Transcript 0:00 Back in the studio with the entire Red Dot Fitness crew. That's Ryan, Steven, CC, and myself, Scott Howell. 0:05 You're gonna hear us talk today about why you're not gaining muscle or you won't gain muscle if you're not aware of these three things. We got three key components we're gonna chat through today. 0:14 We kind of go a couple of different directions with it, but they all center back on these three foundations. You don't have to have a degree in this stuff to get a better understanding. 0:21 We're gonna break it down, hopefully give you some principles to go back to the gym starting today to help get the most out of your resistance training and workout routines. 0:28 [whooshing sound] Having the most success with building muscle typically starts with having a well-formulated plan. If you go to rdftrainonline.com, you can check out our online training programs. 0:39 Specifically, our most popular muscle building and strength building program is called Red Dot Fitness Strong. 0:45 This is a four-month comprehensive muscle building and strength program that not just gives you workout templates, but teaches you why you're doing what you're doing and how to leverage those things throughout your workout or fitness journey. 0:56 To find out more about that, you can go to rdfstrong.com. When you get to rdfstrong.com, you can use code STRONG25 for 25% off that program. Again, that's 25% off by using code STRONG25. 1:10 [rock music] Welcome to Iron Sights. 1:17 This podcast candidly seeks to create opportunities and deliver impact by sharing the experiences and wisdom of successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders who unapologetically aim to win in health, fitness, business, and life. 1:31 I'm your host, Scott Howell. Welcome to old school meets new school, tradition meets innovation, and imperfection meets excellence. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show. 1:43 All right, here's all the key reasons why you're not gonna build muscle or you're not building muscle now. You guys ready? Ready. Ready. I'm so ready. Yeah. Ready, set, go. [clears throat] So, 1:53 uh, y- we talk about building muscle a lot, and we talk about all different types of training variables and formats and, uh, goals that people might have, and I think sometimes it can sound like it's getting a little convoluted. 2:06 Um, and I think there's a lot of confusion that lies around muscle building, strength training, endurance, muscular endurance versus like cardiovascular endurance and how to balance it all. 2:17 We've done several episodes and had several conversations about how to balance certain things. But in th- in this one, I wanna keep it focused to building muscle, hypertrophy, 2:27 and more specifically, why you're not getting the result that you're looking for, or why you're not gonna get the result you're looking for if you're doing certain things or not doing other things. 2:36 So, I just wanna kind of break, break down a few principles here, and then give some people maybe some tips or some strategies to maybe change things up, um, and not completely turn their, their workout on their head, but think about things a little bit differently. 2:49 And really, these are basic things that it's become apparent to me in some conversations I've had lately that people need to be reminded about. So, I thought we, we'd jump back into it. 2:57 I- and I think it's, it, like we're at the beginning of 2025. 3:01 People are thinking about their workout programs as per usual, uh, a little bit harder and a little bit more, and they're kind of reevaluating their goals or reevaluating successes or failures that they had or didn't have, you know, previously. 3:13 It's just kind of that they're, they're in that mindset right now, so this might be a good place to kind of hit them with a few, a few, few things to, to just reexamine and, and kind of get into. So, I... 3:25 One of the things that, that drives me nuts, I think, around the hypertrophy thing is, or, or building muscle is a lot of times it gets, it gets boiled down too simply. 3:36 Uh, and people, you know, talk about this is how you get success, um, and it's through like things like this particular exercise, right? Or this particular workout program or whatever. 3:47 And yes, there are ex- there are, there are workout programs and there are exercises within those workout programs. It's never about what's in the program, it's how it's applied. 3:55 And so, what we're really talking about is like application. And people all, have all different goals, and I wanna be clear about this. If you're building hypertrophy, then you're likely building strength, right? 4:05 [chuckles] And if you're building strength, you're likely going to build some level of hypertrophy until you don't, and that, that is based on the application of what you're doing. 4:15 And so, in kind of high-leveling this and breaking it down, like I think there, there's, there are three key principles that you need to understand about this. So, people go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that before." 4:25 But do you know how to apply them is where I wanna, where I wanna go with this. So, yes, I've heard this before and, you know, people have talked about that. We're not inventing anything new. 4:34 We're not gonna give people a science lesson. But there are really three key things that you have to understand and apply in order to build muscle. And, uh, there's a lot of nuance and detail that can go into all that. 4:48 I'm gonna try to not to go into all that, like maybe we've gone a little deeper in the past. 4:53 But there's a few things people wanna know or should know, um, if you're in the gym so that you're not wasting your time and you're actually getting the result that you're looking for. You guys ready? Ready. Ready. Yeah. 5:03 All right. So, key principally. Um, there's... When, when, when we're talking about muscle hypertrophy, let's talk about muscles and kind of how they work. 5:10 In order to elicit a growth in muscle tissue, there's kind of three things you need to, you need to keep in mind here. First off is tension, mechanical tension. 5:19 So, how do you apply mechanical attention, um, uh, mechanical tension? 5:24 Well, that's why you go to the gym, 'cause we got all the, the, we got the barbells and the dumbbells and the cables and tubing and apparatus that you can hang from and pull on and push on and leg press on and all that kind of stuff. 5:35 Yes, those things w- that you can apply force to will create tension. But the, the oversimplification is when people look at that and go, "Yeah, I just need to use more weight," right? 5:47 Or, "I just need to use weight or load," right? Which we'll get into in a, in a second here. 5:52 But they, they think that like, "If I need to, if I wanna grow more muscle, I have to use more weight That's not what I'm talking about here. 5:58 We're talking about tension I, I love, there's a quote that, [clears throat] I don't know who said it, but of, "Muscles don't know load. They know tension. They know mechanical tension." 6:06 And so, like, even comparing exercises, people will want to compare loads of a varying exercise when really, like, you're... 6:12 It's, it's a lot more in the nuance of, like, playing with lever arms, playing with the tension, playing with your application of that tension, if it's through the right tissue, all that different stuff, not just are you adding more weight every week. 6:22 That's not necessarily the basic principle of it, so. So it's, it's the intention as well as far as w- how you're going- Mm-hmm... through certain movement patterns with those loads. Yes, the intention of the tension. 6:32 Love it. Yeah. So, so the first thing is, is creating that mechanical tension. Mm-hmm. 6:35 There's many, many ways to do that, and it goes beyond load, but one of the things that you need to understand when you're creating tension and however you're doing it is load management- Mm-hmm... 6:44 while you're creating that tension. 6:45 And we'll get into some detail here of what elicits what we know, basically through science and experience and whether it's anecdotal or proven on, you know, in, in studies or in a laboratory, so to speak. 6:56 Like, load management is very important here. And so yes, you need to use enough weight in order to elicit that response that you're looking for, which again, it's muscle growth in this case, right? 7:07 Which will in- you, if you're doing that, you're also gonna be building strength, right? 7:12 But how you apply that, and there are some, there are some specifics here in terms of how much weight you need to use within that tension in order to create this. 7:22 So, uh, I just wanna be clear about load management, that load management is much more than just about adding more weight to the bar or adding, you know, grabbing that heavier set of dumbbells. 7:31 So that's the second thing, is the load management. Uh, and then the, the, the third thing is, is the recovery from the work that you're actually putting in. Now, and if your goal is muscle hypertrophy or... 7:43 then, then managing those things in w- with regard to the loads and the tension that you're putting on, that's where things actually get a little bit more detailed in terms of what your body needs in order to recover from the, the stimulus that you're giving it in order 8:02 so that it can basically recover beyond where you started with it. 8:07 So that could mean from workout to workout, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, however you wanna look at it, and there's a lot of things that go into that, but those are your three key principles. 8:17 Again, so it's mechanical tension, it's load management, and it's the recovery process or the management of that recovery. Again, people are like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this before. I know this." 8:27 Yeah, but are you doing that? So I open this up with here's the reasons why you're not building muscle or you're not going to build muscle, and they're all gonna be rooted. Any, any, 8:39 uh, lack of success that you're having are rooted in one of those three things, or all of those things, uh, depending on kinda where you're coming into this. So just going back to the mechanical tension piece. 8:50 Like, again, like, people choose exercises to create tension, and there's a lot of emotion and, uh, things that are, that are attached to a lot of exercises to create that tension. 9:02 But, and I think that's where we start with- which is, is like what are you choosing to create this tension as it relates to also managing those other two principles that we are trying not to violate here? Uh, you can't. 9:14 And, well, if you do, then you're not gonna build the muscle that you want. 9:17 So, um, and, and there could be some other deeper-rooted things there, but I'm not, we're not gonna get into that, uh, too, too deep into that today. 9:25 But when, when we're looking at that mechanical tension, um, you just mentioned it, muscles don't know loads. They know tension. Yeah. Right? So that sounds like semantics. What do you mean by that? 9:37 So I, I mean, uh, uh, here's a really good example of, um, when you change, you know, and, and knowing biomechanics and, and lever arms and moment arms and how those things vary, um, based on where you're loading a movement, um, and based on even the mo- movement where the load is in space in that current range of motion of the movement, too. 9:56 So a good example is saying doing, like, an exercise like a good morning versus, like, a stiff leg, um, deadlift, right? 10:03 Where people a lot of times will wanna correlate loads of the stiff leg deadlift, right, or an e- or a Romanian deadlift, and then they apply that to their good morning. 10:12 When really you could be doing a great deal less, um, uh, literal weight on the good morning, but because it is a longer lever arm to your hamstrings, you're working, you could get just an effective stimulus on your hamstrings with a lighter load. 10:26 So, like, that's an example of, like, how you're manipulating these things, how you're manipulating your leverages, and that goes a lot into, like, technique as well. 10:34 Um, another good example is, like, someone doing, like, a bicep curl. 10:37 A really common compensation in a bicep curl is when they're trying to pull into flexion, when they're trying to pull the dumbbell from point A to point B, a lot of people will dip their elbow back, and they'll shorten that moment arm when they're pulling. 10:49 And even though that could be a heavier load you did l- than last week, last week you did the 20s with the elbow in a good position where you're keeping that long arm, um, if you shorten that, even though you now are doing the 30s, you're not getting an over-stimulus there. 11:02 You're getting the, a, could either [laughs] a net n- neutral stimulus or might be a net negative stimulus even though that weight is heavier than it was last week. So you've sacrificed mechanical tension for loading. 11:14 Exact- Right? Exactly. And that's, like, uh, I think it's the probably one of the largest mistakes you see a lot of people making. And it's- 100%... 11:19 that it's not that sacrificing that, that, in, in that way can't make you stronger- Mm-hmm... right, and/or won't give you some level of increase in hypertrophy or m- muscle growth. Yeah. 11:33 But the efficiency there is obviously compromised. Mm-hmm. And if the goal is to build muscle, that principle that you just mentioned is uber, uber important. Yes. 11:43 You cannot sacrifice, y- you do not want to sacrifice the tension that you're trying to apply through the muscle or muscles that you're training for load and expect the best hypertrophy result. Yep. 11:57 The other thing that w- in the, the exercises that you just described there is we started to move into more isolated movements- Yep... which is another big thing. 12:05 So when we look at, like, load management and what you're trying to do in terms of creating, uh, creating hypertrophy- 12:13 The more things that you add to that equation, and what I mean by that is, like, more joints and more muscles, then you have to understand that you're, you're gonna take away from a very specific effect that you might be trying to get in a very specific area. 12:26 Mm-hmm. And I think that's what you were kind of describing with, with both of those, both of those movements. So as an example, like, I might be very strong in my deadlift, right? 12:35 But that doesn't mean I'm gonna grow or I'm going to increase the size of my biceps. Yeah. All right. Now, people would go like, "Of course not." 12:43 Well, the, th- in reality, though, your biceps are working fairly hard, right, in a heavily loaded deadlift. But you're not isolating any, any specific area there- Yeah... 12:53 so you shouldn't s- uh, expect to get any s- uh, specific hypertrophy result there. 13:00 Um, it's not to say that, like, a newbie coming in that only did deadlifts does not get extra bicep girth in the first, in the, in the starting out. Yeah. 13:07 I don't wanna, I don't wanna get lost in the weeds here, but my point is, is like, people are like, "Yeah, man, that makes perfect sense." Okay. 13:13 So then going back to, like, your bicep thing, or your bicep example, then they move over to something like a bicep curl, and they think they need to be moving that load the same way with the same intensity or the same type of, um... 13:26 I, I'll just use, I think intensity is the right word. 13:29 Th- they, they need to be moving that bicep curl the same way, uh, and they should feel the same as when they're moving the deadlift or the barbell from the, from the floor to their hips. Yeah. 13:38 That this, this is where things get very, very lost, right? Like, no, it doesn't need to be. Like, what we need to do is create tension through the entire range of motion 13:48 that elicits the response that we're looking, we're looking to achieve here. 13:51 So I, I think people get really confused with, like, oh, well, if I'm lifting super heavy here, somehow I should equate, like, I have to lift super heavy over here. No. This goes back to the tension principle. Yeah. 14:01 How much tension can I build and maintain through that range of motion for this particular exercise in this, for this particular muscle group that I'm trying to, again, grow or get gains through? 14:13 Um, so, so management, or excuse me, so tension and load are two totally different things. Yeah. And I think that's the point we're trying to make here. So then when you move into the load management piece, like, 14:25 what are the re- what are some of the reasons you're not building muscle in the areas, right, that you are trying to build muscle in? 14:32 Well, it's likely because you have not, you're not managing the things we just talked about. And more specifically, what I'm saying is, is like, how much weight are you trying to use to build this muscle? And 14:45 we know, basically through, through science, again, what's happened in a laboratory and what obviously happens when you look at people as they're training, like, certain loads do not build muscle hypertrophy, right, after a certain point. 15:00 Right? Like, if... Uh, and I guess I would break it down to this. Are you training for strength, or are you training for hypertrophy? 'Cause those are two different things. Yeah. 15:09 And again, I already related, like, if you're building hypertrophy, if you're increasing your hypertrophy, you're probably increasing your strength as well. 15:14 Um, but just because you're increasing your strength doesn't necessarily mean you're increasing your hypertrophy. And my, my point about, my point of this is, is to your bi- your bicep curl. 15:23 Just 'cause I can put more load in my hand, right, and get that, that, uh, that, that, uh, that- Dumbbell?... dumbbell, sorry- [laughs]... from point A to point B- Yeah... 15:32 it m- it matters much more how you did it than how much load you have in your hand. Yeah. I, I don't know if I'm, if I'm getting too far off the rails here, but does that make sense? Well, yeah, and I, I... It does. 15:42 I think it's ti- it's important to, you know, with load management, really what that means, it's not l- I mean, it's the literal load, managing that load, but it's also the load manager of, like, your total training volume and how many times, how many repetitions you're getting with that load. 15:55 That's where I was going. And, right. Yeah. So how many sets, how many reps, um, what is that volume? 15:59 And, and then I think, you know, we're gonna kinda dive into this more, of is that the appropriate load for the amount of volume that you're, um, dictating or that you're implementing with that load? 16:09 Um, so when you're saying, for example, that you, um, there's a, there's kind of a, a limiting point, um, there's a, a, a point of diminishing returns, or there's a point where you're gonna not maximize h- muscle hypertrophy when you're going so hard through the load, um, where you can't get a repeatability of volume. 16:26 Right. You can't manage that load. That there is, yes, we need a lot of mechanical tension. That's one of the main drivers. But you need repeated bouts of mechanical tension to maximize muscle hypertrophy. 16:36 So when you, if you're only going in there and you're doing a three by one, and that could be a crazy amount of mechanical tension that you're generating, even if you have great technique, great intention, great movement, all that, but if you're not getting enough repeated bouts with that mechanical tension, you're gonna be leaving things on the table. 16:51 Correct. So it's- And there's something to be said, though, as well, as far as making sure that it, the mechanical tension is appropriate, in that you're not doing 15 to 20 to 25 repetitions as well. Yeah. 17:01 Yeah, so let's break that down a little bit. So, like, and here's what I would say. 17:04 Like, if strength training, so if you're training for maximal strength, we're probably working somewhere in the, in the rep ranges of one to five- Mm-hmm... 17:12 of somewhere above, like, your 85% of your one rep maximum, right? So obviously, if I'm, if I, if, if that- You mean 85% of your one rep, rep max. What did I say? Not above, uh- What did I say? 17:24 You said above your one rep max. No, sorry. Of your- Of your one rep max. There you go. Sorry, not 85% above. You'd be a freaking- Yeah. [laughs] You'd be an alien. Then that wasn't your one rep max. 17:31 [laughs] Let me say it again. So one to five repetitions of a, of, of 85% of your one rep maximum, right? 17:40 And so what that's doing is that's creating a high amount of tension, but what you're saying is it doesn't create enough time in that tension- Yeah... 17:48 to, to elicit the response that we're trying to get from a muscle growth perspective. Yes, correct. 17:53 So then we need to look, and one of the things you said th- we were talking about in terms of sacrificing things is this, when you're trying to build muscle, 18:01 how you're doing that repetition and how you're applying that tension is critical, right? It, it's the same for, for strength in terms of if you wanna keep building it or not. 18:10 But again, applying that through that range of motion where you have that tension through the entire range of motion or you're maximizing that tension through that entire range of motion for a period of time is what's really important. 18:23 So- You should be looking at this as, okay, so what would I be doing then if, if one to five at 85% of my one-rep max is not good? Um, 18:33 let's look at, like, a six to 12 repetition scheme where now I have more time under that. Well, I wouldn't be able to handle my, my 85% at that point, so it should be less than that. Well, how much less? 18:45 Probably somewhere between 60, 65, and that, below that 85 is what we need to do. So that's when we start looking at volume, right? 18:52 So intensity is still there, it's just there over a longer period of time, and that's where people need to get their heads around. 18:59 It's like you're going in, you're doing, you know, your three-rep max on your bench press, and you're not getting any bigger. You're not putting any size on. Well, it's because you don't have enough time under that. 19:09 So what should you do? Well, then I'll just do another three-rep max later in the week. You know, I'll do, do another workout and hit my three-rep max on, on my bench press later in the week. 19:19 Well, then that falls into our, our, basically our recovery piece. Yes. Yeah. 19:24 Because if you're applying that much load and that intensity under that time duration, right, then you're going to need more time to recover, right? 19:32 In order to recover back to baseline, in order to increase more strength or ultimately more load on that bar. 19:39 But you haven't, you haven't, you haven't created enough time under that tension in order to really elicit a hypertrophy response. Yeah, and, and I think it's, it's important to note, you know, there has... 19:48 So some people might bring up that there has been more recent studies on the ability to build muscle at lower rep ranges or higher rep ranges. 19:56 And, and though the, the, you know, in a controlled, um, laboratory that those things may be showing, I still think it's exactly what you're just alluding to with the recovery piece of, yes, there might be a response to, um, be able to build muscle with a lower rep range, or there might be a, a response to build, um, muscle with a very high rep range that she mentioned. 20:15 But I think, one, when you work in that really low rep range, if you are really actually working with a percent of your one-rep max that is stimulating enough to get muscle growth, to get in any repeated bouts, it's gonna be so much put you in recovery debt on the, uh, even from a central nervous system, um, aspect that to get that, it's, it's almost impossible, I think, to get that for a long duration of time. 20:35 So it's like where you said you can build some muscle in those le- low rep ranges, but at a certain point, you're gonna reappoint of diminishing returns on your recovery, because that's a really huge point for this. 20:44 And then just to touch really quickly on the high, high rep range, I think because there's so many bouts of... 20:50 There, that's a lot of time under tension, but to pick a load that is stimulating enough in that high rep range, that is stimulating enough to create the mechanical tension that you need to build muscle, but that you can also get an adequate volume, but that you can also recover for, I think that just adds way too many variables that you can miss the target. 21:07 Agreed. Where that's where I love, like, even though there's data showing this, but how do you extrapolate from the data of things that have been used for a long time of the six to 12 range for hypertrophy? One of the... 21:17 We've talked about this, but why I think that is still a really, really good goal and range is because it's a sweet spot where you can load it heavy enough to get a good response for mechanical tension, which again, we already defined that load doesn't necessarily equal mechanical tension, but it is a component of it. 21:31 And, but you can also get enough volume and enough time with that tension to create enough bouts of a stimulus to build, build muscle, so. 21:39 Yeah, so there's a thing we didn't add in here with regard to the load management and the tension piece, and that, that basically is the muscle damage- Mm-hmm... that happens during that time, right? And I... 21:49 Damage is a- Microtrauma. Yeah. It, again, that, that, that word gets used and it... I guess in reality, that's kind of what's happening. 21:56 Like, there's a breakdown that's happening of tissue and things that are happening at a cellular level that your body has to respond to. That goes back into the recovery piece. 22:04 But you, you mentioned things like the central nervous system and, uh, the, the stresses that it's putting on that. And, and you also mentioned like one to five, we've mentioned one to five versus six to 12. 22:13 Well, if you only did five repetitions, but you did those at a tempo that would keep you under tension- Yeah... 22:19 right, for the same amount of time that the six to 12 w- would be, well, then we're talking the same thing, right? It's the time that you're spending under that tension. 22:28 So you mentioned, like, the sweet spot, and that's, that's what... It's not that the six to 12 is a perfect number. 22:34 It just gives us the time with a load that's manageable in order to get that time or get the tension over that time done in, with... 22:44 Uh, which also leaves enough gas in the tank to then be able to apply that maybe multiple times over multiple sets- Mm... in a single session, or over multiple sessions during the week. 22:55 So again, just hanging into the, the load management piece. Like, okay, so I'm working at an intense level, and I'm doing my three to four sets of six to 12 or whatever it is, of this, uh, of this particular thing. 23:07 Well, if I'm increasing my intensity or if I'm trying to manage that intensity over time, one of the things that working in that six to 12 repetition range, and again, managing that, managing the, the, the tension through the tempos, is it allows you to then hit that multiple times during the week, right? 23:22 Uh, uh, in terms of the frequency piece. Mm. It allows you to hit it more frequently and still get a recoverability that allows you to basically reap the rewards of the work that you did. Yes. Yeah. So 23:37 again, like, if you're training for strength and you've been training for strength, and we're hitting these low rep ranges, high intensity, you're probably gonna stop building muscle at some point. 23:46 Now again, depending on where you are in your journey, you know, what your training age is like, what you're doing on the recovery piece, which we haven't talked about. 23:53 Like, the, the, there, it's gonna be different for different people. 23:56 But if you're looking to build muscle, right, and, and build muscle over a long period of time, that's the other great part about understanding these principles, is I can continue to do that over a very long period of time with a return on that investment versus continually training at those high intensity levels that are more, are predominantly gonna build strength- Mm-hmm... 24:15 over, over the muscle building. Yeah. So then that brings into the third p- the third part, which is the recoverability piece. 24:22 Like, what are we doing in order to recover, and what is it, what do we mean when we say recovery when it comes to muscle building versus, in this case, we're talking about, like, I'm comparing and contrasting this against the strength training, which is, I see a lot of people doing. 24:34 Again, like, I think I used the example at the beginning of the five by five routine. Um- The five-by-five routine is good, and you can build muscle and strength by, by doing this for sure. 24:44 S- it's, it's an, it's an awesome way to format your workouts. And one of the things you're doing is you're, you're, you're, you're hitting the things multiple times per week. 24:53 So, but you're also giving yourself m- much time in between in order to recover that. 24:59 So, like it's a, whether it's a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine or a Monday, Thursday, Saturday or something, I've got lots of time in between. 25:05 But if you're a person that likes to go or wants to build muscle and you like to go to the gym six days a week, that's not gonna be the right, the right routine for you because you're not giving yourself the recovery that you need in order to, again, recover back to baseline and then build on, build on top of that. 25:20 So, if we're looking at this sort of on a, and, and kind of, um, the, the specific on the, on the recovery side of things, I think you look at, okay, so tension, load management, right? Recovery. 25:32 How do you set that up really well for muscle building through the week? And the, the, the old, um, you know, body split routine works really well here. 25:43 And, and, and, and on the hypertrophy side of things, if you're breaking that up to where you're hitting your, your, your same, the same body part or the same, you know, muscles two times a week or sometimes even more than that, depending on, again, what the intensity's like or what the specificity of your exercise selection has been like, you can get a really great, uh, result from that over a long period of time. 26:03 Just look at the bodybuilders. That's what they're doing constantly. They're never really working into, you know, specific strength or power phases. Yeah. 26:10 They're, they're applying the same principles consistently over and over and over again, and they're not using maximal loads. They're using sub-maximal loads. 26:17 They're working in, and they're working through tempos that create that tension over time. And it's not that they're not strong. These guys are fucking strong, right? When you, when you... 26:26 The, the, the bigger, more seasoned, you know, especially when you're looking at bodybuilding versus like physique. I'm not saying physique guys aren't strong or physique people aren't strong. 26:35 If you look at them over time, they are strong people, right? But they are not getting un- in, in there to find out what their one-rep max is on a regular basis. 26:42 They're m- they're managing like what, again, is that 65 to 85%. So if I'm doing that six to 12 repetitions, I'm doing maybe 10 and leaving two in the tank. 26:52 I'm never really fully going to maximal failure on every single set. Why? 26:58 Because I've given my body enough tension and load over time in order for it to respond appropriately, recover appropriately, uh, uh, which leaves me room to go back and hit it again. 27:10 So again, the, if you're, if you're not building the mus- if you're not building muscle, you should be looking at like, what am I doing with my rep and set schemes as it relates to my loads? 27:20 Am I providing enough stimulus? Am I providing too much stimulus? And how would you know that? Well, it goes back to those percentages. 27:26 So, a- and I think, too, that's a good, a good thing that you pointed out as far as the person who likes to go, um, to the gym, you know, five, six days a week versus the person who, um, maybe can't get in there that often. 27:36 So that, I think that's where you also really need to analyze like what's a realistic, um, uh, like a routine for you to maintain, and we've talked about consistency and all that. 27:46 But if you are someone who's gonna go six days a week and you're pushing to too high of an i- an intensity, right, and you're doing muscle groups where you're gonna hit them multiple times per week, you really need to make sure you're load managing the intensity, the load that goes with that, which, you know, is a lot tied to intensity, the mechanical tension as far as like the time under tension. 28:05 Like, if you're doing really long tempos, really long eccentrics, like those things take a long time to recover for. 28:10 So that person, it might be more about getting a lot of training volume in if you do enjoy, um, training often so that you can recover from. 28:17 But on the other side of things, if you're someone who can really only train like twice a week, like ramping up the intensity portion of that, ramping up the, that you, you have a three to four days in between each thing to, um, each, uh, body part to recover from it. 28:30 Like ramping up the amount of intensity, but also the time under tension and all those other aspects and getting, uh, more proximity to failure, that might be the way you wanna go, too. 28:39 So that's also another thing to consider, like which person are you and are you actually implementing the, the direction that you probably should be for how, what your routine looks like, so. Yeah, I think so. 28:48 I- I- Again, breaking it down, like I, I's I'm glad you brought that up. Like, I, uh, look, I'm not going to the gym five to six, six days a week. I just don't have time to do that. Okay. 28:56 Well, then manage the, the, the tempos and the time under tension in the three days a week that you have appropriately, but it doesn't mean going... 29:06 Uh, again, you need to look at like how many repetitions am I actually doing? How much volume of work am I actually doing? And so I think a lot of people sacrifice the intensity piece. 29:15 They, they go straight to that, like I gotta be lifting more weight. And then the, what you see is the, the, the rep schemes, they start to drop down. Mm. 29:22 And as that happens, then what you've done is you've taken volume out of the workout. Yeah. So you've sacrificed volume for intensity. And so there is a balance there. Yeah. 29:31 And if you've been in that same routine where it's just been like, I know what my, you know, I know what I can get five out of and I'm working more like the five to eight and I'm not getting the hypertrophy gains, well, then back that off a little bit. 29:43 Yeah. Like take a little weight off the bar. Push more towards the, the 10 repetition to 12 repetition area. It, it won't e- it won't take you more time, right? 29:51 Like w- it, in, in reality, you are spending more time under tension, but your, your recovery periods between sets and likely- Should be the same. Yeah. They're gonna probably be about the same. 30:02 So if we're resting, again, like if you're in that one to five routine, then you're probably resting somewhere in the neighborhood of two to maybe as much as five minutes, right? 30:11 To recover in order to be able to get your five again, right? But if you're bumping it up, like again, with regard to volume and dropping off your intensity a little bit, you won't need as much time to recover, right? 30:22 And you can still push the same amount of load and get that same time under that mechanical tension at a load that will elicit the response that you're trying to get in basically the same amount of time. 30:34 So you're taking rest times or you're decreasing rest times and you're increasing the volume of- Yeah... work that you're actually doing. 30:40 Um, and that might feel weird Like, either the weight that you have on the bar or the weight that you have in your hands can be a little bit less, but you should be able to get back under that bar, over that bar, or that weight in your hands a little quicker- Yeah... 30:51 than you were before. So I, I think with the recovery piece, there's, th- there's kind of two aspects of it. 30:55 There's the what's your programming like, what's the other two factors we talked about, what does your time in the gym look like? So those are like the inputs for growth. 31:03 But then on the back end of the recovery, like, it's all the other things we've talked about, we talk about all the time. Like, what's your sleep like? What's your, um, you know, what's your nutrition? 31:11 What's your daily movement like? Those are all the other things that you need to be managing. 31:14 Like, if you feel your in-the-gym stuff is great and you're still not making gains, like you reached the first two metrics we talked about and then the first half of the recovery, then what does that back half look like? 31:24 What are those later inputs look like? I would say it's more than half. Yeah. Actually, if I, if I had to break it down. I mean- For sure... Steve would probably agree with this, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 31:32 As far as the recovery component? Yeah. Mm-hmm. What, as far as, uh, just- Like the importance of recovery. Oh, yeah. And, and the, and the, and the things that go into that if you're trying to build muscle. Yeah. 31:42 I mean, it's, you gotta eat enough and you gotta sleep enough. I mean, that's [laughs] So the, the basic principles- I'm sorry. Yeah. [laughs] I know, I know it sounds simple- Yeah... 31:48 but those are basic prin- principles that are constantly violated. Yeah. Right? And, and that- For sure... is like, first off, if you're not gaining, if you're not building muscle, 31:56 it's, and, and, and you are managing your volume and intensity in the ways that we've talked about, then the first thing I'd be looking at is are you even eating enough calories? 32:04 Do you have enough fuel to recover from the work that you're doing? And by and large, most of the time we find that most people are not. Yeah. They're simply not eating enough. Yeah. Right? 32:15 So they're not getting enough energy in the system. And, and then when you're starting to look at what that energy consists of, like the next thing is like what are you doing to balance your, your macronutrients? 32:26 We just had, we just did another podcast, uh, specific to, you know, what people will do drastically, you know, going with an expectation of results, fat loss, muscle building, or whatever, going into like the first of the year, and they go right into calorie restriction, or just restriction, period. 32:41 We, we kind of covered it high level, but calorie restriction is usually part of that. Or ex- or, or increasing calorie expenditure through things like cardio, right? 32:49 Well, if you're doing that, then you're undernourished if you're, if you're, if you're, again, trying to build muscle and/or strength, for that matter. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. 32:58 I mean, if you're not fueling enough, like you're... And you'll feel it. You know? 33:02 I, I think a lot of people can slog through their workouts, but if you really are trying to ramp up these other things we were talking about, after a little bit you're gonna notice that you're just not recovering. 33:11 And either you're gonna just notice that in a reduction in performance, feeling like shit all the time, feeling sore, or- Or you're not building muscle... 33:18 or you're not building muscle, or, and that m- oftentimes leads, leads to injury I think, too, as well. So, um, but I mean, huge I think is for sleeping. 33:25 I think people who want to push and do these things, sleep is one of the first things that gets put on the back burner and it's just caffeinated away. Um- Yeah... 33:32 so managing, and not just the quantity of your sleep, but the quality of your sleep is huge, so. Yeah. So, so there's some measurables here. 33:39 And again, l- like just referring back to the other podcast, one of those things was getting your house in order. Like, do you even know or you're, you know, kind of where you are? 33:47 Again, going back to those percentages, what does that actually mean? Uh, do I, do I suggest that everybody goes in and does a one-rep max test in order to understand exactly what their 85% is? N- no. No. 33:58 I don't, I don't actually suggest that at all. That's the other great part about training for hypertrophy and w- working through more of that six to 12 repetit- tition area. 34:07 Like, we're trying to get at or near 12, right? Mm-hmm. And still leave some in the tank, which means you're, you're training sub-maximally. And if you're training in that six to 12 repetition range, 34:19 and you still have, you get to number 10, you're like, "Yeah, I might have two," you go for another one, you're like, "No, I definitely don't have two," guess what? 34:25 You're probably training in nearly the perfect rep or, uh, load range in order to elicit the result that you're trying to get to. 34:32 Versus when you get into the strength training things, those things become much more specific. 34:38 So I guess what I'm saying is you can be a little bit more random, and it's okay if it is if you're training for hypertrophy and you're not managing, like, to these very specific percentages. 34:48 P- s- particularly as your weeks go on, your workouts change, your exercise selection changes, or whatever else, you can get a pretty good gauge on how much you should be lifting, right, from a load perspective by just managing that very, very specifically. 35:00 Just like, "My goal is 10 with two in the tank." That gets you right in the wheelhouse of the six to 12. So two in the tank is, "I think I might be able to get two." Cool, you're done. Like, you're done. 35:13 Like, "I might be able to get two more." Cool, you're done. Yeah. Rest, recover, 60, 90 seconds. Mm-hmm. Maybe it's as long as two minutes if you're, you're feeling a little fatigued. 35:22 You didn't get as much rest, you didn't get as much fuel on board. And then you hit that again, and now you hit nine, and you're like, "I definitely don't have two in the tank." Guess what? 35:30 You're still in that six to 12 range, right? And you're working probably just at the right intensity. And over time you can manage that, right? 35:39 In- instead of having to do a one-rep max to understand exactly what that number is, and I think a lot of people get lost in the sauce there. 35:45 That is the, again, going back to what's happened in a laboratory, what's been measured, and then anecdotally what we see work all the t- constantly is people working in those rep ranges. 35:54 So the oth- the other part about that, again, is I, I don't wanna take away from, like, strength building isn't important, but I think people just get lost in the put more weight on, put more weight on, put more weight on. 36:06 And, but where are they actually moving over time? And to, to your point, in getting, going back to the getting your house in order, like, are you actually putting on muscle? Like, do you know? 36:16 There are ways to measure that. It's simple. I mean, you can get a, a body comp test or whatever else, and certainly you can see things in the mirror, and I think that's where people are, you know, will go first. 36:25 Like, "Oh, you're, you're, you're getting bigger." Yeah, but for how long? Are you continually to, continuing to change in the way that you need to change? 36:31 So the, again, the, the, a couple key takeaways there are is, like, what is the quality of the tension that I'm putting into my body, right? Yep. 36:40 Um, am I throwing weights around, or am I really focused, if my goal is hypertrophy, on creating that tension- 36:46 In the, biomechanically, the way, the best way I can so that that tension is from, from top to bottom, it's there the entire time. That's when you get... 36:57 That's when, that's what'll tell you how much load you should be using, right? And the next thing is, is like, am I hitting the rep ranges, right? 37:04 So if, if I'm hitting those rep ranges, I'm able to maintain those mechanics in that way, dude, you're s- you're spot on. 37:09 You don't have to have somebody, you know, you don't have to be tracking and monitoring every single thing. Tracking is good, but you don't have to be tracking and monitoring everything. 37:16 You can still just go to the gym and work out, dude. Like, you can, you can do that. And then the other part is, is, uh, uh, again, is the recovery side of things. 37:23 How much time do I need to recover in order to be able to repeat that? You, you said the word repeatability. And how many times can I do that during the week before I start to see things start to fall off the other end? 37:33 Um, but I just wanna talk a little bit more on the, um, on the recovery side. So we've mentioned like rep- uh, excuse me, just rest times in between sets based on the intensity and the loads that you're using. 37:45 We talked a little bit about nutrition, and people wanna go deep into the, like, am I taking the right supplements? Am I doing all the, the, the, the extra little things that I need, that I need to get there? 37:55 If you're not building muscle, and you're managing those other things right, again, what I, what I said was upfront, if you're not building muscle, you're violating one of these principles. 38:06 And, and the recovery piece, I think is one of the most violated principles because people either go too long, right? 38:13 They're re- they're, they're resting too much, um, or they're not resting enough, or they're not recovering the right way. And, and a lot of, lot of components go into that. We mentioned, are you eating enough? 38:24 So we've, we've talked about that at nauseam on the show. I mean, I don't know how, how deep you wanna go into that, but what are the key components? 38:31 If, as far as eating enough, I mean, you gotta be eating at least, I would say, I mean, at maintenance and probably into a surplus. 38:37 And as far as, like, protein consumption, you know, you wanna be getting towards that one to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight is probably a good place to be for most people. 38:48 Um, I mean, really, to be honest, I, I think it's, it's not, it's not as complicated. It's not some, like, complex, like, I need to be on the bodybuilder diet. Um, you know, not being carb phobic is part of it. 39:00 Um, I think that, uh, is, that can be a slippery slope for some people as far as, you know, being a little bit gun-shy maybe in terms of the carbohydrate consumption and how much that can aid your performance, which is going to ultimately aid your ability to build muscle. 39:18 So, um, [lips smack] so yeah, a- as far as, you know, your percentages, that might be, you know, 30% of your total, uh, intake from protein. Protein. 39:26 That might be, you know, 45, maybe up to 50% of your total intake from carbohydrates. You're freaking people out, man. And, uh, [laughs] what, as far as the amount of- As far as- Carbohydrates. 39:36 [laughs] Yeah, as far as the amount of, uh, yeah, the... I mean, really, it- it's, the, the formula is not that complicated. I think really the, the biggest issue is just paying attention to it. 39:47 Everybody gets so enamored with their workouts and what supplements am I taking and what pre-workout am I taking. That's my point. 39:53 Just getting, you know, getting away from the basic fundamentals that really the, the difference versus, like, the bodybuilder diet versus just, like, regular average Joe who's just trying to stay in shape is just, like, a little bit more of this, a little bit less of that. 40:09 It's not that big of a- Be consistent. Yeah, it's, it's not that big of a difference. I think it's just one guy's paying more attention to it than the other guy. Yeah. Is, is what we're talking about there. 40:15 He's very conscious about, like, I gotta get that protein shake in after. It's not the protein shake. Like, that's part of it, right? It's not the protein shake. 40:23 Like, it's the fact that he's putting calories in, and he's putting it in in the form of protein to make sure he hits his protein needs. He's just paying more attention to it. 40:30 Yeah, the, it's not a magic protein shake, or I need to increase my protein shake consumption. That, that's just a tool in order to get in the amount of protein that you should be consuming. It's not... 40:42 Yeah, it's just a, it's a facilitator. It's not the answer. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, again, on the recovery side, we talked about the, the major principles. 40:49 The recovery side I think is probably one of the most violated principles in all of this. Uh, and you, you don't have to be a biomechanics expert, a, a nutrition expert, or whatever to, to get past this. 41:00 Building muscle is not that hard to do. Like, the, again, the formula is actually pretty simple. 41:06 It's the application piece, which is what I was alluding to before, and more specifically, the overcomplication and sometimes oversimplification of things. 41:15 So when I say oversimplification, it's not just put more load on the bar, right? 41:19 Um, and from the overcomplication piece, it's not like it's just some specific exercise that's gonna build this best or some specific machine, or to Steven's point, some specific supplement. There's basic things. 41:31 If you're not building muscle, it's 'cause you violated one of those very basic things, period, end of story at the end of the day. 41:37 And people wanna get into a deeper conversation about what exactly everything looks like. No. 41:42 Let's just look at breaking it down to each one of these con- the, these, what's the quality of the movement that you're using and how much tension are you actually applying to the area that you're trying to grow? 41:52 Number two, how much load and what's the rep and set scheme that you're looking at there? Like, does it make sense? 41:58 And again, we gave you some very principle or very basic, well-known kind of percentages and rep ranges to work within. And the last thing is, are you recovering well? 42:07 And yes, that is a very deep rabbit hole, much deeper, I think, than the other two. 42:11 Uh, but the, the, the, the recovery piece is that, is that piece that probably people should be paying more attention to, and it's the piece that gets left off the table the most 'cause it's not what happens in the gym. 42:20 It's what happens outside the gym the other 23 or 22 and a half hours out of the day. 42:25 So, uh, it, again, like, we're, we're at this point, everybody's kinda, we're at this point in the, in the, in the year where everybody's thinking, "I gotta get fitter. What does that mean? I wanna look better naked. 42:35 Uh, I wanna put on more muscle. I wanna feel a little stronger. I wanna have a little bit more energy," all those things. 42:40 If you're, if you're focused on hypertrophy, you're probably gonna get those by virtue of all the th- the principles that go into getting that hypertrophy. Again, better quality movement, right? 42:50 While you're there, not just showing up. You said intention, right? The, the, the loads that you're using are not over- you're not overdoing it. You, you... There's very little chance of you being over-trained. 43:02 It's the last part. It's much more likely that you're under-recovered, which comes from being under-rested, under-nourished, um, a- under-macroed. [laughs] Right? In terms of the, the macro percentages that you have. 43:14 So t- so take a look at those things. 43:15 If you're getting frustrated or if you're, if you're, you know, in a position where you, like, you've hit this wall or what they ca- what people refer to as a plateau, it's likely that you're paying less attention to one of those principles, um, or more than one of those principles than you should be. 43:29 They're pretty simple. They're pretty basic. There's a lot of really great workout programs out there that have kinda managed all the numbers for you in the first two things, right? 43:38 The, the third thing is, is, is a little bit more, uh, is, is, is outside of those templates, if you will. So if you've got a template that you really like, it's likely probably not wrong. 43:47 It's probably a pretty good program, right? In terms of building muscle. 43:51 If you purchased it off the internet or you got it on your, an app on your phone or whatever, if you got one of ours, it's probably pretty right, pretty right on. 43:58 It's that third thing that you probably need to p- be paying a little bit more attention to, and the things that go into that to make sure that you're getting, you know, out of what you're putting into those other two principles. 44:07 [upbeat music] Thank you for tuning into this episode of Iron Sights. If you enjoyed our conversation, you can support our mission by hitting the subscribe button, leaving a review, and sharing the podcast with a friend. 44:19 I'll see you on the next episode
