054 Strength vs Hypertrophy: Is Powerbuilding the Solution?

Welcome back, thank you for joining us for another episode and can you hear that? There's nothing. For the first time in weeks, I have no noise, no birds, no nosey neighbours, no construction work, it's a good day, sunny, blue skies and no noise. So no distractions today, happy days, hopefully you guys are, no non-distraction, distraction for you as well with a cup of coffee just like me. Chris, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, thanks, Dick. Wonderful, wonderful. So we teased you guys with an announcement that was coming last week and here we are, true to our word, we have an announcement for you guys and that is we are launching a train heroic training group. So if you guys don't know what train heroic is, it's a platform where we're able to program workout routines and you guys can join it, be part of a group, part of a community, you can interact with each other, interact with me, you can get like feedback, you can get technique, feedback, all that kind of stuff and we're going to be programming workouts in that group. Now it is a hypertrophy, pass, and present training group. So what we're doing is we're going to be selecting a workout that probably we've covered here in one of these podcasts and we'll be updating it to be kind of as optimal as possible and it's going to be, so it's a silver era inspired as close as possible to a true silver era routine and as part of that it's going to be something that you guys can do in a silver era style gym. So we're going to have, you know, barbells, dumbbells, pull-up bar, a bench, a squat cage and that's really all you're going to need. Why are you laughing? What do you need to do? Did they really have pull-up bars in the silver era, I see no evidence. Unfortunately the plan today also doesn't have a pull-up bar but there have been some, there have been some. Anyway, so we're talking silver era type gym. I will, when we program this, I will mention some substitutions. If you have access to a cable, you know, I might give you guys some options if you want to do that as an alternative but we are setting this up to be a routine that you can follow in. I guess like a well-cryptome gym. Now the first plan is it's all written, it is ready to go and we're starting workout one next Monday so that is June 8th and it is, I'll tell you guys now, it is a Reg Park inspired plan. So it's not, in fact, we're talking about Reg Park today but it is not this plan, it is actually quite different to this style plan we're talking about today. It is a Reg Park single sets routine. So that will be launching, in fact, it is live now, you guys can sign up but you won't be able to do the workout. I mean, you can technically do the workout but workout one will be set for next week. So the link for that will be in both of our bios, I'll pop it in my story as well so when you're listening to this, I'm sure you'll be able to find it but we are super excited and I do want to mention we've had one person sign up already, he was super excited to find out that he'd stumbled across a secret that we haven't launched yet and asked me to give him a shout out so I forget what his name is unfortunately, I'm sorry but welcome aboard. Anyway, I'm super excited to join you guys with that, so make sure you have a look at that one. Now, today we are mentioned talking about Reg Park and we are doing one of his multi-joint, multi-joint, multi-set, although technically I think every excise while one is a multi-joint excise as well. And I wanted to talk about Reg, I know we've talked about him before, in fact, I think he's the most common frequent appearance on this show but today we're talking about power building and I just couldn't go past Reg, first bodybuilder to bench 500 pounds, I just had to mention him and he specifically talked about, they didn't call it power building but he specifically talks about routines for people who want to get strong, people who want to do weightlifting and he's got a lot of courses on this topic and I'm going to talk about one of these in just a moment but what's really interesting and I didn't want to give this example because we've talked about this sort of workout from him in a past episode but in his, I believe it was his bulking course, power and bulk course, that's what he called it, he actually had routines that were written for both weightlifters and bodybuilders and what's really interesting is to compare and contrast what he did differently in those two demographics and mostly it just came down to excise selection, there was a couple of repetitions that would change but really what he would do is he would take the weightlifting course and he would just turn, he would just change some of those exercises into bodybuilding exercises and I think it's really cool experiment just to look at that and see okay what exercises are you using the silver era that you're identifying as bodybuilding exercises compared to weightlifting exercises, so that's kind of cool if anyone has access to that book, it is an interesting read but what we're talking about today is a plan that came from his Mr. Universe courses and so this is a bulking routine which he talked about, I think he called it, he called it bulking power, he called it power routine, bulking routines were very similar in the silver era, they tended to be more kind of strength focused multi-join exercises but he did call this a power power course and what we have here is I guess you could say like a condensed routine, he only did eight exercises, he often would do more exercises than that in a routine and the eight exercises consisted of the barbell overhead press which is interesting because he actually did a lot of behind the network but he always actually is doing a standard overhead press and he would do that for, he started with three sets of it and he suggested you could increase set number over time and go up to five sets, so three to five sets of five repetitions, he then did a squat to bench so not full depth, he'll just come down to bench height, actually like unload in the sense of like sit on the bench and then stand back up and he would do that for three to five sets of five repetitions and as everyone in the silver era did he would pair that with pullovers. Then we have a bench press off boxes, so this was like a what do you call bench from pins we would call that today and so you're actually starting in the bottom position of the bench. I don't think that would have been all the way off the chest, it would have been a little bit above the chest but starting in that bottom position again three sets up to five sets of five repetitions and then weighted dips against three to five sets of five repetitions and then stiff leg off, stiffly they lift off boxes, so this again would be like a rack pull nowadays against three to five sets of five repetitions and then a bent over barbell row, three to five sets of five and then a barbell swing curl which is like a cheating sort of like a cheating curl here we kind of lean back as he did the concentric and then this was also done for three to five sets of five yeah three to five sets of five repetitions and then finally a toe raise with partner so a calf raise or standing calf raise six sets of 30 repetitions again this is where you've got the person on your back we've told about this exercise before I think it's a loading issue but there you have it so eight exercises nine if you include the pullover heavy work five reps multi join exercises Chris what's Danny out to you so yeah I mean there's some statements that I make every time on these kind of programs and then there's a couple of other interesting bits and pieces it's in terms of exercise selection I'm interested in the fact that the squat and the bench are both concentric kind of not concentric only but they obviously have that they're they're they're losing the straight shortings like in both cases and the bench press obviously actually starting off the bench off the of the waxes sorry interestingly when I was doing and I was focusing on the three power lifts I actually did almost all my benching off as concentric starting points and I did it as pin presses and I spent a lot of time messing around with putting plywood down because I had a power act and I would put plywood down underneath the bench so I could get the exact height because I could stack plywood kind of underneath the bench and I get exact height so that when I was in my bench position the pins would be literally pretty much perfect so the barbell was the exact starting point as it would be and you can do that I mean when you go your own curious gym you can mess around like that it's really interesting that he's done that for both of those lifts there so he's obviously thinking about that as a reason now I've kind of talked about before why I don't think it's a big deal I don't think it actually makes that much difference in terms of the physiology it does change the biomechanics pretty slightly it's not so much in the bench press actually it does change it more so in the squat so it tends to change how far you can sit back and it turns to change exactly what the bar path looks like but anyway for me the driver was more about that when you are when you are benching if you're thinking about rewracking the bar at the top position then you're thinking about something extra that you shouldn't really need to be thinking about if you're focusing on actually getting stronger if you're focusing on actually doing the lift and rewracking the bar at the top position okay fine that is a necessary kind of thing that you need to have to do but you don't actually need to necessarily do it if you're being handed off the weight which is a few and kind of got somebody else helping you and you don't need to do it if you're using boxers like he's talking about here or if I was doing it in it with pins and actually that just removes an extra coordination. them and you then don't have to think about which I think is beneficial not from any physiological sense. Well, arguably is a physiological sense because it's removing that kind of requirement in your brain that's thinking about that thing. It means you don't have to do that coordination part which is potentially detracting from you being able to do the lift, you know, the rest of the lift, you know, successfully. So anyway, just kind of minor things that I think is interesting there. So from what people talk about from a dead stops, which is basically just removing the straight shortening cycle, it doesn't really do anything, you know, neither the straight shortening cycle being present nor being absent really changes the hypertrophy effects. And honestly, I don't think it really changes the maximum strength effects either. So yeah, I don't think it really affects the power side, power building side, all the hyper, you know, power building power being strength really and building being the hypertrophy side. I really don't think it changes either of those things. We're changing the straight shortening cycle does change just we're removing or adding the straight shortening cycle does change things is in high velocity movements. That's where things really change. But in the context of of this what we're talking about today, I think it makes any difference. But it's just, I just find it interesting that he's got around two lifts, you know, and that's an interesting point. Really, the kind of the comments that I would make all the time would just simply be backwork is odd because, you know, we've got a bent over row and then we've got the kind of pullover, which isn't really a back exercise, it just kind of gets a little bit of a back involved. So, you know, obviously we would want, you know, kind of y-group pull ups and close group rows or something like that. Probably in a more stable format like an incline bench or something, just supported row. I don't really like bent over rows. I think that most people end up just treating them as a kind of horizontal power clean. I don't think and the people who don't are kind of doing a balancing exercise. Yeah, that's for me, the problem I have with bent over rows that either you fall into one trap or you fall in the other trap, one or the other. Either you put 130 kilos on the bar and you're basically doing a horizontal power clean, you know, that's, I've been there done that, got the t-shirt, right? Opposite end of the spectrum, you got some guy basically 50 kilos on the bar and he's kind of standing there and it's looking like a kind of the most delicate kind of balancing exercise is trying to keep his torso perfectly horizontal all the time and again neither of those two extremes are doing anything. I've got a secret which I haven't told you but you've probably intuitive because of some comments I've made over the last few weeks and that is I had been playing with bent over rows lately. But I have been doing them in a Smith machine and I quite enjoy them in a Smith machine. I hate them just standard barbell. I did use of that and not going back to that. But in a Smith machine it takes out that balancing act that you're talking about and I mean I'm only a few weeks into playing with it but so far I feel like the coordination has not been an issue. Bouncing has not been an issue and I'm just using that as my schedule row at the moment. And your torso is not bouncing up and down? No, I'm not really up with the 130 kilos. No, that's the issue. I mean, the thing is, you know, as people know, I do a podcast, another podcast with Rob Mousser and we talk about athletic stuff a lot of the time, almost the time. And one of the things that, you know, we come back to is that a lot of SNC at the moment has people standing, doing exercises like, for example, they might be standing facing a cable machine and they're doing kind of a single arm row facing a cable stay. And we're looking at that going, what do you think you're doing? What purpose does this exercise have? And they like the, you know, the SNC goes written like this entire kind of essay on what they think is going on and it's all just nonsense. You know, there's nothing happening. You know, not that actually creates adaptions that will be useful for the sport. You get better at that particular exercise because you learn to stabilize it and that's a, you know, kind of a skill that you develop as a result of practicing that thing. It doesn't really transfer because none of the adaptions that transfer actually are, you know, happening. And that's kind of why I think it's really important to focus on adaptions because it allows you to discern whether or not something like that is happening in effect one night. And really that exercise that we were just talking about there, the bent over row with 50 kilos on the bar where it's just kind of a balance, the exercise and trying to keep you torso perfectly straight all the time. And I mean, that forms perfectly into that category for me. You know, it's just one of those, well, I don't, I think Rob's got some root words that he would use to describe it. Basically, just as a kind of pointless balancing exercise, it doesn't really do anything. But as I say, I think the opposite end of this spectrum is probably equally bad. I'm really negative on bent over rows. I don't think they do really anything that people want them to do because either they're moving too fast or they're moving the whole body around or they're balancing and stabilizing and things really happening. And I don't really see where I find the middle ground because you either end up pushing it one direction or the other when you start trying to make progress. Yeah, you do. And I do wonder because a lot of the time when we look at these old workout plans, they're using them in the transverse plane. And that's going to naturally limit the load that they're using. And it's going to take out a little bit of that sort of balancing stability demand. And so from that perspective, I think maybe if you're not going stupid with momentum and body English and you're using a wider grip, maybe it's not as bad of an exercise for that purpose, but then how much latter we get? And it's being used as a lot exercise. So yeah, it is a bit of a, the thing is, I think if people want a really good rowing variation in a carriage type gym, then the inclined dumbbell test supported row is pretty hard to be hard to be. If they want decent rowing a commercial gym, then there's a couple of good options most of the time. If they want to use a barbell, then I would use, I would set up a bench on boxes and I would use a barbell while lying on the bench, and I'd pull to the bench. Yeah, yeah, I figure when you call that, you have to elevate a bench otherwise it doesn't work. Well, this whole, you can get like a quick hand-by-bench all that you can, but you can also just elevate that. I'll also do something like that. Yeah, depending on the bench, if you've got like a cross beam underneath it, it might get in the way. Yeah, and I've got long arms, which makes it hard for me as well. But in our new train heroic, we do not have a bent over row in this phase. However, I have suggested as an alternative if people don't want to do the incline dumbbell rowing. From your choice. There's no possibility of there being barbell bent over rows in any program that I'm associated with. It's not going to happen. Yeah, really, very, very negative on them. Despite that popularity and the silver era. Anyway, so it is interesting that we've got, we've got some stiff leg that lifts in this, in this program here. And off boxes as well. So that's interesting. Again, that kind of starts to make it into it. Yeah. Boxes does make it more of a right pull, which I'm not so much of a fan of. I think that, so I'm kind of in that zone where I think that if you take a little bit of range of motion off a stiff leg deadlift, it is really good idea. I think that, you know, just maybe a couple of inches off the ground instantaneously makes the exercise so much more comfortable and doesn't really lose you a lot. I actually think that works with dead lifts in my generate as well. But I think that when you turn it into a right pull by actually using boxes and you kind of elevate it like a fourth of ground. And I think it really kind of starts to make it a different animal completely. And it starts to become an upper body exercise rather than a lower body exercise. Now, I believe he does talk about the benefit from a back perspective. And I think from memory, he does say that this is why he does it off boxes is so you can use heavier loads. But also, you would think this is good. Honestly, I'd rather do a proper back exercise and a shrunk. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, he's using this as a trap work, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. But you're also going to get more of the direct hamstring stimulus doing it in this short and range of motion. Then you would be doing full gram. And this is the hamstring exercise, the only hamstring exercise in the program. Well, yes, and no. Yes. If again, if you can keep your form absolutely now and on, but if you look at most people doing heavy right pause, they tend to end up kind of failing with the, yeah, turning into an upper body exercise. Even so, they bring their hips forward and they, they don't give the proper hinge position. So again, I think that a proper stiff leg elevated slightly off the ground, maybe like just put a weight plate underneath it. If that's not sacrilege, you know, that tends to be my preferred way of doing it. And I think that's fantastic, absolutely fantastic exercise. Yeah. you write, it doesn't give you as much hamstrings as you'd more adopt the magnus. But in the context, do you realize, Jim, I think it worked pretty well. And in terms of using this as like more trap work and everything else, you would just say, well, use a different exercise. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll get on to how we might build power building routines later on in this podcast, I guess. But if I was just looking at this and going, okay, you know, it's designed as a power building routine. How would I tweak it? Well, I changed the rep ranges. I don't, I'm not convinced that hammering away three to five sets of five reps is the right answer. I think that's topian terms of volume with all these exercises. And I don't think you necessarily need to be as high as five all the time either. I've got no argument with I read press or obviously squats and bench presses dips, obviously, on the fan of stifler deadlift. So I would just move it down to the close to the floor. Bento arose. I would replace that with a wide grip pull ups by weighted, obviously. Honestly, I'm not, I'm kind of on the fence about whether I'd have cough work in a power building routine. Again, that's personal preference. Yeah. And again, would I have curls in the routine if I've got better pulling exercises? I'd probably want a shrug in there, to be honest. So I might have to have a shrug instead of the curls if I was just kind of switching things out. But again, that's just what your perspectives are on a power building routine. But fundamentally, I really like it as like, I mean, again, like we always say, this is so much better than I think I should have fun. In one of my other groups at the moment, my gains maxing group, I'm doing a method routine where I'm alternating a like single set day, which is a little bit more inspired by like a Steve Reeves kind of method where there's multiple exercises per muscle group, each trying to buy a different region and each done for a single set. And I'm alternating that. So it's full body AB with a more multi joint focus strength focus routines similar to this. And I would say it's more inspired by your edge park. And some of those things you just mentioned now, I mean, for me, I'm looking at what I've programmed and it's very similar to this, but I've taken out the row and I've turned it into a wide grip pull up, like you'd said. And I did keep calves in there, but I did struggle with that because I would prefer initially when I wrote that I took calves out, but then really, if you're doing a full body AB in that in that sort of context, you're getting calves, you know, one and a half times a week on average, it's a difficult, I find the difficult balancing act with a routine like this and then putting in like the two joint muscles, I'm dips as an interesting one for triceps, but it does become, you know, where's your priority there? Do you need to hit every single muscle or a prioritizing more of a, you know, I guess like a condensed routine where maybe you don't have direct biceps work, you don't have direct triceps long head work, you don't have direct gas rock work, you know, it's a bit of a, what's most important to you, you know? I think you've raised a really important issue there, which is that if we were kind of building something from scratch, we would probably use full body AB rather than full body A, which is what Regis is doing. And immediately that then allows you to focus on a slightly wider range of exercises and, you know, gives you some more freedom in terms of putting things in the program. So you can kind of alternate between weighted chins and heavy rows, and you know, you're doing them one and a half times a week. And that's really, really, really effective, I think, in a power voting scenario. Then you can, then you've got a little bit more mileage on the set side of things. So if you actually wanted to go a bit further and say do, you know, four sets of two or something on, or five sets of two even on the next exercise, you can do that because you've got space. Yeah. But it also allows the freedom to them have things like a shrug and a curl and maybe some car phrases. And it doesn't feel like you're kind of in the gym for like, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And like you said, five sets is pretty toby. So for me, when I'd be a program, this kind of method, I'll do three sets, I've programmed four to six. If I was going to do more sets, I'd be dropping the restrictions down. I mean, for me, five sets of two would be a proper strength program. It wouldn't be a power voting program, it'd be being away from that, definitely. Okay. So anything, any other adjustments you would make to this routine, or do we jump into just how, how would we, you know, a great routine. And with a couple of tiny tweaks on the exercise selection, it could be usable today, absolutely. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, when we were talking about doing power voting, I suggested that we could think about it in a system's kind of way. And I'm just talking about that now and see whether it works. But the way I think about it is that with power voting, you kind of trying to hit two goals at the same time. You're trying to hit maximum strength in a couple of exercises or maybe in a transferable way for a sport like strongman or something. That's probably a great example, strongman, maybe something maybe people were doing power voting could be quite interested in. So it's probably probably better than, you know, something as a target to this powerlifting. But, you know, okay. So, you know, we're thinking about strength sports type participants who want to kind of do a power voting type routine. You're hitting maximum strength as a goal on some exercises or movement patterns. And then at the upper end of the spectrum, you've got the building side, which is the hypertrophy side. So you're at these two kind of very, very closely related goals. Ultimately, you could kind of say, well, a maximum strength through a team would look like this. If you went all the way up to the maximum strength end of the spectrum, you could go to the upper end of the spectrum and go a bodybuilding routine like that. And you got these two kind of extremes. And you say, okay. So if you were saying that, you know, the maximum strength side of things, all the powerlifting sport, you're participating in a strong man or whatever, that was your actual kind of primary purpose. And you were just saying, I like a little bit more hypertrophy, then you could kind of construct a program that would start from that point and then move a little bit towards the hypertrophy direction. The opposite is also true. You could start out with a bodybuilding routine that you think is nailed down. And you could take a little bit of a step towards the maximum strength side of things and you could do that. And then you could kind of just try and construct something which is what most people want to magically do, which is like, well, I'm going to do something in the middle. And like the reason I'm mentioning this system or continuum is to try and get people to think before they do that because most people go, most people go, oh, I've got these two goals that I want to achieve. I want to do this kind of strength sport. I want to get stronger in this particular lift. But at the same time, I also want to, you know, kind of build my physique. I'm like, okay, but are you genuinely telling me that both of those goals are exactly the same priority to you. Most people are not 50/50 on their priorities on two goals simultaneously. Most time it's 75/25 or, you know, there's like a disparity. I'm like, okay, so unless you genuinely are 50, you wouldn't just kind of create a malgamated program that does half and half. You would start at one end and you would take a step towards the middle. And I think we've just literally recorded the podcast like this about athletic performance with Rob. And we took exactly the same systematic approach because it's like, you have to decide where on that continuum you're sitting, I think. So I think it'd be really interesting if we kind of just told you about those three different options rather than just kind of arguing about one option between like best to try and kind of pitch an option in each of those three spaces. Yeah. Yeah. I think an interesting thing in the context of powerlifting bodybuilding combined powerbuilding is even if you did take a middle ground, it's not like you're necessarily getting 50/50. Like you're not getting half of the synthesis between the two goals. Yeah. So you might be able to get 80% of both. Yeah. And I think also if you are doing, say for example, you are competing in a strength board like powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting even, or a strong one, I think there is a decision that you have to make, which is am I seeking hypertrophy to suit my sport exclusively, or am I seeking hypertrophy that does not suit my sport because I genuinely am taking a step towards building out my physique in a way that looks more bodybuilding like. I think that's a really interesting point that has to be taken to account on that level as well because ultimately if you're saying, you know, I'm building my physique sport, my sport, then the program's going to look quite different. Yeah. I think if someone's competing as a powerlifting or in a strength sport that's not bodybuilding, that adds a whole extra layer of boundary conditions onto this programming. You know, they do need to be aware of body weight and what you're explaining there. So I think maybe the best way of looking at it would be let's say someone's not competing. I mean, even if they're competing bodybuilding, that's going to add another layer as well. I think the way that Rob and I talked about this is that if you are competing, then you can't do this. Yeah. You can't have two goals if you're competing. If you're competing, then you have a goal. I mean, that's all there is to it. Well, if you're competing and you've got two goals, why are you competing? (laughing) It's the next no sentence. (laughing) The whole point of competing is to do the best you can. Why would you kind of make your life harder by trying to do something else at the same time? There's nonsense. Unless you are in less part of your sport is about being able to do those two things at the same time. And that's totally separate question. But if you're competing in specific sport, then you're not gonna take on other goals. - Which kind of was for some of these silver iridais early on? - You know, there was a component of rate lifting with the bodybuilding. That's why we do see such high overlap with some of these guys. - Sure. - Hmm. Okay, so do we look at each of those perspectives and it's important? - I think we should try and answer the question on all three points on the continuum. 'Cause I think, and I actually think it's going to, I think it's gonna be an interesting kind of process because I think it's gonna pull us away from the power voting program that we've just looked at which I actually like quite a lot. - Hmm. - Yeah, okay, so which one should we start with? - Let's start with the bodybuilding under the spectrum 'cause that's actually the easiest one. So if you start with a really solid bodybuilding program and you take a step towards making that more like a power voting program, what's going to happen? What's the easiest thing that a bodybuilding could do if they're following a, let's assume that they are following a three times a week, either for body A or for body A, B type programs. So we're assuming that they kind of know how to program. They're doing a very wide range of exercises because that, you know, it's gonna give them maximum coverage and they are focusing a lot on the machine stuff, they're focusing a lot on single joint stuff and, you know, they've built a good physique doing that. And now they want to take a step towards being able to compete in, not compete compete, but, you know, they're moving towards the idea of, you know, participating in some strength type competitions. They're thinking about that in the future, maybe they're not obviously playing it immediately, but they're thinking about that for the future. And so they're looking to start building some scale in those areas. So how are we gonna modify one of those programs to allow them to move in that direction over time? - Yeah. Yeah, so just to rehash what that program is probably looking like at the moment, if they're just right in that bodybuilding camp, then I would assume it's looking something like, like you said, either for body A or for body A, B, probably single sets, probably, you know, a dozen or more exercises per workout, you know, probably one exercise per muscle region by seeing different regions. There's probably not as much of a emphasis on rap scheme or like repetition range. I'd say they're probably saying look anywhere between sort of four to 12, five to 15, anything like that, depending on availability, equipment, whatever, yeah. And then like you said, there's gonna be more machine-based work in that. And so if we're gonna take one step closer to the middle of saying, hey, let's get some power lifting strength focus in this. Probably the first thing that comes to mind for me there is going to be the exercise selection side of things and the machine side of things. And maybe we need a distinguish here. When we're talking about power in the power building side of things, the power lifting side of things, are we wetting ourselves to the power lifts or are we just saying maximal strengthers and expression? - Well, this is why I was, so this is why I was being kind of inclusive with my, yeah, not just about power lifting because the problem is that most of the time when the fitness community uses the word maximum strength, they are talking nonsense. They're absolutely talking nonsense because they are referencing a concept that doesn't exist because they're literally describing, I've made this criticism a number of times. When I hear a lot of strength coaches talk, as the C coaches are talking about maximum strength, the athletes maximum strength are like, what are you talking about? They're not a computer sprite. They don't have like 10 points of strength, 11 points of stamina, that's not real. That's not what's going on here. Tell me the exercise or the movement pattern that you are testing that strength in. And that's, and you can't, don't say leg strength 'cause that's nonsense as well. So the problem is that you can kind of, you can kind of talk about like squat patterns and edge patterns to a degree. And you can go about pressing and pulling. And again, different directions and kind of movement planes will change the exact level of strength of the athlete is capable of expressing. But broadly speaking, if you've done a lot of squatting, then you have a strong man competition that involves a squat type movement pattern, you can kind of be reasonably confident you'd be okay at that. It does transfer to that extent. So I think what we've kind of got to do is understand that maximum strength is physiologically limited to either the exercise or the movement pattern. And you've got to know what you're going to be doing in the sport in order to be able to prepare for that. So a strong man obviously has a wider variety of things that you're going to be doing. But generally speaking, it's going to be very close to squats or hinges or pulls or presses most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time. So I think the powerlifting side tends to give people ton of vision because they go, you know, strength just means mobility to squat that weight in that power racking up, particularly in this, that's not what strength means. - Yeah. - Yeah, okay. So less of a focus on the particular competition style lift, but we're expecting that there's going to be transfer ability to a squat pattern, a upper pushing style. - Yeah, I think if the individual is starting from the very general starting point of saying, I've been a bodybuilder or recreational bodybuilder, it's probably the best place to kind of describe it as if they're not been competitive, but they've been recreational bodybuilder following a great program. And it's starting to just get interested in strength sports. I like, I'm interested in maybe, you know, participating in a fun kind of local strong man competition. I've seen plenty of those and people just rock up and do that. I mean, you know, and or maybe I'm interested in seeing whether I can do a bit of powerlifting in the future. Not the point that I'm making is that if you are setting out on competition track, if you're saying, I'm going to be competitive and that's my competitive, that's a totally different animal. Don't talk about, you know, kind of power building in that context 'cause it makes no sense. 'Cause you've got a competitive goal that you want to achieve then go and do that thing. I mean, that's different. What I'm saying is that someone's just getting interested in that area, that sport. They want to move in that direction. Then I think what you would start with is general kind of preparatory movement patterns that would enable them to either go down the, you know, kind of powerlifting or the strong memory or whatever else that they wanted to do that involved those kind of situations. Okay, so how about this? What if I tell you what I would do and then you could take me? Well, I'll say that. Okay. So I would take that full body A, A, A multiple exercises per muscle region. And I would normally program that, say, is like three different exercises per muscle, okay? So each muscle region is getting biased. Now, if I'm taking a step towards middle, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn that full body A, A, A into an A, B. I'm gonna take those three different exercises per muscle region. I'm gonna condense them down to two. And I'm gonna have one multi-join exercise per muscle group that's going to be an overhead tracer, a pull-up, a bent over row, whatever. And I'll do two sets of that exercise instead of single sets. And I'll keep one other exercise for that muscle group, which is by seeing a particular region as a single set. Probably the only other challenge I would make there would, before I had a wide range of repetitions. And now for that multi-join exercise per muscle group, I'm gonna try to reduce that down, some may between maybe four to six, four to eight. That's probably it in that first or two. Your kind of key exercises would be some kind of overhead press. So the head tracer, like a bench, I'd have a pull-up. Yeah, maybe it's stiffly deadlift, yeah, a squat. They would probably be like the four. Yeah, I think that's really solid approach. I mean, that's gonna be a, I put a big step actually in the right direction. And then they can focus on getting those numbers up over time and, you know, seeing how things go. And yeah, I think I'll be a really solid, really solid strategy. I'm just wondering if there's anything else that could really be done. Probably not and maintain our kind of proximity to that end of the spectrum, to be honest. So, I mean, you're pretty much in exactly the same place I was, I was, I was thinking. also that exercise order. I was thinking about prioritizing those kind of key lift has been the first things that we would do in each of the workouts. So maybe you would have the bench press on one day and the real big press on the other days. Maybe and then again squat on one day, stiff leg on the other. And and then maybe you'd have two different point exercises or something like that. I don't know. I mean that would that would be three kind of pretty chunky exercises at the beginning of each session and then after that would be everything else. I think that would probably probably be rounding it out quite well. Yeah see that's interesting because that's that's then determining do you take one step closer to that middle of the two goals or one step further away because I would normally do the multi-join exercise to say the overhead press and then I'll do the isolated shoulder exercise. Yeah and that's keeping me closer to the body building side. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah but I think with it being so kind of with it being important to gain the skill in those situations I probably want to prioritize them earlier. Okay so that's landing us almost in the middle or a big step. Yeah it is a big step it is a big step. Let's let's jump to the opposite end of the of the of the continuum and say well what happens if you've got a power lift or who's decided they're going to or maybe not been competitive but they've been training as a power lift. I actually to be honest if someone had been a little bit competitive you want some competitions and then they're not decided to retire from that and just focus on bodybuilding but they want to carry on training as a power. They've done they just want to add a little bit of extra bits and pieces around the edges. So maybe they're actually doing an upper lower split maybe they're doing a bench twice a week and squat deadlift maybe they're only dead lifting once a week and they're doing like lower body stuff squat deadlift twice a week which I think actually is a really really great way of doing things because it gives you the ability to focus on the kind of the the skill stuff that you want to work on you know twice a week first in the work out. So what would we then look for there if they were following that kind of routine and wanted to take us to take us a step towards bodybuilding. So if you're assuming they're doing let's say what five sets of doubles or something along those lines yeah exactly and like you said upper lower and then they might have some maybe that they'll have the core lifts power lift making up the bulk of their work out to be and then they might have one or two exercises is Andrea and this sticking point so yeah okay so they're taking a step up so what I would do in that situation is the first step for me is to look at well what two joint muscles are we missing and so we probably don't have any triceps long head work we might don't have any gastrocnemius work you know what else might be missing maybe some hamstring work and I'm going to add those as I guess you could call them accessory exercises whatever at the end of that routine normally I'm still going to keep exercise order the power lift first up honestly that's probably that the first step I'll take is this take a couple sets away instead of doing the five by two exactly exactly like three sets of triples even yeah and then just give those sets to those accessory exercises or muscles literally exactly the same place that I'm in I would absolutely just trim the trim the main sets back three sets of those great replacement five twos and yeah just add on a couple of exercises they're not doing and that's again gonna be a huge step towards a physique related to them you know would immediately know just not immediately immediately but that's more or less here within yeah if they haven't been doing yeah okay okay and that's going to lend us maybe what a third of the way kind of well let's see what happens because I'm really interested to see how we because what we've done just here is by starting working from first principles or at least fixed points not first principles but by starting working from fixed points that already exist we've created two quite interesting style programs which are very very different they are from what we started with this is what I thought would happen when I was planning out how we might have this conversation I was thinking to myself we're going to end up with some very very very different routines that all fit under the banner of of power building because if we now come and say well okay fine we started out with a powerlifting routine we've converted it slightly into a slightly more bodybuilding friendly kind of routine and it looks basically like a powerlifting routine that's been slowed down a little bit in the sense that you won't move quite so quickly in such a strength gains but you will round your physique out of the bit um the other end of the spectrum we start with a bodybuilding routine and we've done some pretty hefty changes to it to make it a little bit more kind of focused on strength sports I'm not going to say much more strength because that's not true but strength sports um so if we were to start from absolute scratch and say in the middle someone has both aspirations to in the future you know kind of going both of those directions not quite sure yet which direction they want to go in how are we constructing a power building routine that moves them in both of those directions simultaneously hmm yeah see that's interesting because I think I think someone it's hard to be exactly in the middle I think you're going to have to pick a side a little bit and naturally the side I'm going to pick is going to be the full body which is going to be I think leaning towards hypertrophy so I would structure that then would be ah interesting so I would do full body and I would potentially do AAA but if that's too much for that individual we can split as an AB I don't mind too much but I'll do full body and let's just say AAA and I'm going to start with the power lifts but I'm probably going to turn like the deadlift into a more body composition style deadly so I'm going to use a stiff like deadlift example squat and bend some happy to keep them as is and then it's basically what I'm going to do is take the power lifting program we talked about and turn it into full body so then I'm just going to add those I'll probably do AB you know what I'll do AB I'll keep the power lifts on both and then the accessory work I'm going to split across the AB so then I'll have say again probably three sets of each of those power lifts or two or three sets of each of those power lifts and then I'll do one or two sets of those accessory muscles that are being missed and I'll split them over the A and the B day so it does but are you are you falling into the trap of focusing over much on power lifting as a strength sport rather than possible other options of strength sports because if you just do like squat bench deadlift then are you neglecting in fact a strong man generally doesn't test the bench it more often test the overhead press hmm yeah so what you could do is if you follow the AB you could have a bench on one day overhead on the other I'd probably still keep the squat and the hinge the same so okay what kind of set reps games are you talking about well I'd probably still do honestly like I don't mind it depending if we're doing AB and we've got like sort of this three main kind of lifts of starting with I might even do that as like a three by five and then those later exercises that a more body can't focus I'll do them as as single like one or two sets and I didn't care about the reps you know that'll be six to 12 you know what of it's convenient for that person yeah yeah um you kind of under thought more or less where I was gonna go so um there's a couple eating but okay well I know I mean I just wanted to make sure you didn't fall into the same trap that everybody falls into which is assuming the power to do the balance yeah it exists yeah and to be honest in that situation when I do program the shoulder work I would be inclined to program that as an overhead and the back I'd be inclined to program as a pull up so I'd still keep like a more kind of traditionally kind of strength focused version of that muscle yep so um basically I'm I'm going to essentially call what I was doing when I was training way to pull up some dips is pretty much a power building routine more or less because if I was doing a maximum strength routine I would program it's tired differently now um but I think basically yeah three sets of five or even three sets of three rising to five um is is probably a really really solid place full of strength exercises and I would probably have um similar to you I would have the um I would have overhead press in there I'd have bench in there I'd have squat and uh I'd have probably um honestly I'd probably have two data variations in there um and obviously I'd have I said wait to pull up some dips yet you have so what were the two so you would have a stiff leg presumably so yeah but I I think I would probably want I think I would probably want to have a um an actual from the floor proper third lift to keep your options open if someone does to decide to go open for someone because again it's both strong man and um and powerlifting you can pee on that lift so it would feel silly not to have it in the program but I just love the stiff leg so much as a kind of an exercise in in in of its own right Yeah. But yeah, fundamentally, I think I would be looking to populate the program, the four-body AB, with as many of those lifts I think are going to be really solid transfers as I can. And then, like you say, when you look at that and you've got everything listed out, you go, "What else can I now shoehorn in?" at the end, which is going to get me towards the bodybuilding side of things. So, that starts to actually being as back close to Reg. It does. It does, just not as an AB. Just not as an AB, and he was kind of working with, yeah, five sets of five at some point. He worked up to five sets, yeah. Worked up to five sets. But yeah, we've talked about three sets of five, and we're programming those kind of exercises. And then, yeah, just what we've done, really, is switch it from four-body AB, and then that gives us a little bit of rigour room on the back end of each workout to shoehorn in the extensions and leg curls and anything else that might give a little bit more hypertrophy. And you can even take that format, and you could tweak it to be slightly more powerful of power strength side, or slightly more bodybuilding side, depending on how you're doing that AB. So, you could keep this strength exercises on both of them, and then you could alternate the hypertrophy exercises, more specific exercises on the A and the B, or vice versa, you could alternate the strength style exercises on the AB, and then keep the hypertrophy ones the same on both A and B. Yeah. I mean, I think ultimately the essence of the spirit of powerbuilding is that it's and maybe I'm reading more into this than a lot of people do, but for me, the spirit to powerbuilding is it's not tied to a specific sport. It's supposed to be a kind of more inclusive concept, which fits or supports a wider variety of future kind of goals, if you like. So, I think, like we were starting out with a powerlifting routine that you modify technically falls under the cut to group powerbuilding. For me, it doesn't really feel like the spirit to powerbuilding is in that in that program. Similarly, when I look at a bodybuilding program, this kind of got to be honest, the way that you constructed it was pretty, pretty close, but it still feels like it's not quite hitting the true essence of powerbuilding, yes. But when you kind of soften the beginning and you start building it up, we've just done it, and we end up pretty much in the same place as Reg. I've realized that's kind of the spirit to powerbuilding, which is it's a wider variety of strength exercises. So, I had weight dips and pull-ups and over presses and bench and different variations in the squat in there as well. All of that kind of stuff, and you're training all those things to increase strength in those situations because it then supports a variety of different maximum strengths that it supports in the future. Yeah. I think most people will, when they start designing a program like this, they have some lifts that they're either emotionally attached to or they're just functioning like an indicated lift so they can compare to something else. And so, those might take a slightly higher priority in this. For me, I know when I program, because a lot of my female clients like to train this way, you know, that they like this sort of powerbuilding style and they suit it very well because often they don't have the same hypertrophy kind of goal in terms of maximizing every single muscle and muscle region. So, they're happy to drop out a couple of things and they like to feel strong and handle heavy loads and handle loads heavier than the guys in the gym. And so, they like to have a lift that they can compare. But, okay, I can see that, you know, if I wanted to do a powerlifting meet, this is what people are benching. Okay, I can compare to that. So, often it's helpful for those people to have a kind of benchmark in there. Yeah, and as you say, it's going to be a different benchmark for everybody. I mean, interestingly, I was kind of sort of thinking to myself, why didn't I say hip thrust when I was selecting my exercises? Because in the podcast of Rob, I basically say hip thrust pretty much every episode. I could probably get some kind of sponsorship for the number of times I say hip thrust. Because basically, I'm in every single athletic scenario that I can kind of come across. But I guess maybe just wasn't really, I was trying to keep my exercise list relatively constrained. But, you know, I think it could end up in that, to be honest. Yeah, I think so, too. Especially if you're starting thinking about it more from the power side. Although, I believe in the bodybuilding side as well. Yeah. Yeah. It just isn't because we tend to kind of quarter the body. You know, you've got upper pushing, upper pulling, lower push, lower pull. It's just not one of those four exercises. If you then extend out to another one or two exercises. This is the thing. Because when I'm thinking about athletic training, training, training, I was like, I don't, I literally start in the center. I'm going to start with the hip thrust and I'm going to progress out. It's going to be, if I'm going upwards, it's going to be torso rotation. If you're down, it's going to be squat or inch pattern. And then you kind of work out from that. Whereas, as you rightly say, with kind of this bodybuilding focus lens, if you like, you kind of think about things in a different way. But yeah, I think maybe actually a power building routine deserves. So what I really enjoy doing on a program for power building is actually taking as close as possible to the power side of that kind of archetypal routine we talked about. And then the building side and then doing them as an AB instead of trying to amalgamate both into a single routine. Yeah, I mean, that's a really, that's a really interesting way of doing it actually. The challenge, of course, is that the space that you need in a training week to train all of those strength exercises to high level is is not, it doesn't really lend itself to only having one and a half sessions a week because you want more exposures or because it's going to be hard. I can't. So if you're saying to me, want you to work on your way to pull up your way to dip your overhead pressure bench. Yeah, I just can't do that. I need a lot of single work. Yeah, I need for what AB to that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think what I would normally do there. I mean, like, you could probably like in that power style of routine, even if you're doing say three sets per exercise, for me, I would usually program about six exercises in that routine. And so generally that's going to cover most of those high priority strength focused exercises. And then you could still adjust that body building routine to include what you're missing. So for example, I would often put the dip on that body building routine. You could put a hip thrust on that body building routine. So you're still, I guess it still compromises to an extent that it be made, but as much as possible, I'm trying to stick to those two kind of unbaltreated routines. Would you have a preference over those two? Like, would you, it sounds like you're leading towards an amalgamation of both in a single kind of routine style as opposed to doing both and alternating? Yeah. I think I would be much, I'd be much happy with the kind of the way that we sort of naturally landed on a full body AB version of what Red came up with. I think that feels right to me in terms of practically, making it work for a long period of time. Yeah, I think it would sit better with me to be honest. Yeah, I wonder how much of that as well is you favor fewer exercises per routine, per workout. And I tend to earn the side of more rather than few. I think that's probably going to be a limitation there on what's going on better for someone. Yeah, I think that's probably true, but while I do agree that, you know, my preferences on the bodybuilding side are definitely preferences and you can stuff more exercises into a bodybuilding workout. I think on the strength side you're probably going to struggle to make that work. I think that's worth it. That's the real issue, because if you say like you want to actually make progress on lifts like squat and I don't lift and I bench and I don't ever press and I wait to pull up and I wait to dip. When those numbers start to get high, that workout is going to be really, really unpleasant. And you're going to basically the back end of it, it's going to be garbage. It's just not going to really make the progress you want to make. Whereas if you split it out into two halves and do it across two days, then suddenly it starts to make a lot more sense. I think that routine will be like looking at registered routine there with the fives. I think if you're trying to do fives for all those exercises we've just outlined. And if you're doing three rising to five, you know. Yeah. See, if I was going to do that myself, I would, I'm doing something similar myself at the moment and I'm doing doubles. Like I'm not doing, if I agree, if I was to do three or fours for a squat and an overhead and and a stiff leg and whatever else that's going to kill me. - So, okay, yeah. So you're kind of introducing some reps and reserve there and you're giving yourself a bit more space in the program and it starts to become, sort of, yeah, okay. I can see how you might construct that. - On the bodybuilding side, I meant to mention, no, no, the powerlifting side. I meant to mention this and I forgot. We talked about taking those five by two and turning them into, say, triples, like three sets or so, whatever. Another method I quite like is, and Bob Hoffman used to do this. And again, he wouldn't want to do this with too many exercises, too many sets, but he would do a five, four, three, two, one. And I quite liked that in getting, keeping some of that strength work, but then adding in a little bit more stimulus, a little bit more volume. And arguably, you could drop off one of those sets. And for me, when I program that, I often drop off those singles unless someone needs to be coordinated doing a single. So often I'll do like a five, four, three, two, four sets, getting a good amount of stimulating volume, working into heavier rep ranges as well. I think that can be a nice rev scheme as well. - Yeah, it's honestly not something I've ever played around with. I am very impatient with changing loads when I'm working, I like to, kind of. (laughing) - By the load, I want to work with it, I'm not working with it, because that's been my experience. - So, okay, so anything else, we've landed at very similar place to where we started at the episode, which I think is quite interesting. - Yeah, I mean, I think to be honest, this power building is such a non-specific term. Everyone's gonna have their own kind of ideas. What I wanted to do really just today was give people a spectrum, a continuum, to think about it on, so that they can see that there's a number of ways of going about this. And everyone is gonna have their own priorities. And one person's power building routine will necessarily look different from someone else's. I mean, even the one that we landed on, I was trying to keep it as broad as possible, and I was kind of constantly pushing you to keep it as broad as possible to support. But somebody else may not need to do that. So thinking it's gonna be, oh, it's either gonna be power lifting or it's gonna be bodybuilding. Okay, well, now you don't have to do the way to pull ups and dips and over pressing and all that kind of stuff. And you know, you can very much kind of go down the routes of saying, well, it's just these power lifts. And then the rest of it is gonna be bodybuilding on the back end. And then it does change things. And then you probably could quite easily do a kind of full body A routine, and alternate it, sorry, not full body A routine. Full body A power lifting and then full body A bodybuilding and combine them and just alternate workouts. So yeah, I mean, everybody's gonna have different kind of ideas and concepts and goals that change the nature of what power burning is for them. But I think to try and find the broadest possible, you know, most of the power building routine would be applicable to the most people most of the time. - I think what we've ended up with, which is basically just Regis routine modified very slightly without it's a bit more, or some different exercise selection, would probably be really perfect. - Yeah, and 'cause it's interesting as well, when you look at that sort of more strength side of things, you know, people often, and you know, we've talked about this at nauseam, but people often think, well, you can't get the same kind of hypertrophy work doing fires or falls or threes or whatever, and I always find it interesting 'cause often I'll look at a power lifting routine and not all the time, but sometimes a power lifting routine to me makes more sense from a bodybuilding perspective than most of the bodybuilding routines I see. - Well, of course, I mean, that's, yeah. I mean, there's so much nonsense out there in the bodybuilding community. But yeah, I mean, ultimately it's exercise selection. There's different, you know, I mean, we've mentioned that we would go a little bit heavier on the reps schemes, not, you know, necessarily a lot heavier, but yeah, that's a bit heavier. And we'd probably use a few reps to reserve and more often on the strength stuff. But, you know, fundamentally, it really just comes down to how many exercises can you shoe on in to a session? - Exactly. - And with the bodybuilding side of it, we shoe on in loads of exercises in, and as a result, we're having to drop stuff out like, you know, barbell squats and bench presses and, you know, kind of things that you would probably want to do if you were preparing yourself for strength sports, kind of future. And you put those back in and suddenly you lose in the capacity to do quite so many of those exercises or at least as frequently. - Yeah. - And that's the call conversation in a nutshell. - Yeah. - So they have a power building. I think power building is a really fun way to train. I think a lot of people enjoy it. I enjoy it. I think it's probably one of the funnest. If someone doesn't have a competitive goal on either end of that spectrum, I think it's one of the funnest. I can see it's nice. - Is that even a word? - That's a light laugh for me. I don't know, I'll have to Google it when I'm done. Anyway, who knows? Maybe our next phase in our hypertrophy past and present training group will be a power building phase. And if you guys are interested in that, let us know like, you guys who joined the group, we've got a group chat there. If you guys want to see a particular routine inspired by a particular silver or a lifter, you want to move more towards power building or whatever, then we'll adapt a group to what you guys are wanting as well. Anyway, thank you guys for joining us for another episode and we'll be back next week.