Life Hacks - The Gym Edition

Jonny & Yusef from Propane Fitness join me for another Life Hacks episode. It's the new year and everyone is back in the gym so I figured that we'd go through some of our favourite exercise variations and training hacks to add a bit of spice into whatever your new program is. Expect to learn how to make bench press even more focussed on your chest, the ultimate skull crusher variation, Jonny's favourite Rep Scheme for muscle growth, how to get motivated if you're not feeling like training, what research shows as the most effective exercises for glute growth, how to make an even better pull-down machine and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Bring your feet up for Bench Press to increase chest focus. Barbell chest-supported rows. Floor lying skull crushers. MYO Reps. Single arm rear foot elevated split squats. Step-ups for Glute development. Commit to some exercises for quality, rather than for load. Single arm pull downs. Landmine Press for shoulders. Reduce weight for one session if you’re struggling with motivation. Use small plates to deload a bar on the floor. Train at the same time every day, and the same day every week. Have 3 sections of a training session, A, B & C. Add calves in in between sets. They take a long time to grow. Watch Dopesick. Watch Midnight Mass. Watch World War 2: Road To Victory. Watch Locke. Access Propane's Free Training - https://propanefitness.com/modernwisdom Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #gym #training #bodybuilding - 00:00 Intro 01:06 Upgraded Bench Press 07:51 Skull Crushers, Myo Reps & Simplified Split Squats 17:05 Best Exercises for Glute Development 25:04 Deep Lunges, Eccentric Speed & Landmines 31:56 How to Get Motivated, Barbell Hacks & Stimulants 50:42 Is Calf Training a Scam? 54:19 Netflix Recommendations 1:03:59 Who Should Be the Next Bond? 1:05:41 Where to Find Jonny & Yusef - Join the Modern Wisdom Community on Locals - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Listen to all episodes on audio: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Landmine press for shoulders and it's so safe.

• 0:02Jonny?

  Just feels right, doesn't it? Just feels like the right thing to do.

• 0:04Chris Williamson?

  But that's because you've managed to take a movement that was supposed to be pressing vertically and made it go a little bit more close to a bench press.

• 0:13Jonny?

  If you lie under it like that.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  I would say don't use a pre-workout. These things are false economies.

• 0:21Jonny?

  I don't agree with that.

• 0:22Chris Williamson?

  Apart from the times when you injure yourself, which isn't usually due to the workout, it's due to something else that's going on, you almost never regret going to the gym.

• 0:33Chris Williamson?

  Another life hacks episode, tools, techniques and tactics for a productive and efficient life. We're going to go through a big list of things that we've used over the last couple of months and everything will be linked in the show notes below. Because it's January, we thought that we would do some special gym training, little exercises that we've picked up, variations on workouts, maybe some kitchen hacks, but also probably some things from the internet and maybe some Netflix shows and such like that we've been enjoying.

• 1:05Chris Williamson?

  So Johnny, what have you, what have you got for us?

• 1:10Jonny?

  So my, this is my exercise variant. Cool. So this is, I guess, if you are in a gym that doesn't necessarily have a chest press or something like that, or if you suffer from back pain consistently or an aggravated lower back and find that, for example, when you're doing bench or doing dumbbell variants, that like it irritates your back when you sort of cramp up. And it's a pretty simple variation, but it's one that probably people outside of the like strength training world might not have tried, which is just a, it's a bench press, normal bench press with your feet up, not necessarily on the bench, but not like straight out. So your feet aren't on the floor, basically.

• 1:55Jonny?

  You aren't applying any force onto the floor and it basically turns it into chest isolation and completely removes your lower back, completely removes your lower body. So just a good variation limits the, limits the load and. Very quick to warm up for.

• 2:11Chris Williamson?

  So how does it replace a peck machine? Is it, it's just a bench press, right?

• 2:17Jonny?

  It is, but it's so like, I guess it depends on how you would normally bench, but a lot of people, even if they're not a powerlifter, you'll see them kind of, as the bench gets harder, they'll sort of like squirm and move around and like press their feet on the ground to try and like, use their, the rest of their body to help the weight up. When your feet aren't on the ground, you can't, you can't do that.

• 2:36Chris Williamson?

  I'm guessing as well, the angle is, you're a little bit more flat as opposed to decline because you can't get that arch in, right?

• 2:42Jonny?

  Exactly. Yeah. So you basically have to lie flat, which means that you can't get the, like the lower back cramping that sometimes happens. Um, it's also quite a good, um, like if you, if you don't really feel like scared to bench press, and you want to just use lightweight, but you want to still get something out of it, it's a good way of doing that as well.

• 3:00Chris Williamson?

  What's the reason biomechanically that this is harder? Is it because you can't use your lats, your lats as much? You can't recruit?

• 3:05Jonny?

  Like technically legs and lower body, there's no like, there's less stability because you're not like, you're relying on balance at the same time.

• 3:12Chris Williamson?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:13Jonny?

  There's no force through the floor. And yeah, you aren't in a, in as much of an arch. If you wanted to compare it to a powerlifting bench press. Have either of you ever tried it?

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's nice.

• 3:23Chris Williamson?

  So the only time I would have done that would have been if I was doing bench press from the floor, like floor press.

• 3:29Jonny?

  Like a floor press.

• 3:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Uh, that's the only time that I would have done that.

• 3:33Jonny?

  Do you get, do you, have you, I imagine you have yourself where like you're benching and your back like cramps up, seizes up?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it doesn't take much for my back to.

• 3:41Jonny?

  Yeah, I can imagine. I really thought you would have had that, Chris. You've not experienced that before.

• 3:46Chris Williamson?

  No, so my, my back doesn't really seem to be too extension, uh, perturbed, but it gets.

• 3:53Jonny?

  Flexion.

• 3:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah. A little bit worse when I go, when I go forward. Yeah, that's nice. I like it.

• 4:00Chris Williamson?

  I need to try that. I might try that. Try and add that in this week. Seth, what have you got? What's yours?

• 4:06Speaker 02

  So mine is probably one that we're all a fan of. Unfortunately, this is a sexist exercise variation.

• 4:13Jonny?

  Can I guess what it is?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:16Jonny?

  Is it?

• 4:18Jonny?

  Barbell chest supported row.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  My favourite exercise in the world. So if you do have back problems, or if you just find that you're in this cycle of doing bent over barbell rows or pendlay rows, and then each time you add the weight, you're just like humping it a little bit more. And then over the months, you're like, well, did I increase my row by 2.5 kilos? Or did I just hump 2.5 kilos more? And it's, it gets to the point where like, if you're rowing more than your body weight, mechanically, like balance wise, you can't actually keep it strict because it'll just topple you over. So there is a point where beyond 80 or 100 kilos, you're going to have to start doing some kind of chest supported variation to get a strict

• 5:01Speaker 02

  back workout. So just give it a go. Set up a bench on, I say from flat, it's up two inclines, the two clips. Get the seat of the bench up as well so that you can rest your knees on it. Or if, if it's one of those benches that has feet, then dig your toes into the feet, make yourself as stable as possible. And then barbell with, you know, normal plates on, on the side. So it gives you enough range. And then each rep counts as when you touch the

• 5:32Chris Williamson?

  underside of the bench.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Bench with, and then it keeps it replicable.

• 5:36Chris Williamson?

  What's your reason for doing incline bench, chest supported row, as opposed to setting a bench up across two boxes and it being perfectly flat?

• 5:46Speaker 02

  You can do that as well. It's just pretty janky.

• 5:48Chris Williamson?

  Just convenience?

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, most, most gyms I've been to don't really have a safe setup for doing a proper seal row.

• 5:56Chris Williamson?

  Continue to train out of very specific types of gyms. And they're the ones

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Close to me.

• 6:02Chris Williamson?

  Geographically.

• 6:06Jonny?

  Most gyms I've been to that are within a five minute bike ride.

• 6:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Don't have this.

• 6:11Chris Williamson?

  Well, I, because the only thing that I think with that, I love it. I, I think it's a great movement. Both me and you have, everyone here has had back pain at some point. And I've never been a fan of bent over rows. I think that they're too easy to cheat. And it just feel, what am I working here? Am I working my hamstrings, my glutes, my lower back, my shoulders, my traps, my upper back? Like.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Sometimes you'll do a set of pendley rows and you'll be like, I actually feel that most in my lower back.

• 6:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  What have I done there?

• 6:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Jonny?

  I had one just attached to that, which is what you just said, Chris, which is a seal row, which is what you just described. So like when, when you're lying flat and you row, you're basically.

• 6:47Chris Williamson?

  Reverse bench press.

• 6:48Jonny?

  Yeah. Yeah. And you're pulling it to like the bottom of the bench. You can get specific benches that are just a.

• 6:55Chris Williamson?

  High, high, thin, uh, seal row benches. Yeah, they're cool. Didn't the place in Edinburgh have one of those?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Most likely. In, in fact, that's the direct upside down version of the first exercise you described, Johnny.

• 7:08Jonny?

  Yeah.

• 7:08Chris Williamson?

  Yes. Yes.

• 7:10Jonny?

  Lie, like a seal completely flat. The reason it's called a seal row, I think is as you start getting closer and closer to failure. I don't know why this is.

• 7:19Chris Williamson?

  But your feet do the thing.

• 7:20Jonny?

  You just like.

• 7:22Jonny?

  You know, you know, like those, those, uh, red, red fish that you lay on your hand and make, do you know what I mean? It's like a, like a thin piece of see-through paper.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Usually a present in a Christmas cracker from 1997.

• 7:33Jonny?

  Yeah. You must know what that is, Chris.

• 7:35Chris Williamson?

  No, no.

• 7:36Jonny?

  It's like, it's like a see-through piece of plastic and it's a fish.

• 7:39Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  If you know what we're talking about, put it, your thing in the comments below.

• 7:43Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 7:44Jonny?

  Oh my God, Chris, I can't.

• 7:46Chris Williamson?

  About the fucking fish. Idiots.

• 7:49Jonny?

  Well, that's what you do.

• 7:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay. Um, I got, I, I had a few here because I thought that we were going, I thought that we would have a couple each. So the first one, which is my favorite, and I think I've during training with you guys, we've both done this. Skull crushers, but floor lying skull crushers. So most of the time, if you're doing a skull crusher, which is a tricep movement, you would do it on a bench. Getting yourself to the point where you have the easy curl or the barbell up here is actually a little bit awkward because, okay, do I get it past to my hips? Then I've got to kind of hip it to my chest. Then I've got to push it up and then get it down. Dumping the bar is also really difficult. It's easier for you to go past the range that you're supposed to. You can't do dead stops from it.

• 8:32Chris Williamson?

  All of this is fixed by doing skull crushers from the floor because you lie down in front of the easy curl bar. It's already on the floor behind you. You can just put your hands behind you, take it up. If you fail a rep, you're not going to drop it on your head. You're going to just push it up a little bit away from you. Drops on the floor. Plus, you can do some cool stuff like it's easier for the person that's with you to do strip sets or drop sets because they can just pull the weights off more easily. And you can do dead stop sets as well because you can just lower it to the floor, wait until it's taken all the momentum off, and then go again. It's like that for the long head of the tricep is numero uno workout exercise.

• 9:11Jonny?

  Elbow pain as well. I think elbow pain with normal, normal skull crushers can be quite bad for people if they're consistently like passing their head.

• 9:19Chris Williamson?

  Too much extension.

• 9:21Jonny?

  Yeah, well, just too much going through the elbow. So yeah, the commonality here is lots of lying down. And lots of removing the lower body apart from a very specific part of the upper body. And but the good thing is lots of repeatability in each one of the exercises.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  So, oh, sorry, Johnny, it's yours. I just have, I've got a couple more exercise variations.

• 9:44Chris Williamson?

  Me too. Me too. Johnny, have you got any more?

• 9:46Jonny?

  I've got some more fitness stuff, yeah.

• 9:47Chris Williamson?

  All right, hit us.

• 9:49Jonny?

  Myo reps. You both know what those are?

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Vintage.

• 9:54Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 9:55Jonny?

  So it's something that like, again, like Yusuf and I'll just use all the time, but I think a lot of people won't have tried. So if you're short on time, or you want to like add some assistance at the end of your training session, but you're not like, I don't really like doing curls, for example, or like arm, direct arm work or anything like that. Myo reps is basically, I think it's by a guy called Borg Fergeli. I think that's his name or something like that. So you do an initial set, which is called an activation set. So it's usually like 10 to 15 reps near failure. And then you take 10 breaths and then do between three to five reps.

• 10:35Chris Williamson?

  I have done this.

• 10:37Jonny?

  Thought you might have done. 10 breaths, three to five reps, and you keep doing that until you hit like a close to failure set, basically.

• 10:43Chris Williamson?

  Do you strip the weight?

• 10:45Jonny?

  There are like variations where you can do that, but normally if you do it properly, and this is what's so good about it, you you get like five minutes in and you've done so many reps and you're knackered. And you're like, okay, that's all of that movement done. And it it removes all of the resistance of like, oh, I've got five sets of eight or I've got three sets of twelve. Because it's just done before you really know what's happened. And you can make it into a bit of a game. So like week by week, you try and do slightly more weight or you try and do an extra set at the end or something like that or do it in in less time, like take your breaths between.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  They're great. The the rationale from, is it pronounced Borg or Burger? I think it might be pronounced like B or something.

• 11:27Jonny?

  Can't be Burger.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Can't, I I don't know, but.

• 11:31Jonny?

  B U R G E R.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  B O with a the line through it, which is pronounced E. So so it could be Burger. Anyway. The idea is the rationale that you recruit the majority of your motor units at reps seven, eight and nine of a ten rep set, if that's close to your your max. And so you take your twelve rep max, you do ten reps with it, you start to approach that sort of almost failure point. You then stop three to five deep breaths, recycle the ATP. But you keep the kind of fiber recruitment at that point. And then you just do two or three. And then you kind of ride the wave and stay at that peri-failure state. And supposedly those thirty reps that you do

• 12:15Speaker 02

  end up being more effective than if you had done three sets of ten, for example. Because in that second example, it would only be sets, uh, reps seven, eight and nine of all three sets that were effective.

• 12:27Jonny?

  Or sometimes even only like the final set, depending on the load you use as well. Um, the only thing I wouldn't use this for is, so it's great for any isolation stuff, most upper body stuff, I wouldn't use it for squat, deadlift, leg press or anything like that, because that gets uh quite hairy, quite spicy.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Why not for deadlift?

• 12:47Jonny?

  Just the like the total body overwhelm.

• 12:52Chris Williamson?

  Overwhelm.

• 12:54Jonny?

  Like if you take like a, you take your 12 rep max on deadlift and do 10 reps with it. And then you're going to rep out with that. I think the chance of you like.

• 13:01Chris Williamson?

  Dying. If you're gonna do five, five by three after that. Yeah. Okay. I understand. But I think.

• 13:07Jonny?

  With, with 10 reps in between as well.

• 13:09Chris Williamson?

  It just needs to be anything that's easy to reset. If it's a complex, if it's a standing shoulder press, like no, because you're going to have to rack it and then take it off. But if it's something that's easy, if you're doing machine, if you're doing any arm, direct arm work.

• 13:23Jonny?

  Yeah, it's perfect for machines like that.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Don't do it like cleans or anything like.

• 13:28Chris Williamson?

  Also, well, that's CrossFit. That's what CrossFit is, isn't it? Just me and my CrossFit. Also probably better for bilateral movements rather than unilateral movements. Just that you're going to be fucking about with rest periods in between.

• 13:45Jonny?

  So I, I do it for dumbbell row. It's in my program for dumbbell row. I disagree with it. The fact that it's in my program for dumbbell row, but it is. So I do it. And I have to basically do the full cycle on each side. So you'll do like a set of 15, three, three, three, three, three. So it takes twice as long. But yeah.

• 14:01Chris Williamson?

  Oh, fuck. So you're doing it all right arm.

• 14:04Jonny?

  Well, because if you try and do it the other way around, you end up like forgetting where you are.

• 14:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Jonny?

  Cause like.

• 14:10Chris Williamson?

  Do I need to start with the left or the right? Yeah, I understand.

• 14:12Jonny?

  And technically what you've rested twice as long per side.

• 14:15Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 14:15Jonny?

  So it's, it's kind of defeating the, like at that point, you're just doing dumbbell row.

• 14:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's just high intensity dumbbell row. Okay. Yeah. So my reps, I'd totally forgotten about that, dude. I'm gonna, I'm definitely going to add that back in. Yeah. It's like a, it's somewhere between a drop set. It's a permanent drop set without the drop of the weight, isn't it? Or a rest pause. It's like an aggressive rest pause.

• 14:34Jonny?

  Training. So something called dog crap training, which was sort of a similar, similar style. But it's, it's more of a family friendly version, I guess.

• 14:44Chris Williamson?

  All right. Seth, what you got?

• 14:47Speaker 02

  So there is a place in most programs, as we were saying before, to increase the stability of the movement so that you can focus on the muscle that you're working. So up until recently, I always did my split squats, my Bulgarian split squats, which is where you hold two dumbbells, you've got one foot in front, one rear foot resting on a bench behind you at about kind of knee height, and you're doing squats like that. They're notoriously brutal and there's loads of memes going around, like, you know, when your coach puts split squats in your program and it's like tearing up the paper because people just hate them. But often when you're doing them, a lot of your bandwidth is focused

• 15:29Speaker 02

  on like, don't fall over, like, because you're trying to balance laterally or sagitally, rather than focusing on the muscle that you're training. So this was a tweak from someone called Bick who works with us. She is Australian, called Rebecca, and she's the originator of the biros, you know, the little black biros, or she invented them. But it's just to stabilize one hand. And so let's say you have your right foot forward in a split squat, left foot behind you, you'd want to hold the dumbbell in the opposite hand, so your left hand, and then just hold on to a rack or something, or a rack, onto

• 16:11Speaker 02

  your, this is getting very surreal, hold on to something stable on your right side. That way, you can just really focus on getting a nice, nice gluty sensation.

• 16:24Chris Williamson?

  Do you not now, you're going to have to hold double the weight in one hand. If you're even remotely like competent, your grip's going to be a problem here, right?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Your grip could be a problem. So, so actually, I don't think you should go too heavy with these, because what you've done there is you've improved the quality of the movement. You can, you can get more out of less. It's not a movement that I think you need to like load super heavy. And, you know, even holding a 30 kilogram dumbbell is going to be enough for most people to get some good stuff from. And you can go up to like 15, 20 reps as well.

• 16:56Chris Williamson?

  Single arm, rear foot, elevated, split squats with Unilaterally loaded. Yeah. Okay, so this is from a guy on Instagram that I follow, who has some really cool infographics that explain breakdowns. Dr. Eddie Joe, PhD on Instagram. And he just breaks down what the science says about strength training. And he looked at the exercises which recruit the most muscles, most muscle fibers for glute development. So what are the exercises? And out of 100, which was the maximum of recruitment, the top three movements are all types of step ups.

• 17:42Chris Williamson?

  So the number one, which I think was in the 90s, was step ups. Number two was like contralateral cross body step ups. And number three was some other type of step up. So basically overall, and the next closest thing was maybe RDLs or deadlifts. Way, way, way down were hip thrusts, fucking kickbacks, rear foot elevated split squats, even lunges were quite, in fact, lunges might have been the next closest thing after,

• 18:14Chris Williamson?

  after the step ups. But basically, if you want to have big glutes, and if you want to develop your glutes, and if you want to improve your lower back, just do step ups. And the best way that I've found to do this is dumbbells held. Oh, again, no, not that, not that thing that athletes do where they go. All the hockey players, they love that. If you have your dumbbells by your sides, it means that you, your center of gravity is lower. So you're actually more stable. It's easier for you to balance. You are only on one foot here as you go up and go down. I wouldn't go above, about, depending on how tall you are, but I wouldn't get your thigh of the stepping up leg to ever be really above, parallel to the ground. You don't need to get a super, super amount of range here.

• 18:58Chris Williamson?

  You can just go from there and then push to it being straight. I would also do all of one side at once. And then I wouldn't do it alternating because just resetting each time, foot goes down, foot comes up. It's too complex. Just keep one foot on. And I think that this is a hack I learned from you guys, which is when you step down to the floor during step ups. Only put your heel on the ground because it means that you can't push off with your toes. You'll find yourself as you start to fail the reps, wanting to give yourself a lift off at the bottom. And I guess if you're going super, super heavy, it, it might give you a little bit of assistance and help you to add some more load. It's probably a pretty good movement to overload on because if you need to fail, it's quite easy. It's probably pretty safe on your lower back because you're in this perfect straight position.

• 19:43Chris Williamson?

  And also you've just got dumbbells on your hands, so it doesn't really matter. But yeah, if you want to make it, if you want to go for the super duper hard version, only touch the heel on the ground. So you can't kick off with your foot and four by 12 on each leg. Oh, just totally disgusting. It's a cardio workout disguised as a strength workout.

• 20:01Jonny?

  If you.

• 20:02Chris Williamson?

  Make sure you go.

• 20:05Jonny?

  If you curl up your big toe on the first rep, so the foot that's on the ground.

• 20:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Jonny?

  You've got the, there's a left foot on the box, right foot on the ground. Curl up your toes of your right foot and then load the leg that's on the box first.

• 20:18Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 20:18Jonny?

  And then step off so much harder.

• 20:20Chris Williamson?

  Just keep that.

• 20:22Jonny?

  Yep.

• 20:22Chris Williamson?

  Posture.

• 20:23Jonny?

  It is because you, obviously this is the problem with movements like this, isn't it? Like if you're aiming for a number of reps, you end up just doing anything to hit that number of reps.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  This is why we need quality of movement rather than worrying about trying to load them heavily.

• 20:37Jonny?

  Well, that it feeds into my, my, my next.

• 20:42Jonny?

  Which is to have a split in your sessions where you have, well, if you care about how much weight you lift at all, have one or two movements in the session where you do just care about how much weight you lift. For example, if you're trying to increase your bench press or your squat or your deadlift or something like that. I don't think you should necessarily be focusing on the quality of the contraction in your glutes and your hamstrings. You do just want to be lifting more weight or hitting your rep target. But all of your assistant stuff, I think in general, you, you get far more mileage out of yourself, your joints, your muscles, your collective tissue and the exercise. If you say, well, okay, this rowing movement, like I don't care how much, how many plates are on the machine.

• 21:26Jonny?

  I'm going to go for like the, the best quality movement. I'm going to control the reps. I'm going to go for maximal contraction and a pause at the top. And I'm going to use half the weight that I maybe would have done. And it's a massive ego hit, especially if you train with people, if you're using like two thirds of the weight that they are. But if by the time you hit the weight that they are using now. Almost guarantee you'll be in a much better condition than them. So just reduces your injury rate of injury and also how much longer you can use the exercise for as well.

• 21:57Chris Williamson?

  Do you commit to certain movements within your workout plan then being for quality rather than for load?

• 22:04Jonny?

  Yeah, so for me, it's anything that I have like four, four or five exercises that I care about the

• 22:12Jonny?

  the number. So those are ironically considering what we're just talking about seal row and chin up. So like a rowing movement and a vertical pull squat bench and deadlift are the only things that I like track how strong I am. Everything else in my program, even really a lot of the assistant stuff. So like a pause squat or a pause deadlift or a feet up bench press or anything like that. I'd rather take the hit on the load and go for like, what am I trying to do here? Like, I want to feel something

• 22:38Chris Williamson?

  Mind muscle connection.

• 22:40Jonny?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  This solves the problem. People always are like, oh, but I thought you have to kind of pick powerlifting or bodybuilding and there's no in between and you have to everything you're either only lifting more weight and looking fat and rubbish or or just being a bodybuilder who's weak. You know, I know it's a bit of an outdated kind of mentality now, but it's okay to lift more and also look like you lift. And

• 23:07Chris Williamson?

  On average, on average, I would say it's weird because we go through phases with this, right? I think maybe because I'm coming out the back of CrossFit and people, although it might not look like it on the outside, people are quite concerned about doing exercises in there when you're doing accessories really for quality. So I think on average, when I look in the gym, I see people that don't progressively overload enough. I see people that are under loaded and over lifting a lot of the time. How many people are still bench pressing the same weight that they were 10 years ago are still going into the gym because they've never actually committed to doing progressive overload. So I think that the way that you've got it split there, which is okay, where am I looking to gain strength? Commit to those that's for strength.

• 23:53Chris Williamson?

  And then on the other things I'm committing to quality. I think that's a good way to do. Do it because it allows you to still become stronger. If you did, this is what we have a friend who did a bodybuilding competition a long, long time ago. And was adamant that going into the gym and doing like five, five reps 10 times on a single arm row. But with a 10 second eccentric was going to be the best way. And he stepped on stage and didn't look like he lifted. Because he'd been convinced by a particular type of train, some blog on the internet that this was the optimal way to do it. And you're like, look, mate, if you just fucking put some weight on the bar, you'd have probably been fine. But you didn't.

• 24:33Jonny?

  I think the like, the test is what would happen with this exercise if I had to really open the taps with it? Like if there was a load that I'd never lifted before and I had to really go for it, what would I end up doing? So if you imagine that with a barbell curl, for example, and you had to really go for a one RM, like it feels unsafe, doesn't it? It feels like you'd end up doing like lots of swinging around.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  One of those little plastic fish that you get in a Christmas cracker.

• 24:56Chris Williamson?

  You put your finger across the back of the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, of course. Right, Seth, what you got?

• 25:03Speaker 02

  So if you're in a gym that doesn't have a pull down machine, that only has cables, for example, for example. If the gym is only within a couple of minutes of your house and then you can get really not. And in fact, I might start doing this instead of pull downs in the future, which is just a deep lunge with the cable overhead. And just doing single arm pull downs. So the way that I would do it for the people who are lucky enough to see this on YouTube is.

• 25:32Chris Williamson?

  Are you wearing orange jogging bottoms?

• 25:34Speaker 02

  You like them?

• 25:35Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  So, so a deep lunge.

• 25:38Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Arm overhead, so right foot forward, left foot, left hand.

• 25:42Chris Williamson?

  Is back knee on the ground there?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  You can, but I just, I'm flexible enough to just do it in a deep lunge with my foot on the floor.

• 25:52Jonny?

  So your back foot is elevated, back foot is off the ground. Sorry, your back knee.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  My back knee is, yeah, just because it feels nice and stable.

• 26:00Chris Williamson?

  That's a good exercise. So I have a buddy Alfie, who's adamant that a kind of a similar movement, but sat on the floor with both cables attached at the top, two handles, and then allowing yourself to basically do a vertical, kind of like a pull down, like a close grip pull down. But because it's on the cables and because you're not locked into a seat, it allows you to play around with that angle and that stretch that you get at the very, very top.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  That's a John Meadows exercise.

• 26:24Chris Williamson?

  Is it?

• 26:24Speaker 02

  They're called called stretches. Yeah, lovely as well.

• 26:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  You can also do that with, if there's like a seat bit, you can put your foot on there.

• 26:34Chris Williamson?

  I know what you mean.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  So that then you can hinge while keeping it reliable.

• 26:39Chris Williamson?

  Uh, this is something that I think it was such a good cue that I was given by a CrossFit coach. And his argument was your concentric should be quicker than the eccentric on everything that you do. That if you're doing bicep curls and you're lowering the weight down, you can lower it as slowly or as quickly as your program demands.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  For nine seconds.

• 27:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for nine seconds, like that other one. But you need to contract it quicker than that. And I think that just generally, when I've seen people training, they're forgetting about tempo. Not everything needs to be a tempo movement. Not everything needs to be like a four second eccentric. But if you were to take a little bit more care about how you're lowering the weight down and then you use power on the way up. I've also seen, this may be bro science, but that if power is load, whatever, load, distance and speed pulled together, that moving a heavy weight more quickly recruits more power. So that should mean that you get more muscular. Is that, how accurate am I here?

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Absolute physics, lad.

• 27:44Jonny?

  It's right though. Let us correct.

• 27:47Chris Williamson?

  Well, because that's why you track your bar speed, right, Johnny?

• 27:51Jonny?

  Um, no, it's not. But so I track my bar speed because bar speed is, has a correlation to RPE. So how many more reps I could have done. So it's a way of me managing the intensity without using percentages.

• 28:06Chris Williamson?

  Okay. Uh, what do you think about people integrating tempo better into training?

• 28:13Jonny?

  I think it can be, it can definitely be overused. So I think the, the rule that I would have is if you, like you're far better off with an exercise in general, just progressively overloading it over time, than you are worrying about, as long as your tempo isn't ridiculous. Like if you're throwing it around, I think you should have control over the weight, but you're probably going to get more mechanical tension, muscle growth over time. If you just add more weight and don't try and do like three seconds down, three second pause, three seconds up. Um, because the tension created from using 10 more kilos is greater than the tension with the, the longer eccentrics and concentrics.

• 28:49Chris Williamson?

  We'll scrap tempo everything and I'm just going to put more weight on the bar.

• 28:55Jonny?

  And lift it faster.

• 28:56Chris Williamson?

  And lift it faster. Okay. Johnny, I'm pulling the ejector seat and, uh, I'm passing it on to you because tempo everything was a bad idea, according to the two PTs in the room.

• 29:05Jonny?

  Uh, well, I've just literally just lost my.

• 29:10Chris Williamson?

  You hack.

• 29:11Jonny?

  Yeah. That's so annoying.

• 29:13Chris Williamson?

  Shall I?

• 29:13Jonny?

  I've got, I've got, I've got.

• 29:15Chris Williamson?

  Got it.

• 29:16Jonny?

  Right. Close. Um, it is to use a, I mean, you, you both come across a landmine attachment before.

• 29:26Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:28Jonny?

  So most gyms have them, maybe not the ones within five minutes of useless house.

• 29:32Chris Williamson?

  Mine actually does.

• 29:32Jonny?

  They do. Fantastic. So I, I find overhead pressing in general quite cumbersome. So barbell overhead press, I know Chris is ridiculously strong at barbell overhead press. Cause it's just the forearms, forearms to rest the, rest the bar. But like, that's, that's cumbersome. Getting dumbbells that are heavy enough overhead is cumbersome. Um, and also like, it's quite, for example, a barbell overhead press and like leaning back and all that sort of stuff. So if you load a landmine up, which for people who don't know what that is, basically a way of anchoring a barbell to a fixed point and then it's leaning away and you hold it in your hand. You're doing a one, one-handed overhead press with a landmine is a far more natural movement because you naturally slightly press it away from you.

• 30:14Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:15Jonny?

  So it, it's a far more natural movement for your shoulder. You don't have to like do all these sort of like weird lower back extension to get the bar in the air. And it's far easier to progress. You can add like small plates to it and, and load it over time. And if you struggle with getting the, the bar into position, start with it resting on a box or resting on a bench. And then you just front squat it up, basically.

• 30:37Chris Williamson?

  Kneeling or standing?

• 30:39Jonny?

  Either.

• 30:40Chris Williamson?

  I'm a big.

• 30:41Jonny?

  I do, I, I do standing.

• 30:42Chris Williamson?

  I'm a big fan of, I'm a big fan of standing over kneeling. Yeah, it just, I'm never stable enough when I'm kneeling on the ground.

• 30:48Jonny?

  Cause then you can do a proper like one foot, you know, one foot forward, one foot back, like power stance and really.

• 30:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Jonny?

  Really go for it.

• 30:54Chris Williamson?

  It's a shame that, well, there must be somewhere, I'm sure that there's some fancy gyms that have got a way to do that. Um, with both arms at once.

• 31:02Jonny?

  But might get, if the plates are big, might get quite, uh.

• 31:07Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, land, landmine press for shoulders and it's so. It's so safe. You know, you need to.

• 31:16Jonny?

  It just feels right, doesn't it? Just feel like the right thing to do.

• 31:18Chris Williamson?

  But that's because you've managed to take a movement that was supposed to be pressing vertically and made it go a little bit more close to a bench press.

• 31:28Chris Williamson?

  Right. So.

• 31:29Jonny?

  Cause if you, if you lie under it like that, then, and then just do it.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Feels even more right.

• 31:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And then if you take it out of the landmine, actually put it into a rack. Yeah, you can just do bench press.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  This is a landmine press variation that you can do.

• 31:48Jonny?

  And it's back to where we all started, which is lying down.

• 31:50Chris Williamson?

  Lying down.

• 31:51Jonny?

  Feet not on the floor.

• 31:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Jonny?

  Completely isolated.

• 31:54Chris Williamson?

  Bench press. Uh, Seth.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  This is one that I got from Elliot Hulse of all people, which is if you are having one of those days where you're just like, oh, I just cannot be bothered to do the session that I've got. And this particularly if you've been following five, three, one for the last seven years, as you should be. And you're long Bitcoin, then there is a point where the numbers get to the point where like, and we've all experienced this like Thursday night before your squat day for heavy threes and you're like. Oh, I don't know if I can even face getting out of bed in the morning because I've got this this thing coming up. If your training consistently starts to feel like that, just go in and say,

• 32:37Speaker 02

  right, I'm not allowed to lift more than 60 kilograms for three sets of 10 for everything. And you have to just turn up, go through the motions. You're not allowed to give it any intensity, not allowed to, like, it's literally you just turn up and just go through the motions. Like, you can even have that face just. And he's, and he's right that by the end of that session, you'll be so like fired up to actually do it properly again, that solves the problem. Whereas if you try and push it, when something in you is just like, ah, I'm exhausted, you're only going to burn out faster.

• 33:14Chris Williamson?

  So what's the, the principle here that if you're struggling with motivation, reduce the load, move through the session and use the whatever, like latent desire to train properly to like, the boredom kicks you into the, the next session correctly?

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 33:32Chris Williamson?

  Do you ever do that, Johnny? Do you ever, well, you know, because you are, you are basically controlled by a man on the other side of the internet with your training, aren't you?

• 33:40Jonny?

  It's worse than that, actually. I'm controlled by a very intricate spreadsheet that I don't understand.

• 33:44Chris Williamson?

  That is run by a man.

• 33:46Jonny?

  So I tell the spreadsheet every day how I feel. Seriously.

• 33:51Chris Williamson?

  And then the spreadsheet tells you.

• 33:52Jonny?

  And the spreadsheet says, well, this is what you should do. So it's kind of adjusted and adapted for me. I have a, I have a one, actually. My neck, it's weird. My next one is very linked to that, but I'll let you go.

• 34:04Chris Williamson?

  This is the most overused hack of all time. So if people haven't already seen this, I'll be very surprised, but we haven't used it before. James Smith and Sonny Webster got into a fight on Twitter about who was able, sorry, on Instagram about who was able to use this first. But just if you have a barbell which is on the floor and has a lot of plates on it, stick a small plate under the closest to the collar plate that's on the floor, roll it up and over it, and it means that you can deload the bar so much more easily. You'll save your lower back. And you've always been in that position, especially if you've been, if you're in a gym. Which isn't built for powerlifting, where the rubber gym eighty plates or something, they're like a gold's plate.

• 34:44Chris Williamson?

  And it's with rubber that makes you stick, it's like Teflonized rubber or some shit. And it just doesn't come off and you know, this is impossible to get off. Roll the barbell up, kick it onto a plate, pull everything off the end. There you go. You've only got one plate left. Do the same on the other side. You've deloaded a bar far easier. Now you could go to a gym that has a bar jack or like a bar rack, like a Laco thing to properly kick it up. But I actually think that this is probably quicker.

• 35:12Jonny?

  As a, for a tip for people who've like never been to the gym before, this is the first year they're going to the gym. I've seen it happen so many times where people don't appreciate the, like if you strip all the one side of the barbell. If it's like on a rack or like an easy bar, for example, on a preacher kill, you'll see people strip one side of it. And then it goes like that and the, the end.

• 35:34Chris Williamson?

  Straight into the face.

• 35:35Jonny?

  Into, into someone else lying on the bench next to them or whatever. So like unload barbell when they aren't on the ground, unload them evenly, one side after the other.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Learn basic physics.

• 35:48Chris Williamson?

  Moment on.

• 35:49Jonny?

  Do you know why I think this slightly, it's slightly forgivable is the barbell, especially twenty kilo, like a six foot barbell. You look at it and think that can probably, that can, that probably be all right. Like it doesn't look immediately like that's an, that person's in imminent danger.

• 36:05Chris Williamson?

  My ability to judge how much weight, like how much weight the fulcrum or whatever needs in order to flip it over. I have no idea, absolutely no idea. I always err on the side of caution because I've seen this happen one too many times. And you're, that's the equivalent of being a server in a restaurant and dropping the glass. Everyone, oh.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  What's the cost benefit of trying to push that fulcrum?

• 36:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Jonny?

  It can take two twenties on one side without flipping. Three twenties is touch and go.

• 36:33Chris Williamson?

  So this is a, dude, this is a, this is a fucking life hack. Explain what the limits are of a normal men's.

• 36:41Jonny?

  Twenty kilo.

• 36:41Chris Williamson?

  Barbell, twenty kilo barbell on a rack.

• 36:44Jonny?

  Yeah. So the way I would unload one eighty, right? So that's four twenties each side is as follows.

• 36:54Jonny?

  You go to one side and I strip off two twenties, okay? Leave two twenties on, that bit's very important, leave two twenties on, go around to the other side and strip all four. Because it will not flip.

• 37:07Chris Williamson?

  Oh.

• 37:08Jonny?

  And then go around to the other side again.

• 37:09Chris Williamson?

  Tell you what.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  That's proper Tetris, like minimum number of strokes required to.

• 37:16Jonny?

  I think you could probably push it to like, take one off and then, but.

• 37:19Chris Williamson?

  You've already got to do two, carrying forty kilos isn't too hard.

• 37:22Jonny?

  Is it, you can tell when it's at its limits, the way I check if I'm not sure is, um, because if you're using like twenty fives or a little, just give it a little.

• 37:29Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Jonny?

  Give the other end a little, very light, you think.

• 37:32Chris Williamson?

  Oh, probably not for me.

• 37:34Jonny?

  If someone touches that, that's going over.

• 37:36Chris Williamson?

  Before you do your one, Johnny, here's a, a, just a thought about that thing that you did there, Seth, if you're struggling with motivation, we're probably going to be getting toward the stage where people are starting to hit a little bit of a limit, especially if they're used to, if they're in a new training routine, if they're training at a different time, or if they're first stepping into the gym after a little bit of a break. What are some of the things that you do to get yourself motivated or in the mood for training? If you're just thinking, oh, like, I'm, I'm totally, totally not down for it today, either supplements or movements or routines or mindsets or anything.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  I would say don't use a pre-workout, these things are false economies.

• 38:19Chris Williamson?

  What's that mean?

• 38:20Jonny?

  I don't agree with that.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  So pre-workouts are very strong stimulants, usually with a bunch of experimental stuff in there to get you amped and to make sure that you don't sleep for the next two days. Um, so that, so that you can lift another rep on your, on your incline curl or something. But you pay the price much more on the back end of it. So I would be very sparing with that. If you are a coffee drinker and it's before 2pm, yeah, just have a regular coffee before the thing. But don't go and buy something that's a derivative of an amphetamine, just so that you can do a couple more cable incline.

• 39:01Jonny?

  I love how careful you are with stimulants.

• 39:04Chris Williamson?

  You have become, remembering that we back in the day wouldn't have thought twice about having vodka, water and NO explode from BSN. That was a, that was a pre night drink for me.

• 39:18Jonny?

  Some of my best sessions were with like an MR, an Metrex sample that came on the front of a Flex magazine. And I like, goodness knows what I had it just out the packet because it didn't have a shaker with me and then went and trained.

• 39:29Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, so I should frame this that I'm talking about this as a, an ex abuser of all these kind of supplement.

• 39:39Chris Williamson?

  Retire, retire, you're a veteran.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, where you just dry scoop the like three scoops of.

• 39:44Chris Williamson?

  Doing a scoop.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Jack 3D or whatever else.

• 39:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Jonny?

  So what's. The serving size of Jack 3D and thought, nah, it doesn't.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Nah, you're right.

• 39:51Chris Williamson?

  Did you see, there was a video that came up on YouTube the other day. Some guy did an entire tub of original Jack 3D.

• 39:59Jonny?

  Oh my God.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  I mean, that's.

• 40:01Jonny?

  Surely that's A and E.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Ambulance on its way down.

• 40:03Chris Williamson?

  Pretty sure, I'm pretty certain that Derek from More Plates More Dates did a reaction video to it.

• 40:09Chris Williamson?

  About just what was going through this guy's system. Pretty fucking.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  I would be calling the anesthetist. Like if I had a patient that said, I've had a tub of Jack 3D, I'd be like, right. Make a couple of phone calls, make sure like they're ready.

• 40:23Chris Williamson?

  Um, what do you do if it's, I'll get to you in a second, Johnny. If you don't like the idea of relying on stimulants, what do you do to get yourself, let's say it's an aggressive session or you really want to go in and crush it. What do you do?

• 40:37Chris Williamson?

  Yusuf.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  You asking me?

• 40:39Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  So a lot of it is because you've got stuff at home that you're like, well, for me, it's like, oh, I've got work I need to finish and I've got all these little bits and I can't really justify going to the gym. And, and then, oh, you know that on those times that you don't go and you try and stay and do the, the admin stuff, it's an hour later and you're like, ah, was it really worth it? No. So I think just knowing from past experience that whenever you try and skip the gym, the time that you would have spent otherwise is usually rubbish and your energy is still low and stuff. Whereas if you go and you come back and you're like, okay, I feel like I've had a frame shift and re-energized.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  As you said, Chris, a while ago, it's the same as, or it's more, didn't you, than the shift that you get from an eight hour night of sleep.

• 41:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Your mood changes more pre and post workout than it does when you go to bed versus when you wake up. I think as well, no one.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Treating yourself like a child, like putting it in your calendar and being like, I'm gonna do it because I will.

• 41:40Chris Williamson?

  Gotta go. Yeah. I think not overthinking it is probably a pretty good principle. Okay, I just, I'm robotic here. I'm working for the boss. The boss said that I gotta go to the gym, so I go to the gym. But I also think that, um,

• 41:51Chris Williamson?

  apart from the times when you injure yourself, which isn't usually due to the workout, it's due to something else that's going on, you almost never regret going to the gym.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:02Chris Williamson?

  Apart from the times I've injured myself, and even then I don't regret going to the gym. I regret the injury which was caused by something else not to do with the gym.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Really cold or didn't warm up properly.

• 42:10Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, exactly. I was fatigued or stressed or whatever. Yeah, you, you almost are never going to regret a gym session and keeping that in your mind. Good. Look, if I do this, it's something that future me will thank me for. Current me is a lying, duplicitous cunt and you, you cannot listen to him. Future Chris will thank you for it.

• 42:32Chris Williamson?

  Johnny, give me the justification for obsessive.

• 42:38Chris Williamson?

  Caffeine and stimulant use.

• 42:40Jonny?

  Well, so I just, I kind of think that everybody should experience that safely once. Because if you've never had a pre-workout before, it ends up being quite a good session.

• 42:53Chris Williamson?

  What say, because I haven't used a pre-workout in five years.

• 42:57Jonny?

  Me neither. The last time I experienced anything close to it was when I didn't have coffee for a month and then had an espresso and went and trained and that was.

• 43:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Can we all just say our story from first time you ever had a pre-workout?

• 43:11Jonny?

  Mine was that I just had.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  When you hadn't had a coffee in a while?

• 43:15Jonny?

  No, no, I had a, so there was a sachet, like a sample sachet of Metrex, whatever it was, their version of Jack 3D. Their version of NO Explode and I didn't have a shake a cup with me, so I just had it as a powder.

• 43:27Chris Williamson?

  Dry.

• 43:27Jonny?

  And then went and trained. I was like, wow.

• 43:29Chris Williamson?

  Bareback.

• 43:31Jonny?

  Yeah, like that was.

• 43:33Chris Williamson?

  What was yours, Yusuf?

• 43:34Jonny?

  Never liked that again, has it?

• 43:35Speaker 02

  So, yeah, it was, it was.

• 43:36Chris Williamson?

  Chasing the, chasing the proverbial pre-workout dragon.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  It was the, the original Jack 3D with the DMA A in it.

• 43:44Chris Williamson?

  Which is?

• 43:46Speaker 02

  The, the amphetamine and I found myself gurning.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  You feel pulse rate tunnel vision, like really like listening to like New Monkey on the way to the gym and you're like, this is excellent.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  My, my three rep max for squats was 140 kilos at the time. And I remember turning up and I did a set of 10. So it was a seven rep PB. Completely unheard of. It's the biggest like difference PB that I've ever done in my life. I hobbled home and was ill for a week, like really flu type symptoms for a week.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  And then I remember the next week, my flatmate, I had another dose of it and my flatmate was like, what's that? Can I try some? She didn't lift and I was like, yeah, sure. And so she, she had a scoop and I went to the gym, came back, house was spotless. And she was, oh, Yusuf had a really good day. I cleaned the whole house and everything really good. And I'm like, oh, okay.

• 44:46Chris Williamson?

  Might be the fact that you're on amphetamines.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  And she was no stranger to her class A's as well. So it's uh.

• 44:53Chris Williamson?

  Crazy that they were able to sell that. All right, Johnny, what do you do? You you going to go and do a workout? And you've got some pretty heavy sessions that you need to do. How do you get yourself in the mood?

• 45:03Jonny?

  Uh, so the first thing is like a, a, like a planning consideration. So try and train on the same days of the week at the same time. And try and plan stuff so that you can't, in the rest of your week, so that you can't move the session. So I quite like having that. Like, I, I try to not let myself train less than three times a week. I just, this is just the standard of like, I feel like 16 year old me will be really disappointed in me if he found out that I trained less than three times in a week. So I have those slots. And the fact that I have this rule of if I'm not going to train tonight, I'm not doing that session this week is often enough to just get me in the gym.

• 45:42Jonny?

  So, and then I just have this rule of no matter how I feel, I'll go and just do a warm up. I'll go and just like do something. And most of the time, it ends up, it ends up happening. Um, and then like some of the sessions are happening. Stuff like having the, for, for the long time life hacks listeners, they'll know that this is a life hack and they'll all be using it already. But having a sacred playlist that like is what you, is what you listen to when you warm up or is what you listen to when you train really helps. Um, or like even just watching some stuff on YouTube. So like having a time when you finish work, especially if you're working from home, you're like, okay, five o'clock, email's got, email's shut. I'm gonna watch some like fitness stuff on YouTube. Like I'm gonna watch

• 46:24Jonny?

  CrossFit videos or Pilates videos or whatever on YouTube to like get me in the mood and I'm gonna go to the gym. Um, but this links into my next hack, actually. Just so well planned, doesn't it?

• 46:34Chris Williamson?

  Fire away.

• 46:35Jonny?

  Um, for people who, so either in that position where you regularly find yourself like, I can't really be bothered. I don't want to go. Or if you play around with like, if you have a wood band or an aural ring or whatever, and you don't know what to do with that information. Something I've done with clients in the past is you have your session, so your Monday session. And you split it into three. So you have like an A, a B and a C. So if you're feeling really good, or you have loads of time, or your whoop band gives you a green rating or whatever, you do the full thing. If your whoop band or whatever gives you an amber, or you're like a bit short of time, I can't really be bothered to A and the B, or you just do the A. So you chunk it into, you're like order regulating based on time, mood, energy, whatever things you track, how much sleep you had last night.

• 47:20Jonny?

  But the A section, the smallest bit, should always be something that like you can always go and do. It's like Usus version of the sixty kilos for sets of ten. Like, there should always be a minimum that you can tick the box of. Um, and it it means that if you want to use something like a whoop band, because I think what what we've all struggled with in the past is you have that and then you're like.

• 47:39Chris Williamson?

  What the fuck do you do with the information?

• 47:41Jonny?

  Yeah, like it's red and it's flashing and it's shouting at you like, stop being a child and get more sleep. And you just go train anyway. You're like, well.

• 47:48Chris Williamson?

  Fuck it.

• 47:49Jonny?

  Kind of point, kind of pointless, right? Whereas if you can at least scale back your session, at least you're doing something, you're like paying some respect to that information if you if you choose to believe it. So basically taking your existing training program, chopping each session into three sections, and then you can just adjust depending on how you feel, how much energy, how much time you have.

• 48:07Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Nice. The other frame shift for this of just stepping back and big picture, you know, the old like look out at the stars and see how insignificant you are. Is just saying, rather than, oh, I have to go and train, is I get to go and train. There are people who would love to, but aren't able bodied enough to do it, or or what we're talking about before, they feel so intimidated by the scary gym environment and all of their internal projections about fat phobia and everything that they can't even make the first step. And and actually, it's a great privilege, a great ability to go and celebrate your body and.

• 48:48Chris Williamson?

  Well, one day, one one day you are going to be eighty and in a care home or, you know, unable to lift any heavy weights.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  And you're gonna. Back in the day, I used to do fifty KGs around the.

• 49:00Chris Williamson?

  Strawberry, strawberry, two scoops, first thing in, I am telling you, man.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  That'll be old people in fifty years, won't it?

• 49:09Chris Williamson?

  Listen, yeah, man, honestly.

• 49:13Jonny?

  Talking about Jack three D in the care home.

• 49:14Chris Williamson?

  Bro, that was sick.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Let me tell you, we used to have this thing called tickety tock.

• 49:22Chris Williamson?

  So my one that you touched on there, Johnny, is I think the obvious solutions are the ones that people overlook when they need to get motivated to go and train. Just find a song that completely cannot not get amped for, like have your playlist of training. Yeah. Or just a, there's a few of them, right? That if you put that on, it was your pre-drinking song for uni, or it was whatever, your one rep max song for the gym. If you throw that on, there is, you would be amazed at the state shift before and after that. Three and a half minutes of let the bodies hit the floor. Try, try and tell me that you don't want to go and lift the shit out of the gym after that. Like, it's just, it's such a state shift. And it's

• 50:07Chris Williamson?

  so obvious. Everyone's got songs that get them amped up. All right, just use that. Use those.

• 50:14Jonny?

  Baretooth Live on YouTube.

• 50:16Chris Williamson?

  That's your one. That's still in the, that's in the first live hacks.

• 50:19Jonny?

  Like, listening to live bands on YouTube, man. Or like, live DJ sets as well.

• 50:24Chris Williamson?

  As well, when you've got the audience in the background.

• 50:26Jonny?

  Their energy is so good. Like, I just need one of those on. And the nice thing about them as well, you get the full set, it can be the whole session. And like, you're finishing the session as they're doing like their encore and coming back on for one final song. It's brilliant. Yeah. Life changing.

• 50:41Chris Williamson?

  What have I got here? This is just one that I've had. So Tyneside, where I train at in Newcastle, has just got a seated calf raise machine. So the ones that work as you're sat down, you load the plates on the front, the pad sits on the top of your knees. And we've just found that adding that in, in between, what, there is nothing that you're doing that can't have calves added in, in between, but no one can ever be bothered to dedicate ending stuff. All right, maybe if you're doing squats or reefer elevated lunges or something like that. But no one's looking at the calf machine in between calf raises. Yeah. When you're training calves, the other thing that you should really look at is adding calves in in between sets.

• 51:22Chris Williamson?

  But if you're doing like a bench press, or if you're doing anything upper body, just get four or five rounds of an easy calf machine, or set the leg press up and do calf raises on the leg press in between.

• 51:37Jonny?

  So someone sent me, I must have tweeted something about calf training, or having small calves. And someone tweeted me a bunch of studies that are like,

• 51:48Speaker 02

  We compared a group of people over 16 weeks training calves heavy twice a week versus heavy three times a week, or light and heavy, or progressively doing this. And all of them showed zero muscle growth.

• 52:04Chris Williamson?

  No way. No fucking way.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Across the entire study, like, and it's just basically like, oh, so calf training is just a scam then, is it like?

• 52:13Chris Williamson?

  Why is that the case, do you think?

• 52:15Jonny?

  Yeah, that can't be true.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Just so have, so one theory is that they're so heavily genetically determined and that they, you basically are training them all the time because you're getting so much loading from walking them, walking around with them, that they, that kind of muscle that have already hit their limit, unless you were to go absolutely ham on them. Like, it might just be that to get big calves, you need to, you need to do a Chris and like between any set of anything, go and sit on the seated calf raise.

• 52:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, it's interesting because obviously the Achilles rehab that I did, I went from having a calf that was basically, that didn't exist, total muscle wastage, to now I overshot it and the calf of the leg that I recovered is now bigger than the calf of the leg that I didn't, which is why I'm thinking about calves a little bit for the first time ever.

• 53:04Chris Williamson?

  What do you say? What, what, what?

• 53:05Jonny?

  Just that one of the coaches from 3DMJ, Jeff Alberts, has got a, like a side by side comparison of like, I mean, this is probably 10 years of calf training, but he has legitimately turned very average calves into like a strong body part for him.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  So there's an interesting point because Jeff Alberts is all about mind muscle connection, isn't he? He's Mr. Longevity Bodybuilder, like he's in his.

• 53:28Jonny?

  In his 50s and still going, yeah.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he's all about like getting the most out of a set of 10 as you possibly can.

• 53:35Jonny?

  How long was the study for?

• 53:37Speaker 02

  16 weeks. So, or like eight weeks.

• 53:38Jonny?

  So the answer is like 16 years then?

• 53:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, just do it for longer. They're definitely, calves, calves are certainly one of the hardest muscle parts to train, but also they're probably the bottom of pretty much everybody's list.

• 53:52Jonny?

  Yeah. Well, it hurt, don't they?

• 53:54Chris Williamson?

  Who the fuck cares?

• 53:55Jonny?

  They're difficult and it hurts afterwards and it hurts at the time and it's boring.

• 53:59Chris Williamson?

  And it's, yeah, all of the above. So add it in in between sets and you'll be sweet. I think, I think that's me out of.

• 54:11Jonny?

  That was a hell of a list of.

• 54:12Chris Williamson?

  That's a fucking good, a good list of some training things. Well, why don't we? Why don't we finish up with any stuff that we've watched or seen recently? Any cool stuff?

• 54:22Jonny?

  I've got one.

• 54:23Chris Williamson?

  It is.

• 54:24Jonny?

  I'm watching it at the moment called Dope Sick.

• 54:29Jonny?

  On Disney Plus.

• 54:32Jonny?

  Are you worried that we've already had that?

• 54:34Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 54:34Jonny?

  No. So it is, um, it's recommended by Dan, Mr. Digital Audio Broadcast.

• 54:43Jonny?

  It's about, uh, Oxycontin, the sort of the creation and distribution.

• 54:52Chris Williamson?

  Is it the Westler family?

• 54:54Jonny?

  Uh.

• 54:55Chris Williamson?

  It's the something family, isn't it?

• 54:56Jonny?

  Something family, but yeah, I can't remember the name of it. But yeah, pharmaceutical business produces this, this Oxycontin drug, which is an opioid that they claim has like slow release and all sort of stuff and isn't addictive. And it's about like the, um, the consequences of that. And it is a bit of a, bit of a slow start, but.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Is it a documentary?

• 55:16Jonny?

  No, no, it's a, it's a series. It's a drama series. Um.

• 55:19Chris Williamson?

  Based on, I'm going to guess.

• 55:21Jonny?

  Well, it must be true, right? Cause.

• 55:23Chris Williamson?

  Pretty accurately based on reality, yeah.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Real. I've had oxycodone. It's a powerful drug.

• 55:27Chris Williamson?

  What's the difference between oxycodone and Oxycontin?

• 55:30Speaker 02

  It, I think it's the trade name because I've never heard Oxycontin being used in the UK. It might be maybe the slow release or.

• 55:38Jonny?

  I think, yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Formulation or something.

• 55:40Jonny?

  I think that's it.

• 55:41Chris Williamson?

  What was the one? Cause they had to change it so that people couldn't snort it anymore. Is that the difference between oxycodone and Oxycontin?

• 55:48Jonny?

  So in this Oxycontin, they like the, the thing that supposedly slow releases the coating of the tablet. But people put the tablet in their mouth for a bit, take it out, crush it and snort it. So.

• 56:01Jonny?

  So. But like the pharmaceutical expert thing is just like a sugary coating around the edge of the pill. But yeah, so I I I mean, this was, I think, it like keeps shooting back between like nineteen ninety five and present day, where there's like a lawsuit being being built against them. I haven't finished it yet, but so good.

• 56:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I've heard that before. It was being dope sick was being advertised on the Central Roundabout in town. Yeah, for Disney as part of Disney Plus. It looks awesome. There's also a book, um, maybe that the series is based on, or perhaps just the same story reported by someone else. I was in Waterstones yesterday, and there's a book all about this. So I I can't wait to watch that. It looks yeah, really, really good.

• 56:42Jonny?

  So good. So good.

• 56:44Chris Williamson?

  Seth, have you seen anything nice?

• 56:45Speaker 02

  I have actually. I think it's the only thing I've seen, but it's called Midnight Mass on Netflix, and it's fantastic. It's a self-contained seven-part series, and it's based on a Stephen King book. It's a roughly about a guy who comes to this little parochial village as a priest, and he's really charismatic and everyone likes him. And it just, it's really nicely written, and there's lots of threads about the weird kind of ego games that religious people play and how people get drawn into to things based on their interpretations.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  And there's a there's like a Muslim sheriff there who like doesn't buy any of it. And he's like, no, I'm not not getting involved in this. And it's very, very culturally accurate in in some ways, and just really, really good. It's it's a horror, but it's not it's not just like jumpy shock stuff.

• 57:45Chris Williamson?

  What's on Netflix?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:48Chris Williamson?

  Cool.

• 57:48Jonny?

  Really recent as well. I've not seen it, heard of it.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Have a look at the trailer. Yeah, I think like

• 57:55Chris Williamson?

  I'm not good with scary stuff. How how jumpy and how scary are we talking?

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Not massively jumpy. There's like maybe four moments in the whole series that are like, but but like, it's not about it's not one of those things that trying to like scare you through shock factor.

• 58:12Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 58:12Jonny?

  Does it fill you with dread? Is there any sense of dread?

• 58:15Speaker 02

  No sense of dread.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  A bit of doom.

• 58:21Jonny?

  Some doom. And you like nihilism at the end?

• 58:24Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 58:25Chris Williamson?

  Okay, sounds perfect. Sounds exactly perfect.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  You know, there's three words at the top of the, and it's like romantic, zany, zingy.

• 58:35Jonny?

  Not nihilism, doom and some...

• 58:38Chris Williamson?

  Ready armed trouble.

• 58:44Chris Williamson?

  So I am a huge fan of Netflix's colourised World War Two documentary series. And they've had two already that were up and a third one has just gone live, which is World War Two: Road to Victory. So they've gone back through particular elements of World War Two. So the invasion of North Africa, the battle for the Atlantic, the battle for Dunkirk, whatever. And they've colourised the entire set of footage. So you get to see World War Two in full colour. They've tried to HD stuff as much as they can. They get really, really good expert testimony.

• 59:23Chris Williamson?

  They get, there's never, I'm always a little bit conflicted when you watch war documentaries and they get the veterans that were there on. Because I quite like it, but because everyone's inevitably quite old, it does slow the pace of it down a little bit. Whereas when they rely on the experts and they've got such and such from Brunel University, this guy from King's College London, whatever, whatever. And all of the historians are shit hot. They're really, really good. It's just great. Like this, I think the new series has got 12 episodes in it, World War Two: Road to Victory. That just easy watching and you get to, it's much more engaging to watch stuff. It just shows how overstimulated we are. The fact that going from black and white to colour

• 1:00:06Chris Williamson?

  means that I'm more likely to learn about something that's interesting to do with history. The episodes are a good length. I think they're maybe a full hour long, but yeah, highly, highly, highly recommended.

• 1:00:17Jonny?

  Cool.

• 1:00:18Chris Williamson?

  You watched anything else, Johnny?

• 1:00:20Jonny?

  Um.

• 1:00:25Jonny?

  I've tried watching something called The Tourist.

• 1:00:28Chris Williamson?

  Oh dude, I didn't even get through the first episode.

• 1:00:31Jonny?

  Yeah, shame that, isn't it?

• 1:00:33Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, with what's his face? Who was the guy that was in?

• 1:00:36Jonny?

  Christine Grey.

• 1:00:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, from Fifty Shades of Grey.

• 1:00:40Jonny?

  Yeah, really, really struggled with this.

• 1:00:41Chris Williamson?

  Shite. I just didn't think it was very good. What was the, what was the one, I think we said this a little while ago, with the dude that plays Loki from the Marvel Comics?

• 1:00:52Jonny?

  Uh, The Night Manager.

• 1:00:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, The Night Manager with Tom Hiddleston.

• 1:00:57Jonny?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Chris Williamson?

  Uh, Hiddleston. Fucking hell. What an awesome, awesome, yeah. Hugh Laurie's in, have you seen that, Yusef? Did we tell you that one?

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:01:05Chris Williamson?

  The Night Manager, fucking really good.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  Worth watching.

• 1:01:09Chris Williamson?

  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:10Jonny?

  Off the back of that, then I think he should be the new James Bond.

• 1:01:14Chris Williamson?

  Oh.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Right, I'm gonna add these two.

• 1:01:18Chris Williamson?

  How would you feel about, because I would be completely down for Idris Elba to be the new James Bond. Idris Elba would be good. Tom Hardy or Tom Hiddleston? It's got to be.

• 1:01:29Jonny?

  One of those three.

• 1:01:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, if you don't go.

• 1:01:31Jonny?

  I think they've all got their, they've all got their required attitudes to it. They'd all play slightly different Bond, but would all do well.

• 1:01:39Chris Williamson?

  What would you choose if you had to choose out of Hiddleston, Elba, and Hardy? Who would you choose?

• 1:01:54Jonny?

  I wanna say Tom Hardy, just because I like him in everything that he does. That's, that, there's his recommendation actually. Locke?

• 1:02:02Chris Williamson?

  Oh, where he's the Welsh guy and it's filmed in the car. Unbelievable. My housemate was watching it last night. I've watched it a bunch of times, but my housemate was watching it last night.

• 1:02:11Jonny?

  How, like, how to make just a man in a car for what must be an hour and a half, completely like, edge of your seat watching the whole time?

• 1:02:19Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Jonny?

  So good.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Similar to phone booth as the concept then?

• 1:02:22Jonny?

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:02:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, but even less, even more tuned down. It's, it's even less exciting than Ryan Reynolds in Buried.

• 1:02:31Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen that?

• 1:02:32Jonny?

  Yeah, I've seen that, where he's literally just buried.

• 1:02:34Chris Williamson?

  For the whole time, yeah, it's one scene for the whole time. I, I can't remember what it is, but if, if someone's interested in finding out about it, if you Google how much Locke cost and how long it took to film, the whole thing was shot in a couple of weeks and it costs like 500 grand. It costs nothing.

• 1:02:51Jonny?

  Even that's surprising, to be honest, because it's just Tom Hardy in a car.

• 1:02:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Jonny?

  I feel like if someone had given me like a decent camera and two hours of Tom Hardy, we could have gone over the line.

• 1:03:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  No, just give me a ring light and an iPhone, 500 quid.

• 1:03:04Chris Williamson?

  Crack it out, no worries. Uh, yeah, Locke is unbelievable. And you got, do you know who Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hardy and Idris Elba are, Yusef? Do you have any?

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  No, I think Idris Elba is the guy who was in.

• 1:03:17Jonny?

  He's played sentiment field for England.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  With, with Johnny Wilkinson.

• 1:03:23Jonny?

  That's it.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  Um, the one who is in, he's the main character in some kind of, he's a detective, he's like a.

• 1:03:30Jonny?

  Luther.

• 1:03:31Chris Williamson?

  Luther.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Luther, yeah.

• 1:03:32Chris Williamson?

  I haven't, I've never watched that.

• 1:03:34Jonny?

  What?

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  Very, very good.

• 1:03:35Chris Williamson?

  Is it?

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  I've started writing down now the recommendations you guys have said with your names in brackets, because as we know, that's.

• 1:03:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there's accountability if they're shit.

• 1:03:45Jonny?

  Chris, seriously, Luther should be, should go top of the list.

• 1:03:47Chris Williamson?

  Well, dude, The Wire, never seen it, Sopranos, never seen it.

• 1:03:51Jonny?

  Definitely bother with, you've never seen Sopranos?

• 1:03:53Chris Williamson?

  No, no.

• 1:03:54Jonny?

  I wouldn't bother with The Wire.

• 1:03:56Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 1:03:56Jonny?

  Yeah, wouldn't bother.

• 1:03:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, uh, I think on balance, Tom Hardy makes for, you remember when, you remember when it went from being Pierce Brosnan? And everyone couldn't believe that you were going to have this like hard guy. It was gritty, Daniel Craig was running off the side of buildings. He was coming out of the water, he was like jacked. And now think, because that was, I think he first became Bond in 2006.

• 1:04:22Jonny?

  Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah.

• 1:04:24Chris Williamson?

  Um, so think about the fact that from then until now.

• 1:04:31Chris Williamson?

  Looking at Daniel Craig and comparing him with the potential of Tom Hardy and thinking, hang on, Daniel Craig was like the hard, aggressive dude. And then you see just how much more extreme movies have got, that the standard's really been raised. But I think to go to lean into it would be a better way. But I also think that it would be quite cool to have, I think having a black Bond would be pretty cool. That would be like-

• 1:04:56Jonny?

  Yeah, Idris would smash it as well.

• 1:04:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, he's a sick guy. He's got an awesome voice.

• 1:05:00Jonny?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  I do know who Tom Hardy is because he played Charles Bronson.

• 1:05:07Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 1:05:08Jonny?

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:05:08Chris Williamson?

  He did.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  Which, which in itself, like if you're having Bronson is now Bond, that's-

• 1:05:14Chris Williamson?

  He's got a real repertoire. He plays the Jewish gangster in Peaky Blinders.

• 1:05:21Jonny?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:21Chris Williamson?

  He's got the Welsh accent. He's done all sorts.

• 1:05:24Jonny?

  The Kray Twins.

• 1:05:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, he's both of them.

• 1:05:27Jonny?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Jonny?

  He's, well, he's Bane in the, in the Batmans.

• 1:05:34Chris Williamson?

  Serious guy. Serious, serious guy. Gentlemen, thank you. We made it. Where should people go if they want to check out what it is that you guys do?

• 1:05:44Jonny?

  I think if you just want to run any online business, proppinfitness.com forward slash modern wisdom, we show you how to do it for free. If you want macros and calories, proppinfitness.com forward slash calculator.

• 1:05:57Chris Williamson?

  We made it. Peace.

• 1:05:59Speaker 03

  Mr. President, my company formed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:06:08Speaker 04

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:06:16Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you freeze to death, that's what?

• 1:06:20Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17 out of 10 without parent.