#291: Optimizing Your Off-Season

Hey everyone, this is Jeff Albertz, Brian Minor, Alberto Nunez, Brad Linus, and Eric Helms. And this is the 3D muscle journey podcast where we bring you world-class coaching and evidence-based education for the natural bodybuilding community. 3D MJers, today we're going to talk about probably my favorite topic, which is training and my favorite time to train the off-season and how we go about setting that up. But before we get rolling, we have to start with the premise that if you're going into an off-season, you probably finish competing and that you will not make all the gains you want to make until you are fully recovered from that thing. I think that part is really important. I think we've all fallen for it here at some point where we're like, "Hey, you know what? I'm just going to start making progress at three to four pounds over the stage weight." That doesn't really ever work out. So yeah, before you can get to work on your next project, you have to complete the previous project, which to me it's like a contest prep isn't complete until you've taken care of that last block, the recovery block. So if you're unfamiliar to this, this is where I would recommend you guys check out our vault where we will take you through what the goal is post-contest so that we can get to the point where like, okay, now we can really start setting ourselves up for our next campaign. But until you're recovered and your body's in a place where it can adapt from what will eventually be new levels of wall-calculated stress until it gets to that point, you're just not going to see a whole lot of returns and you're going to be hungry. And your pumps are going to suck. So make sure you're recovered before you really start to let the pen hit the paper. Let's talk about that a little bit more. Jeff, I remember at some point you actually wanted to stay 10 over, and that didn't work out. No, I didn't. I thought it was. I'm going to stay 10 over, it's going to be easy the next time I prep and then a couple of months into it, I realized my training sucks, I don't have enough fuel. So I wasn't, quote unquote, fully recovered yet. So performance wasn't all that great. I can tell you this though, and you guys might fill this way too, like at the end of prep because it hurts a little bit more, you get excited about the all season. And in your mind, you're already like game planning, you're trying to strategize your all season, like all as soon as the show's over with, I'm going to go from my four day split to now a six day split, I'm going to increase my volume, I'm going to get after it, I'm going to increase my work output because I'm going to have all this food coming in. And then you kind of think about that, at least I do now, and I'm like the first month after a show, even though the calories are coming up, you're still not all the way there yet, like your input is not there. So it's like you're doing extra volume, you're doing all this extra training days, but yet you're still not fully recovered yet. So you're not making any gains, you're making it harder for yourself to even recover. So you're just slowing things down. So by the time you're two months in, three months in, you know, if you're just compounding fatigue, potentially. So I always try to make sure that my preppers, what the tail end, we're not getting too far ahead of ourselves, like trying to be too strategic with the all season, like let's recover. You know, stick with the same training because you typically, you're demand at the end of prep is high. And I like to ensure that their training programming at that point is matching up in a sense, like the amount of workload is typically lower than what usually they're all season is. So it's like if we keep that same workload going, but now all of a sudden your calories are coming up, then the recovery is going to improve that much more. So if you're thinking like, okay, a month later, maybe six weeks later, okay, now you're probably getting to a point where we can start to strategize a little bit more about how the programming should look like in this next off season. And then I think it's smart too to assess how your prep went. What you did well, what you didn't do well, what things you need to work on in your physique, I think sometimes when we're not even finished competing yet, we just don't have that clarity yet because you haven't been tested enough, you haven't been up against other athletes. So you don't know exactly what you need to work on, you know, maybe you need to work on your back, but you don't realize it until you're up against some other athletes. So I think it's good to take a good, you know, a couple of weeks or so to reflect on the season. And that helps you to prepare as far as strategizing what you need to improve on. So I think it's just like important like before we even get to that point where we're planning and strategizing, like part of that recovery process is more so than just like I need to eat more and gain more body fat, but just getting a lot more clarity on what you need to do to move ahead. Yeah, in my experience, I've, if anything, you know, like you said, we all either ourselves are worked with an athlete that has these expectations post show where they're going to, you know, pedal to the metal, like rebound, you know, that's largely a misconception, you know, especially with natural bodybuilding. There's that degree of recovery, but if anything, at the end of a prep, I'm usually ready to, like once you buy into that recovery aspect, I'm ready to pull back a little bit. So I might go from a five day split to a three day split, you know, and give myself some time to just decompress, yeah, just relax. I think it's, it's kind of like a, you know, burdo, you use other analogies with sports a lot, you know, bodybuilding is usually after a big event, there's, there's some time for these athletes to decompress, they're, they're not in peak training zone right after playoff sentence, you know, they go on a trip, they relax a little bit. And so it just so happens that also coincides with, you know, it's like that deep, that increase in energy availability with, you know, intentionally putting on a little bit of body fat. So if anything, I think out of the gate, that acute phase, a stronger case could be made for staying the same or even reducing training a little bit. And then once you start to recover, if you, you know, if it's worth increasing at that point, you're able to recover from it, then you can consider it then. I think part of what makes it difficult for folks is that just shitty becomes your new normal, right? So you don't even realize that you're, you're a tick off, right? Oh, you feel a little bit better and you're like, okay, this must be normal. And you know, we've all been there before where, especially your first few preps, you're like, ah, normal. And it's like two weeks goes by and you're like, no, this is, this is actually normal. And it continues like many times over. So I think that's the issue as the excitement gets to people and especially if you're coming off a good season, you're like, ah, I just want to get after and keep going. Oh, I think especially if you're coming from a season that's not as, you weren't satisfied with it because it's like, I want to correct these things now. And it's like, well, we will eventually, but we can only correct these things until we correct that last thing we just did. But I like your idea, Jeff, of just kind of keeping things the same because it kind of, it controls the experiment a little bit. And it might be the same training more or less, but it's going to feel entirely different once you get some, feels like a totally different program. Because of volume, like if you think that's the baseline, then all of a sudden, you're eating more. The performance just ends up skyrocketing with most people, loads go up, reps go up, that's an increase in volume from that baseline. Most importantly, your recovery abilities go up because of the food that's coming in because you're adding body fat back on. If you're adding volume and like through sets or through more training days, then you're, yeah, sure, you're eating more food, but from, if you think of it from a baseline, you're just in a sense changing your baseline, but it's almost the same baseline. So it's like, man, just let that food do its work with the current amount of workload you have. And then milk that for as long as possible. And then once your performance starts to drop off and you get more towards full recovery, then it's like, okay, now I can maybe switch gears a little bit. Maybe I can start increasing my training output, specializing on certain body parts at that point, but you got to get to that point first. And I think it's important to reflect on the season, reflect on the successes and where you weren't successful. And I think it's important to give yourself time to appreciate what you just accomplished or didn't accomplish instead of just jumping to the next thing. Yeah, because I've been that motivated by, like all through my 20s, which is not actually to take that back through my 20s, I was super motivated. But I think that era, it was when you were knowing the contest season, you didn't train for a week. Like, a lot of people just took a week off, like, I'm going to go on vacation, I'm going to have some food, that's what I used to do. And then when I come back from that week off, I'm like, now I'm motivated. I'm ready to go. So I think, you know, it's important to give yourself some breathing room. And it's hard to, like you said, it's hard to do with some people because they're just super motivated, super excited about getting after it. Before we get into the, um, just the nuts and bolts of this situation, I think I, I stand corrected because I think Brad one time came out of a prep. I think you just stayed like, well, am I correct here, Brad? Like 165 forever? It was a good, it was a good chunk of time, you know, that I went from like 158 to 165. And I was feeling really good. And I just stayed that way for a long time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember exactly how long. Um, but yeah, it was, I made that initial jump. And then it was effortless. It was effortless to stay there. I was feeling better. I wasn't really tracking anything. Um, I kind of discovered the, the utility of, of, um, kind of backloading your calories toward the end of the day. So I would just have my coffee and a little protein shake in the morning and then kind of eat it about one in the afternoon when I was hungry. And it was, it was just kind of an intuitive thing where, uh, it was pretty easy, you know, to just kind of, uh, just to kind of maintain that. But it's, it's worthwhile saying that I wasn't 158 either. I got out of that really fast. Um, and I, I feel like the majority of our listeners kind of know the value of the recovery diet, you know, and how, um, just invaluable it is because just to reiterate what you guys said, we're so fragile at that point, you know, um, you guy get out of that, you know, before you can really, before your bodies, even going to think about adding any lean tissue. Um, but just kind of something I want to ask you guys, I know that I've experienced, as I experienced this last year, but a lot of my clients, uh, experienced this too. Well, I mean, many of them might say all of them, but you guys ever have clients or of yourselves are just like when you're done with your prep or just like, man, I don't, I don't really feel like training. I just, uh, it's not even so much that I don't feel like training. I guess I shouldn't say that, but it's like, I am tired of doing what I was doing. I've never felt this way about training before. Uh, have you guys ever, you know, experienced that yourselves or have clients that are just like, I just, I don't want to, I don't want to do this. I'm tired. You're, you're training becomes a burden on you. And it's like, I know I got to do it, but I'd rather not, you know, and also, what do you guys do? You know, in that particular case. I mean, I have personal experience with that in my 2017 prep coming out of that, you know, I was, I mean, it was a well managed prep, I thought, but by the end, you know, I was, I was ready to be done. And yeah, the, the, the excitement there post show, you know, when I got off stage, it wasn't like, okay, Monday, we're back to the plan. It was like, okay, I need to breathe for a bit here and just relax. And, and that's why kind of what I said earlier, just reducing the training days a little bit for me as a solid approach. Just getting in there, doing enough, so doing enough for it's just psychologically, you're checking the box. It's like, you don't feel like you're being a slug, but, you know, you're getting in there doing something. But you have faith that it comes back and it always does, you know, once you, you know, I think I spent probably four weeks training a few times a week after that season. And then so I started to feel better, you know, start introducing more and, you know, then motivation was much higher. So, it's like you pulling back there makes you more eager in the long run, um, in terms of excitement to return to the gym. It's taken some of my athletes, Brad, um, you know, because you do like a video call afterwards, reflect on the season. They're excited about what they just accomplished. It's like, man, they're just tanks, you know, because, you know, we're talking getting down to elite, like talking like advanced bodybuilding right now, like elite level conditioning. Like we're talking two or three year off season prior of putting all that energy into this physique. They're trying to get on a world stage. And then you go through months of prep, like think of the physical mental emotional energy that's being consumed for a two or three year process. And then once the season's over with, you're reflecting like, okay, that was awesome. I accomplished a lot, but I'm frickin tired. I'm tanked physically, mentally, emotionally, just tanked. And sometimes it's hard for people to deal with that emotion because they were just so up for so long. Now all of a sudden, this is like, why am I feeling like this? There's no motivation. And it's like it, I just tell them, it's okay to feel this way. It's normal. Like when you're exuding that much energy for that prolonged period of time, it's going to take a while to charge those batteries back up, not just physically, but mentally too. Like, like for me to go through an entire season, sometimes it takes me six months, seven, eight months, where I'm like, okay, I think I could do this again. Because it's not just our body, it's also like just life itself, like you're sucking energy away from other areas of life too. And that's why you see some people's offseason, like they drift towards powerlifting, or they drift towards these other hobbies, just because body language is a freedom to that point. But I think those are normal feelings. And I just let them know like, hey, just like Brian's saying, just let's just do enough. It's going to keep muscle afloat in the meantime, until we start to eventually those batteries start to charge up enough to be like, okay, I think I can focus on more strategy with the offseason now. And then from there, it's like, okay, now I'm thinking about, now I'm getting the issue again to prep. I'm actually thinking about getting into a deficit again. I think it's just you have to kind of look at that type of a process and be okay when you're not in those moments of like heightened motivation. But if you tell yourself I'm committed to it, like I'm going to do this in two years again, or three years again, or a year, whatever it is, it's okay if you have a down moment. Like to me, I'm like, okay, just basically do what you can do in that point and nothing more. Because it's usually going to keep you afloat. I can look at as a bridge to get you to the next point. That's all it is. It could be like, it's like acutely, it's like a refeed day or a diet break. Like it's just, it's a bridge to get you to the next phase of what you need to do to keep pushing yourself along. So usually I have like quarterly calls. And you know, with the quarterly calls to the offseason, the first one coming out of perhaps like, blah, I'm done. Next one's like, I feel okay, a little bit better. And then like a six months later, it's like, yeah, we're just starting to catch some fire. The reason I ask that is one of my my go-to strategies postseason when people are saying, yeah, I just training became such a burden. It was no longer fun. That's probably the best way that I could say it. They just say, you know what, training is no longer fun. And I'm like, well, you know, what we need to do then is we need to get that fun going again. And so I would say 50% of the time, you know, kind of in that recovery phase, I'm just like, you know what? Just go to the gym and have fun. You want a train. You know, that's why we got into this is because we wanted to lift weights. So what I want you to do is just first day feel like train just go in there and just do whatever it is that you want. And I would say it's probably aggressive, but honestly, I feel like 100% of those people that I do this with, they feel like that was the best thing that they could have done was just get in the gym and just do anything. And I mean, I'm totally good with that because as we just talked about, you're you're limping so much anyway. And Jeff, you said it really good. You just need muscle to stay afloat at that point. And then usually about like week two or week three after that, I'm like, okay, well, you know what? You're still having fun. Let's start to take this and make it into a program. You know, let's kind of start taking what you're doing. I'll usually supply them with a little spreadsheet, you know, okay, how I am with my little Google sheets. And I'm like, just let's just start plugging this thing in and then start making basically a bridge program. But yeah, I mean, you guys correct me if I'm wrong. Two weeks, three weeks, just go into gym and have fun. You know, I haven't touched that new squat press, you know, masters 5,000 thing. I kind of like to do that, you know, like we think go do it, you know. But yeah, I mean, like I said, maybe it's a little bit wishful thinking, but I want to say that all of the athletes that I do that with, they love it. They love it. And I feel like, you know, what what better way to start your offseason than just infuse, infuse fun back into your training because that's what we're all here for anyway. I mean, I definitely have used that approach as well. Just, you know, give them guidelines. Try to train this muscle group twice a week. Hand full of sets. And then turn them loose. You know, I think a lot of, you know, what you were saying, Jeff, it feeling normal to just feel a little bit drained post show. You know, I think sometimes for any motivated athlete, there's maybe some guilt that they feel that way. It's like, okay, you know, I just wrap this up and I feel like I'm not being a professional now, you know, it's like I need direction. And for that, it's you You kind of want to use that as its own argument against that, because if you're really in this, then you understand your educated as to what each phase the role is, then you can reframe, like, okay, this is what does success look like for the next six weeks. It's recovering, getting into the gym three, four times a week and enjoying it. It's not, okay, I need to start setting PRs, and it's okay to feel a little bit tired, but I can go to bed, feel like I won that day if I achieve the objective of, I'm pushing myself closer to recovery, I kept enough structure in there. I got into the gym and I enjoyed it because when you do that, then you know you're going to come out the other side ready and more prepared than if you would have started with the assumption that you should be feeling a certain way about training. I mean, not to get down the recovery thing for too much longer, but if you think about, again, all the energy you put into PRP, the previous office, especially if you're very committed and dedicated bybiller, and I can take my back to my 20s and 30s, hyper focused, maybe to a fault, that the other areas of life got a little neglected during those periods of time. So coming off of a PRP, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, you know what, I'm going to be a little on selfish here, I'm going to take a week off of training, or I'm going to cut my days in half, or I'm going to cut the time I'm in the gym and say, you know, put the energy into my wife, or I'm going to put the energy into my son, or into my extended family, like let's basically like recover in that capacity, and usually you feel good about that because you're connecting with, you know, your family, you're getting closer to them, but also because you're not in the gym as much, and I've taken a week out of the gym at times, you get a deeper appreciation for your training. You come back with a little bit more pop in your step. And sometimes then you come, you realize like, okay, it was out of the gym for a week, or I cut my volume down, whatever, I still have all my muscle intact, I didn't lose any strength. Then it's like, okay, it's okay, it gives you more confidence, like I can actually take some time off, and actually does me some good, and think of your connective tissue too, like you're going to recover that as well. So it's not just other things that we're talking about, but it's, I think, holistically, if we think from that perspective, you become a much better bodybuilder, both in and out of the gym. And I think that's where we're all striving for is to be a mature bodybuilder, because I know, like I have everything outside the gym, like if it's filling a lot better, and I'm producing in other areas, then I'm better in the gym. Good. But now we're recovered, what are we going to do? Yeah. We're going to my pH. I think you have to look at, because one point you brought up, Jeff, is that you really can't see what you're lacking sometimes until you're up there being compared to others. So this can be a whole bunch of things, so not just body parts, but also, maybe your posing was a little off, might be a good idea to keep a little bit of that. Just maintenance levels, not something that's second up too much of your time, but keep it in, like throughout your off season, or maybe you didn't get lean enough. And maybe that has to do with the fact that you just get too heavy in the off season, or your habits, or maybe just the overall system that you were using, there needs adjustments. It needs adjustments, so maybe we work on some things on that side at this go around. But primarily where people are going to go to is going to be like, okay, what body parts, because sometimes things are pricier. You're like, oh, I thought this body part was actually not very good, and it actually held up pretty well, or the other way around where you're like, man, I thought this body part was at least average. And if anything, no, it's kind of costing me placings. So yeah, you have to, training wise, you generate that to-do list of items, areas that you need to focus on, and acknowledge the areas that, you know, those are doing pretty good. And this is something we talk about on our, in our Vault Course bodybuilding program design, that like most people, what they usually do when they create a split is, they just pick something that's kind of out there. I'm going to do an upper lower, a push pull legs, a full body. And no, where you need to start is like, you need to draw a list of your priorities. And what tools you have access to, and just a rough estimate of what they're going to require, volumized for them to improve. So I think you start there on the training side. It's okay. Make a list of all your body parts, and you know, the ones that are highest priority higher on the list, and those will, you work around those primarily. So yeah, I think that part is super important, and that's a very, it's probably one of the best parts about prepping is that it just kind of moves the needle for you, the standard for you a little bit more. That's the primary reason I compete is because it helps me get the most out of myself. So being up there with really good athletes, just gives me a better idea of how well what I had been doing previously is actually going. That's what I like to do with athletes. It's like, I'll ask them, like after the season, like, what do you feel like you need to work on? You see, and then I'll kind of tell them what I see, and then we kind of just come to compromise, and like you said, Birdo, it's like I put a hierarchy, like, what's the strong body parts? Those are going towards the bottom. One of the average ones, those are the middle, and then the weak ones I'm putting towards at top. And then I think about, okay, what actual body parts we need to work on, because some might require more energy than others. Like, obviously, if you bring up your arms, it's not going to take a great of us, a suck as, let's say, bring up your quads. So I think about from a strategy standpoint, like, what bivots, it might actually dealing with, and how am I going to allocate that workload across a week? I don't know if maybe you do something like that or similar, but that's when I'm kind of looking at the farms like body parts. Yeah. I mean, I take a very similar approach there. I think, like you said, Birdo, a lot of people start with, okay, what split should I be following right now? It seems like right now that's like a hot topic right now, like what the best split is. But a lot of people have that backwards. But I think one place to sort of start in conjunction with evaluating, okay, what do I need to bring up? It's like, what are my current constraints in terms of days I can train? Now that it's the off season, do I want to have a certain day off or a week ends off? And then so you set your constraints, you know what you want to do, and then you start backfilling. Like you said, Jeff, like, how are you? How am I going to allocate this across the week? How am I going to allocate the volume exercise selection and things like that? I remember when I came off the Yorton Cup, that was my first world championship in assessing that, like standing next to Cleveland Thomas, and all these like elite level guys. I'm like, shit, my shoulder has got buried, my back got buried. Like it's just, and this is what I encourage people when they're prepping. Like, don't just select shows you think you're going to do well. Like they're easy shows, like because you want to be first place. It's like, in order to like really improve your physique, like Bertels, you got to be tested. You got to get out there against the best of the best. Change yourself, because you're going to get more clarity as you move ahead. Like, came off the Yorton Cup stage is like, I knew exactly what I needed. I needed bigger shoulders, I needed a better back, and I needed to be more conditioned. And I needed better posing, and I was already a very good poser, so I thought I was strategically good with my poses, me in the positioning, but I didn't really have a grasp of the world's stage of like, when to allocate energy up there. Like, okay, I should be holding my poses here, maybe on this other time I'm resting. So you just gain a lot more clarity on what you need to do moving ahead, so that's what I kind of did. Okay. Now I need to work on these body parts, and like you said, Brian, I could usually train four days a week at that particular point in time, you know, because of family responsibilities and all that good stuff. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to hit these body parts twice a week, because I know more than three for me, it's too much on my joint, I'm not going to recover well. So what do I need to do in these two training sessions, unless I looked at exercise selection. For me personally, I've always like got more out of overhead pressing than I do on laterals. I know some people it's opposite, but I'm like, okay, what overhead pressing can I do where it's not going to kill my joints? I'm like, okay, let me try this single overhead dumbbell press, and I just focused on performance on that thing. So I was hitting that thing twice a week. So moving from like 50 pound dumbbells, eventually up to 80 pound dumbbells, fast forward two or three, two years later, get to the world's in 2014, and I'll stand next to Cleveland Thomas again. He smoked me again. At least my shoulders were holding up just a little bit better. So I saw improvements there. So it's like, you just have, like, when you come off of this season, you have to strategize. You have to commit to something, and I can tell you is I didn't deviate too much. I set a plan and I start executing it. - I think the lack of deviation is what trips a lot of people up, or they deviate too much, or they see the next shiny object and they want to incorporate this. And yeah, there's just an overall lack of patience. I think for a lot of people, early in their training careers, and the longer I coach, the longer I'm willing to, or the more I'm willing to just write out a strategy that's been working, you know? - Do it for a while. - So yeah, if you're talking like, okay, most of your improvements is going to come in your physique, meaning, gaining muscle mass, like part of the off-season strategies should be like extended off-season. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - Exactly. - And it's two to three or stretch before you're competing again. - Yeah. - 'Cause it does take the time. I can tell you like, most of the guys I work with, when we've set a plan, one guy I'm gonna lay off is a good example. After the show was over in 2022, the season, we sat down in my garage and we wrote out a plan. Like, we looked at all the shows you did. Okay, this is what we need to work on. Set the plan in the garage right there on the spot. He did not deviate. There's like some little minor things here and there, but like the overall game plan of the structure never changed. And he improved dramatically. And like two or three or stretch. 'Cause there wasn't a lot of deviation. 'Cause there's the baseline is set and from the baseline, we're just monitoring performance and recovery. So there's a lot of value in that. Anyways, I'm entering my Diet Coke. Let you guys talk. A3DMJers, this is Coach Jeff Alberts here to remind you that investing in expert guidance is one of the time-tested hallmarks of serious athletes across all sports. And for competitive athletes striving for peak performance, working with an experienced coach isn't just a luxury, it's essential. At 3DMuscle Journey, we understand the dedication it takes to reach your physique and strength goals and we provide the programming and support to get you there effectively and sustainably. But our craft isn't just for the stage or the platform. We create career-spanning relationships with our clients to guide you along your lifting journey in a stepwise manner. We don't do quick fixes or rush transformations because those will always only be temporary. We know the art and skill of becoming an advanced lifter takes years and we want to work with athletes who are willing to put in the time. If you want to learn more about all of our coaching plans, systems and prices, go to our website at 3DMuscleJourney.com. We offer weekly coaching for in-season competitors and bi-weekly coaching for off-season or recreational lifters. There are also three different time frame options for one-off video calls that each include a training program and nutrition plan every eight to 16 weeks. Our mission is to create athletic careers for serious lifters and our one-on-one coaching program is how we do that best. It's more than just workouts and meal plans. We deliver comprehensive support tailored to your individual needs. Don't let another training cycle pass without the expert guidance you deserve. Invest in your athletic future now and sign yourself up for coaching today at 3DMuscleJourney.com. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the rest of the show. Brad, does that sound like it aligns with what you do? To be honest with you, that is my favorite part of coaching career bodybuilders and career lifters is setting up that entire timeline in kind of a strategic way. And not just the training. In fact, really a lot of times, what I will set up first and foremost is that we kind of make sure as much as possible that we're in an environment that is permissive to muscle growth. And like we've just talked about, you're not in the most permissive environment for muscle growth when you're in a deficit. So, Alberto, you made a great graph. I want to say it was about probably 10 years ago where you had mapped out and with little blue bars, all of the months that you were either maintaining your weight or in a slight surplus. And then you had just a few bars that were in orange where you were actively prepping or you had gone through like a quick minicut bridge or something like that. And it's just loaded with blue bars, you know? And so that's kind of how I will always pattern mapping out those off seasons, mapping out those trajectories. Okay, these months here are dedicated for recovery. You know, here we're just going to get into a surplus, we're gonna get body weight up, we're gonna get 10% above stage weight ASAP, all of those things that we cover in that free recovery diet, right, that free recovery course. Then from that point there is kind of like, okay, that this portion here is this phase, whether it be a main gain portion or whether it be a purposeful growth, you know? And then these months are this and these months are this, you know? And a lot of times what I'll do is also, I'll kind of start the kind of the ending point first and so like here's the next show. And then I'll kind of get the beginning point and I'll just kind of grow them together until they meet in the middle. And then I'll start talking about training. But first I like to set up the environment. Let's get the environment to where it's the most permissive for muscle growth. And then let's kind of start talking about training and filling in the gaps. Now I feel like that's especially important for athletes that plan on competing again in two years or three years or whatever their timeline is. When you're gonna get back on the bodybuilding stage, you wanna have as many months as possible where you're in that permissive environment. It's probably not as critical if you're like one and done or like, you know what, I'm done. I'm good. I've done this bodybuilding thing now and competed half a dozen times or whatever. And now I'm just wanting to be that recreational lifter. You know, a lot of times I'll just kind of start with the recovery portion and then the rest of it's just kind of blurry and fuzzy. You know, but yeah, what Jeff talked about is a lot of times what I like to, that's the funnest part of off-season coaching is setting out that timeline and that trajectory. - This is in training related, but I think has a huge impact on the progress in the off-season is just managing the rate of gain. Especially as somebody gets more advanced and this is something like I could still improve on for sure. But you know, the more advanced you become, the smaller the degree of surplus you can really benefit from when it comes to like creating an anabolic environment. And anything beyond that's just gonna be extra fat gain that could have been mitigated, right? So like you can, if you take somebody who's gaining two pounds, I'm sorry, like a pound a week, you know, versus two pounds a month. This is of course like after they've settled in, they're recovered, you know, or pound or two a month versus four pounds a month. Like you're, you can essentially be doubling your off-season time spent in that permissive state. Like you said Brad, just by being more mindful of the rate that you're gaining, and it seems like the people that are able to make like noticeable improvements with shorter off-seasons, they're better at doing that. They control and they make sure they don't get too heavy, too quick to the point where okay. Now we either have to mini-cut or just hang out at the top end of this range without a surplus. So yeah, I think that's just as important as the programming itself. Actually, this was something Dr. Joe said, we kind of mentored a lot of us, like unknowingly. And it applied to glycogen and not depleting before you load up, you know. First of all, you're already depleted before you do that. So white, deplete more, right? But he, it was a worn buffet quote that he used, and it was about wealth. He's like, you know, the best way to attain wealth is to not lose wealth. Oh, okay, how can we apply that to muscle? Same thing with muscle, right? If you had a place where realistically, maybe late level intermediate, early advanced, maybe average size guy. If maybe three pounds of muscle would be a good off season, which people are underwhelmed when they say three pounds, but it's like, again, imagine the three pounds of chicken breast. I could put that under one of those, like those, you know, tight turtle neck sweaters and put that wherever I wanted, like bro, that can change the way you look. So three pounds is still quite a bit, especially when we already have a nice space there. But sometimes it's not just about what you gain, but what you keep. So if three pounds is about right, why are you gaining 30, 40, 50 pounds just to get to what most likely is going to be more or less the same stage weight? So I think yes, once you're recovered and this is how I like to do it, I think I've kind of changed my mind a little bit over the years about the power of the recump, especially with guys are a little bit more advanced, which means they're also a little bit more patient is you just kind of find that zone body weight where you are metabolically flexible and the best way to kind of The term in that is like, how sensitive are you to changes in meotiming, right? How hungry are you, right? Right. So like, if lunch is at noon and you're late by an hour, does that completely like mess you up like during a contest prep, right? So you're at a comfortable body fat and you're being honest with yourself, like you could probably hang around there and do a lot of good work and put on more or less the same amount of muscle. And if anything, this adds a certain layer of controls to the experiment because what happens is you get heavier. You're just going to get stronger by default, like, like, my dumbbells, every 10 pounds I gain, they make 10 pound jumps and it's not because I'm gaining muscle. It's just because of the leverage advantage I have, right? So if I want to press the 150s, it's like, yeah, I could go be 205 pounds, but that doesn't do me a whole lot of good once it's time to turn around. So with these folks that, you know, they have a little bit more seasoning, they've been around a little bit longer, it's not a big ass to hang around that body weight. And you can play with that. Maybe that didn't fit. It's like, okay, let me move up five pounds if that made a difference. And you kind of just keep playing that game until you find that sweet spot. But maybe for newer guys, a not so linear, but linear bulk. I like that because, yeah, they have more growth potential, but also, you need a certain level of progression to, or rate of progression to keep them engaged and entertained, right? Where is, like, all of us here, it's like, oh, we could play with the same set of dumbbells on a chest press for months on end and just add wraps and we're content. And you know, a big part of that's where we're older and more patient. We also understand, like, what is our rate of gain at this point? But with some newer, that sometimes keeps them in the game. So for those folks, I'll probably let them venture out a little bit more and we use something that's more along the lines of a traditional bulk. But I really like the idea of just getting to that. When you said this, Brian, like, a lot of the guys that are just kind of doing it well, who are able to compete almost every year, that's usually what they do. Like, Shabon Cunningham burst, like, he comes out of his prep, he's like 15, 20 pounds heavier. And he's like, I'm just chilling here and I'm just going to get better from this bodyweight range. So, yeah, there's, there's, I guess, no one size fits all, but you do have to consider that, hey, like, on the way down, whatever you accumulate, you're going to have to fix. So you definitely want to control for that. That's how I coach a lot of athletes. It's like, let's get you to, like, Brad was saying, get you to the environment where you're well fed, not where you're excessively fat, but I mean, if you have a decent amount of body fat on you, you're well fed and in order to sustain that bodyweight, you have to be eating enough to do that. So you have enough body fat on you, you've got enough calories to support that and you just sit there and you milk it. That's pretty much how most of my off seasons have gone. Like, I've never ran too many many cuts in the off season. I'm like, why am I going to spend two months, three months, you know, in a deficit when like, right now, my training is on fire, like, why am I going to derail this momentum right now? Like, for formats, just being driven up and recovering well, like, you want to take advantage of that and like you said, when, like, the times I have gone too high on the off season, like you said, but the preps are long because now I got to pay the price on the back end and you better be very skilled at knowing how to remove body fat in a conservative way because you're just going to end up eating up what you gain in the off season anyways. So it's like, you just find that middle ground and that's a lot of times what I do is it was some athletes, you know, like you said, but I'll test the water with some people. Like, let me push you like, they've never explored higher body weights before. It's like, let's explore that, see what happens. And then, okay, let's run a cut down the road and see what we gain from it. And quite often it's not as much as, you know, we are hoping for, you know, it's like you might get a two pound, three, three pounds of muscle and it's like, well, we probably could have did this, you know, at 15 pounds up versus 30. And now we're not spending the like nine months out of the year trying to remove like a huge investment just to get the body fat back off. So I think you should explore like going, like obviously when you're contours prepping, we're going to explore lower body fat levels and get shredded, but you also need to explore the high end. But then eventually you start to find where you're working range should be. And it's like, to me, like once you're in there, and even if you are, let's say, running some phases of like gaining and cutting, they're not as aggressive, they're more conservative. And the habits are also more conservative now too. They're not going extreme one way or the other. I think I think that's underrated. I think just a lot of people, especially younger people, they, like you said, but they want to see progress. They want to see something moving all the time. I want to see my bite. Like if I'm not gaining weight, I'm not gaining muscle. I don't think that's true. Like you get to that good environment Brad talks about, it's like milk it. And then that's where you focus on training, focus on performance, not, not like how I look because you're not going to see too much visual changes there. It's going to take time. But if you're a, you're a dedicated bodybuilder and you're committed to improving your physique, the next time you get on stage, well, that's where you have to become very disciplined and mature in your approach and sit in those spots where it doesn't feel like anything's moving. That's where a lot of people go wrong is they're like kind of doing too many things all the time. They're up. They're down. They're up. They're down. But like we mentioned earlier, it's like sitting in the pocket, Tom Brady, you're sitting in that pocket, really poised, just throwing some nice first downs. Well, you know how I sell this once a people is is I remind them of when they started diet and even like deep into a prep, it's like you train. And then by the time that session comes around next week, you're pretty much up back to baseline, more or less. So if you're able to do that in a hypochaloric environment, that kind of brings up the question, how much extra food do we actually need? Yeah. It's a good point. So remember Brian, we're talking before we started recording. We're talking about I've been in perma prep basically since I turned 50 and I think my average calories has been maybe 1800 to 2100 regardless of if I'm prepping or not prepping is kind of just been there. There's been a couple days of course here and there where it goes a little higher. But I haven't lost any muscle mass on little fuel. So I imagine myself in my 20s, like I take myself back in hindsight and go, okay, did I really need to do as much bulking as I was back then to put on muscle? And I would probably say no. And I could even think about when I first started lifting in high school, like I sprouted, I was only eating like once a day. I was eating my mom's dinner or whatever, they don't have a snack here or there. But the protein intake I had to guess was maybe 80 to 100 grams per day. So I mean, if you think back to that context, like, okay, if I were just eating a touch more than that, like I don't know if I would gain less muscle, more muscle, I think the rate of growth would probably be similar. The fact that it wasn't like bulking, but I was just having a nice, like conservative rate of gain and then having those phases were like, okay, I'm hanging out, you know, 15, 20 pounds over stage weight and I'm just training. I think that's how I like to think about most people now that I'm coaching, like let's not try to get this person extra fat just because I think it's going to list it more gains. And you know what guys, there's like an informal meta analysis of this and you see it with especially elite power lifters where they have to stay at a certain weight class and what you'll see is over the years, like they don't stay at their weight class, they don't train there, they, you know, gain a few pounds and they they hover there, but it just gets harder to make that weight class. And the name of their game is just performance increases and though those things are super important to bodybuilders as well, there are best proxies especially in the off season as to whether or not things are going right, but you clearly will see this where it's like man, like Taylor Atwood's been in this weight class for like super long, like he's going up there like more and more peeled. So it's there, like and that's basically what they do, they get to their comfy weight, they maintain, they split hairs when it comes to their training strategies and just make sure they have enough food, not necessarily even in some cases like a surplus just just enough. And if this works for like world class power lifters, like it's a good chance, this will probably work for you as well. I think within this context too, like I don't think we're saying like hey, get very complacent with your nutrition, it's more like we just don't need an excessive amount of calories. But within the calories that you're taking in, make sure you're on top of those variables, like you're getting enough protein, Haiti micronutrients, getting enough fiber, making sure you're hydrated, like all those things that still you do need to manage those super well. The thing we're saying is like we don't need to gain excessively fast or gain excessive amount of body weight to elicit the gains that we're after. You know for who this has been very valuable is especially women because you get most young guys, they just kind of buy into like, bro, let's just gain 40 pounds and like move everything in the gym and everyone's going to tell us how huge we are and, you know, we're going to be king of the gym, like, easy sell. But with women, there's a little bit more resistance to that. And then also, there's a whole lot more trouble that goes into getting rid of any excess body fat. So if anything, it's, it's made it, like we, agree more now because it's like, you know what? Let's just find the lowest, like comfy body weight, maybe you'll trickle up a little bit over time. But let's just more or less try to maintain there and just work on progressions because it's just different, like trying to get 20% of their starting body weight off a female compared to a male. They're drastically different experiences. Nature doesn't care about the dudes. It's like y'all are expendable. Losing if you want buddy. Yeah. I would have to agree with you, too, bro. And I've found it extremely beneficial kind of keeping the ladies in the gym when they find out, oh, you know what? I can actually go ahead and train and it can be beneficial. Well, I'm not this ideal, you know, the particular model-esque look, you know, I mean, because it used to be very hard to talk females into gaining weight, you know, I really had to coax them into doing the recovery portion, you know, of their exit plan, just because they wanted to hold on, you know, to that, that shape that they had worked so hard for. And I can almost kind of recall, like, specific times in each of my females that I coach where it's like that you could see the light bulb literally turn on, you know, and I'm telling them, look, you know what? Let's get to the gym, you know what? Yes, you have put on 10 pounds. Yes, I know you hate yourself for doing it. Yes, I know that you don't necessarily want to go to the gym because you're not looking like you did, but you know what? Now is the best time to get to the gym, you know, you can actually make improvements right now. In fact, you are actually making improvements, but we got to get there. And all of them, it's just like, you can just see the light bulb. It's like, oh, okay, especially when they're performing, they see their performance going up, like they're moving some weight. That's pretty exciting. Exactly. Exactly. Because so much of the mindset beforehand was like, well, if I'm not, if I'm not lean and I'm not on my game, I shouldn't even go to the gym because I'm not going to benefit from it. It's like, no, it's the exact opposite, you know, it's when you do have a little bit of body fat. And maybe you're not perfect at the gym and in the kitchen and making sure that you're, your macros and calories are being perfectly met. You know, it's when, when you're kind of seeing the scale go up, that is when you're really benefiting, you know, in the gym. And sometimes I do like to kind of try to talk my females, you know, let's get in on the edge of uncomfortable. You know, it's like, okay, about the time when you think, okay, I should go the other way and start cutting now. No. Let's get a little bit uncomfortable with how you're looking the mirror. And then let's just like we have talked about now, like for the last, who knows how long? Let's milk it right now. Let's stay right here in this pocket, in this sweet spot, in this anabolic environment for as long as you will mentally let yourself do that. I think the longer they spend in there too, the more easy, like the more buy and you get. So it's definitely, yeah, that initial overcoming that initial inertia is difficult, but it definitely gets easier. And we've seen that on the flip side when they come back down again and they're give back on stage again. It's like, oh, wow, I have glucose now, you know, oh, wow, I actually have side delts now, you know, you can actually see it when you're like two years removed from that resistance, you know, that you actually, you see the fruits of your labor. Yeah, be that clarity. Like switching back to the training. What levers you guys pull, like you kind of know, kind of, I know we need to work on these body parts or whatever we need to make these improvements. Like what levers you guys pull to make that happen as far as like some of the smaller details, like do you rely more on frequency, do you more rely on set volume? Do you look at exercise selection, nuance, certain exercises? Like, what's what's what's what you guys' approach with all that? I'd love to hear birdos response on this. I wanted to hear Brian's, he was biting his, he was biting his lip. So now we get to get into the we is like the nuance part of it. Yeah, this is the fun part now. So I think for most competitors, you know, especially until you get on stage sometimes, like you said, I Jeff, you mentioned it, like you don't really know what you need to work on. And sometimes it can surprise you. So I think having, you know, doing that and understanding like, okay, let's say for me, it's always been like biceps and lateral delts, like those, those are like the two muscle groups that I think. Yeah, let's talk about our own weaknesses first. Okay. You guys have done to try to fix those things. So biceps and lateral delts, I mean, I, one of the levers I could pull, I haven't, but I could would be like training biceps before training back if I'm doing like an upper lower. And it's not that, um, I think a lot of that's just out of habit, you know, doing the compounds first and maybe just being a little bit uncomfortable, irrationally, admittedly. But, um, you know, I, is a solution to that I've had like my own arm day. But yeah, I think just having, organizing my training in a way that allows me to maximize performance for the muscle groups that I want to bring up. And if I'm doing them on the back burner, after doing, you know, two or three compounds for, you know, three pressing movements like my triceps probably aren't going to have that much output. You know, we're three polling movements. My biceps probably aren't going to have that much output. So, and I think the other thing, just bringing, you know, there's like the fatigue element that gets discussed a lot. But I think the focus element of it is undervalued, just going in and having a, being able to direct your 100% of your focus on the muscle groups that you want to bring up rather than doing them after you've spent some mental bandwidth on some other movements. So exercise order and just sequencing, you know, those muscle groups in the week, I think is kind of the first place I look. And then, you know, just making sure I'm getting a high return on investment out of the movements I'm doing in terms of execution. But I definitely don't, you know, I might proactively as a result of them being on their own arm day, like overall volume could be higher because performance is going to be a little bit higher. But I won't out of the gate, start pushing volume really assertively out of an assumption that that's going to be beneficial. I'll sit and see how it's progressing, see how performance is trending and then make an adjustment as needed there. I have a question for you. So as far as, like how important is performance, like driving those loads and the reps up, like whether you do the biceps first or last, like obviously if you knew them first, you might lift heavier, you might do more reps. But that is its own baseline. And if you did them last, like it's lower loading, possibly lower reps, but that's its own baseline too. And from those same, like from those independent baselines, the goal is still the same. Like you're still trying to drive performance up. Well, how much of a difference would that be just for just looking at the performance aspect of it from that context? Like are we seeing or going to see any differences you think with that? I think in performance, you might. But the numbers, by meaning as like the results of that though, not necessarily. I think you could, I mean in theory on paper, it's like you might be able to get a more stimulus out of each existing set. If you, like if I did my pull downs before my biceps, like I, each set performance is going to be higher, greater absolute stimulus, even though like the relative difficulties the same. So, but what I don't, I think you could do is, you know, maybe you do an additional set or something on the secondary work. If you're doing biceps first, if you're concerned about it, you know, you could probably do a little bit more volume and offset the fact that you see that reduction and stimulus on a set to set basis. But I can't say with any confidence, like over multiple years that it's going to make a big difference. I think like the way I think look at it is like outside of just like the performance or like, I'm like if I put them first, I got more energy there. So I think just the enthusiasm, the effort level might be higher. So I might be more willing to go like true, like closer to true failure and getting more stimulus there versus like if it's at the tail end or I'm probably a little more fatigue than gas. I'm like, eh, maybe I'm half-assing some of those. Exactly. Yeah. So my solution just for my own mental comfort was just to have my own shoulder and arm day. That way I could have the best of both worlds. What about you, Bertha? What kind of levers? What kind of lever? and why, given some good, good, some good context, some good stories here. I think just kind of touching on what you guys said is the intent matters, it's like why are you there? If you play something, you need to work on it at the end, you're intense to get out of there. Whereas if you open up with it or it's its own single day, I think it kind of reconnects you to your goals, especially with bodybuilding and natural bodybuilding and household things move. You have to remind yourself, why is it that I'm doing this exercise right here, right now? It's because I was very unsatisfied with my last look and how that region took away from the rest of my physique. So I think people need to remind themselves of that when it's no longer as fresh in their mind. Personally, for me, I start with, I guess quality control, right? Is there something within how I'm technically performing the lift that can be a little bit better? Is there a better tool that I'm not using or maybe a tool that isn't better on paper that I haven't used? I think that's important as well. And from there, just kind of have to let it run long enough and you have to be realistic with how long it's going to take. I think it never moves fast enough. I remember early on when I was growing at my fastest, it seemed like it was not fast enough. I just wanted faster and no difference right now as well. So I think once you get those things in order, the order, the exercises, the tools, what's the best tool you have access to? What's a tool maybe you haven't tried? After that, you can't get frustrated too early. You have to let that thing run its course. And honestly, you almost have to just fool yourself that it's going to work. Because I think that's important. If you think it's not going to work, it's not going to work. But how many dumb things have we done here collectively? Because we thought we were 100% right many years ago when we still believe in that. It worked. But a lot of that has to do with the optimistic mindset you had going into that task. I think belief is a huge driver. Because when I selected the single, you're the one to turn me on to the single arm dumbbell overhead press. Let me try that thing. And I was like, okay, it felt good. And then all of a sudden, I had a strong belief in it. I'm like, okay, I'm going to commit to this thing. I'm going to work numbers out. But when you're, how do you define what is the ideal exercise? Do you guys rely on external sources, like, hey, this particular back movement with this angle is showing this one to be more optimal? How important it is to conform to what maybe someone is sane is optimal versus your own exploration? Of course, you have to be willing to explore all things. But I guess it's like obviously, when you're newer intermediate, you're maybe relying on what other people are telling you. But how do you kind of like, how do you in a sense get to a point where you're like us where we're like, yeah, we're going to look at everything. We're going to explore it. And then we're just going to roll with what feels good for us in a sense. So how does someone like dive into that? Like, okay, I need to, in a sense, like, how much am I looking at external sources versus internal? How does that transition look? Because that's an important component of like selecting your exercises. Like, in my opinion, like, all season, like, probably a lot of priority would be like exercise selection versus, and then execution thereafter. And then performance thereafter versus, I need to like do a shit ton of sets or I need to do like three times per week on this. Like, you need to get mastered mastery on the exercises and the execution first. So I guess a long way in the way of how do you guys go about picking exercise? Well, I'll just, I'll just jump in because I'm big on enjoyment. I'm big on enjoying your training and making sure that you're having fun in your training. And so a lot of times I'll just, I'll come right out and I'll say people, what is it that you really like to do? You know, do you like T bar rows? I'm my weaker body part has always been my last because I have such a wide pelvis. But yeah, do you like T bar rows? Do you like pull ups? Do you like pullovers? Do you like this? And, you know, they'll kind of tell me what it is that they'll like. And at least we have a starting point. They like doing these things. Now, let's arrange this in an amount of volume and a frequency and an intensity that kind of makes sense. But much, once we get that going, like Berdo said, I like to make sure that we we're getting good quality work out of that. Because sometimes the reason that they like it is not the most advantageous way to build muscle. And so I'll take myself for an example. I used to hate doing chest supported T bar rows just because I did not feel like I could use my lats. I felt it all in my elbows and in kind of, you know, elsewhere, you know, in my kind of in my traps. But I was always lazy with how I did my repetitions. You know, I was, I mean, Jeff, you've seen me a hundred times. I would try to get that set done and get that burn out of that area as quickly as possible. You're still in a hurry. You're still Mr. Hurrier. I'm more patient now than I was. I'm not Jeff Albert's patient, but I am much more patient now than I was. But once I really kind of started slowing down my eccentric and really started making sure that I was getting the most out of that particular exercise, they really kind of started growing on me. Same thing with overhead tricep extensions. I used to hate overhead tricep extensions. But once I started working on the quality and like Berdo said, doing the quality control, the exercises that I didn't like kind of became the ones that I I kind of favored. I'm on a big split spot, you know, kind of a kick right now for that. It's very same reason. I'd quit trying to hurry up and get the thing done to actually kind of riding in the sweet spot and making sure that I'm, you know, taking advantage of the best way to do that particular exercise. So I feel like it's important to kind of at some point, okay, let's go ahead and throw your favorite exercises together and then run that for a while, get that neurologic adaptation phase out of the way. But then we better kind of evaluate things and look at the quality of your repetitions and maybe find, you know, well, you know what? Now I don't like doing that that way. Well, we better let that get going then because we're not kind of getting the most out of it. But yeah, I always like to start with what is it that you like to do because that's a lot of times what gets people in the gym. And I mean, let's face it, we got to get in the gym and we got to get after it. And then we can start tweaking these other little knobs and pulling these other little levers. I think that's important. I also think sometimes you have to question people on that. Like I use myself an example in high school. I hated legs. I never trained legs. Wasn't fun. I don't want to train it. So I didn't train. So I have this great upper body. No legs. I went to a power list to meet my only power lift to me. I've ever done it in my life. The bench press, I broke high school records. And I was leading the meat. And then we it was a two lift meat. It was bench and squat only. There was no doubt left. So going into the squat, I was in first place. I come out of the squat and I'm fifth place because I can only squat 275 and I could bench like 315 320. So it wasn't until I got out of high school. And I saw this guy at the gym. Like this guy's got some wheels on him. Let me ask him how he got his legs. And he's like, okay, come train them. Yeah, exactly. Come to the gym on winter. I tried trying. So yeah, he put me under a squat bar and I was like, man, this sucks. So I did not like it. But I changed my mindset around it. You know what? I need to like, suck it up. I need to learn to love this. And that's exactly what I did. I started to learn to love legs. And I think it just started, you know, with the mindset shift. Like sometimes if we just do everything like we want to do because it's fun. Like sometimes we can shortchange ourselves, I think. So some athletes, I will chat like, oh, yeah, it's like, it's a question I always ask people in my calls, brother. Give me your top three quad movements. And then they might tell me, you know, based on how it feels, comfort, safety, stability, enjoyability. Like if it's in, they give me three and they look like they're pretty solid lifts. Cool. We'll keep them in. But if like it's, they're a little bit off. I'm like, okay, let's, let's maybe switch something else in there that you've never been exposed to or you have very little exposure to. And now let's, let's make it your own. Let's learn how to do it. Let's get skilled on that. So it's, I think there's a balance between having fun, but also challenging people to get out of their comfort zones. Because that's how you end up growing the most, not just physically, but mentally too. Because if I just stayed the same mentality at high school, man, I'd be like, I might be Yeah, really good men's physique, competitor. Yeah, I mean, I think, like you said, it's okay or the parameters, we have to train. This is where we need to emphasize. These are the non-negotiables. Now, what are your favorite movements within this? I think that's the best way to go about it. But, you know, personal anecdote is valuable. I think sometimes, you know, I've caught myself doing this like, so I recently started flat barbell benching again, both days each week. And I have no plans to compete in a powerlifting me. I do miss being a little bit stronger on that movement, but the last offseason I had, I saw a lot of chest development and 90% of my pressing in that offseason was barbell pressing 'cause I was doing a lot of, it was a lot of volume too, but, you know, it was a powerlifting, primarily powerlifting focused offseason. So, you know, I think it's easy for me to talk myself out of using that. It's like, okay, on paper for, I'd say the majority of people, it's probably not the weapon of choice when it comes to, you know, there's usually better alternatives, more stable alternatives, more orthopedically friendly alternatives. But, for my structure, it works pretty well. And so, I've, and I enjoy it most importantly. And so, I've been doing that. And then just keeping things kind of simple, I think, you know, like squats and leg extensions, I think I get bored of them eventually, but, like, I've built the majority of my lower body development, you know, quad development with just those two movements, you know, so some of these other variations are good, but I try, I try not to spend too much mental bandwidth on agonizing, okay, is this the most optimal tool for the job rather than, like, I'd rather just lean on experience, know that it can be effective, that I enjoy it, and just roll with it and have that belief that it's going to work. I think the same thing's true for other people. I think they, any time somebody has a strong bias towards one specific movement, they're going to tend to, like, that will provide a high return on their investment, in most cases. Like, most people don't fall in love with a movement because it's just difficult and yields no results, you know? So, it's, it's usually for a reason. And I think it's, it's important to listen to, to people's own experiences when it comes to that. And, you know, give them guardrails to kind of keep them within a zone that you want them to be at least. All right, Bruno, bring us home. So, yeah, I guess in review, because the tool selection is really important. But one thing we do agree on is that, you know, everything has to be in order in regards to quality before you start thinking about Adam volume because he's just going to be doing, like, more shitty work on top of more shitty work. And then your metrics are going to be all off when we start prep, right? Because you think this is your maintenance, so this is your what you need to gain. And, Drielli, that isn't right. So, we can't even get into the defensive lifting right. But, um, but yeah, I think, for this section, it's like, I think understanding, like, what's going on under the hood? Like, for me, the best way to rationalize a lot of things is to just get a deeper understanding. If I understand why I'm performing this exercise, not just because, you know, this guy's fully big and he told me to, you know, like, I don't know, do shitty bent over barbell rows. Like, look a layer beyond that. And if you do that, you'll be very confident in what it is that you're doing. It might be bent over rows, right? And you'll be able to work harder because you're more confident in what it is that you're doing because we need to spend enough time on this thing in order to make it actually gain any traction. But it kind of reminds me of, because at the end, like, just working hard is such a big prerequisite to, like, anything good happening. And people forget about that. Like, seldom will you see someone with a great physique that, when they're training in a gym, they're not like the one person that's like standing out in regards to, like, hard work. Yeah, you have your weird freaks here and there, like, you know, Paul Delette, no offense, dude. But, you know, but usually, the guys that build these great physiques, they have this great work ethic, this, like, great focus. And they're focused because they're patient and they believe and they have a wall-thought-out plan. Most of the time, anyways. So, yeah, at the end, I think, that is a lever that, I think, most people don't understand how important it is. Like, how many times did we think we were working hard? And then you go up to, you go to that next level and you're like, oh, no, this is, this is actually, like, working hard. And this applies to not just training, it applies to contest prep, right? It's like, I'm leaning, it sucks. And it's like, no, bro, you're not even there. You got side glutes, like, the back glutes aren't even in. So, along with everything we said, I think something that really matters, it just really makes this go is just having sufficient effort. An effort doesn't mean just, like, throwing, you know, shit around and grunting. Like, we all know a diligent worker when we see one. Like, they're just focused. They understand what they're doing. They understand the assignment. They get after it. They really stand out in the gym. So, and that's much easier to do in the offseason when you're all fed. Well said. I'm fired up. I'm going to train now. You're not in the offseason, Jeff. So, I'm going to continue my eight-year offseason now. We talked to you and do it, Ryan. I'm convinced. All right, guys. We'll catch you on the next one.