree, they did the same kind of they read the same kind of books. That might be similar. But then as you grow like over time, you're just like, somebody has a very unique way of looking at a certain certain problem or how to solve a problem. And you might get access to their thought process, right? When you're like, ⁓ you did this, which is something that I wouldn't have done. So why do you do that? And then they'll be like, Yeah, I feel like this is something that you can do, this is something that you can improve on. speaker-1: Just their framework being different. Yeah. speaker-0: Maybe like that's the reason why I gave it. And that opens another avenue for you to understand, like, yeah, this is another way of doing things. speaker-1: Objectivity is like a very big thing for like when people ask me this, that's like one of the major points that I would consider it's just for just knowing myself like the way I feel objectivity is one of the most ⁓ common reasons I would say why you need a coach. Like even e no mat like even if you do know. I can't speak for everybody, but yeah, after a point you will there'll come like a point in your training where there'll be too many emotions involved, as you just said. And at that point knowing what to do for yourself. You may be able to handle it very well for other people being like a third party to a third perspective. But like for yourself, there's always like a little bit of a bias involved, which you don't want for good progress. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. Absolutely. Like because see as much as people think like I have my shit together, I also get very upset when things don't go well for me training wise. Even though I'm not so like interested anymore in like competing and stuff like that, but I still want to be strong. Yeah. So when my sessions don't go too well, I also get pretty upset. So that's still there for me as well. But if I were to do it for myself, I would just get very upset and flustered. But if I had somebody else handling it for me, I would just be like, Yeah, that like, you know, let them do their thing. speaker-1: Done, we like we're done with the session going speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: Just just just give your feedback to the coach, let that guy figure out why it happened, what happened, and just move on. You know, that's gonna help you. speaker-2: I also like I I still like have mentorship calls with normal as well 'cause sometimes you you will just I'll just think of some stuff and like Norman once told me like you I have a tendency to create monsters that don't exist or like fears that shouldn't exist. Right. He just tells me it's like you had a block with someone that didn't go according to plan. I've had like eight of them, right? Just in the last month because of the breadth of like experience he may have. Right. I always love the fact that he gives so much perspective on things and again always learn, dude. Like I I I I honestly like the way like s for example he taught me how to think and I like like people can teach you things all the time. And like sometimes like like I I'll work with a guy called Ben on like strength and conditioning. But like on a technical aspect, because he is the best like striking athlete in India at this point. It's like he gives me so much of value just in terms of that stuff and I was like at some point I wanna kinda work with him to get back into boxing shape and stuff like that. Could I train myself? Probably. get in shape, but I don't think I'd ever make a right decision choice in that situation. Especially knowing my temperament. It's just not something I have within me. Matt Bernard and Mike Tesherer are the exceptions I'd say. speaker-0: Yeah. We also talked about this last podcast where we talked about how ⁓ you know it's it's a matter of integrity also to handle or hand people out to somebody else in things that you are not good at. Yeah. So you you you just ⁓ like just because I am a coach it doesn't mean that I know everything that is related to this field. It's not like that. Like I'll have a coach or s ⁓ like my coach will have a coach. Somebody else will have a coach. Everybody'll have a coach for different reasons. Sometimes you need it for accountability purposes. Sometimes you don't wanna do something, but just because that person is there, you'll do it. Sometimes you'll do a very good job of things because you don't have to have the mental pressure of thinking about what to do next. Your coach will just tell you. Yeah. You you have a bad session and then you stop you you don't sit there at the corner of the gym like, ⁓ I don't know what to do. I'm not understanding what to do. You just send your coach and you move on because then your coach will respond when they when they can. speaker-1: Somebody with a clear mind looking at that. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. They objectively they'll just be like, Yeah, man, you gotta do this better. When they sit and talk to you, then you'll be like, Yeah, you know what? Like, yeah, I need to do that better. I'm actually not doing that well. Because I'll tell you, like, I had this guy, like one one, one, one example that I can think of. So there's this guy that I was coaching who was very inconsistent, inconsistent. Like the guy would train, I don't know, he would he would take like three weeks or four weeks just to finish one week of a tr one week of training. Yeah, and then he randomly came up to me one day and he's like, I've been with you for like four months or six months now, but I haven't really seen any progress yet. And I'm like, Yeah, obviously not because you're not training consistently. And he's like, No, but I think I've been consistent. I was like, Who the fuck are we kidding? Can we go take a look at how many weeks it's been since I've sent you each training week? And then he looked at it and he was like, Yeah, I didn't even realize that. I didn't knew. Yeah. I mean it's ridiculous how like you miss even something like that. But then, you know, what what else can you say? speaker-1: Like it's like that line you like you skip one session, sets a precedent, and then eventually it's just like subconsciously and then you're like one day you're like, ⁓ I've skipped so many and you're Yeah, exactly, exactly. speaker-2: Want someone to give you a reality check? That is like man, this is where I'd say like coaching someone is actually a lot I would say programming is an important fact, but just like there's a lot of psychology involved in it. speaker-1: Yeah. Just being able to I don't know, communicate with human beings if I were to simplify it, effectively c effectively being able to communicate, that's something that helps. speaker-2: So 'cause you can see the way like someone talks about themselves. If you coach someone properly, they start to talk about themselves differently. They start to see themselves in a light they may not have seen before. All right. And that's where I think like in powerlifting, like again, my boxing coach was not of the most educated man in terms of like formal education. But God, like, was he a good human being? Like he he could like like a dog shit athlete like me, he could make me believe in myself. Right. So like I I'd always like thank him for stuff like that. I think coaches are like that in that capacity. Right. They give you the hard news, they help you like soften a blow when need it. But at the end of the day, like, you know, everyone needs someone to kinda confide it to. Unless you're Mike Telger. Yeah. I always used to ask like I asked Matt when I once, like, how do you do this? And he's just like ⁓ what he he just messaged me saying brick by brick. I was like, Okaying and sewing it. Yeah. speaker-1: Be there for them, somebody to yeah. Sewing. speaker-2: But I suppose that that that is about everything, Lats. Is there anything else, wife? speaker-0: No, no. I mean any other questions? speaker-2: ⁓ yeah, anything else? Guy guys, find a hobby, guys. Like to everyone watch it. Find a hobby. Read a book, go for a walk, you know. Just just tell people in your life that you love them. Right? And the ones that you don't, make sure they know that you don't love them. It's all a hobby, right? Even being a hater is a hobby. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Full it's a full time job. But yeah. All right. So I think that's it. This one also went up like close to three hours. speaker-2: Thank you, QTs, for staying this long. speaker-1: I have a feeling we're gonna explain this into like to two or three parts as well. So speaker-2: Fifteen parts. speaker-1: Yeah. So yeah, if you if you stuck around till now, I hope you were able to ⁓ don't know, extract a lot of value from this episode as well. Because like again, ⁓ response from last one was great. Let's see how this one like how you guys feel with this one. And yeah, I think that's pretty much it. We spoke about everything. We took some questions as well. ⁓ just one thing, like if you guys have any questions that you like would want us to discuss at the end, because I'm I'm thinking we're gonna make this a regular thing, you can just shoot us a DM. Like you don't need to wait for the stories to show up. Because like the circulation is going to be a little less when we just put it on the stories. Yeah. So you can shoot a DM to the main Instagram account on Project Strengthcast and if it's valid we'll have your question on the next one. And ⁓ yeah, yeah I think that's pretty speaker-2: But invest in the it may block right now. This is not financial advice, it's just a suggestion. Right? Yeah. Right. ⁓ but thank you everyone for sticking along for this long. ⁓ go out, touch grass again, tell people you love that you love them, right? And yeah. speaker-1: And we will see you. Bye bye. speaker-2: Bye bye.