Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / 5 Rules of Ronnie Coleman, King of Bodybuilding (Lifting Legends #1) | Ep 353

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5 Rules of Ronnie Coleman, King of Bodybuilding (Lifting Legends #1) | Ep 353 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:02
  Philip Pape: eight-time mr olympia, ronnie coleman didn't just build one of the greatest physiques in history.
• 0:07
  Philip Pape: He created a blueprint for what dedication, consistency and a pure love for lifting can accomplish.
• 0:15
  Philip Pape: His famous lightweight baby wasn't just about the weight on the bar.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: It was about an approach to training that transformed his body and an entire culture.
• 0:24
  Philip Pape: Today we're exploring what made Ronnie legendary, how his methods shaped modern lifting, and the timeless principles you can take away from his journey to build your own greatness, because when you understand what drove the king, you'll discover lessons that go beyond the gym Lessons about consistency, simplicity and the relentless pursuit of becoming your best self.
• 0:58
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 1:04
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're going to celebrate one of lifting's most inspiring figures, while taking away some of the wisdom that can help you with your own training.
• 1:14
  Philip Pape: And this is the first episode in what I'm planning as a series connecting our modern understanding of training with this rich history of lifting culture something that I feel like is getting forgotten or not discussed enough and it's a lot of fun to look into the past and see what those guys did and what we can learn from them, good and bad, to inform what we do today beyond just the science.
• 1:37
  Philip Pape: Now the iron right, the iron culture.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: We've been learning lessons from that culture for generations and many of us are born in this century or born, like myself, toward the end of the last century and haven't taken the time to study those giants that came before us.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: But what we do, we see principles that are still relevant, and they were relevant then, but we didn't quite tie it into the science.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: In fact we sometimes dismiss it as bro science, and I'm here to rectify that with this series and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 2:08
  Philip Pape: So when you look up the podcast going forward, if it says Lifting Legends, number one, number two, number three, that's the series we're talking about.
• 2:17
  Philip Pape: Now let's start with Ronnie Coleman.
• 2:17
  Philip Pape: I picked him intentionally because he's got a colorful past and he's got things that are flawed about him and they and everyone does, and I want to give thing, give this the treatment it deserves.
• 2:32
  Philip Pape: So Ronnie Coleman is is a very special piece of this history of iron culture, not just the success he had, but he had a particular approach to the success.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: That gives us some, helps us take a step back.
• 2:41
  Philip Pape: For anyone who is serious about building their strength and physique, and if you want to do this yourself, if you want to build your own legacy, it's helpful to have to understand history and it's also helpful to put this into a personalized systemic approach for you.
• 2:56
  Philip Pape: So just a quick note so that you're aware I have something called Wittemate's Physique University where you get a lot of the tools we talk about on this show to train with purpose, to eat with intention and clarity, to fuel yourself, to build consistency.
• 3:10
  Philip Pape: That separates good lifters from great ones.
• 3:13
  Philip Pape: And we just relaunched at a lower price.
• 3:17
  Philip Pape: It used to be 87 a month, now it's 27 a month.
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: And if you use the link exclusive in the show notes for listeners, you'll also get a custom nutrition plan for free from me.
• 3:26
  Philip Pape: And, by the way, I'm doing another episode soon on a brand new training template we dropped there for power building.
• 3:31
  Philip Pape: It's called Resolute and it's, in fact, inspired a lot by the guys we're going to be talking about in this lifting series.
• 3:38
  Philip Pape: So use the link in the show notes $27 a month and you'll get a free nutrition plan if you use that link only.
• 3:45
  Philip Pape: All right, let's talk about this legend, ronnie Coleman.
• 3:47
  Philip Pape: What made him so extraordinary?
• 3:49
  Philip Pape: So quick history.
• 3:50
  Philip Pape: He was born in 1964 in Monroe, louisiana, and he didn't really start serious bodybuilding until his mid-20s.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: You hear guys like Arnold who started as young as they could possibly get their hands on a barbell.
• 4:02
  Philip Pape: But he was working as a police officer in Arlington, texas and he discovered Metroflex Gym.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: It was a very simple, no frills kind of temple to training.
• 4:12
  Philip Pape: It's not something you see a lot these days unless you really look for it, and it would become legendary largely because of what Ronnie accomplished in that facility, metroflex.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: What's fascinating about his story is how it began, because he wasn't necessarily gifted with perfect genetics from day one, although definitely superior to many, even though people assume you know, oh, genetic freak, it comes easy right.
• 4:36
  Philip Pape: If you look at the early photos you see a good physique, but nothing that screamed future Mr Olympia.
• 4:41
  Philip Pape: But what he had was a work ethic that you could call unshakable right.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: It was just part of the fiber of his being.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: He had a genuine love for the process of getting stronger, and I know a lot of you don't necessarily love the process of lifting.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: You do it for a reason and you tie it to a reason and we talk about that, whereas others and I kind of raise my hand here really do just love lifting the iron and doing the thing, and I think for a lot of us that comes to us as we do it and get the result.
• 5:11
  Philip Pape: But I feel like when you look at Ronnie's history, he was just in it from the beginning.
• 5:14
  Philip Pape: He trained with joy that's what I would call it.
• 5:17
  Philip Pape: It was like this infectious joy.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: You look at his smile.
• 5:19
  Philip Pape: I mean he's just a charming guy, right?
• 5:21
  Philip Pape: You watch any of his training videos and you'll see a guy that's not suffering through workouts.
• 5:25
  Philip Pape: It's someone who, like this is his calling, right?
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: He's just going to pursue it with all the enthusiasm he can muster.
• 5:33
  Philip Pape: And there's a famous quote he would say lightweight baby, lightweight baby.
• 5:38
  Philip Pape: And, by the way, try that yourself in the gym when you're about to go for a PR and see if it doesn't, you know, jack you up a little bit mentally when you're about to hit that.
• 5:46
  Philip Pape: So I don't think it was bravado, right.
• 5:48
  Philip Pape: I think it was this genuine excitement about moving heavyweights and pushing his body to new levels, and obviously the results speak for themselves.
• 5:56
  Philip Pape: He had eight consecutive Mr Olympia titles from 1998 to 2005.
• 6:01
  Philip Pape: It's a record that has stood to this day as the gold standard, nearly two decades later.
• 6:07
  Philip Pape: And, you know, sometimes people simplify it to just that.
• 6:10
  Philip Pape: But there's a lot behind that, right, it's more than just the titles.
• 6:13
  Philip Pape: I think Ronnie created a training culture that emphasized the fundamentals, done with extraordinary consistency.
• 6:22
  Philip Pape: All right, really important things.
• 6:24
  Philip Pape: Listen up, fundamentals, consistency.
• 6:26
  Philip Pape: This is what we're going to hit on today and why I think this is so important.
• 6:30
  Philip Pape: So now let's talk about his training philosophy, and here's what made it so powerful Simplicity executed at an elite level.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: All right, simplicity executed at an elite level, the highest level Simplicity so many of us get hung up in.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: Things need to be more and more complex.
• 6:49
  Philip Pape: We think advanced trainees, it has to be more and more complex and it's true, a lot of bodybuilders to this day get caught up in complex routines and a lot of exotic exercises, and you see it in the training programs out there, and sometimes we seek it out because we're looking for more variety and fun and it's okay to do that.
• 7:08
  Philip Pape: Right, that's part of the process If it, if it helps you enjoy it and be consistent.
• 7:12
  Philip Pape: But Ronnie was all about the basics, man.
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: He you know squats, deadlifts bent over rows, bench press the big lifts Right, and they weren't just like the, they weren't just the main lifts, they were kind was textbook.
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: If you go watch videos, even with massive weights, I mean it's incredible.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: And he essentially proved that, look, you don't need complicated programming to build an incredible physique.
• 7:40
  Philip Pape: I think that's a big takeaway here, right?
• 7:41
  Philip Pape: The takeaway that we make lots of excuses.
• 7:44
  Philip Pape: We taught, we program hop, we think we need to know more, more, more, more, more.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: And at the end of the day, if you're not doing the basic things to begin with, go back to those and it kind of frees you up, right, it frees up the mental stress.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: And if you just get really good at those, even though they might be a little boring, sure you're going to build something incredible.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: And of course, you need consistent progression.
• 8:05
  Philip Pape: Right, it's about movement patterns.
• 8:06
  Philip Pape: It's how the body moves through space, it's how we are able to sling around such massive weights and build the strength and size that we're going for.
• 8:15
  Philip Pape: And his training split was just a very bare bones, classic split chest and triceps, back and biceps, legs but he executed it at a high level of both intensity and consistency.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: And I want to be clear you can't necessarily start all out with both from day one.
• 8:33
  Philip Pape: If you're a beginner, right, you're going to apply intensity in terms of your progression, but you need to do it in a way that you recover, that you're able to get back into the gym the next session and that you can be consistent based on the number of days per week and the hours that you have and the equipment that you have and so on.
• 8:51
  Philip Pape: All that is important.
• 8:52
  Philip Pape: But he kind of combined the intensity and the consistency in a very elite level, I'll say.
• 8:58
  Philip Pape: And then I think more impressive than that is the maintenance and sustainability of that approach throughout his career.
• 9:04
  Philip Pape: Right, he just stuck with it.
• 9:05
  Philip Pape: He didn't chase new methods, he didn't get distracted by whatever the trends were.
• 9:09
  Philip Pape: Fortunately, he didn't have social media for the most part, maybe until later on.
• 9:12
  Philip Pape: No, no, he figured 2005,.
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: The iPhone hadn't even come out.
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: Right, he found what worked, he committed to it, that's it.
• 9:19
  Philip Pape: And look, what works for one person should generally work for another, at the principle level, but maybe not at the specific method level.
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: But when it comes to lifting, I think if you went back and looked at Ronnie's program and just followed it, you'd probably have great results too.
• 9:35
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about the culture at his gym, right, metroflex.
• 9:38
  Philip Pape: I think this is really interesting.
• 9:39
  Philip Pape: His home gym, called Metroflex was.
• 9:42
  Philip Pape: It wasn't like a fancy, it wasn't a Planet Fitness type gym.
• 9:44
  Philip Pape: Of course it was gritty, concrete floors, basic equipment, I understand they didn't have air conditioning.
• 9:49
  Philip Pape: And this is in the Texas heat.
• 9:50
  Philip Pape: Okay, I grew up in Florida.
• 9:52
  Philip Pape: I live in Connecticut now, but I'll tell you the summer still get hot and humid and I don't know if Texas is a little bit drier or what, but you know to to train in that kind of temperature.
• 10:04
  Philip Pape: I know how it feels.
• 10:04
  Philip Pape: I know mentally what it takes to decide you're going to do that where it's not as comfortable.
• 10:07
  Philip Pape: But it's where serious people came to do serious work, right?
• 10:11
  Philip Pape: The culture Ronnie created there was, as I understand it, about mutual respect and shared purpose.
• 10:17
  Philip Pape: Everybody is there for a reason.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: It's not like when you go to the gym and nobody talks to each other.
• 10:20
  Philip Pape: Everybody has their earphones in.
• 10:22
  Philip Pape: I don't even go to commercial gyms anymore.
• 10:24
  Philip Pape: I work out at home for the purpose that, for the main reason that I'm just there to get the work done and focus and build something.
• 10:30
  Philip Pape: But it also saves me time.
• 10:31
  Philip Pape: But I also understand that.
• 10:32
  Philip Pape: I've been to gyms, even even the CrossFit gym that I used to go to, they had a camaraderie there.
• 10:37
  Philip Pape: They had a community.
• 10:38
  Philip Pape: Everybody was intending to do the same thing, and so it kind of elevates everyone, right?
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: Especially when everyone's better than you and when everyone's there to get better, you end up supporting each other and feeding off of that.
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: And I think Ronnie, even though he was a multi-time Mr Olympia, he trained alongside regular people, right, because that's how they pay the bills at these gyms.
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: Right, you hear the stories that, like the famous guys, the power lifters are the ones that are not.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: They're not making the money off of them.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: Right, they're making money off of regular members.
• 11:05
  Philip Pape: But I understand that he treated people with respect, with encouragement.
• 11:09
  Philip Pape: He's a good guy.
• 11:10
  Philip Pape: And, again, a lot of this is secondhand, guys, as I do the research for this episode, because I don't know Ronnie personally, if he's out there listening to this and wants to correct me, or if he wants to say, yeah, that's, that's what it's about, please reach out, dude, but this is my understanding.
• 11:24
  Philip Pape: And so if you look at that environment, then what can we take from that?
• 11:27
  Philip Pape: Well, your gym doesn't have to be perfect, but the way that you commit to the intentional process.
• 11:33
  Philip Pape: Does you know?
• 11:35
  Philip Pape: Ronnie didn't have superior equipment or facilities.
• 11:37
  Philip Pape: He didn't have the big fancy gyms you see on YouTube walkthroughs today with you know 500 pieces of equipment specialized for every single thing I've got.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: You know friends that send me reels and photos and YouTube videos of all this equipment that I would just love to have and then kind of step back and say, do I really need that?
• 11:52
  Philip Pape: Right, and Ronnie succeeded because of his effort.
• 11:56
  Philip Pape: His effort was superior and far above the average person, but something we can all absolutely strive for.
• 12:04
  Philip Pape: And then he was consistent to whatever environment he was in, cause I'm sure he lifted it other places throughout his career.
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: So don't worry about having the perfect equipment or home gym or the fanciest you know facility and options.
• 12:17
  Philip Pape: You can adjust that stuff right.
• 12:20
  Philip Pape: I mean, we do it in Physique University all the time.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: People say, well, I don't have access to that or that.
• 12:24
  Philip Pape: And what we say is look, here's a list of substitutions, let's figure it out, let's train around it, just like when you train around injury.
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: You got to find something that works.
• 12:31
  Philip Pape: You just have to have that, that grit, that mindset, that willingness to show up consistently, independent of the circumstances.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: And to me.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: That's what principles are about.
• 12:39
  Philip Pape: That's what rock solid principles are.
• 12:42
  Philip Pape: It's like I don't care what you throw at me.
• 12:44
  Philip Pape: Throw, throw me in in a jungle with some rocks and I'm going to figure out how to train.
• 12:50
  Philip Pape: So that's you know, and I don't know if I'm.
• 12:52
  Philip Pape: I don't know if that's just me or if you feel me on that.
• 12:56
  Philip Pape: So when we then tie this to today and tie it to the science because at the end of the day, I would love to show you that there is a connection between the things we study today in labs to essentially validate what bro science has known for many years is that a lot of the instinct that these guys had?
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: Like Ronnie, his training choices align with what we know today about building muscle optimally.
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: And, honestly, it's not too much of a surprise when you think, hey, I do this, it makes me stronger, it makes me bigger, ergo, I'm going to stick with that.
• 13:24
  Philip Pape: Right, makes sense.
• 13:25
  Philip Pape: People have experimented for years.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: There's been coaches and trainers for far before we had all the modern research studies on this stuff, and so I tend to actually give more credence to a lot of that than I do research, even though we're evidence-based and we're evidence-based, we're not just science, paper-based, we're evidence-based.
• 13:42
  Philip Pape: What is evidence?
• 13:43
  Philip Pape: Evidence includes anecdote, coaching experience, personal experience, your own individual experience is your evidence too.
• 13:50
  Philip Pape: Anyway, back to Roddy.
• 13:51
  Philip Pape: He had a huge emphasis on the compound movements and I will always, to the day I die, talk about how powerful using basic movement patterns, as a human is, is to getting a result If you have nothing else but just the compound movements, the squatting, pulling, pushing right, which can translate to a lot of different exercises.
• 14:11
  Philip Pape: Yes, the big ones squat, deadlift, press, bench press and overhead and rows, but also variations of those.
• 14:17
  Philip Pape: We know to this day that these exercises stimulate the most muscle mass, create the strongest strength and hypertrophy adaptations they use, you know, the full range of motion in a natural human movement.
• 14:28
  Philip Pape: It makes total sense.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: It makes total sense.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: And here's a guy that was doing it long before we had to put that in paper, long before starting strength came around and just wrote it in a book, very excellently, I should add, but we've known it.
• 14:40
  Philip Pape: We've known it for a long time.
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: And then, as far as progression, right, that's the other piece.
• 14:44
  Philip Pape: Consistent, progressive loading, progressive overload.
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: We call it the fundamental, you know, driver of the growth over time, of challenging yourself right to that limit and then continuing to progress.
• 14:53
  Philip Pape: And Ronnie did that.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: He was always religious about adding weight or reps over time.
• 14:58
  Philip Pape: He used the body traditional body part split that I talked about, but he trained six days a week.
• 15:03
  Philip Pape: Now you know he was enhanced.
• 15:05
  Philip Pape: We're going to talk a little bit about some of the maybe negatives, I should say, or the extra help he had.
• 15:09
  Philip Pape: But you know he was in six days a week and doing a body part split so that each muscle group could be trained frequently enough to to optimize his results.
• 15:19
  Philip Pape: Now Arnold also did six days.
• 15:20
  Philip Pape: He did two a days.
• 15:21
  Philip Pape: If you ever read his bodybuilding encyclopedia it's insane.
• 15:24
  Philip Pape: I would not recommend that to most people again, unless you're enhanced.
• 15:27
  Philip Pape: But the principles are still what matters.
• 15:29
  Philip Pape: You know sufficient frequency, sufficient volume, basic lifts, hitting them consistently.
• 15:33
  Philip Pape: I did an episode recently called the 12 Rules of Training Volume that I think you should go check out if you haven't, or listen to it again to get refreshed on what are those principles.
• 15:43
  Philip Pape: And then, when it comes to effort, to me effort in the context of training is training with proximity to failure, for sufficient mechanical tension.
• 15:52
  Philip Pape: So you're effectively pushing yourself to your limits.
• 15:55
  Philip Pape: I think, ronnie, this is an example where we could argue and say did Ronnie push too much to the limit, right Right to the end, right to failure on everything, even massive, big lifts?
• 16:03
  Philip Pape: And again you have to think about the advantages he had.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: Yes, maybe extraordinary genetics I know I mentioned they weren't perhaps far above average when he was younger.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: It's always hard to tell that.
• 16:13
  Philip Pape: Obviously, his physique was genetically blessed in terms of the shape and the symmetry and all that.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: But pharmacological support, right, peds okay, we can't deny it.
• 16:22
  Philip Pape: All those guys were on drugs, and the ability to train and recover goes way up as a result, and so he could basically, for his full-time job, be training, and we're not trying to do that.
• 16:33
  Philip Pape: The principles, though, are accessible to all of us.
• 16:35
  Philip Pape: We just have to understand that our recoverability is different.
• 16:38
  Philip Pape: We might not be training six days a week.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: It might make more sense to do four or five.
• 16:41
  Philip Pape: I will say I have trained six days a week, but then, when I've done that, it's much shorter sessions, much fewer exercises per session, because, again, I don't have the same recovery support and I'm in my 40s, etc.
• 16:52
  Philip Pape: Not excuses, just data that tells me.
• 17:00
  Philip Pape: Here's how I respond and how I need to modify my training, wanted to give you another reminder here that if you're trying to build your own lifting legacy and you want to be systemic about it and and take a system-based, data-based approach, we can definitely help you out inside physique university.
• 17:13
  Philip Pape: I'm talking about that a lot now because people are always reaching out, listeners are reaching out with questions, and I can get.
• 17:19
  Philip Pape: I sense the not desperation, but I sense the overwhelm from all the information that's out there and we want to give you tools to train with purpose, to eat in a way that is aligned with you, that is flexible.
• 17:31
  Philip Pape: You don't have to do diets, you just build consistency to become a really great lifter, an athlete of aging, and so Physique University is where we do that.
• 17:41
  Philip Pape: It's 27 a month.
• 17:42
  Philip Pape: If you join now, using my exclusive link, I'm going to build a free custom nutrition plan for you.
• 17:47
  Philip Pape: That's normally an add-on, but we just relaunched and I'm really trying to get the group to grow here and take advantage of everything we have to offer to get you that result and the education to build your system and get rid of all the restrictive dieting and all the nonsense out there.
• 18:01
  Philip Pape: So that was just an aside.
• 18:06
  Philip Pape: And back to Ronnie how do we take his approach and we adapt it to modern life?
• 18:08
  Philip Pape: How do we extract his principles, learn from his successes and his mistakes?
• 18:13
  Philip Pape: So let's be honest about what we should emulate and what we shouldn't.
• 18:16
  Philip Pape: So what should we emulate?
• 18:17
  Philip Pape: His consistency, his simplicity, his love for training.
• 18:22
  Philip Pape: Those are solid.
• 18:23
  Philip Pape: With that alone, his love for training, those are solid.
• 18:26
  Philip Pape: With that alone, mic drop, you can be successful the rest of your life If you show up.
• 18:29
  Philip Pape: Keep things simple, focus on the fundamentals and find a way to love what you do.
• 18:34
  Philip Pape: Find a way to love the process.
• 18:35
  Philip Pape: Either you love it naturally or there's a way.
• 18:37
  Philip Pape: That's the psychology piece we get into, sometimes Absolutely copy that Now.
• 18:44
  Philip Pape: He also had a tendency to train through injuries and to push max loads, to always go for PRs, to push right to the limit, and again, some of that is because of his higher recoverability.
• 18:53
  Philip Pape: But maybe we don't do that right and understand the differences.
• 18:58
  Philip Pape: You know, ronnie famously said he wouldn't change anything about his approach, even knowing the physical cost.
• 19:02
  Philip Pape: And I'm not gonna get into everything that's happened to him in, say, the last 10, 15 years.
• 19:06
  Philip Pape: You can Google it.
• 19:07
  Philip Pape: He's in the hospital recently, not necessarily related to this, but he's had some struggles in his older years right, and it's admirable that he is loyal to the path that he has followed.
• 19:19
  Philip Pape: Is it wise?
• 19:21
  Philip Pape: I don't know, that is not for me to decide.
• 19:23
  Philip Pape: We can honor his dedication while being more strategic about our long-term health, and so I think the big takeaway from the negative or the dark side is focusing more and more on recovery, and you can't compare yourself to guys that are in PDs, elite level bodybuilders, unless they're natural right.
• 19:40
  Philip Pape: If they're natural bodybuilders, you probably have a little bit more applicability there.
• 19:44
  Philip Pape: So the first thing I'm going to say here is to embrace this idea of simplicity but periodize over time, meaning you don't, you don't want to just do starting strength for the next 10 years.
• 19:55
  Philip Pape: You don't want to just do strong lifts or five by five or like one single simple program for the next 10 years.
• 20:01
  Philip Pape: You, you, you want to base your training on the fundamental movement patterns, but you want to cycle through periods of different intensity and variations, through that.
• 20:10
  Philip Pape: We've talked about that on the show many times the inherent benefit of variation and how you can progress so that you can fill in weak spots and symmetry and avoid connective tissue degradation and things like that.
• 20:22
  Philip Pape: It's still simple, though, when every time I write a training program or a template, I have a goal in mind and then I very simply strip it down to how do we get to that goal?
• 20:31
  Philip Pape: All right, we need the main lifts, maybe some developmental variations and maybe some accessory work, and then the scheme by which you program.
• 20:39
  Philip Pape: That might vary depending on what you're going for right.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: Are you going for a base of strength, going for volume, or are you going for peak intensity?
• 20:45
  Philip Pape: So that's the first thing is embrace the simplicity but still have periodization and variety in there.
• 20:50
  Philip Pape: The second thing is I would also want to emulate his consistency right, always showing up, but listening to your body at the same time, and your biofeedback, not being soft and giving up right away or assuming that a little soreness is gonna.
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: You're gonna call it quits, and I don't mean to insult you or trigger you with that, but it's true.
• 21:09
  Philip Pape: A lot of people are a little bit soft when it comes to lifting and need to be pushed a bit.
• 21:13
  Philip Pape: This is why I like having a coach.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: This is why I invite you to Physique University so we can have form checks.
• 21:18
  Philip Pape: You could put videos up there.
• 21:19
  Philip Pape: You can get lifted up by the culture we have of lots of people working hard at this and doing it the right way, rather than being stuck watching YouTube videos and being like, eh, I don't know if this works.
• 21:38
  Philip Pape: Showing up and having the consistency and then intelligently listening to your body and understanding if some days call for backing off a bit, especially if there's pain and that's your body telling you there's a point of issue in your body and so where am I going with this?
• 21:49
  Philip Pape: Sometimes you are intentionally depriving yourself of resources, like when you're in a diet, like when you're in a calorie deficit okay, and then you have to change some things, right.
• 21:56
  Philip Pape: The third takeaway here is find joy in the process.
• 22:00
  Philip Pape: Find joy in the process.
• 22:01
  Philip Pape: Respect your limits, of course, but you know, find joy in it.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: If you can just love training itself, that's awesome.
• 22:08
  Philip Pape: You've got to love something about it to want to do it for decades, decades.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: If you're in your 40s, you're going to live to your 90s, you know, barring an accident or something, if you are training and staying healthy, right, just assume you're going to live another five decades.
• 22:22
  Philip Pape: How are you going to enjoy doing this for five decades?
• 22:25
  Philip Pape: There's a way for sure, but how is that going to be for you.
• 22:28
  Philip Pape: The fourth takeaway here that we can do is respect the fundamentals right, the, the, the basic movement patterns, and make sure that we are recovering for your capability, your age, your lack of PEDs, right, stress, managing your sleep, right, not pushing too hard with, let's say, joints and tendons that need more attention, maybe some stretching, maybe some mobility, it depends right, physical therapy, whatever you need.
• 22:56
  Philip Pape: Just make sure to respect that All right.
• 23:00
  Philip Pape: So I think, if you want to have one big thing that Ronnie Coleman teaches us is that to get to that level of greatness right, and I'm not saying we're going to get to his level of greatness, it's great to strive for that.
• 23:11
  Philip Pape: But to get to that level of greatness right, and I'm not saying we're going to get to his level of great, it's great to strive for that.
• 23:13
  Philip Pape: But to get to that level, you have to have an almost irrational commitment.
• 23:15
  Philip Pape: And when you think about a more balanced approach, for us that's challenging the commitment or channeling that commitment, but doing it intelligently.
• 23:25
  Philip Pape: You know, and he, he achieved something very extraordinary because of what he did.
• 23:29
  Philip Pape: Right, he refused to accept limits and then I think he paid a price for that.
• 23:32
  Philip Pape: Many of us wouldn't choose to pay that.
• 23:34
  Philip Pape: But that is what trade-offs are about, isn't it Right?
• 23:37
  Philip Pape: We all have to make trade-offs.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: The beautiful thing is we don't have to make those trade-offs.
• 23:41
  Philip Pape: We can choose to make the trade-offs we want, right?
• 23:44
  Philip Pape: We don't have to be mediocre, that's for sure.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: But we don't have to self-destruct either.
• 23:48
  Philip Pape: There's a happy medium where you are excellent and you have longevity and sustainability.
• 23:53
  Philip Pape: I think that's the key here, right?
• 23:55
  Philip Pape: Excellence combined with sustainability, and then you could build something truly amazing and preserve your long-term health and preserve your long-term function, especially many of us getting started older in life.
• 24:07
  Philip Pape: We definitely want to have that as a priority.
• 24:09
  Philip Pape: All right, you have the same opportunity.
• 24:11
  Philip Pape: Ronnie did no-transcript with our understanding of the importance of recovery.
• 24:41
  Philip Pape: Channel the enthusiasm for the process, but respect what your body is telling you.
• 24:45
  Philip Pape: I think these are all reasonable things to do and then think about what you want your lifting legacy to be.
• 24:52
  Philip Pape: It's not something we think about a lot, is it?
• 24:54
  Philip Pape: We just kind of go through the motions.
• 24:55
  Philip Pape: Sometimes we listen to wits and weights.
• 24:57
  Philip Pape: Thank you very much.
• 24:58
  Philip Pape: We apply these things.
• 24:59
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're making great progress, but like what is the long-term legacy right?
• 25:03
  Philip Pape: Not just the physique you build.
• 25:04
  Philip Pape: That's going to come and go.
• 25:06
  Philip Pape: It's not going to be that important to you the older you get.
• 25:08
  Philip Pape: Honestly, it's that example you set it's.
• 25:14
  Philip Pape: Do you want to inspire people?
• 25:14
  Philip Pape: I don't know if you do or not.
• 25:15
  Philip Pape: This might be just purely self-interested, and I have no problem with that, no judgment at all, because even that self-interest allows you to show up for others in your life.
• 25:23
  Philip Pape: But do you want to inspire people and show them what's possible with your actions, with intelligent, consistent effort?
• 25:29
  Philip Pape: I know I do.
• 25:31
  Philip Pape: I know every time I hear from someone who listens to the podcast and says I changed their life, even if they just did it on their own, love it, in fact.
• 25:39
  Philip Pape: I know I talk about physique adversity.
• 25:41
  Philip Pape: It's not a sales pitch.
• 25:42
  Philip Pape: I lowered the cost because I want to reach a lot more people and help a lot more people, right?
• 25:46
  Philip Pape: Do you still want to be someone who's training strong and healthy in your 70s, your 80s?
• 25:50
  Philip Pape: Yes, your 90s?
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: Because I think Ronnie's legacy and why I'm going to enjoy doing the series isn't about the accolades or even the price he paid to get there.
• 26:01
  Philip Pape: It's being a human representative of our species, of how powerful an outcome can be when you completely commit to a process.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: Again, don't take that to mean we can all be Ronnie Coleman's and have that physique.
• 26:17
  Philip Pape: That's not what I'm saying.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: I think, if we wanna honor the legacy the positive side of this legacy just bring a level of dedication to your smart approach that helps you build the greatness you want but still preserves the ability to enjoy doing it for the next few decades.
• 26:36
  Philip Pape: So what is Ronnie doing that no one else is, that few people are doing what he's doing and millions of people around the world refuse to do it, and I hope we can change.
• 26:43
  Philip Pape: That is showing up and doing the work, no matter how he felt or what obstacles he faced.
• 26:48
  Philip Pape: Showing up and doing the work Can we do that?
• 26:50
  Philip Pape: Can we do that together?
• 26:51
  Philip Pape: Okay so you had a surgery.
• 26:52
  Philip Pape: Okay so you got sick.
• 26:53
  Philip Pape: Okay so you went on a trip and couldn't track your food or find a gym for two weeks.
• 26:58
  Philip Pape: So what?
• 26:59
  Philip Pape: You're gonna show up and you're gonna do the work.
• 27:00
  Philip Pape: You're gonna show up and you're gonna do the work, regardless of how you feel.
• 27:03
  Philip Pape: That's important.
• 27:07
  Philip Pape: At 5 am, it's cold.
• 27:08
  Philip Pape: I go to the gym.
• 27:09
  Philip Pape: I know I have to do squats, I don't want to do it, and yet I do it anyway and I feel great.
• 27:14
  Philip Pape: And it's not just the endorphins, although that helps.
• 27:16
  Philip Pape: It's the consistency of the process and what it does for you over time.
• 27:20
  Philip Pape: It helps you do hard things and that makes everything else easier in life Easier in the right way, not in the gluttonous lazy, have things done for you, pay other people to do things for you, eh, but in the I did this and I'm a human and I can show up what kind of way.
• 27:34
  Philip Pape: Right, you have access to all the tools.
• 27:36
  Philip Pape: Come on, you have access to the tools.
• 27:41
  Philip Pape: You can squat, you can deadlift, you can press, you can row, you can do those things.
• 27:44
  Philip Pape: You can move your body in some way.
• 27:46
  Philip Pape: You can progressively add weight.
• 27:47
  Philip Pape: It's just a process.
• 27:47
  Philip Pape: You just got to do it.
• 27:48
  Philip Pape: You't complain about it, track it, do it.
• 27:51
  Philip Pape: I hope there's a little tough love in here.
• 27:52
  Philip Pape: You guys know I'm kind of a nice guy a lot and I'm even giving tough love.
• 27:57
  Philip Pape: Probably doesn't sound like tough love to a lot of you, because there's people that are way more boisterous than I am, but you can do it.
• 28:03
  Philip Pape: You can commit to a consistent schedule.
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: You just got to do it.
• 28:06
  Philip Pape: You can approach your training with the same joy and enthusiasm that made Ronnie famous.
• 28:10
  Philip Pape: The only question is whether you will choose to use these tools right now at your disposal with the same dedication that separates legends from everyone else.
• 28:18
  Philip Pape: Lifting legends, guys, that's what it's about.
• 28:20
  Philip Pape: That's what we're trying to get inspired by with this series.
• 28:22
  Philip Pape: When you train with that level of commitment and make the ordinary extraordinary, through what?
• 28:28
  Philip Pape: Through consistency and showing up, that's it.
• 28:30
  Philip Pape: That's the only thing that separates the 1% from everyone else.
• 28:34
  Philip Pape: Right, and that's how you grow.
• 28:36
  Philip Pape: That's how you build a better version of yourself physically, mentally, everything, all the things.
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: It translates to everything, ladies and gentlemen.
• 28:43
  Philip Pape: It translates to everything.
• 28:45
  Philip Pape: There are two things in my life that has made me massively confident and successful.
• 28:49
  Philip Pape: One of those is learning to speak publicly, because I was so afraid of that for so many years, and the other is getting healthy and fit, and that's translated to everything else.
• 28:58
  Philip Pape: All right, I think that's all I want to say.
• 29:01
  Philip Pape: If this episode inspired you to think bigger about your lifting journey and how to commit and how to get support and accountability, I want you to share this with someone who needs to hear this message.
• 29:11
  Philip Pape: I want you to share this with someone who needs to hear this message.
• 29:14
  Philip Pape: I want you to text this episode To a friend who's been struggling with consistency, or someone who needs to get inspired, someone who doesn't know much about lifting, to start getting inspired by the greats.
• 29:21
  Philip Pape: Not just some podcaster talking, not just what the scientists say on their research papers, but the guys who've done it, the ladies and gentlemen have done it.
• 29:29
  Philip Pape: I don't, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know who I'm going to cover in this future.
• 29:32
  Philip Pape: I assume there's women I'm going to cover as well.
• 29:34
  Philip Pape: So, ladies and gentlemen, all of the tough ones of the past who've done this right.
• 29:38
  Philip Pape: Sometimes we all need a reminder of what is possible at the extreme perhaps, but far beyond where we are today, so that we can commit and just get our butt in gear and go.
• 29:47
  Philip Pape: That is it.
• 29:58
  Philip Pape: That is it, guys.
• 29:58
  Philip Pape: Until next time, I want you to keep using your wits, lifting those weights, and remember that every rep you do, with intentionality, with consistency, is a step toward building your own legendary story.
• 30:02
  Philip Pape: I'm going to talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.