Ep 39: Pain-Free Training and Flexible Dieting Principles with Matthew Spiewak

Episode Transcript
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Philip Pape (00:08):
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we
discuss getting strong andhealthy with strength training
and sustainable nutrition. I'myour host, Philip pape, and in
each episode, we examinestrategies to help you achieve
physical self mastery through ahealthy skepticism of the
fitness industry, and acommitment to consistent
nutrition and training forsustainable results.

Matthew Spiewak (01:15):
Like, theoretically, we're going to

(05:01):
take the keto diet and justlike, we're going to take out an
entire food group, throw it outof there, get rid of it, throw,
you know, throw everything inyour house, get rid of it, we're
going to be able to expandactually, what you eat. A lot of
times, that's the best part is,a lot of people have this
mindset of, oh, I need to get tothis Wait, look this way and get
down to this body fatpercentage, I need to close down

(05:24):
on the types of foods that I'meating, and I need to kick
things out. And in all reality,once you start giving them more
information, and giving them thetools to understand what they
can do, and add the foods thatthey can use to actually start
to expand the options that theyhave. And all of a sudden, now
they have all the options. Theyhave the freedom, they have the
autonomy to eat what they want.
And it'll work because at theend of the day, it's sort of

(05:48):
looking at the macro base sideof things, you know, does this
fit with our macros? Is it goodfor us? If it Chuck's off those
boxes? By all means? Go for itrun with it?

Yeah, so I love that approach. It's flexible,
because it's flexible. But youtalked about diversity of food
options, and really opening itup as opposed to closing it up
with the restriction. Taking aquick tangent here. How did you
how did you originally learnabout flexible dieting? Because
I know I can think of my past ofbooks like lean Norton's fat
loss forever. And you've gotAlan Aragon and all the all the

(06:22):
guys like Trexler and EricHelms, right. The evidence based
guys, how did you come acrossthis concept?

Yeah, so it was more or less just the idea of
being in college, I'll behonest, and it was an how I got
into it was just on the totalend of the spectrum of the pop
tarts and pizza diet pretty muchlike it is anything if it fits
the macros it, it works, becauseyou know, I was a young kid in
college, you know, consumingsome alcohol here. So I had to

(06:50):
work with what I had, I didn'twant to spend, you know, a lot
money on some things, not to saythat eating healthy is expensive
whatsoever. But it was just moreor less, hey, I'm in a rush
because I need to go to class,can I just grab like a quick
protein bar or something likethat? That sort of aspect. And
so I started going into it. AndI just continued to see all of

(07:10):
this success with, hey, if Ijust hit my macros every day and
hit the calories every day, I'mseeing the physical success, and
I'm seeing it in the weights andall that everything is
progressing. And then as Icontinue to learn about I say,
hey, what if we started to makethis a little more in terms of
feeling better, because with allthis processed food that I was

(07:31):
eating it my diet was I mean,you know, as I said, Before, I
was on the one end of thespectrum there, you know, so it
was a lot of processed foods andall that. And so I said, Okay,
how can we make that, you know,a little bit healthier here? How
can we make some better choiceswhile still using that ideology
of if it's the macros if it'sthe calories, I'm good, and so
slowly, but surely, I started tokind of change it and tinker it

(07:53):
around. But that whole idea ofthe flexible diet is still a
staple. Today for me,

that's awesome. So you can came to it just
naturally by how you love toeat, and you're like, how can I
get away with this but stillmeet my goals? Initially, but
you know, you're actuallyreferring to like the the muscle
and food pyramids or some of thepriority pyramids, you see
where, you know, rule number oneis calories, right? Like to gain
or lose weight, you have toadjust your calories. And

(08:20):
honestly, you could do ithowever you want, you're gonna
gain lose weight. But then thequestion is, like you said, how
are you going to feel? Are yougoing to preferential prevent,
prioritize fat loss doing that?
Is it going to fuel yourtraining and all the other
things when we get into thenuances of protein, and then
timing and fuel, food quality,etc. So it sounds like a great
way to eat. And I use that withmy clients as well. But should

(08:43):
anyone not use it?

I haven't come across it yet, I would say there
might be a couple of cases whereit just doesn't work for you.
And this is where theindividuality of working with a
client one on one really comesinto play. Sometimes people do
actually work better if it issuper strict, because they're
just saying, if I'm giving thisamount of freedom, I'm gonna run
with it. And I'm not gonna beable to control the calories and

(09:08):
not be able to control themacros and all that. And so
sometimes you do need to takethat approach with more strict.
Now I think it's easier. A lotof the times when you're working
with a new client to startbroad, and, you know, ease the
weigh in a little bit more. Butobviously, there are a couple of
cases where it's, Hey, we'regetting rid of this right now.
The only time I would I've donethat before is has been with

(09:29):
alcohol and that's when theyspecifically go like I need to
get this like, I don't want thisin my diet. Sometimes people say
I want to still be able to havedrinks on the weekend and all
that. But when there are thetimes that they say, Man, I want
this out of my diet, I don'twant it then we say okay, like
we won't incorporate into thediet. We will not include it
whatsoever. So yeah, andhonestly, I think in my opinion,

(09:52):
that approach is stillconsistent with flexible
dieting, because what you'retelling me is, the client is
making the decision. They'replanning

Cool. So we'll probably get back into nutrition
or if there's other topicsrelated that you want to bring
up, I definitely can do that.
But let's get to training.
I want to hear your perspective,first of all, on the big three,
because when I when I talk to aclient doesn't know much about
training, that's usually where Iwant to start, in my mind is
just basic introduction tostrength, the compound lifts.

(10:43):
And let's start with the squatand deadlift, because I think
they're intimidating for a lotof people, especially when we
talk about barbells. Should mostpeople be doing these? You know,
what are the benefits? How do weincorporate them?

Yeah, I think I mean, right off the bat, I think
most people should at least betrying to work up to them.
Because not everyone is going tobe in the right position,
starting off, maybe they havesome sort of reoccurring injury
underlying injury, they justdon't know how to do the
movement, you know, maybe wedon't start them off with a
deadlift day one, you know what,that's kind of a basic rule

(11:15):
there. But the whole idea isthat we should be more or less
working towards that, because weneed to look at, okay, what kind
of movement is the deadlift?
It's a hip hinge movement, whatkind of movement is the squat,
it's, you know, that's idea ofwe're sitting down standing back
up, we need those movements inlife. So we can start off with
variations of those movementsthat either simplify it by

(11:36):
reducing the load, maybereducing, or decreasing the
range of motion that they'reperformed in, for example, for
example, a lot of times, when Iwant to work with someone to
eventually say, down the road,like in three months, we're
gonna get you to be deadlifting.
That's, that's a pretty scarysight. For some people, all of a

(11:56):
sudden, like deadlifting, like,Oh, I'm gonna hurt my back, I'm
going to do all this, I'm notdoing that. Say, Okay, we're
going to be doing rack poles,where we're starting with the
bar, almost at halfway up thethe thought of the quad. So the,
we've just shorten the range ofmotion by about 70%. There,
we're still getting that topportion of a deadlift, where

(12:18):
it's still a hip hinge moment,we're utilizing the lats
utilizing the upper back. Andwe're just going to now slowly
progress, we're going to work onthat. And then we're going to
master that right there. Allright, of the of the raffle. And
then we're going to lower it byan inch, and we're going to
master that. And then as we godown, we're slowly going into
it, building up theirconfidence. And that's one of

(12:38):
the things I talk about a lot islike, I'm trying to build your
confidence in this, because Iknow how scary it can be
sometimes to say like, Man, I'mdoing a delet doll Southern, I'm
doing this new movement, a lotof times just because it's a new
movement, and they, you know,have this little bit of fear in
there that like something'sgonna go wrong, something's
gonna, you know, snap and gethurt. It's just building your
confidence in the gym in orderto actually perform the

(13:00):
movements.

Yeah, and I like that confidence approach. As I
like that you didn't go straightto something like mobility or
physical limitations, because Iknow that also, I'm gonna say
it's use that as an excuse. ButI believe most people can do the
full range of motion of most ofthese movements, if they can
work up to it. And it's gettingthem there. So like, on a squat,

(13:22):
right? If I were to take youranalogy of using the rap pole,
the deadlift, it might be goingto a tall box, right? Or it
might be sitting into bands, ifyou want to get the full range
of motion, but like, take someof the load off. So for the for
those of you listening, likethis is great advice. Because if
you're doing this on your own,and you're like, No, there's no
way I can do X movement, thinkabout ways to gradually work

(13:44):
your way up, right? And the rackpole is do you want to just
explain that for people. So theyknow how to do that.

Yeah, so the rack pole you'll be working at,
at the rack itself, with thesafety catches that are there.
So it's the it's the long flatpart that actually extend out,
and you want to set it up atfirst. So ideally, a good rack
poles anywhere, kind of rightabove that knee, if you want to
set it up there, you put yourquads right in that middle part
of the Olympic bar where it'ssmooth, because we don't

(14:12):
obviously, we don't want toscrape up your entire leg there,
you have your hands just outsideof, of the thighs. And so what I
tell people is the bar neverleaves your quads, it is staying
on your legs the entire time,alright, it should never leave.
And what we want to do is wantto squeeze that upper back as
tight as we can to maintain thatback with the lat tightness or

(14:34):
at the upper back tightness, allthat getting the traps involved
a little bit. And the whole goalI tell people is we're not
shrugging the bar up. If wethink about the hip hinge
movement. All right, all we'rereally doing is just starting in
this hinge position. We're kindof bent over almost done. We're
just standing straight up. Whata lot of people do is when they
are in that position, they tendto stand up with their back, you

(14:56):
know, and they go into it likethat. And so we're trying to
teach we're going to stay up bymoving the glutes forward and
moving them in that in that likesagittal plane of motion kind
of. And it's that hip hingemovement that like really opens
up the box, if we can get thehip hinge movement down, like
and it becomes second nature tous, that opens up everything, we

(15:17):
can do so many more exercises,and really, really improve
ourselves.

Nice. And for those listening who are confused in
any way, you know, you couldalways hire a coach like Matthew
Walker. But he's talking aboutcues as well. Right? Which and
different cues work fordifferent people I know. Like,
my daughters, they're eight and10. If they see me working out,
I use fun analogies. I'm like,Yeah, I'm using gorilla arms on

(15:41):
my deadlift, you see grill armsthat just hangs down. I don't
pull, they just hang and I'mdriving my legs grill, you know,
or, or I'm pushing the earthaway, you know, or stuff like
that. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. Sowhat about the benchpress? The
other big three, the benchpress,maybe is a little more
complicated than people make itout to be. But if you know if

(16:03):
people can use their full bodyand the right grip and the leg
drive and all that, I'm surethey could, you know, realize
the benefits of it. So what areyour thoughts on that move?

Yeah, I love the benchpress. But I do agree
with your words, a lot of timespeople will kind of take it a
little bit too simple. I willsay it's off from just the
physical superficialperspective, yes, it's the
easiest one out of none of thethree, it's the less technical,
we're not utilizing our entirebody that's actually moving. But

(16:33):
that's not to say that we're notutilizing the entire body. So a
lot of people go into it andthink, oh, all you do is you
just move the bar down yourchest, and you press back out,
okay, it's one muscles you'reworking if there's someone
knowledgeable themselves, thatchest, triceps shoulders, so
yes, that is correct. But wealso need to think about the
setup and how to get as muchpower as we can as much force as

(16:53):
we can not only to improve theamount of weight that we can
actually lift, but to also keepus tight as we can, because a
lot of times people have ashoulder problem, or they
actually will injure their lowerback on the benchpress, which is
really interesting. It's likeyou're injuring your lower back
on the bench press, how are youdoing that. And it's when we're
creating that arch in the lowerback. But we're not utilizing

(17:15):
the hips and the legs. And sowhenever we are moving that
lower back, I'm in more of therealm where we can move that
lower back as much as we want,as long as we are directing the
pressure that the exercise isplacing upon us into the right
muscle groups. So in thatmovement, and what I'm saying by
that is, we're going to havethat arch in the lower back. So

(17:38):
we're going to move it a littlebit. But we don't want the
pressure go into the lower back.
We want the pressure going tothe hips, because if we can bear
the lower back to the hips, thehips is so much stronger by 95%.
I mean, they can bear so muchmore load produce so much more
power. So we the goal there isto pinpoint all the pressure
into the hips, so the hips thencan drive the movement forward.

Yeah, awesome. I love that. So you're moving the
back, and you're supporting theload going through the back to
the hips and really relying onthe hips. And the back is just a
stabilizer, right? So to speak.
What about the shoulders? Whatabout the shoulder blades on the
back of the bench? Because a lotof people tend to just relax and
not think about that. What dothey need to do there?

Yeah, I mean, it's this is the simple cue
where you're just pinching theshoulder blades back. And this
is where either if there's twomain cues that I would use for
this, and it works for differentpeople. So either pinch the
shoulder blades back, whichyou're literally just retracting
the scapula as close as we can.
Alright, and the second one is Ijust get a high chest, get a big
chest in there. Because what weideally want is we want the

(18:45):
chest to be above the shoulders,when we do a movement. If you're
to look at yourself in the side,you want the chest here and the
shoulders down here because thenthe chest is the main mover
compared to the shoulders. Andso some people don't have that
mind muscle connection to perse, of actually being able to
retract the scapula. But if Isay hey, just make up the chest,

(19:08):
pump that chest out as big asyou can. Naturally you're gonna
pull your shoulders back andmove it out. It's the same
thing. It's just that we'rerelaying the information
differently. We're really in theinstructions differently to you.

Yep, again, we're a coach is very beneficial. Do you
do you do online form checks forfolks? Are you just in person?

I do them if they send me a video at this
point. I'm only training in agym right now. So only personal
training and coaching in thegym. But by all means I always
love I do have people like willsend me their videos to see
like, is this form good? Can Iimprove this? If they do have

(19:51):
that scenario where my back ishurting in the squat? You know
we we go through it a little bitbecause I'm always trying to
help because I know that pain ofbeing lost and confused. And
then if you are in that positionwhere you're getting hurt, or
you're getting injured in thesemovements that you want to
perform to the best of yourability, it sucks. And I've been

(20:11):
there for so long. And I knowthat pain and I'm like, I don't
want you to be that I want tohelp you as much as I can.

Cool. Yeah. And I, you know, I could tell you talk
like a coach who knows what he'stalking about. And there,
there's a lot of coaches thatdon't. And so people struggle if
they're trying to find someoneto help, or if they're working
from their home gym of, youknow, who to go to. So just
trying to throw some clientsaway when people are listening.
And we're gonna send you someform checks. What about, what
about the fourth big lift? Theone that I really love the

(20:38):
overhead press? Do you programthat in? Do you consider it a
big lift? Like, what are yourthoughts on that?

Oh, yeah, overhead press is? Yeah, we
talked about the big three, justbecause those are going to hit
all the muscles. But in allreality, we do need to include
overhead press. And I would alsoinclude a row in that. Yeah. But
yeah, 100%. I mean, I alwayslike to say this, if I could go
back to my past self, when Ifirst started working, I would

(21:03):
only program those, what thosefive movements pretty much. And
I would tell myself just getreally good at those movements,
build the skill, build a base,build a foundation, just to get
really good at moving your bodythrough that pattern. And then
later on, we can start to add insome new new movements in there
have some fun, but I mean,honestly, you can grow so much

(21:25):
muscle and improve so much, ifyou were to just focus on those.

Yeah. And you mentioned a row as well. Do you
throw a pole in there into likethe fundamentals like pull ups
and shins? Or do you just relyon the deadlift at that point?

Yeah, if they can do a pull up and chin ups?
Yeah, it's 100%. I'm going to doit. I mean, if not, we just set
it up an inverted chin up orinverted row, where we just set
up the bar on this AP catches,once again, you just doing,
you're grabbing onto the barthere, and you're pulling
yourself up. So it's strong fromthe ground. But 100% Those are
the main movements. And foreveryone, obviously, I'm when I

(22:01):
program for clients, it's goingto be different for everyone.
Everyone has one goal, they'restarting off at a different
starting point. They havedifferent limitations, different
strengths, different weaknesses.
But ideally, I try to find howcan we fit these main movements
into every single person,whether it be a different
variation, whether it bedifferent intensity, different
frequency, all that stuff?

(22:24):
Ideally, the same. Mainfoundational movements aren't
every single person's workout.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, some people No,
no call these functionalmovements. But unfortunately,
the the CrossFit world also kindof took that over. And, and I
know, what you're referring to,you mentioned earlier is you got
your hip hinge your squat, yourvertical and horizontal presses,
and polls, just just how we movein real life, right? What What
about intensity? So if you'restarting someone new, who's

(22:53):
never trained before they wantto get stronger, you know, I
will say an average person, theymay, you know, they may not be
in the greatest of health, butthey're not they don't have any
significant limitations. Takingthe squat, for example, are you
working in a fairly low reprange? Or do you start higher?
What's the programming looklike?

Yeah, so it's interesting here, I wouldn't
even look at what rep range I'mstarting with, because that can
vary. And I'll explain why. ButI would really automatically
start at a low intensity justbecause they're coming off. What
whether it be that they havesome experience in the past,
whether whether it be they'vebeen doing stuff on their own,
and they can probably handle it.
When they work with me, I'mthrowing a new stimulus at them,

(23:30):
and their body automatically isgoing to be like, Well, what is
happening, we need to adjust, weneed time to adjust this. So I
always tell people, the goal ofthe first week of the workouts
is for me not not to make yousore, I'm really planning not
make you sore. That being said,you might be sore a little bit,
but I'm not trying to drive youinto the ground, you are only
going to be sore just becauseit's this is a new fluid pattern

(23:51):
for you and all that. Now goingback to why I said the volume
per se, yeah, let's say we'realready going to be a low
intensity, we know that. But ifwe're at a low intensity, we can
play around with the volume. Solet's, let's say we're going
back to what you said, I'mworking with the squats. So we
can either work at a lowintensity and a higher volume,
per se, with a four by eight,just all of a sudden we're

(24:15):
getting, you know, 32 reps inthere, my math is correct there.
Or what we could do is actuallygo you know, six sets of three,
because sometimes if you throwthem in to do eight reps at a
time, that's just a lot at once,and it's too much to focus on
and they get fatigued even on avery mentally fatigued. So you
just say three reps at a time.

(24:39):
You can actually help them outand do like focus on one cue
here for these three reps. Idon't care about anything else.
Focus on no keeping the elbowstucked in for three reps. They
do that everything's fine. Andthen you focus on I focus on
keeping the heels down just forthese three reps. And then they
do that and they focus andslowly you're building up all
these cues because honestly Itell them like I'm throwing a

(25:00):
lot of stuff at you right now.
Sure. And it's hard. Yes, it isskill. Exactly. But as long as
we're starting with that lowintensity, we can vary depending
on how much volume we want toput into it.

Sure, yeah. And then I imagine peep different
people will take to it morequickly than others if someone
is more athletically inclinedversus not. And yeah, like you
said, your skill and techniqueand form sets you up for
eventually making a ton ofprogress, doing it fairly
quickly, later on, and notinjuring yourself, Oh, my God,

(25:33):
versus trying to go all outinitially, and then just just
having bad habits. You know, Ijust heard about a study that
came out, I think it was, Ithink it was stronger by
science, put it on the websitemight have been today, showing
that in the back squat. The morethe higher the intensity, the
more recruitment of the hips,right? So at higher reps and
lower intensity, it's more quaddominant, which will kind of

(25:55):
kind of know that I mean,trainers know that someone
intuitively you know that, butit's interesting to see in the
research, how that recruitmentramps up and take the load goes
more and more to the hips, basedon your relative intensity. Just
just mentioning that. And youknow, if you had heard that,
it's pretty cool stuff. Now,that's cool. Yeah. It's always
interesting to hear that. Yeah.
Cuz then we talk about, okay,how do people get really strong

(26:17):
in the squat is like a wholebody movement, right? And
eventually, you do have to liftpretty heavy. So how do you work
with somebody who's like, I wantto get stronger, and I want to
improve my body composition, andyou're past that initial
training phase of skilldevelopment, they've got the
list down, you trust that theyknow what they're doing? What is
your programming look like atthat point?

Yeah, that point, that's when we can say,
you know, I like to tell people,we're trying to check off these
boxes here. I just had like aclient the other day, like, we
finally got to that point wherethe I didn't even need to, like
remind her of the deadlift cuesand anything like that, we just
added the weight. And shefinally got it. All five reps
were like, perfect. And I said,That box is checked off now. Now

(26:59):
we can start to work with thedeadlift, and manipulate the
intensity and actually go intookay, what is that main goal
that we're trying to get to howcan we actually utilize the
intensity to actually achievethat goal. But I mean, first and
foremost, obviously, we do haveto check off that box and just
make sure that we have thatmovement down, then what we go
into is more or less, increasingthe intensity a little bit, so

(27:21):
we're still going to be workingon that main movement of of the
squat. So we have the skill, thesquat down, we can perform a
squat without, you know, failingwithout having really bad heels
coming up, knees caving, and allthat all that bad stuff there.
So now we can say, Okay, nowwe're gonna start increasing the
weight, and they're gonna feelwhat the intensity is. Because
before that, we were keeping theweight kind of low, though, that

(27:44):
load was pretty light, justbecause we wanted to be good at
the moment, we didn't want toget fatigued too much, because
we still wanted to be strongenough to do the movement and
get the practice reps. And nowwe're saying, we got the
practice reps, and we're goingfor the actual game now like
this is this is where itmatters. And the intensity goes
up, obviously, it's not likewe're going to max out, I tell

(28:05):
my clients, I'm like, I'm nevergonna have you max out not going
for like less than a two rep maxor max here. But we're still
trying to go anywhere betweenanywhere between the 7075 80%.
For anywhere between, I wouldsay four to six reps is a good
mark for just building theoverall strength, which is where

(28:26):
I usually tend to throw the matif you're going anywhere above,
it's, it's taxing on your CNS,if you're gonna go above 10 reps
for a squad, and there's only somuch weight that you can put on
and sure, yeah, that's the toughpart. So

that's like a mark of if you can, if you can do
what is it three sets of 20 orsomething on the squat is a test
of yourself, you know, I can'timagine doing that. And, and I
and you're supposed to do it inlike a 10 RM to get the 20 at a
10 RM you know what I'm saying?
Okay, so, I like what you'resaying, and that's good for
people to hear, right? Because alot of people have, I think

(29:01):
conventional wisdom is more thehypertrophy or bodybuilding
range, eight to 12, you know,especially a lot of my female
clients come in doing everythingis set to 10 with like, the pink
dumbbells and and kind of thesame thing week after week. And
I say that a little bitfacetiously, but they know it.
And you know, when we talk aboutstrength, and what you're
talking about here is, Hey, youwant to build muscle, and you

(29:23):
want to get stronger and it'snot just about aesthetics, right
it's about health but guesswhat, it all ties together. So
if so, you somebody somebodycomes in you say yeah, that's
what we're gonna do. We're gonnago really intense here. And they
say, Yeah, but I want to, I wantto get ripped. You know, I want
to get big muscles, big bicepsor a female client, you know,
bigger glutes. What's yourresponse? Is this going to help

(29:46):
them?

Oh, 100% it's still going to help them. Are
you talking about specificallyif how I'm going to do a squat
to help with bigger biceps orjust

no no, no, not as compromised. So just you know,
the the a notion that you haveto do bodybuilding style
movements almost exclusively tobuild your physique. Hey, this
is Philip Pape. And if you feellike you've put in effort to
improve your health and fitness,but aren't getting results, I
invite you to apply for a one onone coaching to make real

(30:18):
progress and get the body youdesire. We'll work together to
figure out what's missing. Soyou can look better perform
better and feel better. Just goto wits & weights.com/coaching,
to learn about my program andapply today. Now back to the
episode.

Oh, totally.
Yeah, I mean, I built a lot ofmy physique on, on doing the
lower reps, rarely do I go past10 or 12 reps and a lot of
things. Now granted, if I'mgoing to do that, I need to be
going at a higher intensitybecause the volume is down, we
know that there's an inverserelationship between volume and
intensity. So that is there. Ifwe wanted to go more hypertrophy
we can this is this is thebeautiful thing about

(30:56):
weightlifting and trying tobuild muscle and trying to build
strength is that there's 1000ways to skin a cat. So I can
work I can go somebody strictlywith just doing six to eight
reps on pretty much everymovement and they are still
going to build muscle. And thenthe same time I'd be with
somebody else and not even touchsix reps stay around like the 10
to 12 if they really wanted to.

(31:19):
And we would still see a lot ofmuscle and a lot of improvement.
Now it's expensive when we canlike combine both worlds and
like go up and down and changethings around. And that's where
the programming comes into play.
But I always tell people like dolike there's so many ways we
could do it. If you really don'twant to go that low and wait,
I'm not going to force you, I'mgoing to try my best to explain
why I want to do it. But if youare saying there's no way I'm

(31:40):
doing five reps on a squat, Isay alright, I'm not gonna do
it.

It's just so true.
There's so many ways to getthere. And I think the like the
bro science has evolved to kindof catch up to where anywhere
between you know, three andthree and 18 reps or something
is getting is going to workpretty effectively. And the only
reason more than more reps. Andthat doesn't work is because
most people can't actuallymentally deal with the amount of
work required to do more thanthat. Right? Yeah, exactly right
at the right level of failure.

(32:11):
Cool. So let's talk low backpain, because you alluded to
that a little bit earlier.
Somebody you know, you tell themyou're gonna deadlift, and
they're like, No, that's gonnabe bad for my back. And I
personally had back surgery lastyear, I had a micro diskectomy
on my L five, s one, and F andsince then I've done I can't
tell you how many squats anddeadlifts and it feels great.
And I think it's the best thingto do. But form is really

(32:33):
important, as we've talkedabout, how do people avoid pain?
Or maybe if they come to youwith pain, maybe get rid of
pain?

Yeah, the first thing we do is we actually move
that back. That is that is whatwe want to do. A lot of times I
tell people when they come in,and the I'm a big Stickler, the
very first moment I do for everysingle client, no matter what is
going to be a cat cow, or a catcamel is what some people say, I
think cat cow, it makes a littlebit more sense. But that's where
you're just in that tabletopposition. And you're flexing and

(33:03):
extending that that entire spinepretty much. And I want to tell
people is like, Yeah, our lowerback. If we get so afraid, we
have this natural fear of movingthe lower back and hurting the
lower back, which obviously isthere because you know, either
you've experienced an injurybefore or you've seen somebody
else with that injury with inyour case, you've had that

(33:23):
surgery, oh, I don't want tomove my lower back, I don't want
to have the surgery that Philliphad. But in reality, if we
don't, you know, move that lowerback and move that spine in
general, we're teaching it topretty much just be stiff that
entire time. And so then all ofa sudden, when we are in a
position because you knowwhether it be in life, we're
bending down to pick somethingup, or we are in the weight

(33:44):
room, you know, we're movingaround putting a plate back, all
of a sudden, we find ourselvesin a vulnerable position where
the back is in flat, that lowerlumbar isn't a flexed position.
And also we haven't prepared forthat. And then it snaps. So then
then it like pulls and backspasms and all that and then and
then we get hurt. So the firstthing is just moving and putting

(34:07):
that lower back in those flexand extended positions.

That's awesome.
Yeah. So you are preparing for,and this is great for people to
hear when you lift a lot moreonto the back of a truck. And
you're flexing your back andthen you're lifting and then
you're twisting. Have youprepared for those movements?
Because if not, that's where youget injured is what you're
saying. And don't be afraid ofthe very controlled environment
of a deadlift, which Matthew isgoing to help you actually work

(34:31):
up that that load on againstthose muscles to be able to
handle that movement in reallife. And even you know what
else I think of strongman thestrongman competition, they just
had the rogue Invitational rightwith those events. And you see
them doing the Atlas stones. Andyou're like wow, there they are
rounding their back significantbreezy it that's like you have
to so you have to prepare forthat right. Yeah, exactly.

(34:54):
Exactly. Yeah. So then, what ifyou do get into heard, like a
strain tendinitis somethingelse. And there's so many
there's so much complexity whenit comes to injury. Because
there's nerve pain, there'sthings and PTs and doctors half
the time don't know what they'retalking about no offense
halftime they do what? Somebodycomes to you and says, you know,

(35:15):
I just have shoulder pain allthe time. And I've had it for
years, like, what do we do?
Yeah,

well, my job I always like to go back into my
kinesiology degree, you know,the study of movement. Alright,
how can we move your body topossibly make it feel better, I
really try to stay in, stay inmy lane of, I'm not trying to
diagnose you, I'm not a doctor,I'm not a physical, we're not
going to spend an hour trainingsession working on your
shoulder, because you know,that's not the point. But what

(35:42):
we can do is look at how youmove, right? Does the shoulder
hurt when you come in? Whenyou're externally rotating your
arm all the way back? Is ithurting? When we're bringing it
behind our back, you know, wecan look at those movements. And
I can say, honestly, it's aquick YouTube video from the
past that I've done, and justsay, oh, usually, when you're in
this pain, when you can't rotateyour arm this way, there's here

(36:04):
are five moments that you caninclude. And just by doing that,
we can sometimes you know, maybeit's it's almost never a, oh,
it's fixed in one inch. Wow,this is great. It's saying, Hey,
this is the problem that wehave. It's not an underlying
issue, because it's obviously anissue in front of us. But this
is what we're gonna be workingon. Every time we come in, we're

(36:26):
gonna dedicate 510 minutes ofour time, just by working on
this, because this is what'sreally holding us back. We can't
make a lot of progression untilwe can take care of this slowly,
but surely, we're gonna get itdone. Don't just like going
through the movements of ourbody, what can we actually do,
and this is where like, all thebiomechanics and actually
understanding muscles and allthat stuff comes into play. But

(36:50):
it's just taking that approachof moving your body the way that
it's supposed to

love it and moving and not just resting right,
because people probably try thatfor years. And now they've got
the scar tissue. It's so funny,because few years back, I had
golfer's elbow, right biceptendonitis. And I know for a
fact, it was from a terriblesquat group I had, which is not
something people wouldnecessarily jump to right in
their head is the squat group,which I fixed the squat rack,

we're talking about, hey,

you know what I'm talking about, right? So you
know, now I use a thumb over anda half, and you do it a certain
way that works for me, wherethere's no strain on the elbow,
but the pain was still there fora while. So then I had to rehab
it. And the best way to rehab itwas chin ups. And you're like,
oh, that way. So you know, andthey were painful, right? But I
kept it light. And I did highreps and rehab it. So you're

(37:37):
talking about movements, like reinstilling the basement basic
movement patterns that arenatural to kind of push through
that.

Yeah, the easiest for that I'd like to say
is, let's say they are havingshoulder problems when I'm
benching and we try to make theadjustments on the barbell
bench, and they're still feelingit, you know, half the time, or
more than half the time, if wecould just step away from the
barbell and go to a dumbbellbench. It the pain goes away
immediately. So then all of asudden, we found a way. I mean,

(38:05):
we found a way to actually stillget that, that thrusting motion
of the chest without any pain.
Yeah, great. Look at that.

There you go.
That's great advice to peoplelistening, just an alternate or
very have a move, try it out.
Awesome. Okay, so we've talkedabout, we talked a lot about the
show on the show about thedifference between exercise and
training, right, like,exercising, going to the gym,
not really having a plan andjust, you know, having fun
getting a sweat and whatever.
Whereas training is somethingthat's planned out right are a

(38:35):
difference between a workout anda program. So for you as a
personal trainer, programming isa huge part of what you do. I
mean, it's basically what we'reyour expertise comes from, and
why somebody would need a coach.
So help us understand why it'simportant to getting results.

Yeah, well, we need to get results because we
want to be efficient with ourtime. I always I always go back
to that. It's like, don't youvalue your own time? Don't you
respect your own time? Okay, soyou're already paying money to
go to a gym, and let's sayyou're at a home gym, right?
Even if you're not paying moneyto go to your home gym, you're
still paying time you're puttingsome sort of an investment in,
don't you want to get the mostout of your return on your

(39:12):
investment? Right? So how do wedo that we need to be able to
have a plan for efficiency inthere. And so that plan of
efficiency comes throughactually programming and saying,
Okay, you're going into this dayto do this moment, this many
sets this many reps, and thenyou're gonna have this moment
and do this and this and this,okay? And that is how and then

(39:33):
you say, take a step back. Okay,how is this going to help me
reach my goals, you say, Oh,well, in a month, you're going
to actually be so good at itthat you can probably go up to
this sort of intensity. And thenafter that, you're gonna get so
good at that, that we're goingto actually change the exercise
and make it a little bit harderon you. And then you're gonna
have so good there. Then we getto this point, and you're saying
it all comes back at the end andall circles back to your goal.

(39:56):
And that is the main differenceis that everything that we do in
the gym In one way or another isgoing to lead to the goal if you
find yourself that you're doingan exercise, and you have to ask
yourself, How is this helpingme? And you can't answer that,
like, how is it helping me reachmy goal? The reason why I
started working out and tryingto get better, and you can't

(40:17):
answer that, then why are youdoing that exercise? Why is why
is it in there?

Awesome. So you are wasting your time, and you're
not being efficient unless youhave a plan and a program. And
that's basically time and moneydown the drain for weeks,
months, years of your life,probably why if you're
listening, and you haven't madeprogress in the gym, definitely
programming can be a huge partof that. So are there is there a
specific type of programming youreally like to use in terms of,

(40:43):
and we can get a little a littlemore complicated here, if you
want to talk about mesocyclesblock programming, progression,
like, I don't know, just digginga little bit of that.

Yeah, a lot of the block programming is pretty
good, we can also always justkind of put somebody into this,
you know, let's say we're takinga Gen pop, right, now, let's
majority of our clients, we'regonna put them through a
restorative phase. First andforemost, I don't care how
advanced they think they areeven, you know, or how little

(41:13):
advanced they are, we're gonnaput them through a restorative,
that we're sort of phase my bed.
And that's and what is that,that's pretty much just teaching
them the movements. And not onlyteaching the movements, we're
reteaching different movementpatterns. Because what I love
telling people is, you've spentso much time developing this
movement, that is a has becomeyour normal, it is your normal,
and whether it be a muscleimbalance or something like

(41:36):
that, it is normal to you, weneed to untrain that and put in
a different movement and createa different normal. So it's
always setting these blocks ofthis phase is here, when we get
done there. And we are confidentin our ability that we've
checked all the boxes, onceagain, then we can go into a
different phase. And with adifferent sort of goal, a sub

(41:57):
goal, I guess, within theoverall goal, but the phases, I
always tell people, it's veryfluid, I've never seen, we're
gonna work two weeks here, andthen two weeks here, and then
two weeks here, because for oneperson, they might check off all
the boxes in two weeks. Sorry,but for another person, it might
take six weeks. So always haveto be adjusting. And that's

(42:21):
where you're taking it week byweek with the programming, you
know, you have to look at andsay like, we did really good on
the deadlift this week, I thinkwe can progress there a little
bit. But that squat is stillreally struggling a little bit.
So we're gonna stick with thatand try to focus on it a little
bit more. So, yes, that's thebeauty of just the programming
in general.

Cool. Yeah. And you're working with the
individual. And it kind ofreminds me of, again, nutrition
coaching, same thing where youwork on one thing at a time, and
if it doesn't, if you're notquite there, you got to keep
keep working on it. So I think alot of this, I mean, I'm sure
you agree. Rule number one isconsistency, right? Can somebody
show up and do it? And thereasons are, are many, right,

(43:04):
like for people, for somepeople, it's how fun it is. And
others, it's the results andothers. It's how much their
coach yells at them, becausethat's what they want, you know,
or whatever. But without that,it doesn't matter. A perfect
program is irrelevant if youdon't stick with it, right. Show
up. Yeah. So how do you getpeople because you deal with all

(43:25):
kinds of people? How do you getthem to start and stick with the
routine? Yeah, so

starting with the routine, it's starting them
easy. Starting them off easy,alright, and letting them have
autonomy in it. I always likeasking two questions. It's how
many days can you come into thegym on your worst week? You
know, work is work is hell, yourfamily is going crazy. You know,
some something happens. How manydays? Do you know that you come
in here. And usually that'sthat's the common denominator.

(43:52):
There's like three days is likeusually like, I know, I can be
here three days a week, even ona worst week. And like, Okay,
sweet. We're over three days.
And then I always like to tellthem, what movements do really
love doing, you know, is theirmachines, free weights,
kettlebells, cables, bands andstuff like that. Because the
whole goal is if we're trying toget them into this new stimulus,
this new habit, this, this thisnew practice in their life, if

(44:16):
we were to throw all of this newthings, all the new things out
them at once, it might be toomuch of a new stimulus, it might
overload them a little bit, andthen they kind of shy away, you
know, they burn out pretty much.
So allowing them to haveautonomy in okay, I really like
machines. All right, I can focuson right in the beginning. Maybe

(44:38):
we do some bodyweight stuff juston the ground, get them moving.
And then we go into the machinesbut deep down I know in my head
I'm like, in a month I'm gettingaway from machines is once they
start getting used to exerciseand intensity and different
levels. It's like okay, look athow we can progress and get away
from machines. But I say I'mlike yeah, totally. Let's do
machines first. Like we can doan hour machines. Then it's

(45:00):
going to be great, because Iknow you can still get a workout
with machines. Now, do I wantthem there the entire time? No,
I'm going to progress them tofree weights and all that stuff.
But yeah, it's starting it offwith the stuff that they want to
do.

Yeah, like that.
And yeah, you can't come, youcan't just say, here's the ideal
thing you need to do, especiallyif they're not gonna enjoy it,
or they're gonna be stubborn,bad or whatever, however you
want to phrase it. And you startwith what they like, and
gradually convinced them justthrough their own through
osmosis, that there's a betterway. Cool, is there anything
about nutrition? You wanted tocome back to with all this?

(45:33):
Because I know you you do you doboth? Right. Like, do you? Do
you have clients where you'dgive both nutrition and training
coaching?

Yeah, yeah. And that's, and that's something
that I do is, I try my best toactually provide that because I
understand that like, hey, theycan come in here, I can give
them the program four days aweek, I work with them once a
week, maybe twice a week orsomething. And that's all going
good. But if they're going home,and they're eating, like, crap,
and or they're overeating, orthey're under eating, a lot of

(46:03):
times, it's they're undereating, a lot of times they come
in and they want to buildmuscle, I'm like, Dude, you got
to start eating a little bit

more fasted, right?
Exactly.

And then it ends up just they don't see the
progress, and is the is the mostinteresting thing ever. Because
this is what will happen, theywill see the progress with the
weights, the weights willsteadily increase week after
week after week, they won't seea physical difference in the
mirror. And they're asking mewhat's going on here, I've been
going up in the benchpress. Forthe last five weeks, I'm like,
Yeah, we're simply just gettingbetter at the skill of the

(46:34):
movement. Like, that's all itis, we're just becoming more
efficient and movement, we'reusing more muscle fibers, we're
having better higher recruitmentpattern. But we're not actually
increasing the size of themuscle fibers themselves. And
that's coming from the fact thatyou are not in taking as many
calories. So it's given themguidelines on that, because I
understand, it's like, it's atwo pronged effect, you can't

(46:55):
just have one aspect of it andexpect to get the results.

Yeah, you know, what you just said is, is really
critical, because you're makingme think of it in a different
way than it had before. So whenI talk to people about when they
start training, and they'regetting stronger, you know,
there's neuromuscularadaptation, you referred to
that, where you're gettingbetter at the skill, and you're
recruiting more muscle fibersthat you already have, it's like
this inherent potential that youhaven't tapped into, and you're

(47:20):
starting to tap into it. Andand, and the way I've always
said it is eventually you get toa threshold where your body
needs to create new tissue tokeep getting stronger. But what
you also said is, if you're notin that anabolic environment to
begin with, and feedingyourself, you're leaving gains
on the table right from thebeginning as well. Which is
great for people to know. Yeah,

yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Call I've just,

I've just repaired for you. I'm just paraphrasing.

I mean, that's what it is. And it's, it's, it's
been able to actually have themunderstand. And that's, that's
what I love to tell my clientsand like, I know that I can tell
you to eat. But are you going tohow much motivation is that? Is
there enough of a reason to dothat, just because I, your
trainer is telling you to eat.
If I were to explain why it'simportant, say, hey, remember

(48:06):
that goal that you have that youwant to have a bigger chest and
a bigger back? Alright, well, weneed in order to do that, we
need to have muscle muscularhypertrophy, we need to increase
the size of the muscles, we needto build muscle per se. In order
to do that we need to eat moreand weight and lift weights. So
then they have that reason ofwhy they need to eat more. And

(48:27):
so if they can understand whythey need to do something,
they're going to be moreinclined to actually doing that
habit and doing that daily task.
Rather than like, I'm doing itbecause my trainer said it's
good for me. So I guess I gotit. It's like, but now they're
like, Oh, I know, putting thismeal into my body right here is
going to help me with my goal.
So they're going to do it a lotmore.

I love it, man.
Yeah, I'm totally fine with youon helping people understand why
I'm gonna use what you justsaid, with clients as well that,
hey, you're gonna gain strength,but you're not going to look as
good as you want, unless youalso keep it.

It's crazy. But yeah, that's what it is. No,
it's true. And then

and then you do see the interesting phenomenon where
somebody who's very overweight,and they they go into a slight
deficit and they start startingtraining, you see them gain
weight and lose, you know, yousee them gaining strength for
quite a while. What in thatscenario? What do you think? are
we experiencing body recomp? Oris it still the neuromuscular
adaptation for a while?

Yeah, it can be a little bit of both there.
Yeah, yeah. It's

to feed the muscles

right? Yeah, they have a bigger runway is
what I like to say. And that'sthat's this is a metaphor that I
learned from Dr. Jordan shallowif you guys he uses a lot of
bigger fancy words than I do. Soif you have trouble
understanding me then I don'tknow if you're gonna understand
him, but he always explains itas you have this sort of a
runway of how long can weactually do this movement for

(49:53):
this, this pattern for until weactually hit that roadblock we
need to take off. So startingoff from your base there, if you
have more body weight, youactually have a much longer
runway. Compared to somebody whostarted off at 110 pounds and
has skin and bones, they have amuch shorter runway where we can
only develop that neuromuscularadaptation for that long, until

(50:17):
we need to really startincreasing the caloric and
looking at that aspect, but withsomeone who's more on the
heavier side that was looking togo down in weight, and
bodyweight, their runway is alot longer.

Awesome. Yeah, that's a great way to put it the
runway. Again, man. So this isgold. So much good stuff this
interview. So I like to ask allmy guests. Is there a question
that you wish I had asked? Andwhat's your answer?

Yeah, the question that I wanted you to
ask would be like how tounderstand that less is more,
because this is something that Ilove to fight with people about,
because that means that we'vegotten to a point where you are
working out so much, and youlove to work out, you love what
you're doing that you'reactually coming in here too

(51:03):
much. And you're actuallynegating some of some of your
strength and fuzzy gains thatyou could get, because then I
need to fight you and bring youback down. I would much rather
have that battle with someone totake him down today. Rather than
like, Dude, you're only comingin here one day a week, we need
to get you up to two, that stepis huge for them. I would much
rather have the Battle of like,you're already there. Let's just

(51:26):
take it down a notch. Right. Butunderstanding that less is more,
and I've heard that quote,throughout my entire life. And
throughout my entire life. I waslike, nah, nah, I'll just work
hard. I'll just keep workinghard. And it wasn't until I
actually took time. And Idecided, You know what, I'm
gonna implement it for like onemonth, trial for one month, cut

(51:46):
down my the number of days I goto the gym, everything else
stayed the same. I just cut downthe number of days I went to the
gym. And I felt better. I gotway stronger and everything. And
I was noticing a lot of physiquechanges in the good sense. So it
was crazy. It was like, it tookme you know, six or seven years
to figure it out. But once Idid, once I did it was it was it

(52:09):
made a lot more sense.

Less is more that's that's awesome advice. So if
we're where's the sweet spot formost people? Right? Is it is it
that they're, they're trying tolift four days a week and then
fill in the other days withlike, boot camps and cardio, you
know, air squats and stuff arerunning, you know? And what is
the sweet spot? Like two orthree days a week? Generally?

Yeah, it's there's, I would say two to four
days a week for theweightlifting per se you can
easily do that. If you look thatweek or seven days, you can
afford to go back to back dayson one day, as long as you take
that rest day on the third day.
But yeah, it's a lot of it islike they come in, let's say
they are doing the four daysthough. But then the other three
are like heavy cardio days. It'slike another heavy bootcamp
days. And then we take a lookback and like do every day

(52:55):
you're taxing yourself. So somuch. Where's the recovery
aspect to it? There's norecovery in that,

like, but I wanted to fat but I want to burn fat
Matthew? Isn't that how I do it?

Yeah, it's oh my gosh. And that's and that's
just where it's going back tothe idea where if we can allow
them to understand it, and teachthem so that they can understand
it, then they understand why andthen they're not going to do it,
compared to oh, I don't want youto do cardio for these two days.
And then they say oh, like mytrainer said I don't I don't
have to do cardio. But I reallywant to because I bet it's going

(53:28):
to help me, you know, becausenow they're just going off of
whatever I say. I want them tounderstand why they shouldn't do
it. Because then they're gonnarealize, you know, they can
practice.

Yeah, they buy into. Yeah, and another question
I like to ask is, are you doingthis? Because you enjoy it? Are
you doing this? Because usuallythe answer is not really. Like
very few people enjoy all thesuccess of cardio very few
people, somebody might likerunning and then it's then it's
a question of okay, do we stillneed to incorporate running
because you enjoy it forconsistency, but know that it

(53:57):
might interfere with some ofyour gains over here? Yeah,
great. Less is more. And thenfinally, where can listeners
find out about you and yourwork?

Yeah, so I'm all over Instagram least I try
to be the Spiewak underscorepersonal training. I do have a
Facebook group similar toPhillips, but try to do my own
spin on that, you know, I don'tnot just try to do a carbon copy
of him. But pretty much thosetwo places are the most I do
have YouTube also on there. Sothat's some original content as

(54:28):
well, unleased physique onYouTube.

Cool. All right. So a lot, a lot of places. I don't
think I'm in your group yet. Ineed to join that. So we're
going to include all those linksto Instagram, YouTube, Facebook,
and your website in the shownotes. Matthew. Again, this was
a lot of fun. Thank you so muchfor coming on the show. It was a
blast.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was it
was awesome to talk about. Yeah.

Thanks for listening to the show. Before
you go, I have a quick favor toask. If you enjoy the podcast,
let me know by leaving a fivestar review in Apple podcasts.
I'm telling others about theshow. Thanks again for joining
me Philip Pape in this episodeof Wits & Weights. I'll see you
next time and stay strong.

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Ep 39: Pain-Free Training and Flexible Dieting Principles with Matthew Spiewak

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