Latest / Project StrengthCast / Plateaus, Progress & the Training Process | Ep.5 (Pt-1)

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Plateaus, Progress & the Training Process | Ep.5 (Pt-1) · Project StrengthCast

• speaker-0: Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to episode 5 of Project Strencast. Alright, the response that we got to both of the parts that we've currently uploaded of the previous episode has been phenomenal. We're really, really surprised and pretty happy with that as well. Just like a side note, the watch hours went up through a lot. So obviously a lot of you guys actually saw that. So this episode is kind of a continuation to that one, you could say, and also just topics related to that where we're going to be talking about off season. especially like how long it should be, what it actually is, the lack of proper office and culture, how you quote someone through a long plateau. We're to get to hear Korson speak on that as well. We're also going to be talking about meets, what to actually do between them, how to manage expectations after a bad one, for example, self-regulation, how to know when a program has run its course. And as a bonus, we're also going to be talking about deloads. We also will have a slight Q &A. at the end like the last episode because you guys seem to like that. yeah, we're going to keep that recurring thing where we take questions and then we can discuss them at the end. So yeah, without further ado, you know, let's just get started. speaker-2: No, j regarding the first thing, like any sport in life or anything you do in life, at some point or the other you're gonna hit a roadblock. Right. ⁓ in powerlifting it's gonna come via a plateau and I have some things that I think about when to up how when and how to approach a plateau, but like Aushal, like if you have an athlete that's plateaued, how would you kind of in your in your experience kind of work through that? speaker-1: So I wanna take a look at things in a step by step approach where like the actual first thing that I la that I'll even look at is if somebody can improve on their ⁓ external factors, so just lifestyle in general, if they can get their sleep, their food, and any other stresses down outside the gym so that we can standardize things. 'Cause usually what happens is that these are usually underreported things where people be like, ⁓ I don't want to bother my coach with these things. They think, ⁓ it's not it's not relevant because they're like No matter what happens outside the gym, I should still be able to perform inside the gym. Because usually they have this mindset of everybody's going through it. Right? Everybody has their own problems. And so do I, but that that that doesn't mean that I use them as excuses. They're not excuses, they're still going to be there in your life, right? Excuses are different. Excuses are when like even when things are good, you don't want to show up or you're making reasons to not show up. That's not the thing here. Here you're not making excuses, you're just trying to take into account what's actually happening. And then you gotta see what you can improve on. So if the reason why I take a look at this, the first thing that I take a look at ⁓ is the sleep, nutrition and everything else that out that's outside the program is because if that's not relatively stable, you can't actually make meaningful understanding or changes in programming as well. speaker-0: Cause then change in program won't make much sense as well. just doing. speaker-1: Because then you're just throwing something in the dark. Because when you don't have this in check, you don't know whether the program that you're running is even good or not when somebody can't adhere to it properly. Hmm. When everything else is chaotic and they can't even adhere adhere to it properly. And then off of course, like if you n if they're not able to, then you make adjustments in volume and intensity prescriptions, ⁓ depending on how they're doing, right? Like you can still get away with training three times a week. in some situations and still kind of make some kind of progress. But that's going to it's not a long term solution. So end of the day you're going to have to get these things in order. And then you'll take a look at whatever programming adjustments are required. Then you'll also take a look at whatever I mean this is this goes back to what we had last time where communication has to be key. You know, if technique is going in the right direction that we want it to, first thing, no technic drift. We want technique to be fixed. And once we fix it, Once we've gotten it into the right space that we want it to be, then from there all you're trying to do is just continue to hammer those sessions in. That's one big mistake that I see people make is like they're so they keep trying to change things just for the sake of it. What you want to do is make the right changes and then keep things constant. That's what people don't understand. That whole like every session has to be one percent better. It has to be in the right places. Not not in places where it doesn't matter. So you need to make sure that technique related issues, if if anything, and then adjust that and once it's proper, just ⁓ make sure that it's continuing forward, like that momentum in technique is being carried forward. Then any kind of changes regarding to fatigue again goes back to the first point where we post post technique. Those things are like really good, then you can make adjustments or changes in technique where you're ⁓ sorry, in in programming where you're like, okay, he's doing fine. speaker-2: You have to send speaker-1: Maybe I need to adjust something in the program. Then you take feedback. Then again you adjust. Then again you see how it goes. So it's a continuous process, which also probably like off topic, but one of the most common questions I'll get from people is that how long is your training program for? Yeah, there's nothing like that. speaker-0: It's not going to be same for everybody. speaker-1: No, no, there's nothing like a this is a lifelong thing. Like if you it's all it's for as long as you want to do powerlifting for. So when somebody says hey Yeah, how long do I need to take coaching from you? ⁓ is it a three month course, this six months course? It's not like that. It's consistent improvement on both ends. Like you tell me what is happening, I'll see what I can change, then again we'll see after that block is over, again, or or like, you know, even bit block. If something's happening, then you can come and tell me, then again I'll change it. There's always consistent adjustment and tweaks. The tweaks might not be like extremely different from last block, like one block to the other, the programming might look very similar. But overall you'll see that there is there is consistently something where like you know there are tweaks happening, or in some cases you even repeat the block just to see if you get a better response this time. So yeah, there's so many ways to like speaker-0: That long term aspect is something to think about. speaker-1: Yeah, and there's so many ways to just look at like how how you can adjust and break plateaus. Which is why, like, you know, you there's that saying of like there's more than one way to skin a cat. So there's multiple ways and there are multiple things that keep coming. And ⁓ I don't know if you've been if you've seen these things, but everything eventually they either come in come back into fashion or they leave. There's always this ⁓ cyclical process ⁓ that keeps happening in powerlifting where like Or you'll have somebody who'll say something like you know, s eccentric controls or or or concentric control deadlifts are pretty useless. Why would you control the concentric? It makes no sense. It that that has been the thing like years ago where people were like, any kind of tempo to the knees kind deadlift is just useless. It's not required. Because a deadlift is way basically just you trying to be as explosive as you can off the floor. There's no actual there's there's no need to control concentric and eccentric in the deadlift. The only thing is like as long as you can pick it off the floor and lock it out properly within the Constraints of the rules, it'll pass. So why does it matter? But then we start moving into like how can we improve positional this thing off the floor? Awareness. Because, yeah, awareness of the floor. Because deadlift is like very setup oriented, very setup heavy, right? Like, I mean every lift is setup heavy, but deadlift off the floor will determine whether you can even lock it out or not. So that's where like the tempo deadlift started coming in, which was something that was like completely useless a couple of years ago. Nobody ever thought of using those things. Right? Now a lot of people are using that. Now again a couple of years later you'll see the same thing where people will be like, ⁓ it's not really required. If you can just fix your starting position, you don't have to worry about something using variations like that. But the good coaches always, always keep every single tool in the toolbox. Fair enough. Like they'll never sit and say that, ⁓ that thing it was a thing a couple of years ago, it's useless now. speaker-0: Yeah, as users now. I mean, you have to think of it critically as well. Now, I saw this with the hacksquads recently as well. Like they came back, saw a lot of people talking about it. I even asked Jai about it a few days ago. like before before like talking about the plateau itself, and like, obviously, the first point that was mentioned about how externals and all, ⁓ I would actually just want to say this point, just defining what a plateau is, like if if you're not progressing for like, maybe not, I wouldn't say not progressing, but if you're like at a similar sense for two to three weeks, that's not a plateau. So like, just to define it, because then you, you don't want people to be thinking about it like that, when you have like, no meaningful progress, and I would say 10 to 12 weeks, maybe more than that, then you could sort of kind of but start thinking about it maybe being a plateau and then working things around to maybe fix that. speaker-1: 'Cause some people just have very unrealistic expectations. Like for example, I had a guy very recently was like, I've only put on forty Ks on my total in the last eight months. Seems like it's nothing. Well that's actually good progress. Yeah. If you can just keep that up. Yeah, I mean if you can keep that up for a couple of years, you put on like what's to one fifty, two hundred Ks on your total. So if you're at five hundred now and few more years later you'll be at seven hundred. That's good. You're already like pretty good. That's what people don't understand. They think like you just need to have like consistent progress every week. And like that plus five, plus five every single week, it has to happen no matter what. Nothing is ever linear. speaker-0: not necessarily linear exactly because especially I don't really have much experience in this space but I want to say especially when you're natural like it's going to be even less linear comparatively. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially when you're natural. Because on Gare, people I've seen people put on crazy numbers. The the development is insane, especially if you're a very good responder to gear. Because that also depends. Some people are just la okay, so if you want to talk about gear also, it's like it's very dependent on the person and the way they train. Cause I know people who've taken gear who total five twenty five. That's very low. On gear, like there's no point in in that. But there are people that I know, for example, for most people, there is a huge sudden increment in what they do. So for example, I know one guy whose deadlift max was like 180 at RP10. And then I think 10 weeks after he started gear, the guy was able to do 240 for ⁓ for triple at like RP7. So that's like plus 60, 1260 kgs. Four reps at submax. Yeah. So you can when the guy technically put on like hundred keys on his deadlift, I think he did lift like two seventy or two eighty for a one rep max. So in like what, ten to twelve weeks? speaker-0: I'd be yeah speaker-1: Yeah. So and that's what they say, like, you know, basic cycle. Mm-hmm. So yeah. ⁓ there is a huge difference in it. But it's not but there are so many other side effects for it that it's usually not worth it. Most people are like, you know, they'll say that, ⁓ this is the greatest decision of my life in the first three to six months. After that is when they start seeing the big gig this thing. Because more than that, more than anything, mentally they can't handle what what happened. speaker-0: It's pretty hard mentally. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean e you're playing with hormones. You're going to start feeling like shit the moment those things are taken away from you. When they they they're supposed to be taken away from you at some point of time. You can't always just keep blasting stuff. Otherwise you'll die. So if you're not going to keep that in mind and do things smartly, you're going to suffer. And I've seen that with some people. Like I know a guy who told me that every single time he would go off, he would feel like, you know, life wasn't even worth living anymore. It makes that much of a difference mentally also. Because you start feeling like you're God. That was the description the guy gave me. He was like when you're on, you feel like you're God and that every single man around you is just not man enough. And that you're you're the manliest man. But when you're off Yeah. But when you're when you're off, you feel like you know you're gonna die. You're the worst man available around. Like every other guy around you is better than you. Every other guy is just so much manlier than you are. Or like you always feel like apparently you always feel like any guy can just beat you up at any point of time. So you just feel so sad about yourself. ⁓ that that there's so many other things that come with gear. Like I have never used and I've never experienced that, but there are people this is what like people have told me in confidence that this is how it feels. So Yeah, just don't get on gear just because you're What like six six weeks or twelve weeks ⁓ pl plateau. Because when I used to do these twenty days a long time ago, people used to be like, I haven't seen my bench increase in the last two weeks. What should I do? And that's not a plateau. You probably just have been pushing enough and you just you take one or two del one week D load and then you'll be fine again. That's not that's like that's not you're just accumulated fatigue, probably or something of that sort. That's not a plateau. Plateau is like I would say like six months is a good time to be like, okay, nothing is moving forward, maybe I should do something. speaker-0: Yeah speaker-1: And when we say not when we say moving forward, it's not just about numbers. Like there should be some kind of improvement, like movement quality or like RP or like even RP wise, if you if you say like ⁓ six months ago you did like a hundred kgs or something. And today you can do hundred kgs, but you can do that at like RP six. So you've you've definitely improved. You've just not tested your one rip maxes yet. Right. So you kind of have an idea that you've improved. So you need to see some kind of improvement in like I would say every three to six months, especially if you're natural. But most of it has to come from the fact that your training is on point and your food and sleep and outside stressors are low, these are supposed to be on point. Because your progress is a direct derivative of your training. How good your training is structured is going to determine how well you're going to do progress wise. I mean I can think of one example very quickly is that like I was getting like zero videos and zero feedback from one person, but Like the way he progressed was just a by product of how well I could program for him even with the given history that I had. Like limited history, limited understanding of anything, no feedback, no videos, nothing. But still the guy was able to put on like a good forty KGs something on his total, even though he was already like very elite type. So yeah, that that definitely makes a difference. Where like programming hundred percent makes a difference. Yeah. How much absolute that's why you should have a good coach. But yeah, doesn't mean you you don't send your quote stuff again. Like you should. Because you put a promote. I mean ⁓ it's a thing that I used to say before, like I don't enjoy watching anybody lift. So if you don't send me videos and you're paying me on time, I'm more than happy. There's no problem with that. speaker-0: You're sure? Yeah. I remember you kept like a story recently as well. Like, why would you pay your coach and then not get the most out of it? Or like at least send feedback and then like just have. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean that's bare minimum. Like I've never understood people who don't fill out their sheets or don't give the feedback or don't say anything like that. Whatever it is, whatever system it is, right? Like even if whether there's sheets or no sheets, the least you can do is just be like, Yeah, I did this, this, this today. It went like this, it didn't go like this, went better than I expected, didn't go as well as as expected. Yesterday night I didn't sleep so well, so probably that's why something like that. And it's so simple, it doesn't take that long. It's just like a ten second, twenty second thing that you just type out and send. It's not that hard. Especially in today's day and age, you can't be like, Dodo, I did not have this, I did not have that, that's why I couldn't do it. You have you have internet everywhere in villages where there's probably no electricity half the day. You still have internet. speaker-0: I wanted to ask you about like, what do you, so if you have somebody with like a longer, like, plateau, how do you deal with the psychological side of it? Because that's kind of hard on their mind, right? Like, especially when somebody, for example, if they feel like a load that they've tried multiple times, some rudimentary number, like is it say 200 kilos, they keep failing it. Like they've tried multiple times, just it's a plateau. I feel like, don't you think that there'll come a point where they just mentally put that thing on a pedestal now where like, are going to fail that and the For me, would think like the only way you could kind of like program out of that would be to just make them repeat eventually instead of trying to get them to do that at a max just to get rid of their psychological effect of a long plateau, especially. speaker-1: Yeah, for sure, because that is again, see, ⁓ that is again a byproduct of your training. So, like, for example, I had a guy come to me who was already like at that level of going to worlds. Okay. ⁓ and he he had ⁓ if I'm not wrong, around two two seventy something deadlift. And he told me that like for the last couple of years he just couldn't ⁓ break that for ⁓ How for whatever reason he just couldn't break that and he's having some some ⁓ technical issues as well, but also at the same time some pain-related issues. So then first thing we got to do is fix the technique as well as simultaneously work on the pain. And then once that reduced, as a byproduct of how the overall programming structure was, the guy ended up repping 300. So the guy ended up doing like 300 and 2.5 for 3 or something like that at like ⁓ An eight or nine, which was still like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. For a guy who came with a 270 single, whenever we talk about long term practice and stuff, it's always about how what exactly is going on, why is it happening and what to fix. That's going to be the s thing for anything. Like you have to take that approach for anything. Like even if somebody comes to you who's new, it's easier when somebody is very new, right? If they're new because because there's like it's very simple. Moby gains like so simple. speaker-0: I'm insane for the fresh thing you can like mold them as you want things like that speaker-1: Yeah, plus the programming also is pretty simple. Like at when they're new it's just about like, yeah, just just learn basic of S B D and just hammer your accessories. I mean you're still gonna do that later on also. It's not like you can't you're not you're supposed to do something very different later on. But like initially it's just like just just hammer them so that they c they know how to work hard. And then they they understand like I'm supposed to feel this way. What exactly is soreness like or something like that? When they're very, very new. But like one once they get into Like that s that past that beginner stage, the intermediate stage, then you need a little bit more smarter way of approaching things. That's where the programming aspect is like big. For me, especially because you brought up the technique drift part, which I talked about earlier. Yeah. For me, technic drift is one of the biggest reasons for what I have seen when it comes to why somebody stalls. And I have one more guy that I can think of right now. So it's like it usually goes like this, right? Guy come comes to me and He's excited to start off, new coach, new this thing, very excited to work with B and all of that. Right. So he'll first f the first block will will be like he's pay he's paying a lot of attention and then he's fixing whatever I'm asking him to fix. And then he's like, ⁓ wow, first block went well. And then I'm like, after the first block, since we fixed the technique, all I tell him is that, yeah, all I want you to do now is keep this, and then we'll have a block, another block, where we kind of just keep things similar or even repeated. And then we'll s yeah, and then we'll see how this these changes have just in technique have have shown up in the outcome based off of the current program, right? Like we'll take a look at that. And then he started hitting, like suddenly he started hitting PRs. Like he started hitting numbers that he ⁓ that were above his one rep max for reps. Right? Here's here's where the plateau starts. Like when when this is happening, you don't need to start experimenting with your technique when technique is going really well. Right? Then they start experimenting. Then they think like ⁓ my like because when things are really good, the coach's feedback is just gonna be like, Yeah, things look great. Nothing more than that. And that's when a that's when some people who are like very needy, where they're they they have more like you could say more like they're more mentally or emotionally attached to training or something of that sort, those guys will have a bigger problem because they're like, My coach is not really talking to me. I don't know if I did something wrong. My coach, maybe I need a girlfriend, not a coach. They're they they don't even like yeah yeah. So they'll they'll do things like this and then they start like sabotaging their own lift. And then sooner or speaker-0: Yeah. Like you said that how you just say all good and then people don't accept that yeah speaker-1: They just don't they they can't be like, ⁓ I I don't think everything is good. There's some there must be something that I can improve on. Like that that's not in in your execution right now, which is why I'm telling you not to change anything. Right? But then I've seen this one guy change things so many times. Every single time he gets back on track, I'm like, yeah, finally back on track, don't change things. And then he'll find he'll find a way to do something. So this the guy has basically been stuck at the same numbers again. And at that point, Is this like You are making the same mistakes. I'm pointing it out. I'm doing my job. I don't know what else I can do. Right? Because you you as a coach are telling, yeah, you're you're consistently telling them like what they're supposed to do, how they're supposed to improve, what they can be doing. But if they don't take that in good health, like in good understanding, they are the ones that lose. They don't they don't understand that because they will end up losing, you know, their own money and time. End of the day, I'll still get paid. That's what I keep telling people. Like you're still going to pay me. And if you leave, I'll find somebody else. That's okay with me. Right? One of the worst things that I have seen is when people get something new, like when it comes to something like drills that can help them move better or expand on movement options for them. Or any kind of an accessory work that I've given that is new to them. Or if that accessory is giving them some kind of pain-related issues, and they just don't film a video of that. Or they don't do it properly. It has happened so many times. Like I've had people where they'll come to me and they'll say, I'm having this certain back pain. I'm not able to do this. And I'll give them, I'll take a look at what's happening, some assessment, and I'll be like, Okay, I am giving going to give you a couple of drills and I want to do these properly. And they don't do it for months. And then they'll they'll come, they'll keep coming back every week. They'll be like, ⁓ I'm having pain, I'm having pain. And are you doing those drills? Can I see? Are you doing them? speaker-0: I'm using the time I last, I'll be like. speaker-1: I didn't film it this week, I'll show it next week. I didn't film it this week, I'll show it next week. I had a guy who did this for six months, and he kept complaining about this thing for six months, and eventually, like I had to put my foot down and be like, you know what? Fuck off. I'm done. Get the fuck out, pack your shit and leave. And then the guy was like, No, no, no, I'll show it to you right now. I'll show it to right now. And then he did it, and then he did it right. Because what he's been doing for six months is bullshit because he's not been showing it to me, right? Now when I'm pissed off, the guy is like, ⁓ I have to do it like perfectly, otherwise he'll get even more mad. So now I can't even correct what ra what you were making mistakes in. Because the video that you said You show me the video and everything is perfect, and I'm like, that's what you were supposed to do. That's it. And then they'll be like, ⁓ magically the pain is not there anymore. I was like, Why do you think I gave it to you six months ago, idiot? So I have situations like this where I have to actually shout like that. So when see when people see something like that, no, they'll be like, ⁓ he's being rude, he's being angry, it's all speaker-0: I mean, again, this is same thing as last time. It's like, need to understand that like, the end of the day, you're also human. We're also human and adherence is going to be like the baseline. If you don't, if you're unable to even maintain that people will get pissed off. Do you have anything to add? speaker-2: Yeah. No, I I was just saying like plateaus are like essentially a by product of like considering all externals have been like for example, like the counsel says, I'll check on soreness, injuries, external sleep, nutrition, these things, fluctuations in body weight. You know, sometimes a guy will just say, I'm not getting stronger and then like I got weaker and then you realize he dropped eight kilos and you're like, Well, you know, you you never mentioned that. Yeah. And I and I think performance ⁓ You know, this isn't my my idea. So I wanna kinda give credit where credit's due due. ⁓ I'm I'm I just learned it from Skylar and Anis and ⁓ Sean. Like performance a e people kind of always now harp performance improvements on strength expression, right? You're just looking at like our E1RM trending or like the absolute load lifted, right? I think you need to have like a multifaceted approach towards like where you're improving. You can have like multiple key performance indicators, right? So like a plateau provided all externals are accounted for can happen because of what? Well, do you have enough muscle mass to kind of carry you forward into this situation, right? Tracking those things. Like are you like looking at accessory improvements? Are you looking at those things? Okay, you have that thing done. You're you're looking at, for example, if a certain person has like work capacity related issues, right? So you kind of see the fact that a person may after a particular like Like you you you you'll notice like the amount of drop between like their first pack off, second pack off, third pack off is like massive, right? And you're seeing like a reduction in in their ability to actually hold and push training, right? Like i how how is that improving? How's that per performing a lot? Then you can look at things like neuromuscular efficiency. Right? A guy can like, for example, finish a block off at two hundred kilos, right? But the next block he finishes it off at two hundred kilos and it's noticeably faster. Right? It it it just like moves so much better. So the question that you have to ask is well, you've not made a progression in terms of absolute load used, but it's not a plateau because you've kind of seen an improvement there. Then you'll obviously have like the E1RM kind of situation where again, I I would tell people like you if you guys rerun a block and r rerun loads and at the end you've kind of like crushed from last block. There's something significantly important happened here. So like when people think of plateaus, they need to see think of it as like in a multifaceted way. Don't just think about the absolute load on the par. All right. For example, if you finish a block at like two hundred at like a single at seven, but then next block you finish two hundred and ten, but it's like a single at RP nine point five, like that kind of will say, Okay, like I think people look at like like our shul said, like, the guy who said forty kilos in a year, that guy doesn't understand that thing. Like if you add on forty kilos for like four like five years. That's two hundred kilos on to your total, right? Right? Like yeah like if you're already at like five hundred, yeah, right. Yeah. It'll be significantly so like in my opinion, like I think you can have multifaceted wins and I I think it's important to look at f my main point here was that you need to find the bottleneck. If everything else is clear, you need to find the bottleneck. speaker-0: A ⁓ lot of times you have like self-inflicted platyos things like with all the factors that you said. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah. speaker-1: Like most of the plateaus are basically self inflicted where either programming is off or your execution of the program is off or you're not taking care of sleep and food. This is one of the biggest things that I see at least. Like in like most people don't get good enough sleep where they're feeling rested and recovered. And ⁓ like for example, I'll tell you one one very simple like it's a very, very simple sim simple thing to like look at. Yes, what was I saying? Yeah, I'm saying that these plateaus are pretty much self-inflicted or like people self-sabotage so hard. Like one of the most simplest things that I can think of is like I had a guy who ⁓ who suddenly just asked me, he was like he just messaged me one day and he was like, A coach, I got hurt while playing football on my reste. So now what should I do? What is there to do now? Right? You could have avoided that by just not playing. See, you have to take a speaker-0: Boss, speaker-1: Yeah, no you have to take a call on what matters more to you. And then you have to understand that there's a certain risk in doing other things. That's going to happen whether you like it or not. Whether you intend for it or not. So if you go play football and you hurt yourself, let's say you break a leg you break a you break a bone or something, that's going to take you out of commission for months. No powerlifting for months. You're out of the thing for months. Then what are you going to do? There's nothing else for you to do, right? So these are like especially see i if you're somebody who's aspiring to be a national level lifter or you're already at nationals and you're going to worlds and then you do something like this, it's absolutely stupid. But if you're somebody who's just a casual, right? If you're just like, yeah, I just enjoy powerlifting and then on your estage you're going and doing something else and then you get hurt, it's like it's okay. That's there's no career there. Yeah. There's no real career for you here, so it's okay. You're not interested either. So that's fine. But if you're somebody who's like, no, I want to go to Sheffield, I want to go to Worlds, and then I see you doing things like this, I'm not saying just like don't have other hobbies. You should have other hobbies. But I'm not but what I'm saying is like you need to be careful with how you do things so that you don't yeah, so that you don't ⁓ you know, self sabotage. And a lot of people self sabotage by not sleeping on time or not eating properly, like not having that kind of ⁓ you know. discipline to to maintain their ⁓ regular schedule, whatever they're supposed to maintain. So, yeah, at the end of the day, most of these plateaus are self-inflicted, self-sabotage ⁓ kind of situations. And even programming wise, it's like most people just stay lifetime intermediate simply because they are ⁓ looking to max out at the end of every single block. Hmm. And they don't allow speaker-0: discipline. Yeah. Momentum never builds. speaker-1: Yeah, they don't think about training as like see some people understand training like, ⁓ week one, take it a bit easy, week two, build a little bit, week three, build a little bit, week four you push a bit, and then maybe week five, week six, or even week four, based on how your program is ⁓ you know, structured. You'll either look to push on week four, week five, week six, and when you do push, you have to understand that you want to take forward that final week of training momentum also into the next block. Most people look at look at it like I've been like a good boy for three blo three weeks or four weeks. So it's time for me to let loose a bit. And then they just go and fail. Most likely they'll fail or they'll hit like an RP nine workload set or an RP ten where like they don't have any more in the tank and they've they're like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, I've I I ma I pushed it, pushed it to the limit to this week. But then what about your next block? 'Cause then what'll happen is that you're kind of forced to pull back significantly in the coming block. As a result of pushing too hard in in this one, right? Like if I finish my block today and I push it to the max, by next week, I'm going to feel beat up. I'm gonna have to pull back. I'm gonna have to rest up and relax a bit. So at the end of the day, I'm I'm I'm again like I'm kind of starting again from like, you know, step one, back to square one types. So this is also another part. Yeah. I mean that kind of a thing is fine if you're very new to the speaker-0: The is like a lot. Yeah. speaker-1: Thing. Yeah. speaker-0: Especially when you're experienced or like somebody like you said, like the people who aspire to go to worlds or something like that. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. I that's the reason why you'll never see like last time also we spoke about it somebody like ⁓ Austin Perkins or something. You'll never see them hit like maxes in their ⁓ training period and in the gym. You'll never see them pushing like max max numbers or ⁓ any of these guys. Like if you saw if you follow Matt Been a lot, you see the same thing. He he talks a lot about ⁓ training in like submaximal for most part of the year. There's definitely a time and place for you to push because w one more thing I noticed with submax training is that It puts you at this very like easy cruise mode kind of mentality every session. Where like you can't switch the flip when you need to. speaker-0: You don't need to train at the higher just to like, it's a different. speaker-1: So you need to have some kind of intensity to make yeah exposure. Otherwise you're going to be like, ⁓ it's supposed to feel easy. Because I've seen people who are like who'll be like when I give them RP eight or RP9 when I'm when I'm when I'm like, Okay, I I want you to push this week. I want an RP nine set. And they'll be like, ⁓ that felt heavy on my back. I didn't understand what to do. It's supposed to feel heavy. Your point is to lift heavy weights. No, your point is to lift heavy weights. No, like you're that's what you're you're in powerlifting for because you want to lift heavy weights. So only difference what we're saying is that. There's a time and place for heavy weights and there's a time and place for lighter weights. That's it. That's all we're saying. We're not saying that you should not be doing heavyweights. You're in powerlifting because you enjoy moving heavy load. speaker-0: Yeah. And while we're actually just talking about this, it, can be like a, for the plateau point itself, I feel like we've covered most of it. There was just one question here that I got, which I just wanted to ask to both of you, just your inputs from experience. I think Kaushal you already talked about this, but like have, have you ever like done everything right? And then a lifter just doesn't progress it. Like I mean this from more of a psychological perspective. They keep telling themselves that I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. How do you. kind of go about fixing that. How do you think that would work from a coaching standpoint, from a programming standpoint? speaker-1: Depending on how this also goes back to athlete bin that we spoke about last time. Yeah. But like when an athlete is going through something like that, you kinda have to talk to them about what exactly is going on in their life, what's happening, why it's happening. And then you kinda see if there's if they're struggling with something mental, right? Like some situations sometimes because athletes are also human beings. You can't just throw them outside outside or like under the bus. You can't just be like, Yeah, it's not my problem. I've given you my program. You're not following it, or I don't know whether you are or not. I don't care after that, right? You can't just be like that. You kind of have to if they're going through something difficult, to some degree you have to talk to them. But again, like you can't always do that for ⁓ that long. Yeah. So you try talking to them, you see what you can do, what you guys can figure out, see whether the the problem is actually within the program or their execution or something in the way that they're looking at things, right? Like some people will have some kind of an issue where they're going through something, something's happened to them. And then when that's the situation, you kind of want to sit and talk to them for a little bit just so that they feel better. Not for any other reason. Because you d you definitely don't want to work with a coach who you feel like, ⁓ they're not even on my side. Like they don't even care. Right? You want to feel like they care. At least. At least a bit. speaker-0: Yeah. Obviously, that's that should be like a bare minimum. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, you need to have that. 'Cause if you feel like your coach just doesn't care at all and that he's only interested in like, you know, responding to you whenever it's time for payment, there's going to be a time where you start hating it. Like very soon you'll be like, Yeah, this Yeah, yeah, you'll just be like, This guy just doesn't care. I don't know why I'm here. And your coach also be like, This guy just keeps complaining all the time. I don't even want to talk to him. So you fair enough. You have to like talk a little bit As an athlete, you have to voice your concerns. And as a coach, the coach has to kinda sit and talk to you from like if required, of course. If if they can at least like lend an ear also, even if they can't specifically do anything for you, right? 'Cause like some sometimes I'll have situations where the c where a where an athlete is going to something really tough. But there's nothing I can do. I know that. There's not nothing for me to do there. It's something that they have to figure out. Yeah, but I'll I'll still ask them. It's like, is there anything you think I can do for you? And they'll and You know, just just from that they'll be like, you know, thank you for asking. That's it. I'll figure it out. Yeah. So usually that's that's a good way to go about things. speaker-0: and J speaker-2: I'm I'm just gonna talk about like maybe it it all the externals are like on point and I I would just think like so like sometimes you'll design like a ⁓ like a a a couple weeks of training that really work for an athlete. But at some point or the other, the athlete you created that program for also starts to evolve, right? Like the athlete is like a moving target. Maybe like they get stronger, they get a little bit more muscle mass, they're moving more absolute load, right? ⁓ so sometimes Like this is where I would really appreciate some pe I appreciate people who give like really crisp feedback in terms of what to kind of thing. So then you can just tweak the thing, right? For example, like ⁓ Yeah, 'cause like for example, there is like in Bhabar Tarbita like Namita that I work with at like she like she kind of gave me a very good insight into the fact that for her bench to kind of show up on like the day we wanted, she has to ramp up intensity throughout the week. speaker-0: no guesswork. speaker-2: Right? 'Cause like when she kind of like for example, what happens is if her like day one bench is like not pushed, right? That bench session in between just won't show up. But what happens is like if it does show up and she kind of undershoots it because she was like, Man, that felt very easy. The problem with that is the fact that that is then paid into in the next day for for us. Right? So like it's it's almost like f this effective communication aspect from them allows us to evolve the program. Because when she first came, that wasn't the situation. Right? Then it kind of came the fact that she needs to drive up stimulus throughout the week to kind of create that situation. So when an athlete can effectively communicate to you, it just becomes really, really easy. And like I I again, this is not mine, this is like Devin's like from T S P Devon's kind of thing. It's like baseline control. Like I I I feel like I was al feel free like to like drop your insight on this thing, but like if a person can take like a seven kilo PR at the end of the block but they take five They have two in the bank, right? And the next block if they have like four and a half, five and they still take like four, maybe five there, like you you you kind of have all of this progress in the bank that you can kind of like reap at any point you want. So like this baseline of progress that if you can kind of control, that becomes very important. Like I've told her, for example, she's put on like fifteen kilos on her squat, she's put on like damn near like twenty on her deadlift and like ten on her bench. But I know if I just ask her, like, ⁓ like let's really push. we can milk a lot more. But she kind of understands the fact is that she d wants to end this block this way. Right? And so that when she comes in on the next block, she just has to milk like a little bit more. And that way we always know there's more left in the track. And I think effective communication allows for that. I would have never been able to figure her bench out had she not told me the fact that whenever like it shows in the sheet, right? When that like tertiary, the third like that that intermediate that intermediary bench take. Like you'll push the pri that this w day one really well, right? And that carries it over for this thing. But whenever she kind of plays it conservative there, that primary day just tanks, right? But because of primary day tanks and she kind of tries hard there, that first day again shows up well. So s what I've understood is that through effective communication, we've come to an understanding, she has to drive stimulus into that day. Whereas you'll have some guys where you just can't drive that much central stimulus into them, right? I'm sure like when Kaushul you work with guys that have like these tremendously strong benches, you can't be driving like a ton of like central like stress into that. They may just need a bit of stimulus that you can mimic through like a very easy very like a load variation or like a a dip or something along those lines. But unless that person tells you, like like Kaushul is like danger, ten years of experience, I'm sure if some guy came and just told you a primary just felt hard. Yeah, it's impossible to kind of solve that, right? speaker-1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. I mean it's basically just doing a lot of guesswork if somebody just talks like that. Like if somebody comes and like i if I come to you and I say, I'm feeling sad today, you'll ask why and I'll be like, I don't know. So you'll just be like, Well maybe Yeah, did you drink water today? I don't know. Maybe because of that. So so your answers are also going to be like super vague. When the question or the communication is vague, then the answer is also going to be so vague. speaker-0: There are a lot of reasons. speaker-1: That's what people don't that's why general Q and A's are so difficult to answer. Because people ask such big answers. Yeah, they'll just be like having back pain, what to do. I don't know. Why did it happen? How did it happen? During what movements. You have to do so many things first. Like get get get a full idea of what what happened and then figure out like what movement. I have a guy, bro, who's been asking like I stopped doing questionnaires ⁓ Q and ⁓ Q and A's before that because Yeah, this guy like he he's been telling me the same injury for like years. Him and his coach have not been able to work on it for years. Years straight, I used to get every QA. I have essay joint paint, what should I do? And I'm like, You have a coach, go talk to him. Or both of you figure out whether you can work with the some some DPT or something. I don't know. I don't know anything about you. Or if you want, you come work with me and maybe I can figure it out. But the guy was like, No, no, I don't want to leave my coach, then why the fuck are asking me? speaker-2: Yeah, ⁓ ca ⁓ can I just like throw a little thing here, like again, it may be like a deviation, but like you you kind of understand people in other sports, like top level athletes analyze and study top level athletes a lot. But in this one, seldom do they do that. But w once again, like maybe like the top guys don't like actually put out all of their training, they just put out their highlights, right? But like I I I kinda tell people like the highlights are a by product of a lot of things that aren't very exciting. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-2: Yeah. So like when you kind of see that you kind of have to understand the culmination of multiple factors. speaker-1: I think most people don't notice the right things that they're supposed to notice when they're looking at athletes. Like they don't see the kind of work that the athletes are putting. See, you only see the highlight reel at the end of the block, whatever number they hit, or end of six months of training that whatever they hit, right? Like you'll see somebody going to Sheffield and you'll be like, they hit that in Sheffield, but the leading up to that is what you don't know. And most of them have is just years of work that is being showcased there. Most of them don't know that. They don't understand that part. Where they're just kind of ⁓ trying to mimic the numbers but not the process. So that's where a lot of people lose track of and that's why most people like they can't last in powerlifting because it's a very process it's extremely process oriented. I mean any sport is. Any sport is going to be process oriented. But powerlifting is like it's speaker-0: So because there's less to do comparatively. speaker-1: Lester do in the sense like there's there's just S V D and then like it's just you. There is no other reason for why things didn't go well. In a in a team sport you can always be like, I tried my best, the other guy didn't do so well, my my teammate didn't do so well and something something somet something, something so on, so forth. And then there's like this team ⁓ what's it called? Like ⁓ cohesion with the team ⁓ yeah, if you you you might be a great player, but if you don't fit in the team, then maybe you don't fit in the team. Maybe you'll have to look for s like s a place someplace else, right? So you'll have so many other things that'll happen and there's so many other variables. But in PL it's just you. Like you did well because you did well. You didn't do well because you didn't take care of things that you were supposed to take. speaker-0: the only one who's in control of like your own speaker-1: Yeah, it's practically just that. It's like if you didn't sleep then why didn't you why didn't you sleep? Because it's a direct one is to one outcome there. It's a very simple outcome there, right? Like you didn't sleep for multiple days this week, which is why this week didn't go well. It is that simple in like so many cases like that. speaker-2: There's no luck factor in this, no? You're not luckily just gonna lift a hundred kilos. Like speaker-1: Yeah, you're not luckily going to just go and be strong. speaker-0: It's the thing I think we talked about like last time as well like we were talking about in powerlifting competitions, the reason like you obviously why it's not as watchable as well. There's not much of a luck factor involved. You pretty much know who's going to be coming first and like, yeah, there may be like a battle between the first three, but then if you're totaling 200 kilos below the guy who was positioned for first, you're not luckily going to be lifting 200 kilos more. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, e even genetics wise, if you want to talk about genetics, it's like your genetics will take will will set a very good baseline for you, maybe. But then how far you can actually express the those genetics will depend heavily on how how well you can push things out. Like like we even spoke about Yeah, for sure. I know I know in my case it's like that because I take things for granted because of that. I know for a fact like I do that. Where I'm like ⁓ yeah, I just have like I can easily build muscle and strength. It's not a problem for me. I just put in like two months of work and I'll go hit a PR, which I haven't done maybe in like a couple of years. I can just go do that and a few weeks or one month, even if I just lock in, I'll do a lot better. But that that's also the reason why I just don't do it because I'm like I can always do it whenever I feel like. speaker-2: See like someone like Nojo, right? This is like why someone like Nojo, for example, he's taken like I I I was just talking to like a couple of people I know, like about his thing. And you can see in his recent like test day kind of thing, he's actually gotten weaker if you can like if you kind of look at it. Right. And and it's largely because like well for social media he's put out a lot of content. And most of it involves like like hoisting a lot of right? Yeah. Because the people don't want like remember like back in the day, like a Rondell Hunt or like speaker-0: Super Heavy. speaker-2: Like he would have his like training cycles or like email like like I think Emil Krastiev has his stuff like the now the most exciting things on for most of the week. speaker-1: Yeah. If you ever watch Emil stuff, it's very simple. speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah. That's why YouTube is like a gold mine in terms of the process speaker-1: Yeah. Right. He does a good job of that actually. speaker-2: And and like ⁓ like see like i I I always tell I'll always look at it like there there is a factor about Emil going up against someone like Will Call. And like Will is like a force of nature, like if you kinda think about it. Right? Yeah and Evan Hawk does an amazing work in terms of like his his progress as well, like like how they approach the squat and all this stuff. But you kinda have to understand like Will is like in my opinion like a perfect example of a genetic outlier that is also one hundred percent dedicated to the process. Right, if you look at his nutrition, for example, when people think like why is that guy so strong? You gotta understand. He's ninety five kilos. Probably like ten to twelve percent body fat. Like twelve percent body fat, I'd say. Right? And he like like have you seen his like deadlifts by the way, like the way he approaches his deadlifts, like the reset reps and things like that. Like he has all the gifts. But the fact is that he understands the fact I I I would say this thing is like like a set of five is not five random reps for him. Right? speaker-1: Five proper singles. speaker-2: Exactly, right? It is one thing done five times. So he's ingraining that pattern so heavily. And like while he may not show this thing a lot, like y'all have seen him hoist up six plates on a pendulum squad by Arsenal strength, right? Just the the the brute strength, I think six or seven plates, the brute strength required to kind of do that stuff is like what people may miss out on. But like if you look at his week one, like you'll never see him grind. You don't see him grind on week two, three. Like he he just doesn't have that grinding mentality kind of thing, right? And like the opposite end of the spectrum, you can see someone like Joe Borenstein who had that really good post saying like, well, he would finish every block at like RP ten and what that did to him kind of in that situation, right? So when he joined Evan, I think like if I like I followed like that that like a lot of his posts and mostly it was about regaining momentum, movement quality and like avoiding technique drifts, right? He was not speaker-0: We'll talk that. speaker-2: Yeah, and and like largely when you look at Joe move now, ⁓ you're like, dude, this guy is like setting up to set something big here. Because like every rep looks like a bullseye for me. Like like he had he posted a set of like eight on his deadlifts. Well, like every rep looks the same. And there was no drop in velocity. Right? So you know there's something happening here. Like that is what people may miss out on. Yeah, that's why they may plateau. speaker-0: And yeah, like, it's like building on this point itself. Our next one was actually going to be when we talk about like off seasons. yeah. speaker-2: Can can I Gausha like a thing here on off-season stuff? Right? Like this is essentially like nomenclature-wise, like how people use this term is like maybe a reason why a lot of people sandbag it. Off season, in my opinion, is like is the season, right? Like people may think off season from a bodybuilding standpoint and be like like back in the day it was just like a bunch of dudes getting fat and like ⁓ bulking up like crazy. Yeah. speaker-0: during it kind of speaker-2: But off season as a word in powerlifting should be season seen as like like I I would say it as like in season and the others the other thing is like comp season. So like in season you build everything, comp season you express things. I feel like if you just change the language, people may start to see things differently. It's an expression. speaker-1: Yeah, there's nothing like an Like I I I I I hate working with people like that who'll be like, ⁓ there are six months to a program to nationals. So I'll take a break for now and I'll come back to you two months out of nationals. I'll be like, No, don't come back to me at all. I don't want to talk to you again. Because I don't I don't have anything to work with randomly when you just when you think you you just show up like that and you think you could just ⁓ you know hit certain numbers. 'Cause I've had people like that who'll join me just one month out of nationals. I'll be like, Sir, there's only one month for national, what should we do? Wha what do you mean? Like there is no nationals for you. If you want to compete like that, do it with somebody else, not with me. I I am very clear on that. Because there's nothing we have built here. There's nothing we have improved on here. So, like what exactly are we competing for? The whole point of you building in the off season is so that you can show that in the on season. Right? Like as Jay said, there is nothing like an off season in powerlifting training. You can take breaks here and there to like, you know, rest up, spend some time outside the gym, maybe. Have some fun outside the gym. Something like that is totally fine. There's no problem with that. But anybody who's like telling you that, no, no, I need to take an off season and ⁓ that means that I'm taking a complete off. Usually off season so the way off season used to be treated in India is like people used to just take complete off from training, where that complete off for them means that they are just resting, either resting or they're just doing bodybuilding work. There's no SPD involved. Right. But if you take complete time off from SBD, then you're going to be spending time back on SBD when you come back to training. Like you you haven't done any SBD in a while. So now whatever like you've lost, first thing you're going to be doing is trying to regain that movement proficiency in SBD. Right? So that is going to take some time. Post that you're then going to put yourself in a situation where you have to build again, which you haven't done. Which is why you see most people just coming and doing the same numbers again and again. They just do more or less the same numbers again and again. There's no real improvement in that speaker-0: giving themselves like the actual time and effort needed to build. speaker-1: Yeah, along with that, we have a s we have a specific problem with how ⁓ what's that the competitive season is built. Because we have multiple competitions happening throughout the week, sorry, throughout the year. And ⁓ though th there's never a particular calendar for people to figure out when they have to get ready. And then there's never a particular even with the calendar, there are so many competitions. Like nationals will just get over and then you have another states that's ⁓ that's supposedly coming up. And if you don't do that, they'll be ⁓ you're not going to be allowed to go for national next year if you don't do this one. You have so many problems in Indian powerlifting that day. So you're just forced to do, especially like ⁓ I'll I'll give you this because I was talking to Danji Gaines, Kenan Dung from Anchor Strength, and like I told him that. So I have a junior lifter who competed six times in five months. Like all because all because the the guy kept telling him that if he doesn't do this competition. He can't go for junior nationals. If he doesn't do that competition, he can't go for junior nationals. And he just kept making that guy do six competitions in five months. When is the guy going to build? So the guy is just stuck there for years. For like six good six months. Post six months, he needs a bit of time to even recover from powerlifting. Not to mention the fact that doing six competitions in five months means the guy is heavily burnt out. The guy's just gonna be like, bro, I've had enough of powerlifting, please. I just want to relax a bit. Yeah. You can't blame him for that. Yeah. So you have like so many places where people are doing this, and that just means that like at the end of the day, you're losing or you are killing athlete potential before it even grows, right? When you do something like that. So we need a better system in this situation. Because in a lot of cases, like you can tell an athlete, don't do this. But the lifter is going to face a lot of pressure. speaker-0: on India. speaker-1: When they're going to hear from their call like district secretary or state secretary or anybody else for that matter of fact, like anybody, any official, when you're going to hear that, ⁓ if you don't do this one, you can't do the next one. Right, you they're automatically going to feel pressurized. Yeah, as a coach, you'll tell them, like, don't do it, I don't want you to do it. But like the system itself is set up a little bit like that, which is why I prefer telling people that just take a whole year off if there's nothing like a time related constraint for you. But like if you're not a sub junior or you're not a junior. speaker-0: forced to kind of do it. speaker-1: And if you're in senior, then it's it's it's it's definitely worth taking like a a whole year off. Yeah. 'Cause you can actually put in the effort for that whole year, build really well, and then show up next year in, you know, good health and with good numbers that you're you're actually capable of putting up, right? speaker-2: Can I draw a fundamental thing here? Like like I just said like the the the troubling element of this may be the fact that the the entire system may not understand how like the basic process of powerlifting may work. Yeah. Like y the the how like adaptations are driven, how like recover ⁓ like like the just the whole process. Like if you are at all times expressing strength, you are expressing only what you have built. Therefore, by virtue of the system, you are never allowed to build and express more. It may not be a thing like we are not genetically like elite enough to kind of create athletes that can go to Sheffield. It's just that the environment may curtail and like compel you to engage in behavior. That may never allow you to become that that thing. Because like I'm sure Kausha, like in the time frame that you work with people, there are guys that you see that can go to Sheffield. Right? Yeah. Like you c you right, like Again, the system may not allow and I think the individual may not understand like how the thing works. Like, for example, like we talked about the thing about from an inju individual athlete standpoint, if you're very social media driven, you will force load at some point. That will kind of fry you, right? Like a competitive season structured at seven six competitions in five months will burn anyone out. Yeah. Right? speaker-1: Yeah, it's a No, not to mention the like economic costs of everything, because every single time there's a competition you're going to another place. That's not your it's not in your backyard. You're always going to another place. There's there's always going to be travel costs, there's always going to be like hotel costs, food, everything. And especially when you're a junior, who's going to have that kind of money? Even if you're a senior for that matter of fact, there are not many people who are rich who do powerlifting. speaker-2: You gotta take off to take off of work and you do a whole host of other things. speaker-1: Yeah, like how many offs can you take from work? How many times are you going to take ⁓ leave? How many times can you, you know, save up money just to go to a competition where you have to do these things? So i it gets very difficult for people, they're like that that incentive just dies for a lot of people when things like things are set up like that. speaker-2: And and I just also wanna ask you a thing here about like just just getting into the nerdy shit. You're gonna drive a ton of central fatigue at this point in time, right? That you just may not be able to shake off, right? Yeah. And that and and and it goes from being like like this acute to like this chronic kind of situation and you just will just die as a result of that. You like your your body will just say enough is enough kind of a situation. speaker-1: Yeah. I mean that's usually how injuries happen, where you're like consistently just pushing where you don't need to or you shouldn't be pushing, like limits of your towers thing. speaker-2: Like that's how we like the chronic accumulation of fatigue, yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. I said chronic accumulation of fatigue over time that will just lead to people having injuries. That's usually where the injuries come from. Along with like and that's also the reason why when you have see, like it's very simple. If you have very cranky knees or you have very achy knees, you will not be able to squat the way you usually do. Right? Your movement automatically your or your squat pattern automatically changes. Yeah, then you'll have natural technique drifting away from what you need to be doing. speaker-2: It naturally does it. speaker-1: Or what works for you because of the pain that you're feeling, right? Soreness is different. Like you can get rid of soreness through like simple, simple stuff, like just walk around a little bit or like warm things up a little better. And usually that soreness starts to f like taper away as you start warming up, and then you can get on with your regular session. But when we are talking about like severe fatigue, there is going to be significant movement quality reduction. And because of moment quality reduction, there's a very high chance of you having the opportunity to hurt yourself. Right? You're going to create much more opportunities to get hurt. Or like injury can happen at any point of time as a result of that. So you want to be in a place where you're pacing your training like your ⁓ what's it called? Your your comp sessions also in a good manner. speaker-2: Yeah, and it's like just just a shout out to the science face lifting community, guys. You know, perception of effort will start to rise as you are more in kind of pain. Right. These guys talk a like like they they'll like harp on that thing but from like in the ⁓ sometimes very useless ways. But like in i in this situation, like if you're in pain, your brain will naturally limit its ability to express like natural force output. Right? Yeah. So you kind of would want to look at that. Like a and this is where In the off season, for example, again causal like like little things like using stiff sleeves versus like soft sleeves on like harder accessories, right? That kind of will help us build some tendon rigidity and ⁓ tendon stiffness that is needed for like powerlifting kind situation. Don't do that. You're gonna get cooked at some point or the other because you're gonna speaker-1: Yeah. So yeah, sooner or later your knees are going to start getting weaker as a result of you spending too much time in ⁓ you know allowing the Yeah, in the stiff sleeves. That's what I've seen. Very few people can actually use them properly in the first place because most people are just like using them as a crutch. They use them like like some equipped piece of equipment where like ⁓ you like speaker-0: I'll just help them up their total a little bit. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. So they they they they just like they just use it as a way where they go into like they they start high barring the low bar is what I've seen, especially with stiff sleeves. They start doing that high bar kind of a speaker-2: Yeah, they'll drive into the sleeves more. speaker-1: Yeah, they just drive into the sleeves and they focus on like that extreme that bounce off the bottom. Yeah, so they they because of as a result of that, these guys have start having like bad knees and they start having pain eventually because of this, which is why I prefer not using stiff sleeves. Because for me it's like, you know, most of the strongest people have done it in not stiff sleeves. Yeah. Yeah. Like you you you see mo ⁓ Sheffield is basically sponsored by SBD, right? SBD. So they don't have another option other than using SBD. A lot of powerlifters will shit on SBD because they'll be like, ⁓ it's not stiff enough. But like so many people have hit world record squats with SBDs. So that should tell you that the best of the best are not the best of the best because of the sleeves. When people say that I need my stiff sleeves to do this, you are most likely putting yourself in a bad situation long term. speaker-2: Yeah, the same ceiling will show up just at like a couple kilos extra. speaker-1: That's it. Yeah. And I have seen like movement quality degradation, like very heavy movement quality degradation when it comes to sleeves, ⁓ stiff sleeves. Because they use it as a crutch, right? They don't use it as like a ⁓ I can like this is some is a tool that'll help me lift a little bit more. They don't use it like that. They they completely use it as a crutch where they just dive bomb into that extend very extended squat pattern. Like there's no brain. speaker-0: something which is entirely what is helping my spot instead of just speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we we like we decided like it's better to have like soft sleeves. If you are doing the stiff sleeves, then maybe for your primary session you keep it. And then for the non yeah, for the secondary and tertiary if you want. But the x series also if you do them like very, very like, you know, strict movement focused, then you're gonna be fine. But most people don't do it like that. Because if if you start talking about x series like leg press, most people again want to post that leg press set online. And they do it like very heavy hip flexion focus. They don't do it like ⁓ knee, knee, knee flexion and knee extension bias, right? They it very like Yeah, you see somebody like Alan Shaw, he does it so well. And if you watch, there is a video of Dr. Seth Albersworth as well talking about how ⁓ yeah, yeah, you should be how to get like much bigger quads than you currently have. And he practically talks about how most people just don't know how to do. speaker-2: Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-1: ⁓ you know lower body accessories especially quadrated accessories where ⁓ they kind of just try to move the maximum load as much as possible and then they sacrifice movement like actual ⁓ like ex excise execution for that. Right. So when when you do that, you're going to have long term problems. speaker-2: Yeah. Ca can I can I ask you like a thing that I I I always like, I s I see a lot of like ⁓ when people mimic so one thing, just correct me if I'm wrong here. A lot of these like like accessory works is to drive local stimulus into the quads, right? That stimulus will kind of help us create adaptations as well. Right. And all of these things kind of feed into the day. But I've noticed sometimes when you give people things like a bell squat, like I I f I find o over everything bell squat gets butchered a lot by some people. Where they just hold on to the handles and they just sip back into the thick. Right? And then you're just like dude, one you are like getting no knee flexion and two on the way up you are essentially doing a tip. Right? Because you will just literally grab that speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. speaker-2: I like I I I think like I think you know the la ⁓ Christy Hawkins, right? She has the highest, like ⁓ forgive me, ⁓ like dot score when you look at tested, untested kind of situation and her she squats a tremendous amount of weight. She's enhanced, but like her bell squat technique, if you look at it, it is essentially like Yuri Belkin squatting. Right? It is like a ton of driving because you know, you can get a ton more of stimulus with a lot less absolute load as well at that point in time. Yeah. In my opinion, that is like the secret, like Seasoning. speaker-1: You have to allow load to happen. You can't force that load. This is the same situation even when it comes to accessories or S B D's or whatever you want to talk about, right? That's where most people make a mistake. It's the same thing. Like when they they start wanting to post like a five hundred kg belt squat, six hundred kg belt squat. And then you see that the belt squat is just them doing like a like a good morning dip, like good morning dip. Yeah. And ⁓ that will not do much for your quads. So you're you're completely missing the point of it. Like I I'll tell you just just yesterday I speaker-0: This will be degradation of movement quality. speaker-1: Yeah, significant degradation you'll have. You you you will end up having your like your knees will not get any of the benefits that they're supposed to get. You're not going to get strong the way you're supposed to be getting and eventually you're going to start feeling the effects of it later on. Like where you're like, ⁓ my knees I feel like my quads have not really grown in a while. Yeah, because you're not using your quads much, right? Like I just had this yesterday where ⁓ one of my guys that I that j he just he he just had this complaint where he was like I'm having a little bit of pain when I do my preacher curls. I was like, I want to see a set and then I l looked at it. So basically what he kept doing was like he kept like when he was going down like that, his whole body was going down with that and when he had to pull it out, he had to like do that. Like instead of just see because when when you're doing a preacher curl, it's like there's a support here and it's just flexible. Extension, you're isolating, right? But the guy was doing it like where like the weight would tip him forward and then to bring it back up, he had to like do that. And you do 10 reps of that, you are doing a full body movement at that point. You're not really doing any bicep work there. All you're doing is just training the bicep with a load that c it can't handle in the first place. speaker-0: When we say push on accessories, we do mean like push on accessories, not to the point where like you load. Yeah. The movement just goes away. it's just. speaker-2: Technique radiation. speaker-1: Like I'll see bro, I'll see people full sta full stacking triceps and they'll just go like that. Like they they'll they'll create it into a shrug and then you know they'd like do that. You're not getting anything out of that yet. That's why most people's triceps are so like this thing. Like people come up to me and they'll say, like, ⁓ you're doing only twenty k's on the cable, this thing, but my thing is very strict like that. I don't think my upper arm will not move. 'Cause I'm only looking at that full full extension that I possibly can with the elbow. speaker-2: Can can I can I throw up like a sound bite here? Yeah. Like just a weird thing. You're a sa a powerlifter after S B D work is essentially a high level bodybuilder. Like you are a high level like Jeff Alberts, in my opinion, is someone people could kind of follow in terms of how to do bodybuilding work. Like Kausal said something like Kausal pointed this out recently as well. Like, you know, the whole thing fat comes back into this thing, right? Remember like the thing about you don't have to control the eccentric, you can just do whatever you want kind of situation. Now it's back like or you want to control the thing. But if you look at someone like Jeff from 3D MJ, Jeff's been preaching this since day one. Like it isn't rocket science. Like like dog, you are trying to like load a certain tissue structure. The more like controlled and like accurate you are, the better the opportunity for that thing is. Right? And I I wanted to add one quality here because like is this is in my opinion overlooked oftentimes. But I I tell people, if you're a powerlifter, you are an athlete. And as an athlete, you need a base level of aerobic fitness as well. All right? Like ⁓ i it's just in my opinion, like people get healthier when they're they can just have healthier hearts. Like when you guys look at like aerobic capacity, like just cardiovascular ability, how important is it to you guys? speaker-1: Better cardiovascular capacity just means more capacity to do work, which means that you can. Yeah. Yeah. It's always good. You you can just do better and because as a result of doing better, you can you're just going to be much stronger. Like that's one good thing I think a lot of ⁓ old school coaches used to do when it comes came to like regular sports. Like they'd really drive a lot of ⁓ cardio related workload that just push you to like, No, no, I want you to do these many rounds around the ground, go run, run, run. Because like it's a thing like speaker-0: Work capacity is always good. speaker-1: I had an uncle when I was playing cricket, I had an uncle who was like very ⁓ very much very much involved in that where he he used to be like ⁓ he used to keep telling me what to do. And he used to tell me that the easiest way to be the best player in that field is to be someone who doesn't get tired. Same thing as we talked about. Like if you're tired, if you're fatigued, your movement quality reduc reduces, right? So if you're a batsman and you're not feeling tired, you can go play the kind of sh kind of ⁓ shots that you usually can play. But if you're t if you're super tired, you'll be struggling to get into good position just to judge. Like you'll be struggling just to judge the what the bowler is doing in the first place. Yeah. Like you can't react in time. You can't respond in time. You can't understand what is going on because you're so tired. You're just like between between each ball, if you're just huffing and puffing and you're panting and you're like dying, you're just not going to be in a position to do your best every ball, right? And if you want to be the best, you kinda have to have like a huge fuel tank. That's what he used to say. Like you need to have a big tank. speaker-2: You just can't react in time. speaker-1: So that you can continue to just use like, you know, play without having. I mean if the other part most people I think like especially if you talk about combat sports, right? I think a lot of fighters completely lose when it comes to conditioning only. It's not like the skills are so Yeah, I mean i i if you have like if you have a round of five and you have a fighter who's very technically skilled but they don't have the conditioning, and then you have somebody else who's very well conditioned but they don't have the skill. speaker-2: Nice conditioning. War from the last war. Yeah. speaker-1: If this person can just hold out for two rounds, the third round, the guy is gonna die on the other side. Like he's gonna start panting and he's gonna be like like he can't do the thing, the moves that he pulled off in the first two rounds. But you can. So you can you probably take him down because he's like, you know, tired. speaker-2: Yeah. And and like this is like where I I think I just want to throw this analogy around. Like what what what we kind of looked at is like someone has the physical qualities. Like like like they have every physical quality. They have a required amount of muscle mass, they've required a amount of aerobic capacity. All of this allows them to express skill at a higher level, therefore they become a larger and more competent athlete. I I would like if I were to take in like powerlifting the boxing equation, boxing the skill is fighting, powerlifting is SPD. In order to kind of have that replicated at the highest level, you need that general like as much shit as people give West Side guys, right? There is not a guy on West Side who would ever gas out. Right? Because like, yeah, they did have like limitations in terms of specific work, but I I genuinely believe the West Side guys were strong. They were not SPD strong elite, but as human beings, like some of the things they did is fucking unbelievable in my opinion. Right? Like when I used to watch some of Chuck Wobberport's stuff, he just like, dude, imagine if he had modern level programming. It would be ungodly what that guy would have been able to do. Right? Yeah. So like Louis Simmons was big on like conditioning, like I also also talk about American football players, right? Those guys like Saquon Barkley and guys like that, if they translated into powerlifting, Saquon would beat everyone in powerlifting. Yeah. Just gifted. Like to treat 600 for 11 reps like that, hyper, like tuck tuck tuk, tuk, tuk. speaker-1: Isn't that speaker-2: Like nose, B sleeves, none of that stuff. He's he's power cleaning 500 pounds. You think that guy can't get some S B D skill work in, right? Work with like someone for like a year or two and just like crush everyone. He has the ingredients, right? And this is where like the off season thing where like when Cousel says like someone comes in a month prior, I also would wanna ask him, like, you have no data in terms of how this guy would react, right? So you would essentially have to make a b best guess analysis on this guy. Right? Like, am I correct on that thing? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean most of the analysis also that you make, it is it is mostly just you going off of what you already know works for most people. It's not even like an actual proper analysis that you can make, right? Because when the s when somebody new comes to you, you have absolutely no idea what they can do or what they're capable of doing or what they can't ha what they can and can't handle. So you just stewards. Yeah. So you just give them what you think works at that point of time. You don't do Like you're not doing anything different there. You you just give them what you think works. And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. For most people, when they come from like extremely unstructured programming, and then they suddenly join a coach. And then sometimes you'll see, like, you know, just in one month we were able to head get this guy, get a PR. All you did is just give a little bit of structure to that unstructured training that these guys were running from before. And and as a result of that, this guy is now just like doing A little bit better. That that's about it. You just allowed for that to show up a little bit. I'm not saying that's a bad coach, but like you can't take full credit for that because you did not do that work. So that that's the reason why I don't want to work with somebody who's like who has just never done, you know, anything work with me at all prior to that compliment. speaker-2: It is, it is. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, because they they would have pushed a bit consistently. And then all you're doing for them is just k telling them like, yeah, we're gonna manage your fatigue a little bit here. And once that's set up, we don't have to do anything other than, you know, just you go and compete. So at that point of time, these guys will just start showing up a little bit better because as a result of just having that ⁓ tapering effect. Yeah, a little more structure, a little more tapering effect. That's it. So they'll they'll just do It it's kind of like like I see this a lot in Indian this thing 'cause like most people want to have a coach randomly out of nowhere just like one, two weeks before or two or one month before. Yeah. Just d they don't want to work with the coach whole year. Then suddenly out of nowhere, they just start looking at like I want to join your coaching because I want to hit a PR in the coming competition. Your PRs don't happen like that. Your PRs happen as a result of you training consistently for like months together. And then as a result of that then as a result of that you, you know All that speaker-2: Yeah, like yeah. But the other thing is also like again, if you can't understand the data and interpret the data, you're just at some point or the other it's always gonna be a guessing game. And I don't think like we want it to be a guessing game. Because like that that a especially like I would assume as the guy gets stronger and stronger, guessing games aren't the best option for people. Right? Like a newer lifter may have the ability to skip through that, but a stronger, more like absolute load exposure guy, that's not the thing you'd want to do. So it it kind of it kind of is like a a long term process. This is where like I would also like this is where I'd say like if every other sports elite level athletes like Roger Federer studies his competition. LeBron James studies his competition. Floyd Never studied his competition, studied the sport. These guys are all like fundamentally sound. Like in powerlifting, because so much of it r revolves around physiology, like if you have like a basic understanding of fitness fatigue model, like An SRA curve, like what general adaptation syndrome is these models. If you know these things, these fundamental things, you will not approach a coach and say, Listen, one month time give me a PR. Right? Take me like you you like you you can't. If you do, then you're insane. Right? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: That just means you don't understand any of these things. That's it. That's kind of why in the last one we talked about how people should have a little bit of education themselves so that they understand the process a bit. Not so that they can become better coaches or anything of that sort or if yeah, if they can understand the process a bit better, they can execute better for themselves. That that's practically why you should learn or understand at least the basics a bit. speaker-2: Yeah, understand the process and buy Because un un until this podcast thing we started doing it like like I think the last episode was like where where like this thing really stuck into my head where I was like there is no luck in this. Like this is just an expression of a lot of things. Right? Like like we said last time, a box y you could have Joe Schmoe fight Floyd Mayweather a billion times, right, through some component. One time Joe throws a random punch and he's gonna knock Floyd out. Right? Probably will Yeah. speaker-1: There is always that chance. speaker-2: But there is no probability of a guy walking around and squatting 300 kilos over. Physiology will not allow for that. Yeah. Right? It's a physiological constraint, not a skill constraint, right? So, like in that aspect, when someone doesn't understand basic physiology, buying into the process becomes very hard. And like how shall said, if they study these basic things, they'll understand at the end of the block you can't go YOLO and like then just because it'll kind of take away. And I think over time, if a if you work with an athlete and You can kinda teach them these things, right? Or like send them educ The other thing I hate is this thing though. Like sometimes you send them some educational information, like content and like do like, you know, th they tell you like, ⁓ man, I really want to understand. I wanna buy into this thing, right? And then you send them the stuff. And then you're like, Did you watch it? They're like, No. And they're like, ⁓ okay, cool. You might but like three months down the line you've still not watched it and you keep asking me questions based off of that video. I'm like, Have you watched the first ten minutes? Like, for example, Bracing. Like Steve Renovi has a tremendously good video on bracing. I have two guys. One guy I sent the video to, he kind of saw it, he kind of understood the concept. He understood what my feedback was, went and like crushed his quad session. The other guy hasn't opened that link in three months. Yeah. Right. And then we had like a I was like, Hey, you're kind of doing the thing we don't want to. Can you understand this fundamental thing? But if you don't love all aspects of the game, you may not get to where you want to, is what I would say. speaker-1: No, I mean if you simply just don't do the things that you need to be doing to get there, you just don't want it. Yeah. It is actually that simple. Like people will be like, No, no, I want it. No, no, no, no, I I do want it. It's not like I don't. But then I'm not able to nah, that's just that's I think that's just cope. Like people want to cope that way. No, because I also do it when it comes to my own training. I know I know I'm aware of that. Like I also do it. When it comes to my own training, I'm like, Yeah, I don't really care too much about competing, which is why I don't want to put in that kind of effort like an athlete. Which is why I don't. But I know I can do so much better than I am. Right? That's just like if but but if I say like I want to go to Sheffield, but then I don't want to sleep on time. I don't want to eat on time. I don't want to do this. I want to eat eat enough protein. I don't want do this. That's just me coping. Yeah. If I genuinely don't care anymore, then that's a different thing. If I'm just doing it because yeah, I like I just enjoy going to the gym four days a week, that's it. I don't really care anymore. That's a different different aspect of things. But most people are like, I want to learn, I want to do this. Sir, how do I learn this? How do I do this? How did I do how do how can I do that? But then they don't do any of the things that you ask them to do. Like you give them like all the books you've read, they will not read even one of them. And then they'll be like, I did not understand. What should I do? So you're just confused. You don't have anything else to do there. Because like you can. One thing that I keep telling people is like, you can fake a lot of things, but you can't fake passion. People will figure it out. Sooner or later, it's very clear. When somebody says, like, speaker-2: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: No, no, I'm so passionate about this. This is one of my greatest things ever. Like I'm so interested in this field. I love doing this. I love doing that. Most people don't. They just like to say that they do. speaker-2: I think sometimes it may also because people may be outcome oriented. Because like when I shifted to this, like some guy asked me recently, like, Man, you must really like this. I just say this. Sometimes when you get a guy and they're like constantly getting injured, you you kind of want to understand that that's something you'll have to deal with. You can't just deal with the PRs and like posting that stuff or or an athlete. You'll have to kind of go through all aspects of this stuff. And that's where like again, like I kinda go back to like if you can educate the client, if they can have a thought process and if they're committed to the thing. It's like for a lack of better term, like ⁓ my uncle used to say this a lot, you're only allowed to bitch to the degree of effort put it. Right? speaker-1: Yeah, it's like that. You you can't you can't wish for progress that you didn't put in the work for. No, it's the same thing. speaker-2: And and this is this is where like ⁓ it'll all come back down to like how much effort you can put in like for I I won't use the word off season again. I would si use the the word like in season. Yeah, honestly, if you rename it in season and comp comp season, right, where you're expressing strength in season if you're building everything, right? Off season is like ⁓ well like n like Norman for example says like off season is like maybe like two to three ti weeks after like a major competition where you just want to kind of speaker-0: name it speaker-2: have a bit of brain like bandwidth in terms of like this stuff. Where he'll like restructure total reps, total sets and like kind of give some like the guy from Australia, like Alan Gibbons, like he was telling me recently, it was just like I finished like three major competitions and I just want to have a little bit of fun. So he's like, man, maybe I'll kind of give myself like a month or two of doing a lot of variable work. And like he knows the thing, right? Like, forgive me, hey Kausha, let me know if this is like a the thing that you can talk about. But like you've gone through a period where you minimized S B D work based on a certain thing and like you just focused on a lot of like general work, right? Like bodybuilding stuff. Like back in the day. And and and that comes at a price also. Like like you'll just know that you will forget the skill if you can handle that reality. That that that may also help you. But again, if you're educated enough to understand the fact that there is a skill component here, you will ideally structure your off season per se to be a lot shorter and more productive within that short period of time. Yeah. And then in that in season time, speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-2: You will understand where priority lies. Because I I don't want to like yap on too long, but in the in season period, you want to find out where your bottlenecks are. Because that, in my opinion, it is the thing that is gonna separate you from the last year to this year. Right? Like you can have all the neural efficiency, but if you do not have any focus on like general hypertrophy, because at some point or the other the guy with the more muscle mass wins. Right? Like and if you can ma speaker-1: If you take a look at any of the lifters that are in the top three of their weight class or top five or even top ten, everybody is jacked. All of them are jacked. Like you you'll you'll just look at them and be like, ⁓ that's just a seventy-four kg guy. But within that seventy four kgs, he's very jacked. Or within that sixty six kgs, the guy is very jacked. Even within fifty nine, fifty, whatever. Like I don't think there's any men's fifty three, fifty three is just for sub juniors, I guess. Sub juniors and juniors. Or even juniors, I don't know. Sub juniors it's there. But like fifty nine or so, whatever, right? Within their limited frame, they are very, very checked. The only time you will see people with a little bit of fluff is one out five and above. And even in one out five, most of the lifters are pretty like you know, they also they also like somewhere around the like they're p relatively like flat stomach, a little bit of abs showing kind of That guy just looks like a statue. Yeah. Like some like some sculpted statue. Guy doesn't even look normal. speaker-2: And then if you look at Anthony McNaughton, the guy from Ukraine as well, I forget his name, like these guys are Yeah. speaker-0: I mean, in all in- speaker-1: Yeah, I mean look at look at Emil Norling. Emil Norling just looks like you know, some experiment Yeah, like some ⁓ G. I Joe figure, some experiment just built in some lab. speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah, a and and and if you think about Austin Perkins, people are like like I think he's five four, five five, if I'm not mistaken. speaker-1: Yeah. A five four five seventy four kg gay is going to be pretty compact. speaker-2: He is stacked, dude. He is stacked out of muscle, right? Yeah. Like again, like if you can kind of understand basic physiology, right? Actin myosin interaction. Yes, you'll have a lot of neural aspects towards it. Yeah. But like actin myosin interaction, right? Well, how do you have more contractile poke proteins? Well, you get more jacked, right? You get more jacked, your ceiling inherently goes up. And it's just about like adding in like skill work. Yeah. speaker-1: That skill work, that's it. speaker-2: And and like this is where like the off season or like that in season kind of situation we like we we I I would like call it I'd say. You you can also kinda see like Couser, do you think everyone needs heavy singles all year around? speaker-1: No, absolutely not. In fact, most people don't. speaker-2: Yeah. But like if if there is a situation where a guy may need it, you will only understand that if they have an in season where they're kind of having this thing and you have the data for it, right? Like you kind of understand that, yeah. Like you may see like come comp season, like it takes them a while to get used to that heavier load. So they may need a bit more of practice of that in the in season period. Yeah. But again, if you don't have the data for that stuff, right? You kinda be. speaker-1: Yeah, you can help peak if you don't have that data. speaker-2: Yeah, 'cause like for example, like female benching is very different from like female lightweight benching programming is very different from like super heavyweight benching, right? Like so you may need the data a lot more in terms of that situation. And again, if someone comes into you and says, Two months I have a competition and I want to win, you can you can guide them to the best of your knowledge, I would ag agree. speaker-1: Yeah, within that limited time frame you might be able to do something, but you can't do a lot. Which is like that's that's the thing. Like when people think that ⁓ if I join this person I'll just go and do well at nationals or something like that. That's not going to happen. It's not the like the coach will only do so much for you. He's not going to be able to do everything for you. speaker-0: especially with that limited time frame again. speaker-1: Yeah, again, like the the like because of that, you know, the whole reasoning for like ⁓ people have like a very weird understanding of what it means to like strength and then express it and then what it means to taper into a competition.