Why Training Too Much Is Killing Your Muscle Gains (Natural Bodybuilder Jeff Alberts) | Ep 244 - Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters

Episode Transcript
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Philip Pape (00:01):
If you've been killing yourself in the gym,
pushing every set to failure andfeeling perpetually sore and
exhausted, yet your gains havestalled, or you're constantly
fighting injuries, fatigue andburnout, this episode is for you
.
Today, I'm sitting down withJeff Alberts, known as the
godfather of naturalbodybuilding, to reveal why
training smarter and efficiently, and not always more, might be

(00:24):
the key to finally breakingthrough those strength and
muscle plateaus.
You'll discover how to buildmuscles sustainably without the
constant grind that leaves youdreading your workouts.
Whether you're a serious,experienced lifter or just
getting started, this episodewill give you a new perspective
on training intensity and helpyou create a sustainable,

(00:44):
long-term approach in the gymthat doesn't burn you out.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the podcast that blends evidence
and engineering to help youbuild smart, efficient systems
to achieve your dream physique.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday we're discussing the art
and science of sustainablemuscle building with none other

(01:07):
than WMBF Pro naturalbodybuilder, jeff Alberts.
Jeff is widely known as thegodfather of natural
bodybuilding.
With over 30 years ofexperience competing and
coaching, he's helped hundredsof natural athletes achieve
their goals through his company3D Muscle Journey, aka 3DMJ, and
for anyone who's been followinghim for a while you probably

(01:28):
can appreciate his thoughtful,measured and, of course,
evidence-based approach totraining and nutrition, today
you'll learn why constantlypushing yourself to the max
might be slowing your progress,how to increase efficiency in
your training and practical waysto build muscle while staying
fresh both mentally andphysically.
You'll discover how to managefatigue intelligently and how to

(01:48):
create longevity with yourtraining.
Jeff, it's an honor to have youon the show.

Jeff Alberts (01:52):
I appreciate you having me and yeah, after that
introduction, hopefully I candeliver.

You'll definitely deliver, my man.
So I mean just for thelisteners.
Jeff's a really cool guy.
When I reach out to him toschedule this podcast, I usually
send out some topics and thingsand he actually wrote back with
thoughts on each idea and I wasreally impressed by that.
It tells me what kind of coachhe is as well.
But, having heard him on manyother podcasts, I wanted to
bring him on because you as alistener appreciate that data

(02:20):
and evidence-based approach andmany of us we're in our 40s I
turn 44 tomorrow after werecorded this episode and I'm
always reflecting on how do Iget the most out of my lifting
without getting too much pain,without having to have surgery
or have something hold me upalong the way.
And, jeff, a lot of liftersfeel like they have to push

(02:42):
harder and they have to trainwith a ton of volume and they
crash and burn.
Then they switch up theirprogram, they stop making
progress even though in theshort term they might.
And so, for those who've beengrinding at the gym, they go,
you know, multiple days a week,multiple years, and they're not
seeing the results they expect,or maybe it's slowed down.
What is the biggest impact ontheir long-term growth at that

(03:05):
point?

I got to say happy birthday first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks, man you still got a ways
to go.

Yeah, yeah, you got a ways to go.

I do man, it's all good.

That's a long-winded question.
That's pretty deep there.
We're talking about longevity,right?

Yeah, I know, man, I totally.
You know these openingquestions.
I'm like how simple or complexshould they be?
It's really like people wonderthere are a lot of training
variables and there's a lot ofthings you could change, and I
think people change too much atone time of programming and the

(03:45):
training variables.
But they've gotten thetendinitis, they've had the hip,
you know, the labral tear,whatever it is.
You know they've kind of goneup or down and it felt flatlined
, maybe for a while.
What's the thing that they needto change or think about first?

Understand pace, Because I mean, think about what
are we trying to accomplishhere?
You know, if we're talkingabout natural bodybuilding, it's
a long man's game.
You're not playing nine holesof golf, You're trying to play
18.
So you got to learn about paceand it's like, yeah, we can look
at all these shiny new toysthat are out there and, like you
know, we're gung-ho as far astrying to implement all these

(04:18):
new things and, you know, tryingto be really scientific, what
it comes down to is what'spractical and what is
sustainable.
And for myself personally, youknow, I always think about, like
, what my current context is.
You know I'm talking about lifecontext.
Same thing with my athletesthat I coach like what does

(04:43):
their actually daily life looklike?
And then from there it's like,okay, what can we do?
What can we do that's going tobe productive, but yet it's time
, efficient and you're able torecover from it.
And then from there, of course,you can kind of build things
out, but I think it just comesdown to pace.
Like the reason I'm still doingit this long, it's kind of just
understanding that I have topace myself.
And you know I took myself backto my 20s, 30s, Like, obviously

(05:06):
you can get away with a lotmore things because your body is
a little more pliable.
So you know, there's somethings I was doing that I'm sure
I could have gone back and say,hey, let me improve upon the
approach, and it would have beenmore of a conservative approach
.
I probably would have seenbetter progress because of it.
But now it's like I really haveto pay attention to my body.
You got to pay attention towhat life's throwing at me and

(05:29):
in a sense, like I keep saying,just controlling that pace is
just so important and you knowit is.
We always want to get furtherahead, a lot faster.
So that's the problem, Likesometimes we just get in our own
way, in a sense.

Yeah, I've heard people joke, especially the
older lifters, that no matterhow much you hear this message
on a podcast, it's like untilyou experience it you know you
don't truly learn the lesson,and hopefully we can help people
not have to experience morethan they need to.
But uh, you have kids, right,do you have kids?

Yeah, I have kids, I mean, yeah, you tell your
kids you're blue, your bloomingface, don't do that.
Don't do that because you knowit's going to happen.
But they don't listen.
And then they experience it andthey're like oh okay, now I
know what you're talking about.
So it's like I mean Stickingthat fork in the light socket.
It's good to you, know, throwout some seeds, but I mean, you
got to have them watered too.
I just got to let peopleexperience things as well.

Yeah.
So I think that idea of paceand it strikes up in me the idea
of, when we talk aboutefficiency, finding that minimum
to make progress without goingpast that point Right.
And there's a lot of discussionabout overtraining,
overreaching, building upfatigue and so on.
I guess, when it comes toefficiency, what's the
prevailing angle of attack herefor efficiency?

(06:45):
Is it minimum effective dose?
Is it like let's stripeverything back and start from a
very basic low volume approach?

What's minimum effective dose.

Okay, yeah, you tell me, what is that.
What is that?

I have no idea.
Like I know what it is for mebecause I got enough experience,
I've tried on air.
It's so much to kind of knowwhere that sweet spot is for me.
But if I have someone that I'mworking with for the first time,
I have no idea what they canhandle, how they respond to it.
It's a lot of trial and error.
So it's like okay where sciencecomes into play.
It's like okay that 10 to 20sets you know general guideline

(07:20):
Okay, if I'm working from that,if I have someone who's new to
lifting, like 20 sets probablynot going to go over too well
because they don't have theskill level yet with things.
So it's like maybe 10 sets istoo much.
Like I just want to focus ongetting this person learning,
teaching them how to move from Ato B effectively, not so much
worrying about the progress orthe progressions with their

(07:40):
lifts, more so like teachingthem a skill.
So it could be maybe it's sixsets a week and let's just
really make those six sets Like,once you learn how to move,
okay.
Now it's like let's focus ontrying to move heavy things with
that type of skill andimproving the load, improving
the reps over time.
And how are we responding now?
Is your physique improving fromthat?

(08:01):
If it is great, we may not haveto do anything for a while,
like we may not have to increasethe volume.
Eventually, you might get to apoint where they're plateauing
out.
You don't see as much progress,strength kind of plateauing out
.
Then the question becomes okay,are you handling this?
Are you low energy or highenergy?
And if you're handling thingsreally well, it's like okay, now
I feel more comfortable givingyou more work because you have

(08:24):
the supply to keep it going.
But if it's because of fatigue,last thing I want to do is add
more volume or more workload.

Yeah, that's a good starting point.
Then, if you mentionedevaluating the progress and then
going from there, how does so?
I know I mentioned moreexperienced lifters early on,
but there is kind of thedifferent categories Somebody
who's brand new to this versussomebody who's experienced.
Somebody brand new is probablygoing to be very responsive to
almost anything.
So let's jump ahead a littlebit and say they've been lifting

(08:53):
six months, maybe 12 months atleast, and they're looking for
that point.
Are you looking for them toreport out on RPE?
How are you collecting thatdata of the response session to
session?
And then, when you say physiquedevelopment, are you just
measuring and you know, usingbody measurements or what's your
gauge for that?

I think you use all the above.
So if we're talking from aperformance perspective, it's
like, okay, are the numbersmoving?
But are the numbers moving withskill?
Because you can see numbers ina spreadsheet and go, okay, yeah
, it looks like eight reps, ninereps, 10 reps, whatever.
It's like, okay, it looks likeit's moving up, but then you
watch the form, see how they'removing, that skill isn't there
and it's like, okay, that's notbeing efficient, that's probably

(09:35):
not being effective.
So, like you might need toclean form up.
Maybe you need to take a stepback and go, okay, bring your
loads down or whatever.
And let's again hone in on theskill and what I've been doing
lately, even for myself, becauseI've obviously I've been
lifting for a very long time andI take pride in my skill level
and form and all that.
Like, whenever I get to a highend of a rep range with a

(09:56):
certain load, I won'timmediately go up to a new load.
I'll probably roll with it oneto three more sessions just to
really ensure I'm very competentwith it, like I've mastered it,
because I know when I doincrease the load from that
point I'm probably going to havethe same type of skill with the
new load.
You've probably experiencedthis, where you touch a load for

(10:16):
the first time, you might getthe reps a little shaky.
You're like, okay, I completedit.
Then you go to the next load.
You know, the following weekit's like oh, it's just all over
the place.
So from a skill component, I'malways thinking like okay, let's
master what we're doing first,before even thinking about
taking a step forward.

That's important, what you just said, because
you're talking about loadspecific skill.
I think a lot of people thinkit's like one and done.
Like okay, I've beenprogressing, I've gotten better
with my form, Now I'm good right.
Like no, like you said, thecenter of gravity shifts.
You know the balance,everything about it just
slightly shifts the heavier itgets, and the bar path and all
that could change if you don'tchange something.

(10:54):
So that's a powerful concept,jeff, seriously, that people
need to think about.

What you think about is like it doesn't mean
you can't continue to makeprogress with that same load,
like you should be hitting theappropriate proximity to failure
, even if it's the same load, soyou're still getting a stimulus
.
Your muscle doesn't knownumbers.
Your brain does, but yourmuscle doesn't.
Your muscle knows effort andthat's something like right now.
I feel like, because I amadvanced, I can have no

(11:18):
spreadsheet whatsoever, not evencount or track anything, but I
know I'll get a stimulus everyworkout and because of the skill
, getting to the appropriateproximity to failure.

And is this generally?
We're talking generally week toweek progress in a typical
program, like a four or five daysplit where you're talking your
your squat variant on Monday toyour next Monday.
Is that generally what we'retalking?

about.
I mean yeah, but I mean that'sonly going to last so long.
I I mean yeah, but I meanthat's only going to last so
long.
I mean eventually you're goingto run out of like runway, like
you're not going to be able toprogress weekly, like the more
advanced you are, you're likeyou might be able to get 10
pounds over six months.

In which case are you?
Is that even more biased towardrep progression?

Depending on the lift.
Yeah, yeah, okay, I mean, yeah,I think about you try to
increase your loads every week.
At that point it's like, yeah,you're going to end up being
buried.

I think a lot of folks are curious about that,
because people get frustratedwhen they get stronger and
they're not progressing.
They know they've heard timeand again okay, I'm intermediate
or I'm advanced, my liftsaren't going to go up as quickly
.
How do you get the sense ofprogress session to session?

Okay.
So let's look at I've beengoing to my son's karate classes
.
Right, he started out as awhite belt and now he's red
black.
He's maybe a year away fromblack belt and like when I go to
his classes, you know theexpectations of a white belt, a
yellow belt, blue belt, likeit's all different.
So sometimes we expect to gofrom white belt to black belt,
you know, and maybe the paceearly on is faster, but as you

(12:46):
get closer to black, like thenthere's first degree, second
degree and it takes longer.
I'm assuming it does.
People are probably listeningto Marshall, I just got a jet.
That's not true, but I'massuming like going from first
degree to second degree it'sgoing to take quite a while.
Second to third takes evenlonger.
Like my son's master is a fifthdegree black belt.
So like I can only imagine likewhen he first got his black

(13:09):
belt, the fifth degree, itprobably took quite a while.
Or look at olympic sprinters toget like a temp faster.
They're training like fouryears to make that happen.
Olymp to Olympics.
So I think the expectation islike the more advanced we get,
we just have to come to therealization that things are just

(13:30):
going to move a little slower.
And the thing is right now.
Because I've been training forso long, I appreciate where I'm
at right now a lot, because Iknow how hard it's taken me to
get to this point and I know howhard it is to maintain it.
So there's a level ofappreciation for just what I'm
capable of doing right now, evenif it means I'm not putting on

(13:53):
any more muscle.
And I think that's where somepeople fall short.
They're always like wanting togo, move ahead, move ahead, move
ahead, take a step, take a step, take a step but they're not
slowing down and appreciatingwhat they're actually
accomplished.

Yeah, and that's kind of the topic we're getting
at today is, and that's why Ithink it's more relevant to more
intermediate to advancedlifters is they want to see the
progress they used to have andmay not in the same way.
It's progress that has to bemeasured differently, and the
question for some of them is howdo I shift my perspective and
what I measure to properly gaugethat and not feel like I'm just

(14:25):
plateauing?
Right, that's part of it.
And then also, I don't just hopto another program, like, okay,
it's not working for me.
I'm going to go to Westside now, and now I'm going to go to the
six-day hypertrophy programover here, considering that my
audience is probably a normalcurve but shifted slightly more
toward less experience.
But not you know, what would yousay to those people and I'm
thinking a lot of guys my agewho basically, like they started

(14:48):
with starting strength orsomething like that, five by
fives, and they shifted over tosome sort of split intermediate
programming and they'reexpecting, you know load to keep
going up and, like you said,it's not going to happen.
So what do they switch to?
And I'm asking you what soundslike dumb questions.
I hope I know some of theseanswers, but for the audience,
yeah.

No, they're good.
They're good questions and,like I consider myself someone
who uses intermediateprogramming.
But I've mastered it because Iknow with intermediate
programming the principles arein place and that's what it
comes down to is understandingprinciples of training.
Once you know principles thenyou get a lot more comfortable
with programming because youknow there's nothing magical

(15:27):
about an upper-lower split, apush-pull leg split, full bodies
like all that stuff.
As you know, it's just ways toorganize your frequency, your
intensity and the volume.
So when you think from thatperspective, it's like this week
I can run an upper-lower split,next week I can do push-pull
legs.
The following perspective it'slike this week I can run an

(15:49):
upper lower split.
Next week I can do push pulllegs.
The following week I can do afull body split.
And as long as I'm, you know,hitting my baseline volumes,
that what I need.
I'm able to perform it reallywell.
I get to the appropriateproximity to failure with skill,
I'm getting plenty of recovery,I'm well fueled.
You know, chances are, acrossthose three weeks it's probably
going to be the same result atthe end of the day.
Maybe some very tiny maybedifferences one way or another,

(16:10):
but we're talking like splittinghairs and that's why I wore a
hat today, so I don't have toshow my bald head.

I understand.
No, no, all good All good.

Oh, that's a joke.

All good.

Yeah, but I think that's just as an intermediate.
It's just like because you'renot, because, in a sense, when
you're a beginner intermediate,you're not where you want to be
yet, so there's going to be asense of urgency.
It's a double-edged sword,though.
If you're like pushing yourselftoo much or you're trying to
flip-flop training programsbecause you're trying to look
for this shiny object to get youthere faster, but at the other

(16:40):
side of the sword it's likebecause you're changing maybe
things up too frequently, thenyou kind of lose sight of, like,
what's actually working andwhat's not, because you're
changing things out too much.
That's why I'm an intermediateprogrammer for myself, because
it's just straightforward, it'svery consistent.
It's easier for me to assesswhat's working, what isn't

(17:01):
working.
Things that work, you keep itin there.
Things that don't work, you'relike let me explore.
But it's not changing out theentire programming.
I might say, well, okay, thiscertain exercise, you know it's
not really grooving right now,and then you find a different
movement that's going to hit thesame body part.
Let's change it out and see howthis one works.
So I'm only changing one, maybetwo variables at most.
Okay, now I know.

(17:21):
Like I ran this for two monthsNow I know exactly what happened
with this.
One change was either positiveor negative, and again, it's a
positive, keep it.
It's a negative, find somethingelse and eventually you keep
evolving.
You keep evolving over time andthat's how you get experience.
That's how you get morecomfortable with keeping an
intermediate program.

(17:41):
In a sense, keep it anintermediate program.

in a sense I like that you're almost qualifying
the word intermediate as if itcould be taken as an insult,
right for an advanced person.
I like how you frame that.

I can take starting strength and probably
make it advanced running it,because there's a difference in
skill level versus me now,versus me in year one.
I can almost guarantee you Iprobably make well.
I'm getting older, now it'sharder to make gains, but you
know what I'm saying.
Guarantee you I probably makewell.
I'm getting older, now it'sharder to make gains, but you
know what I'm saying.
I can probably performexceptionally well using that
and recover well because of theskill level yeah, I mean, you're

(18:11):
the poster child for thoselistening who don't know, jeff
already white belt, black belt.

Right, there's a yeah yeah, look up, jeff, though
I mean again, age is not afactor on this, he demonstrates
that.
But you talked principles, andthat's like the magic word.
I did want to come back to thatbecause everybody has their
like.
Here's my five pillars oflifting, or my three principles,
and you'll talk aboutprogressive loading or overload.
You'll talk about mechanicaltension and talk about volume,

(18:35):
frequency, intensity, like, canyou simplify that for us?
Like, in your mind, what arethose principles?

I think when we think about okay, so if you talk
about, we're talking aboutprogramming, right, yeah,
programming, I mean we couldlook at the science, right, Okay
, we got to hate body parts twoor three times per week, maybe
four, but I think four is astretch for most everyday people
.
Even three can be a stretch.
Even once per week can elicitsome progress.
So I mean sweet spots, maybetwo or three times a week.

(19:04):
So you look at that volume.
We know the 10 to 20 sets thing.
But again, I lean more towardson the lower end.
When I'm starting somebody out,it's skill development first
and then after a while you'relike okay, maybe we can start
gravitating higher.
But I think of that.
Okay, we're 10 to 20, somewherein that ballpark.
Proximity to failure based on arep range.
So we know through the science,anywhere between five to 30

(19:26):
reps creates hypertrophy.
So it's more about proximity tofailure in relation to the rep
range.
You're using Lower reps, youcan be further away from failure
.
I mean celestity within reason,and then the higher the reps
are, you got to get close to itor very like a rap failure to
ensure you are getting enoughmuscle fiber you know, while

(19:47):
you're doing the lift.
So when you look at thoseprinciples, it's like okay.
So then from there, I'm likeokay, based on someone's context
, the question I'll ask somebodyis how many days per week can
you train where it doesn'tinterrupt your life schedule?
Because when you're in the gym,the last thing you want to be
worrying about is I got to takemy kids to school or my wife's

(20:11):
upset at me, because I'm in thegym for three hours, or I'm
there six days a week.
I'm not spending time with thefamily.
So when you're in the gym, youjust want to be stress-free.
So that way, when you arelifting, it's just all about you
and that's where you're goingto get probably your best
performance.
So once I know how many days perweek they can train, then it's
like okay, can I get thefrequency two to three times, or

(20:33):
does it have to be used to beonce?
Because that's going to bepractical.
It may not be optimal accordingto science, but it's optimal
according to that person, basedon their constraints.
So they're going to maximizethemselves far better because
they're doing something that'sgoing to be lower stress.
And then from there you getinto the weeds.
Like okay, let's talk aboutexercise selection, like, okay,

(20:59):
this guy on this podcast saidthis is the most optimal thing.
I look at it as like does theexercise hit the muscle I'm
trying to target?
Is it safe and comfortable forme?
Do I have good stability whiledoing it and do I enjoy doing it
?
Because if those things checkout, then it's a good exercise,
regardless of what anybody elsesays.

Yeah, those are solid principles.
I like how you said this isoptimal for the person, right?
Because at the end of the day,it ties back to what you
mentioned earlier about pace andwhat's practical, sustainable
and what is your life context.
I laugh when you talk aboutdays per week, because for me
personally and I've seen it witha lot of my clients that often
is the thing, that's the mainconstraint, and if you're hung
up on that or you get fixated onthe other principles and so you

(21:40):
pick this program and you justcan't stick with it because of
your life, like, forget about it.
I also think of sleep in thatregard, right?
Or fat loss, where you've gotall this extra stress, you might
want that extra day just tosleep an extra hour, and that
can make all the difference inthe whole week.

So people try to you know, I want to train six
days a week because they thinkmore is better, or the
insecurity they think they'renot going to make gains if
they're not there.
Or some people just love totrain to a fault.
Yeah, I would love to be in thegym seven days a week because
obviously I love to train, but Ialso know that's not realistic
to my life schedule.
It's also not realistic to myrecovery and I've said this on

(22:20):
other podcasts.
But I don't look atbodybuilders that much anymore.
To learn about bodybuilding, Ilook at other sports because
they do a far better job atmanaging their performance and
their recovery, because sportsis all performance-based.
So you look at football,baseball, basketball, baseball

(22:40):
is a good example of startingpitchers.
There's a reason the managerskeep track of the pitch count
and the number of days they'repitching in a week because they
know if this pitcher is gettingfatigued they're not going to
have the velocity and thecontrol on their pitches.
But as body lawyers we're like,hey, let's just throw 150
pitches.
To me it just doesn't makesense the way people think about
bodybuilding sometimes.

(23:01):
So I'm like let me use theseprinciples from other sports and
apply it to my bodybuilding,apply it to my athletes and
usually you get a nice balance,nice harmony with performance,
recovery plus real life stuff.

Yeah, that's a great point because I'm big into
sports documentaries now theones like on Netflix.
There's one that just came outcalled the Comeback about the
Red Sox Yankees 2004.
It's funny you mention thatbecause both Pedro and also Curt
Schilling they talk about bothof them Pedro being pushed to
well beyond his limit in theseries that they lost in 2003,

(23:36):
and then the manager was firedfor it.
And then Curt Schilling, he hada tendon issue and he just
could not pitch.
It was like the first game ofthe series in 2004.
And then when he came back thenext time, they talked about how
a surgeon like did this wonky,you know, stapling his tendon to
his bone or something on hisankle to stabilize it.

Yeah, I remember the bloody sock Remember.

Yeah, the bloody sock, exactly.
So I'm like that is such agreat example of taking what the
heck do athletes do Tom Brady,getting 11 hours of sleep you
know that'd be great to see whatthey do to manage this fatigue.
So I want to play off one ofthose principles.
Then that comes to mind is theproximity to failure.
I think there's a lot ofmisunderstanding there as well.
You kind of you reiterated theunderstanding that there's a

(24:18):
wide rep range to choose from.
So let's get out of the oldschool, like strength versus
hypertrophy regime or whatever.
But a lot of people do thinkthey have to train like really
right up to failure.
And you know, I know Dr IsraelTill and others have always
thrown out the two to three reprange.
And then even more recentresearch, I think that Mike
Zordos, the big main analysisthat came out recently, talked

(24:39):
about like six reps from failureeven being effective so what is
that?

what is that, though, like?

what do you?

mean like if I have like someone who's new or
even an intermediate, yeah,what's six reps in the tank,
like I don't even know what.
Six reps in the tank so far,yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah it's
even hard to gauge what four inthe tank is for me oh, you're
right, like rpe gets criticizedfor that yeah one to two reps in
the tank, that that's prettyeasy.
It's like hey, I can tell youlike I need you to, like when

(25:05):
you think you just can't doanymore.
Just when you mentally think youcan't, you probably do two reps
, you're probably really closeto where we need you to be and
without having to get likeoverly analytical on things.
And then failure is like I meanto teach failures like they'll
just have someone do a tricep,press down or a lateral and say
hey, I want you to go until youjust cannot move anymore.

(25:27):
Then you get a better gauge?

Yeah, so what do you think of programs that are
so?
We mentioned starting strengthearlier and there's many
examples of that that are setsacross like get all the reps and
then progress, the load typeprograms.
Again, maybe this is going moretoward newer lifters.
They're not thinking ofproximity to failure, they're
just thinking get all the repsand increase the weight next

(25:50):
time.
Right, not a bad idea to payattention to, like take notes.

Hey, I hit 10 reps , I got the top end, but how
many more could you have done?
Was that like if you barelysqueak that out, or it?

was kind of easy.
And then that informs the jumpfor next time perhaps.

Yeah.
So it's not just, instead ofjust analyzing the numbers,
analyze actually how it felt tomove those numbers.
And it kind of goes back towhat I said earlier, like even
though I hit that top end and Ihit all my reps across the board
and first time I'm not going to, okay, jump to the next load,
I'm like let me practice this.
Going back to sports, right,like people get better at sports

(26:24):
by practice.
Let's practice that.
100 pounds I hit for 10 reps.
Let's practice that one, two,three more times to get more
competent with it, to master it.

I think that's undervalued.
Yeah for sure.
I think that's why peopleshould stick with certain lifts
for more than a couple of weeks,you know, at least early on,
just for the practice alone, letalone the progress and
neuromuscular adaptation and allthat.
You mentioned, the getting thedata and letting that inform
your jumps.
I had a client text me and shesaid something like so my plan
is to jump by this many poundsand then when I get to this load
I'm going to drop it.
I said no, no, that's the kindof backward.

(27:00):
Get to this load, I'm going todrop it.
I said no, no, that's kind ofbackward.
Don't assume anything.
Three, four weeks down the road.
Let's judge session by session.
You may be able to go up higher.
I don't want to even put limitson yourself until you get there,
or maybe less right, so that'sgood, all right, so you're a
natural athlete.
There's a big distinction fornatural athletes specifically
and the life of their trainingand the expectations.

(27:21):
I think some people skew whatthey think they can get maybe
out of bodybuilding or physiquesports in general.
What are your thoughts onrealistic expectations for
natural athletes?
And I'm thinking muscle growth,but I really mean the longevity
stuff we're talking about here.

I mean, everything comes to an end right, and
that's with anything in life.
So I think here for me, like Ithought about this the last few
years, because I haven't reallyseen too much muscle size, like
realistically I don't think I'mprobably going to get any bigger
, because I can tell my jointsare kind of preventing me from
lifting, probably you know,heavier loads and that type of
thing, but also just age.

(27:59):
So it's accepting that like cometo the conclusion like, okay,
things are slower, especiallywith natural bodybuilding.
It's slower.
I think we just have to come toterms and embrace that.
But it doesn't mean you can'thave a long shelf life with
progress.
You've probably heard thefive-year.
You know shelf right.

It's like Genetic potential in five years.
Yeah.

Yeah, five years, like I mean, that's assuming
you're a perfect robot.
Okay, yeah, maybe you get allthat in five years.
How many perfect robots arethere?
First year, you're learning howto lift.
Still Second year you're like,okay, now I'm learning how to
progress.
Well, so you're probably, yeah,you're making, you're starting
to really move.
You're going from white to getinto the brown belt, you get

(28:41):
into the red and the black beltsand things do start to slow.
But who's to say that it's overin five years?
You might see a little moregrowth from years five through
10.
Look at Eric.
Helms is a good example 41years old and he's still making
some pretty decent gains.
They're not as fast as when hefirst started lifting, but for
an advanced lifter they're kindof fast.

(29:02):
It's like kind of seeing somenice changes and he's learning
more about himself, thoughthat's the thing.
He's learning how his bodystill ticks.
Even myself, as you evolve, youlearn yourself.
Like years one through five,you might've done certain things
.
Years five through 10, youstarted changing, you're
evolving.
Years five through 10, youstarted changing, you're

(29:25):
evolving.
And then years 15 to 20, samething.
But progress is more than justputting tissue on, because if
you're a competitive naturalbody or there's a skill
component of learning how todiet, learning the pace of the
diet, retaining muscle mass.
That's something that I learnedin when I was 38 years old.
I got in our pro cards A littlelate in life, but I was 160
pounds.
Two years later I competed as apro.

(29:46):
I was 170 pounds.
It was a 10 pound difference.
Everybody was blown away.
They're like there's no waythis guy's natural.
He didn't gain 10 pounds ofmuscle in two years at 40 years
old.
No, I just learned how to dietbetter.
I learned how to retain musclebetter.
So there's different levels andthere's different ways to
create progress outside of justlike I've got bigger muscles.

When did you actually start seriously
training?
How old were you?

Well, I started lifting at 14.
I've always been.
I didn't know what I was doing,but I can go back to when I was
a teenager.
I was lifting hella hard.
Like all I knew was lift hardand go to failure.
Early on I had really fastdevelopment from 14 to 17.
I packed on a decent amount ofmuscle and by the time I got to
high school I was benching 330at 165.

(30:32):
So I had some pretty fast gains.
And then since then it's kindof been like up and down, up and
down, and that's just becauseof my knowledge level.
Like back then there was nointernet, so I was like kind of
just doing things on my own,trying to figure stuff out.
So there was a lot of ups anddowns.

And when.
The reason I ask so selfishly?
But also again, I know a lot ofguys like me who didn't start
until, in my case, late thirties.
I mean, I did CrossFit for likeeight years up and down, but
that was not lifting.
And so I'm in my first one tofive years, at the age of 44.
And I don't even know if I'vetaken full advantage of that.
But there's probably a lot ofpeople wondering maybe, what's

(31:09):
the potential for a 40-year-old?
What's the potential for a60-year-old?

Okay, let me ask you a question, as you brought
up for yourself.
So you've been hypertrophylifting for five years, six
years.

Since 2020.

2020.
Out of the last four years.

How much of that time have you spent in a?

deficit Probably a year, so three years.
Are those three years likewell-structured training?
I think so, yes.

I believe so.

Tony (31:35):
Nutrition's been on point.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a nutrition coach, I hope so yeah
, there you go.

So you still, I mean, you've got three years of
like really dedicatedhypertrophy lifting.

Right, so there's a lot of potential.

Exactly, you're only 44.
So you still have, like,probably a good decade ahead of
you where you can probablycontinue to maximize yourself.
Whether that's 1%, 10%, 50%,who knows, but the thought is is
like I'm going to try.

I'm going to try.
I'm going to put that effort in, I'm going to make sure all the
big rocks are in place andlet's see what happens.
Yeah, I was going to ask adifferent twist on that.
The question was going to bewell then, somebody who's older,
what are they never able toaccomplish because they started
late?
And I think that's a terriblequestion because it doesn't
matter it is right.
You know right Like, but peopleare thinking that you know right
like, but people are thinkingthat you know people beat
themselves up, like I wish.

I said when I was 20.
What's the worst that couldhappen?
If you don't try exactly, thenyou can get massively there.

That's where you're gonna fail is you're not trying
yeah, that's good stuff, man, Ihave to say, for folks watching
or listening like jeff peersdeep into your soul and again,
he's probably a really goodcoach for that reason I try to
make the podcast as real aspossible, like everyone.
It's good.
It's good.

You know how many sets should I be doing?
That's what I was thinking.
Let's be real.
Let's talk like practical Yep.

I agree.
Yeah, I've spent a lot of timetalking about tactics and I
agree it's more fun to get intophilosophy and approach.
Or they can reach out to guyslike you and me and say, okay,
now how do I personalize thatfor myself?
But okay, so what was the nextthing I wanted to cover here?

(33:11):
Fatigue management is kind ofanother corollary and
specifically what I'm thinkingis you mentioned yourself joint
health and a lot of guys orwomen I hear about their back,
their low back fatigue.
Everybody has back issues.
We know that quote unquote ofsome kind as they get older.
But lifters especially, whomight be dead lifting a lot or
doing some other movement, howdo we manage all that?
How do we manage fatiguemanagement?
I?

guess the question right your rest days, your
sleep, your demand is going tobe your training itself Could be
cardio, could be steps, lifestuff, work relationships.

(33:54):
If you're in a deficit, let'ssay you're in a deficit, that's
a demand.
So you kind of see where you'reat with the supply and demand.
Obviously, if you're in, let'ssay, in the dieting phase,
cutting phase, your demand isgoing to be higher than your
supply.
So from that perspective youhave to understand, let's say,
in the dieting phase, cuttingphase, your demand is going to
be higher than your supply.
So from that perspective youhave to understand like, okay,
how long am I dieting?
Is this a short-term cut?
Is it a long-term cut?
Short-term cut, you might beable to get away with a few more
things because it's shorter innature, no-transcript, and

(34:31):
that's what's really key whenobviously most people's goals is
they want to get bigger or theywant to be leaner.
So in order to do that you haveto manage the fatigue.
So it's pretty important thatyour performance is elevated as
much as possible so you canmaintain that muscle mass.
And then you think about yourpace too.
When you're dieting down halfto 1% of your body weight per
week, anything more than that.

(34:51):
It's going to be a grind.
It's going to be harder toperform, it's going to be hard
to recover.
Life's going to suck.
Your spouse isn't going to likeyou too much.
You're going to be moody,cranky, those types of things.
So you have to take all thatinto consideration, I mean.
But the whole podcast could beabout fatigue management.
Of course I mean you can look atlike going back to the sports
arena, I was looking up, I washitting up Google a few years

(35:13):
back on NBA basketball.
I was trying to figure out thewinning percentages of teams
that played back-to-back games,because usually NBA schedules
they'll play two or three gamesa week more in there.
So the back-to-backs, thesecond game, the losing
percentage was much lower thanthe first game.
Of course you take intoconsideration some teams are

(35:33):
better than others, but ingeneral, like the losing
percentage was higher on thesecond game, which makes sense
because they're tired theyplayed the day before.
So again like sometimes withtraining, when you're like if
you're training, let's say, two,three, four days in a row, that
fatigue builds up.
Naturally it's going to buildup if you're well-fed, but
imagine if you're dieting Two,three, four, five, six training

(35:56):
days in a row, like you startgetting beat up towards the end
of the week.
You're feeling it.
So sometimes it's like, okay,how can we manage that?
It's like, instead of trainingtwo or three days in a row, why
don't you go every other day?
You train hard.
Like as bodybuilders, we trainhard.
So he's train hard, take a dayoff, recover.
He'd be refreshed the next day.

(36:16):
Then he'd take another day offor he can go two on one off.
So looking at frequency, that'ssomething you look at Intensity
, not training as close tofailure.
Maybe that can help.
Maybe dropping down some setvolume, eating more food, those
types of things, more sleep,like I mean.
Just the list goes on and on.
But again I think looking atbodybuilders per se is like

(36:37):
probably not the area I usuallylook towards first.
It's more like those othersports.

No, I like that.
I took a note because this is a.
I want to build off that lateron for another episode Because,
you know, using other sports asan analogy, I don't think enough
people do that.

And boxing here you know, boxing, boxing, like
right Boxer goes out there.
It's a hard round.
Like well, I got to go 12rounds here.
Like well, I got to go 12rounds here.
And if I'm not able to knockthis opponent out in the next
one or two rounds, I got to pacethis.
Oh, you know, you've heard this.
Boxers like okay, they took around off.
What does that mean?
They're staying on the outside.
They're staying.
They're not trying to get hit,they're just doing enough to get

(37:13):
them through the round.
Now I'm going to go sit, go inthere for a day or two and I
attack hard like I'm going topull back.
I'm going to have a day or two.
I'm just not trained andrecover.
So every time I'm in there I'mlike fresh and getting the most
performance out of myself.

Tony (37:36):
My name is Tony.
I'm a strength lifter in my 40s.
Thank you to Phil and his Witsand Weights community for
helping me learn more aboutnutrition and how to implement
better ideas into my strengthtraining.
Phil has a very, very goodunderstanding of macros and
chemical compounds and hormonesand all that and he's
continuously learning.
That's what I like about Phil.
He's got a great sense of humor.

(37:56):
He's very relaxed, very easy totalk to.
One of the greatest thingsabout Phil, in my view, is that
he practices what he preaches.
He also works out with barbells.
He trains heavy not as heavy asme, but he trains heavy.
So if you talk with him aboutgetting in better shape, eating
better, he's probably going togive you some good advice and I
would strongly recommend youtalk with him and he'll help you

(38:17):
out.

All right.
So a couple of things come tomind then from this.
First is just the generalthought for folks who think that
there's only one way to solvefatigue and that is to stop
doing the movement or to switchmovements.
And you didn't even go there.
You said think about the supplyand demand.
Oftentimes it's the supply youneed more of, or less of the

(38:40):
demand, depending on what'spossible.
You mentioned pacing just beinga way to move your training
around to help with the fatigue,but you're still getting the
same, potentially the same,volume and intensity, even
though those are other variables.
What are your thoughts, then,on the opposite structure for
helping with fatigue?
And that is, let's say, you'redoing three days a week and you
switch to six days a week, buthalf the sessions.

(39:02):
Is that a strategy?

That's a strategy.

Yeah.

So if you're doing , let's say just, let's just use
whole sets of a workout, let'ssay you're doing 20 sets and you
take it down to 10 and you'respreading it all out, yeah, I
mean, it's going to be easier toget through the training
session Result theory, of courseeasier to get through the
session than maybe your recoverybetter.
So the question then becomesyou got to pay attention to is
like okay, if you're going fromthree days.

(39:25):
I don't know how your organ isthree days, If it's, you know,
one on one off, one on one off,or it's every other day.
Now you're going six straightdays, so then you have to kind
of pay attention to what arethings feeling like on day four,
day five and day six.
Even though you've cut thevolume in half, you still want
to take notes on that, becauseeven though you're doing less

(39:50):
work too like think of yourconnective tissue you're using
your connective tissue six daysout of the week instead of three
, even though it's less work.
So you still have to just payattention to all those variables
.
In theory it makes sense, butagain you got to pay attention
to it and personalize it for you.

Yeah, makes sense.
So connective tissue again,segue, good segue.
Let's talk about that.
The joint health, theconnective tissue.
Maybe again there's somemisconceptions there.
Some people oversimplify thisstuff like, well, if you lift
heavy it's bad for your joints.
We know that's not necessarilythe case, but what are your
thoughts on connected tissue,tendon health and things like
that for older folks?
Am I an older folk?

(40:19):
I guess there's a correlationwith age right.
You said it yourself with a.
I guess there's a correlationwith age right you said it
yourself.

It's hard for me to say how other people feel,
what they feel.
Like I know how I feel and I'venoticed the last few years like
, yeah, I got to pay closerattention to it.
And, like you said, it's not somuch the load, because
sometimes I can handle loadpretty well and sometimes the
opposite.
You would think like, okay, ifthe load is heavy hurts, I'm
gonna go light low, but thenyour reps go way up.
So now you're getting more.
Like, yeah, now you're doinglike 100 reps instead of 20, so

(40:53):
that can wear your connectivetissue out too.
So, like, for me, what reallyhelps me is rep speed, like rep
cadence.
Sometimes, like in the momentI'm controlling that, like you
know, like when you're driving acar on a road, you feel a bump
you're the moment I'mcontrolling that.
Like you know, like when you'redriving a car on a road, you
feel a bump, you're like, okay,I'm gonna avoid that bump and
move the steering wheel or thetraffic in front of me slowing

(41:14):
down, put my foot on the brakes.
That's kind of like I think,about my rep speed.
I'm paying attention how thingsfeel.
So if my shoulder, like myright shoulder, gets pissed off
quite a lot, like when I'mpressing, so sometimes like my
elbow, I'll have to do this orI'll shift it in, I'll even move
my shoulder in a little bitthose types of things just to
avoid, like you know, aches andpains that's really good

(41:35):
actually.
Rep speed, cadence, grip width,grip angle those are really
really good tweaks yeah, like,yeah, like, even like uh on my
uh, like I do this movement,it's kind of like a hybrid press
, fly, fly.
But it's more like a press anda fly at the same time.
So the way I hold the dumbbellsin my palm someone asked me
about this, like you know, abouttheir shoulders and that

(41:55):
movement, like I hold it thisway, I didn't really realize I
was doing it and the reason whyit was more instinctual.
But I realized is, instead ofhaving that handle like flush
and you're gripping it hard thedumbbells, like sitting in my
hand and then put the tips of myfingers right in the middle of
the handle, the pads of yourfingers and thumb over.
Yeah, like it just eliminatesthe shoulder discomfort I have.

(42:17):
I don't know why it just does.
It's more of an instinctual.
But those are the types ofthings that's worth exploring,
whether you're young or old.
Like if you're experiencing anytype of discomfort, you play
around with grip, spacing theway you're holding things red
cadence Because oftentimes we'lllook at like, okay, should we

(42:37):
be doing like slow eccentrics?
Should we do a fast, explosiveconcentrics?
Because we're looking atscience stuff.
It's like how about you go bywhat feels actually comfortable
for you?

Agree, yeah, like for me recently.
I had rotator cuff surgery lastyear and for me, pausing, just
pausing, made all the difference.

That helps.
Yes, I forgot about those.

Even in like bicep curls, you just pause at the
bottom and it makes it harder ina different way, even range of
motion too.

Like I'll play around with that, like I'll cut
range of motion short sometimesif there's.
You know if I'm experiencingsome pain, whether it's at the
top or the bottom.
Whatever I was doing a coupleyears back I was doing smith
machine bench crosses, but I setthe safety arms up to about
two-thirds range of the motion.

I cut the bottom, like the stretch portion, out so
it's a pin a pin, press a pin,press a pin, bench press.

Yeah, just like slow, eccentric Cause it didn't
really bother my shoulders toomuch.
Slow on the way down, maybe Idon't know close to four seconds
.
Pause it at the bottom killsthe momentum and then when I
would start the movement.
So instead of thinking ofpushing off the pins with a lot
of force, like a race car, forexample, more like a diesel
truck, like, let me just move itslow with a lot of torque, ease

(43:46):
into it, ease into it, and then, as it goes, the bar's
traveling up, then I'm pressingfaster and that's to avoid the
shoulder discomfort.
Now the question becomes isthat more effective than like
just the traditional cadence, ormore explosive using heavier
loads?
Mate, as long as this is why Isee it, I could be wrong, but as
long as I'm going to failure orclose to it, I'm probably

(44:08):
getting a stimulus regardless.

And, as you mentioned before, the
alternative is you're not goingto do it because it hurts.
It hurts, yeah, exactly.

And it's a baseline too, because even
though let's say it issuboptimal.
It's my baseline, it's what Ican do comfortably, and the goal
is still the same.
The goal is still to try toincrease more load over time and
more reps over time.
So I'm still elevatingperformance and elevating volume
.

Yeah, I like that.
And there's so many movements,angles, ranges of motion across
all the possible exercises thatyou could complement it with
things to kind of fill in thegap, the example of a race or a
car engine.
I'm thinking like you knowphysics and power and
explosiveness and speed.
There's a whole velocitycomponent to it.
That is kind of the principlebehind all this, almost, if

(44:53):
we're to sum it up so that whenyou're listening to the show, if
you want to train next, youknow next time you go train,
experiment with that, both atthe bottom of the rep, like when
you yeah, when you start a repout, they think of it like if
you, let's say, you're at a redlight and you're in this Porsche
, right, it's got some just highend, you know torque.

light turns green, yeah, you punch it, what's
going to happen?
More than likely the tires aregoing to spin out.
You need the back end startingto squirrel anymore.
It's like there's a lot oftorque though, there's a lot of
power, but there's more control.
So that's kind of how I thinkabout when I start some of my

(45:34):
exercises out.
I think more like a dieseltruck versus the race car and
it's in a sense it kind of keepsthe tension where you want it
throughout the entirety of therep.

And that mind muscle there.
Yeah, I'm imagining wheelsspinning on my tendons and like
wearing them down with the racecar.
That's good stuff, yeah.
No, this is great being mindfuland reflective of every rep,
just to make sure, so like if wecircle back tendon joint health
, you know, rather than makingdrastic changes, rather than

(46:05):
hopping around, tweak themovement you think is the
offender, see if it makes adifference.
Grip with angle, play withdifferent bars too, like they've
got multi-grip bars and you'vegot camber bars and like all
this fun stuff.
You could mix it up.
Yeah, even like I'm thinkingpull-ups and chin-ups.
Again, you might find it's agame changer to just widen or
shorten up that grip or goneutral.

(46:25):
So good stuff, all right.
So I'm looking at my questions.
We actually covered a lot ofwhat I was going to ask.
You even talked about, like youknow, cutting and dieting, how
the rate of your cut isextremely important and it adds
to the stress if you go faster.
I think that is reallyimportant because, rather than
it being a training issue, itcould be a resource issue.
Right, it could be a food issue.

(46:46):
And unless you have sometimeline perhaps which I know
bodybuilders do and they have ashow if you can plan ahead far
enough.
It sounds like you know takingthe most conservative approach
that still gets you the resultand doesn't impede too much is a
good idea.
But what about?
What about the psychologicaltoll of it?
Taking too long, right Like nowwe're?

Tony (47:05):
getting into dieting here.
No, I like it, okay, yeahbecause, it's a different
perspective.

Yeah Right, it's like long and slow or really
fast or super fast, like I know.

The answer is it depends, because different
people respond differently, butit does depend, but I tend to
lean more towards beingconservative, because when
you're conservative, you, in asense, you have a bigger
playbook.
If you're giving yourself ashort timeline to make something
happen, it's almost like youhave to be like perfect, here's
a good way to think about it.
Like if I gave you 30 secondsto tie both shoes probably get

(47:38):
the job done pretty easily,right, and your shoes are going
to look pretty clean, like youknow, okay those bows look
really good.
But if I said I'm going to giveyou 10 seconds or maybe eight
seconds to tie those two shoesand I want you to make it look
really good, chances are it'snot going to look that great and
the process itself is going tobe super stressful yeah.

You're going to fumble through.
Yeah, yeah, right.

Or or you're piloting an airplane and I give
you a mile to get this plane offthe ground, but then I gave you
a quarter mile.
What's the experience going tobe like in those two different
situations?
What are the passengers goingto experience?
It's going to be a smoothtakeoff in a mile.
We're building speed up.
We're going to get the planeoff the ground.
We're going to gradually get itto altitude.

(48:19):
But quarter mile is like man,you better make sure you didn't
eat too close to that takeoff,because you're going to lose
your lunch.

And, Jeff, I'll tell you, on a landing it's even
worse.
I used to fly planes and when Ihad to do a short runway
landing, this is just smallCessnas but like if I had my
wife or a friend in there andthere was a crosswind you're
talking a weird angle and asteep angle and it's just they
all got sick.
So you a good example.

Am I good with the takeoff or do I need to change
that up?
I?

like to use that one.
No, takeoffs are good too,because you need to crank up the
throttle and you need to, butyou have to have a minimum
regardless, for physics you knowto like work, but yeah, yeah,
it's good.
Okay, that's good to hear,because we do sometimes
equivocate on all that and it'slike, well, whatever works for
you, but, like you said, you getmore flexibility and options
when it's a longer time frameand you're more conservative.

When it's short, though, when you're dieting like
if it's short in nature andyou're trying you know, let's
say you're trying to lose 20pounds in eight weeks, 20 or 10
weeks, even, something like that, that's super fast.
Like you're going to have to bevery aggressive.
So you may think like, okay,I'm going to get this over with
sooner, but you're going tosuffer more in that time span,
versus like I'm going to doubleup that timeline because now

(49:28):
you're going to have a moreconservative pace.
So what you're actuallyexperiencing is you're not as
fatigued, so it's easier to copein that situation.
Versus like, oh gosh, and I'monly eating 1500 calories and I
got to do like all these cardiosessions just to get this fat
loss off.
And then you're training,training stuff.
So the end goal is to look thepart.
It's not if I hit a certainnumber, it's actually, it's more

(49:50):
visual than your bodybuilder oreven if it's a cosmetic goal,
like you want to look the part.
At the end of it you want tohave your muscle intact.
So I always feel like you'regiving yourself more time.
And then the life factors too.
You know you think about ashort timeline.
You may not have the luxury of,like, being able to take your
wife out for dinner on aSaturday night because, oh, I

(50:10):
got up to 1500.
I can't do it.
I am on so low calories, but Ihave doubled the timeline.
I'm like, well, I'm going tocreate a buffer, I'm going to
take my wife out and I'll have agood time and still make my
goals.

Yeah, I love.
I love that too, because thelonger it is and the more you
stretch it out, the moreresilience you have against all
of those things happening.
Because life throws unexpectedthings along the way, including
injuries, including sickness,including something with your
kid or your wife or whatever.
And to be able to, if you'regoing at a conservative rate,
interrupting that has a muchless impact as well.

(50:44):
Right, because not dieting fora few days when you're already
at a very low, a veryconservative deficit, isn't a
big deal, but if it's a four orsix-week mini cut, all of a
sudden one day makes a bigdifference.

Another thing to think about.
Let's say you have to do along-term dieting phase.
It doesn't mean you have to bedownhill the whole way through

(51:26):
no-transcript or less, like howyou do things when you're not
dieting.

Right, just scaled a little bit.

Yeah, exactly.
So that's again.
It's going back to practicalityand sustainability.
So sometimes we got to thinkabout okay, how's this going to
impact me?
When it's all said and done?

And I don't think that far ahead.
Yeah, I'm all for that, thatflexibility.
I inadvertently went into whatI I did a podcast about it a
while back called my stair stepfat loss approach and it was
just literally because of whathappened to my shoulder and
needing to recover several timesover the last few months, I got
out of my dieting phase.
I'm like you know what.
This is much better to just gothree weeks on one week off.
Three weeks on one week, kindof like a stair, you know
staircase, and that relief fromthat week or two of maintenance
can be huge.

Made a big difference.

yeah, the dieting almost doesn't feel like dieting
.
It's almost this hugesustainable thing, cool man, all
right, so, in the interest oftime, I just wanted to ask you
if there's anything we didn'tcover or a question you wish I
had asked from here, and whatyour answer would be.

No, I thought you did great.
I recovered a lot.

I'm good.
I thought you did great too,man, it was fun Now.

I'm like man.
I need to learn more aboutflying now.

I could hook you up with some people that know a
lot more than I do, but yeah, itwas fun.
I stopped when it became thegas became too expensive and I
had kids.
I was like I can see that I doknow some pilots being having
worked aerospace industry.
So anyway, man, where do youwant people to learn about you?
Jeff, reach out to you 3dmjunderscore.

Godfather, go to youtube in 3d muscle journey
cool.

I'll put those in the show notes and Jeff's super
responsive and, uh, really goodcontent online as well.
You wouldn't believe he's he's,whatever age he is.
I'm not even going to say anumber because you know it
doesn't matter, does it?

43 plus 10.
There you go.

Yeah, all right, man, it's great to have you on.
I really appreciate you comingon the show.

All right, thanks again.

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Why Training Too Much Is Killing Your Muscle Gains (Natural Bodybuilder Jeff Alberts) | Ep 244

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Why Training Too Much Is Killing Your Muscle Gains (Natural Bodybuilder Jeff Alberts) | Ep 244