S1:E6 - Josh Bryant - Enterprise Fitness Podcast Episode 6

This is the show where we let you inside the doors of a world-renowned personal training studio. Welcome to the Enterprise Fitness Podcast. I'm Mark Ottobre, owner and founder, here to introduce this episode with Enterprise Master Trainer Reece Adams and our guest today, Josh Bryant. Let me tell you about Josh and, uh, read his bio for you because it is extremely impressive to all the achievements that he's been a part of. Along with his ISSA certifications in fitness training, nutrition, and conditioning, Josh has been awarded the prestigious title of Master of Fitness Science. He was also recently named the ISSA Director of Applied Strength and Power Development. In addition to being certified by the NSCA as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and by the NASM as a performance enhancement specialist, Joss has completed his master's degree in exercise science with the emphasis in performance enhancement and injury prevention at the California University of Pennsylvania. He is the co-author of Elite Fitness Systems' best-selling ebook, Metroflex Gym's Power Basics. As an athlete, he's very, very impressive as an athlete. Start with that. He has won many national and world titles in both powerlifting and strongman. At just the age of 22 years young, he was the youngest person in powerlifting history to bench press a whopping 600 pounds raw. He squatted 909 pounds in the USPF officially bench press 620 pounds raw and officially deadlifted 810 pounds raw. In 2005, he won Atlantis Strongest Man in America competition. Josh has been focusing on providing outstanding personal training in person as well as via the internet. He has combined his education with his in-the-trench experience to develop the Josh Strength Method. The method has provided countless clients with the roadmaps to success. To learn more about Josh Strength Method, look at his website, which is joshstrength.com. He's also the author of Jailhouse Strong and Bench Press: The Science. Gotta say, folks, that this podcast is awesome. I loved listening to Reece and Josh really talk shop about the bench press and just, you know, training in general. I got a lot out of this podcast and actually made me want to bench press, to be perfectly frank with you. But yeah, some ridiculous numbers, and I know you guys are going to get a lot out of it, that's for sure. Josh certainly is the real deal. So without further ado, let's bring on the podcast.

Welcome and thank you for coming on Enterprise Podcast, Josh.

Thanks for having me, Rhys. I appreciate it.

Pleasure. For our listeners, are you able to give us a bit of a background about yourself and how you got into coaching.

I started off as an athlete. First, I was like a more traditional athlete when I was young, you know, younger in junior high and high school. I did boxing, did football, track, things like that. Then when I played a year of college football, it was American football. Then I got it and decided I was going to concentrate on powerlifting. Did powerlifting primarily. Youngest person to bench press 600 raw. I ended up deadlifting 810 raw and squatted 909. I won the Atlantis Strongest Man America later, and sort of the highlight of that was a 445 overhead press. And then since then, and I've also done some bodybuilding, I've not competed, but I've trained at a high level with, you know, with Brian Dobson from Metroflex and some other pros. Then after that, I decided to concentrate more so on helping other people reach reach their goals. And so kind of the process of always having a chance to move around, all around the United States, all sorts of places to learn more about training, and that paid off. So I kind of did the practical part and the anecdotal learning part first. Then since then, I've gone to get a master's degree and decided to take my passion towards helping other people reach their goals.

Awesome. So is that in a sense of educating coaches, or is that more of a case of just with your clients?

I wouldn't— well, sort of both, because, you know, obviously when I'm training, you know, training clients, the clients, but I also do a lot of seminars now educating. So at those, I would say at least half the people that attend are some sort of coach or trainer.

Yeah, awesome.

Probably like 50 to 60% of them, you know, they're athletes or just people interested. But yeah, so Yeah, so both.

I'm sure there's a lot of guys interested. Where do you run your seminars?

They're all over. So next one's going to be Cleveland, Ohio. That one after that will be in Philadelphia. Then after that in San Diego, California. And then it looks like we're going over to Japan probably in September.

Oh, that's pretty cool. What's it going to take to get you to Australia?

Well, we definitely talk about it.

That's awesome. Wicked. What do you tend to cover in those seminars, Josh?

Well, it depends. So a lot of times these ones recently have been more— I don't want to call them academic, but more so than hands-on. It's kind of showing people different techniques. So, you know, on strongman training for— and that's generally not geared towards much. So like for strongman, it's for their coaches on how to implement it with like more regular clients. Athletes and things like that. Then a lot of stuff on how to increase your strength in the power lifts. And then also some stuff on extreme hypertrophy methods, which are definitely not the kind that you would use with so-called normal people.

Yeah, yeah. What kind of clients do you deal with mostly?

I would say primarily elite strength athletes and some bodybuilders, high level, but really everybody, you know, that just happens to be like more of how people would know me and who I ended up working with. But I do work with regular people, even like, you know, regular athletes, pro baseball players, bikini pros. I mean, all sorts of people.

So yeah, yeah, I've seen some of the guys you've coached. Pretty amazing stuff. Like, just to name a few, Branch Warren and Johnny Jackson.

Pretty crazy.

I actually met Johnny Jackson at the Arnold's last year. Very nice guy.

Where was it? Where is it at in Australia?

It's just in the city at the Exhibition Center.

Okay, cool.

In Melbourne. So we're based in Melbourne as well.

I have a client in Brisbane.

Okay, so that's up north.

Yeah.

So let's talk about your 600-pound raw bench press. That's pretty, pretty interesting. So on the journey to doing that, did you hit any plateaus or anything like that?

Absolutely. So I would say the hardest— it's just going to sound funny, but the hardest number for me was 300 to 400.

Okay, and why was that?

Because I was in a lot of other sports at the time and I was younger and all that stuff, so obviously that played a role. But that actually was the hardest one for— I got from 300 to the upper 300s really quick, but I mean, it took me forever to get from 390 to 400. So that was And then all of a sudden one day when we were working out in high school for football, we weren't supposed to be going that heavy and I saw the coach wasn't looking so I'm like just slap it on there real quick and get it like easy. So then after that, it was kind of unprecedented progress again. It was, you know, like, you know, people break certain barriers that have been in their way. You know, once they do that, they usually, you know, don't just slightly push past it, they conquer them. So.

Yeah, what did you do to obviously conquer that one?

At that point, what I did, like, I think that helped a lot at that point was getting used to handling heavy weights. So I would do things with like weight releasers and stuff, so I'd lower heavier weights and things like that and then push them back up real explosively. Also, That was probably the biggest thing. Another one that was huge was I really brought my triceps up a lot. So with all sorts of different movements ranging from, you know, like close grip benches to tricep extensions, dips, things like that, and really push the poundage on those.

Yeah, you said load releases. What do you mean by these?

A weight releaser? It sort of looks like a J-hook you'd hook on the end of a barbell and you put weights on it.

Oh, eccentric work. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, overloads the eccentric.

Yeah, awesome.

But the beauty of it is when you hit the bottom, it releases so you can press up the concentric. So unlike a regular negative, like say if you could bench 400, you put 450 on lower for 5 seconds and that's that. This you can do at normal speed and then once it releases. So that's— I did those, you know, those were huge. And when I started pushing over 6, you know, I'd lower over 6 every 3 to 4 weeks. I'd push it up as explosively as possible.

Did you ever find that you got to the bottom and one unhooked and the other didn't? Did that happen to you at all?

No, because I got pretty good at setting them up and also just not like You know, not— I, like, lowering under control, and then I'm also one of those people that I don't lower it real fast. So, like, I don't think that if it did happen, it would— I wouldn't be lowering it so fast. It would, like, throw me way off. And for two, when you're lifting that kind of weight, you're not really— I mean, you're in such a different zone and shut out and all your focus on the barbell that, yeah, I don't— if you thought about that, you know, broken in half before you started, probably.

Yeah, so just, just made sure they unhooked before you drove it up.

Yeah, test that a lot with the lighter warm-ups.

What was going through your mind when you went for the 600-pound bench press, or any lift for that matter, that's obviously going to challenge you? Are you one of the cool-headed guys, or do you tend to hype yourself up?

I hyped myself up, but it was kind of like automatic because I think You know, if we got a little bit of time where I can explain kind of the, you know, the thought process here is I think at that level I was at what psychologists would call is unconscious competence, which means like you're unconsciously competent in what you do. It just kind of happens because you practice right so many times and like kind of your automatic, like inner, like subconscious, like pretty much takes over and just guides you through it. So it's kind of like Yeah, it's hyped up, but it's almost like going through the motions because I'd rehearsed it so many times in my head. Do extreme rehearsals, like not to— because I don't like the term visualization because that means all you integrate is your visual. I do like rehearsals where I'd actually like smell it, you know, and like I would smell what the meat's going to look like. I'd hear things and I would— all that stuff would be put into, you know, I could like feel the barbell in my hands without touching it. So it already been done so many times in my head. It was kind of weird though, is I went to 611 right after I did the 600 easy. 611 wasn't close, and I think it's because I got so obsessed with that 600 that it wouldn't have mattered if I tried 500 after. I probably wouldn't have gone up because that's what I came to do and I did it.

Yeah, I actually watched that video. It was, um, you nailed it very easily.

Yeah, it was a joke. And they saw, I mean, the amount of force that was in that bar, you know, who knows what it was, but it was, uh, That was it, dude. It just— and I trained with plenty of volume, so you'd think I could sit there and, you know, take 10 attempts if I needed to, which wasn't the case. Yeah.

With your clients, do you create a frame of mind for them, or do you just do what you was talking about then, the visualization?

Do I what now?

Do you create a frame of mind for them, so, or do you let them sort of take their own path? Because I know some guys like hype themselves up and others like to stay Cleared it?

Well, both. So if we have— if we're working together and it's working well, we're getting the desired results we want, you know, I'm not going to mess with it. But like, you know, other people, absolutely. It could be anything from giving them like some sort of affirmation to say to themselves, or it could be, you know, whatever else. I actually wrote a book on this, co-authored a book on this called Jailhouse Strong: The Successful Mindset. And that's kind of like— I may— we made that book for Basically, in my way I put it, it's a book for non-readers. So it's very short. It's for people that don't read a lot of books. And what it is, is it's kind of like on different ways to develop that successful mindset. But, and it's going to be obviously be individual variation, but generally, you know, I'm not going to encourage someone to go out and like bang their head against a bar or something. It's, I mean, if it's worked in the past, you know, and they're setting world records or something, I'm not going to screw with them, but like You know, that's kind of misdirected focus.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Sort of like if you get a guy who doesn't really put effort in and it's very relaxed and he's not hitting his lifts, then obviously you're going to try and hype him up a little bit just to make him—

Exactly.

Yeah. Having trained both successful bodybuilders and powerlifters, do you ever mix powerlifting principles with your bodybuilders and vice versa?

All the time. So I call it— I would call that a continuum. Of you have powerlifting limit strength on one side and like sort of absolute hypertrophy training on the other side, and there's going to be crossing over. And to what extent depends. So, um, like for instance, if you put like a bodybuilder— they had one study, it showed like there's pretty similar results in hypertrophy for both types of training. But I think what a lot of it comes down to is like, for instance, the first time I trained Johnny Jackson was for a powerlifting meet, and he came in 23 pounds heavier than we were expecting without trying to purposely gain that kind of weight. So the point being, he hadn't been training like that, so it basically was like, you know, as a bodybuilder would call it, like sort of muscle confusion, if you will. And it sparked so much new growth where the same flip side would hold true if you put a powerlifter that's only trained heavy all the time on some sort of like traditional bodybuilding program, he'd grow like a weed. And so it's vice versa. So like There's no way if you're a powerlifter you can work all your weak links with just the big 3 because, you know, if all you did is do that and you have some sort of issue, you're just going to develop compensatory movement patterns by not specifically addressing, you know, that movement with more isolation type stuff. So there's going to be some crossover with both, absolutely. And, you know, and before, you know, before bodybuilders started taking drugs, pretty much every bodybuilder started off with some sort of strong guy. If you look at like Reg Park and people like that, You know, Reg Park was one of the first people to bench press 500 pounds, and he would have, you know, held his own in any sort of elite strength circle. So that, you know, if there wasn't drugs, this wouldn't even be a debate, but there is. So that's how people get away with some sort of, you know, maltraining practices. But yeah, I absolutely mix the two.

Yeah, if you didn't have any neural drive, obviously the weights that you'd be using wouldn't be sufficient to cause a decent amount of hypertrophy or very minimal?

Well, think about it. Yeah, if you can, you know, do a front squat with 600 pounds, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna— I don't care how many leg extensions you do, you're still gonna do more than somebody that only does leg extensions and squats, front squats, 200 pounds, you know. So it's just like you're saying, it's part of your relative max. So if you bench 400, you know, it's gonna be a lot easier to do a set of 10 at 300 than if, you know, you bench 315 for a max.

Yeah. How long would you typically get someone to spend in, say, an accumulation phase or an intensification phase? Because you obviously mix them up.

Yeah, so that could be depending on what— if they hadn't done it very long, you could almost do it for quite a while because if they've only been training bodybuilding for— you're talking about a strength athlete or somebody you're converting, like you're changing a bodybuilder's training to more strength training? Let's say we're just trying to get a guy jacked as much as Yeah, so generally be more like 3 to 4 weeks on each one if it was something like that. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. That's how we do it.

Good.

And then just rotating between them because obviously both have their benefits.

Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, and like, I, you know, I try to make a point though not totally like, you know, I'm sure you do the same thing of like box yourself under that label because that's just kind of like a man-made label. But yeah, like I get what you're saying.

Yeah, and with an intensification phase, typically if someone's getting stronger, you just leave them on that phase, wouldn't you?

A lot of times, because, you know, especially because it's going to depend on their level. If it's somebody I know would burn out because they're so strong, then no. But like somebody you're— like you're talking about, absolutely. Because, you know, if you overshoot a little bit, it's real easy to change it because that's sort of like the cybernetic aspect of periodization where you're if you're actually coaching people, you're taking their feedback into account. You're not just like rigidly following a preset plan.

Yeah, you're judging how much they're gaining each week on their lifts and are they gaining more reps or are they stagnant. Yeah, absolutely. Say we had an intermediate lifter who weighed 90 kilos and say his bench press one rep max was 130 kilos, but he wanted it to be 150. From your personal experience, how long would it take to put 20 kilos on the bar?

I mean, it depends because I couldn't say because it would depend on everything from genetics to arm length to everything else.

But say the guy was 6'2"?

I can't put a hypothetical. I don't— there's just no— I'd be— I can't make up an answer.

Okay, that's cool.

I put it this way, I think I do it faster than about anybody or that person. Yeah, but from your personal experience, I've had people do like twice that in like 12 weeks, but that's not the norm necessarily. So it really just depends. I mean, you know, on the background, you know, are they out drinking every night? I mean, there's so many things we could like go over that I hate to be the person that says you're gonna put on 20 kilos in 8 weeks or 10 weeks or a year for that matter. It's just not a practical judgment because there's so much variation.

Yeah, no, that's cool. I just wanted to, more I guess, the upper limit that you've achieved, say 20 kilos in a set period of time. Like, what's the most you've done in say 12-week period on someone's bench press?

Oh man, it would be, you probably think I might have told you, but I've had it with people doing like I mean, with Al Davis benching 670 raw, you know, I was like, that was about, that was over 60 pounds in 12 weeks at that level. So yeah, so I mean, it depends. I mean, trying to think who else would be like that extreme of an example. That one to me is a big one because it's you know, it's such a high level already.

Yeah, yeah, obviously diminishing returns as they get up to that level.

Sure. But I mean— go ahead, you go. Nothing, go ahead, I'm good.

What would be the first thing you'd assess before writing a program for a guy wanting to improve his bench press?

I would want to see, I would want to see If I was, you know, the best thing would be is obviously to find out where he's at now. So we'd have to have to figure out his max and then it would be helpful to see a video of it because we could kind of see where he— we can kind of target the accessory work initially. So be, you know, if he's like failing at lockout, mid-range, off chest, that kind of stuff. Generally people that haven't trained real seriously are going to be weak right off the chest or weak more towards where the triceps are towards lockout.

Okay. Do you have any go-to exercises for, say, lockout?

Yes.

Yeah?

For any part, so go ahead. Lockout?

Let's go lockout.

Okay, so some of my favorites for lockout, depending— I like this, close grips with slingshots or even regular grip. You know what a slingshot is?

A slingshot is basically that thing that you put around your arms, isn't it? It works like a band.

So what it does is it helps you a little bit off your chest. Kind of, it's almost like put on— there's no learning curve and it protects your shoulders and chest a little bit, but it doesn't help. It helps about 10%. So say on average you bench 300, you do 330, that type of thing, but it doesn't help as much at the top. So that's a good one for lockout. You know, bench press, just regular close grips bench pressing with full range of motion with bands and chains. Because the advantage to that over like using boards or something is you still get in the full range of motion. Dips. And though then the one, if it's really just a problem at the top right there, one of my favorite ones is isometrics. So what you do is you take like a barbell, you press it against the pins in a squat rack as hard as you can for like say 6 seconds, rest a couple minutes, Then do a compensatory or explosive bench press with, say, like a lighter weight, like 80% of your max for a few reps. Rest and repeat that sequence a few times at that point because what the isometric does is the downfall is it's very localized in the training effect, but that's also like kind of the, you know, the upside too is you can directly target a sticking point. So wherever you're training, it's gonna be about 15 degrees within that joint range of motion. So that's a great one to exactly target a sticking point. Like, if you have a sticking point, that is like the best way. If it's the exact— if it's pretty much the exact same sticking point, you're not going to beat that way to target it.

Awesome. And what about, say, mid-range?

Okay, for mid-range, again, a good one would be the isometric at that point. A lot of times it's going to actually be your shoulder strength too. So strengthening your shoulders, it could be, you know, various raises, presses, things like that, board presses. Then of course just bench pressing explosively because a lot of people don't transition well to the bottom. Those would be— that would be like the go-to for mid-range right there. And then off the bottom, you got a few different ones because the thing with it, with any of this, even if your triceps aren't super strong, If you can blast your weight off your chest real fast, you can almost blast it so fast that your sticking points are going to be outrun. Like, they're— it's so fast, they don't have time to manifest themselves. So that being said, off the chest, dead benches, you know what those are?

Is that basically just going to a dead stop on your chest?

No, it's concentric only bench press you do in a power rack.

Okay.

You would start the weight like an inch off your chest, push it up as explosively as possible, and you want to do that for only singles because you don't want the stretch-shortening cycle to enter into it.

Yeah, like a pin press basically.

Yeah, exactly, pin press just right off the chest. Dumbbell pause bench presses, Spoto presses, where you even though you stop from like an inch or so off your chest and just stay real tight and explode back up. Cambered bar bench presses for certain body types, you know, so it'll be like a couple boards to just create a slight deficit. But that'd be someone with no shoulder, pec problems, also doesn't have very long arms. Because you get someone, you know, real long arms, it's kind of thin, it kind of puts their shoulder not a very good angle right there.

So it's more for shorter guys with shorter limbs?

Yeah, guys that are built to bench, it works good as long as they have no— guys that are built to bench with no injuries, it works extremely well. Then again, this would be more for those same type of people, like wider grip bench presses, wide grip pauses. And then those, those are, you know, all some great ones right there.

Yeah, there's heaps of information there. Do you have a ratio between Salm's bench press versus their dips or overhead press at all? Like a ratio percentage?

That's tough. I thought I did till I've had some people on dips, like really get heavy on dips. So I don't think— I don't have one now because I've had some people get so strong on dips that I'm, you know, it kind of was baffling to me.

Yeah. So have you found the dips tend to help their bench press at all?

Absolutely. Even on other levels too because, you know, there's— you get just used to handling heavy weight by when you have to hold yourself up with all that weight. So it's also, you know, just get yourself used to if you weigh 200 pounds and you're dipping with 200 pounds, just holding 400 up, you know, like that. It helps you get used to handling heavy weights on the bench press to a point.

Yeah. Do you—

sorry, you know it's a different movement.

Yeah, yeah, still has some transfer though.

Yes, absolutely.

Do you ever use remedial exercises like rotator cuff or trap 3 work?

Yeah, I do actually, uh-huh, T3 raises and things like that.

Okay, and how often would you use those?

Oh, you know, a couple times a week.

So they're sort of like a cornerstone, so they're If the goal is strength, they're typically going to be in there just to prevent any injuries coming up.

That's exactly it. Yep.

Very good. With tendons and ligaments, I found that getting clients strong is one thing, but then getting their tendons and ligaments to catch up, because obviously they take a little bit longer to strengthen than muscle. What kind of methods do you use to make sure that someone's tendons and ligaments are going to be able to take the load that they're about to lift? Because obviously you get them strong as fast as possible because you've obviously got your system down pat. So what kind of methods do you use?

A lot of it's overloading and actually holding and handling the heavier weights. That's what a lot of the old-timers did, and I find it works really well.

Yeah, so just unracking and just getting them to hold it?

It's some stuff like that, yeah.

Awesome. I found, um, unracking and holding for, um, like 10 seconds, 5 to 10 seconds, and then getting them to rack it and then to do like a weight that they couldn't do before, that tends to work really well.

Yeah, that's— I've done it, I've done the same thing but waited longer than that, but yeah, because then it feels so much lighter in your hands and everything.

Yeah, in terms of the waiting period, so I hold it for 5 to 10 seconds and then I waited 2 minutes, 2 to 3 minutes.

Okay, so yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm not that crazy.

So yeah, that's basically, I think that's, that worked for, you know, if you look at any kind of the old-time strongmen that did things like that, I mean, everybody did that back then.

Yeah.

And I don't know why people have gotten away from it, but it works.

Yeah, just getting them prepared for it because one of the things I find is the first thing that makes someone about to fail their lift is it's the first time they've unracked it, say, for a 1-rep max. So the first thing that goes through their head is, "Shit, this is heavy," and you don't really want that to be their first thought because obviously they're at a disadvantage as soon as they've unracked it.

Absolutely. So yeah, especially, you know, coming up and like, you know, like you're talking about, it takes a long time to get those stronger. So like, you know, older lifter wouldn't have to do it as much, but you know, as you're coming up, it needs to be part of things.

And just giving them exposure to that weight.

Yeah, it's a psychological boost too, to like, even if it feels heavy to know, okay, I've held out this much more weight in my hands, it's kind of The interesting thing you're asking about ratios earlier is I think one of the things that's interesting is overhead pressing is there— I think it does help the bench press, but I think it's also overrated in some ways to help the bench press. I think for a while no one overhead pressed at all, so like people got immediate carryover because they were so weak in their shoulders. So I think there is like a certain threshold you have to reach, but like, you know, if you go— I've had people who really push the overhead presses where it quit transferring. What would the threshold be? Okay, so I would say, you know, if you'd want to be— it gets a little lower as you get stronger too because if, you know, if like say we say 70%, you know, there's a good chance someone benching 700, it's not going to be overhead pressing 490. So Like, I had— let me give you the example I was talking about. I have a guy who wanted to push his overhead press too, and we were, and he got to 500 pounds that way, and his 630 bench did not increase at all. It actually became sort of a detriment because I think we were spending too much time focusing on his overhead press. So I would say 70% is a good place to shoot for at a you know, more intermediate strong level. But I think once you get to like, you know, benching much past 700 raw, which only, you know, a few people have done, there become a point of diminishing returns where you're just having to use so much energy to lift that kind of weight.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Because it's not proportional. Things aren't— people— that's the biggest, you know, one of the biggest lies out there. Everything's proportional. Like if you say you squat 800 pounds, doing 600 for 10 is a lot harder than if you squat 400 and do 300 for 10. It's just not the same. That's why I don't really use percentages like people I train. I, you know, I customize it to what they need.

Yeah, yeah. What's your opinion on deloads?

I think they're good. I think they're very good. How often you need them and stuff is going to be where the individual variation is and even what type it is. But yeah, I think you're gonna have to include them at some point. Absolutely.

Typically, what would you be looking for when you're going to give a— say you're going to lower the intensity for someone, what kind of signs are you looking for?

Well, what I'm going to typically do is when I work with a person, I would start doing it for most people every 4 weeks or so, then kind of as I'm getting feedback and adjust it off there. So it's not usually a type of thing where I'm just gonna be that, you know, that much off of feedback, so much that we don't ever deload until they— I think they really need it type of thing. With some people, I'll do stuff like that, but I'll generally have a preset plan, and how often that's gonna be is gonna be dictated off of the past feedback I have from people versus like saying, all right, I'm gonna wait for you to say like, you know, my heartbeats increase 5 beats a minute when I wake up type of thing, and now we're gonna just do it. It's gonna be a little more pre-planned than that.

Yeah, do you use anything like that, say heart rate or blood pressure?

It— I have, yeah, with some people I do, yep, if I need to. So, you know, that's again, like, yeah, I do do some of that stuff, but a lot of, again, like, a lot of what I'm saying here is just, just, um, going to be— I have so many different ways of detecting this stuff even besides that is like I can even tell from like, this sounds goofy, but like the tone of someone's email or something, what's going on. Just, I have worked with so many people, I can pick up on little idiosyncrasies that you would never expect.

Yeah, it's interesting. What would it be in particular if you could name one of them?

On, um, on the emails? Yeah, okay, so Like a good example would be if someone's emailing like long emails, they're kind of rambling, you know, way longer than they need to.

Then all of a sudden— Becoming depressing.

Pretty short. Yeah, just kind of like, oh yeah, you know, like working out, then I walked my dog, you know, just like rambling. They had nothing to do with the workout. Then all of a sudden they're like, yeah, I completed the week, talk to you later. It's like, okay, something's up here, you know, like I can just kind of tell like little things. Of what's going on with people.

That's cool. Yeah, just seeing how they're— because obviously you get an idea of what they consistently like and then you sort of base that.

Yes, anybody that has an abrupt personality change, um, there would be, you know, that would be like the first way I would tell anybody is an abrupt personality change. And even sometimes if somebody's it's a good one, it seems good, you know, good, like they're getting super enthusiastic, you still got to watch them to a point because at that point they might be getting, you know, too enthusiastic. And then what's going to happen is if they have one bad workout that they're going to also, you know, have that same sort of like depressants. It's almost like manic and depressant type of thing where they like think one workout defines them. But I think it was the Western rider, Louis Romora, the cowboy rider, said victory is won in inches, not miles. And that's kind of the mindset you got to go with training like one workout doesn't define you. As long as your training sessions are consistently trending upwards, you're going to make progress.

That's a very good point there. Do you train female and male clients differently at all?

Not a whole lot differently. Again, it's going to be more on the individual's needs and their histories. Yeah, so not, not a ton differently. I've had a lot of female clients train for different things, who are training for bikini and stuff, that's obviously a little bit different, but Yeah.

Do you get female powerlifters coming to you?

Yes, but I've, for whatever reason, I have a lot. Yeah, I have, you know, good ones, but for whatever reason, I've had a large majority male. It may just be the sport is mostly male too, you know, because you go to like a powerlifting meet and there's 100 people, you know, 10 of them are females. So it may not be anything but that, but yeah, I have a vast majority of the powerlifters are male.

Yeah, cool. How much would you say is a safe amount of strength to increase a lift by each week, say for a natural lifter versus an enhanced lifter? If you had to give a percentage or a set weight amount per week, what would it be?

It would depend on the experience level because if somebody was like, say, squatting 900 pounds and they're gonna, you know, they've been doing a lot of offseason bodybuilding type work, they're going to ramp up pretty dang fast, you know, be like 20-30 pounds a week, no problem. So versus like, you know, so because they'd already been there before, so it's not like you're really increasing that person 30 pounds a week because, you know, they're playing catch-up initially type of thing.

Yeah. Do you have a difference between natural and enhanced lifters that you'd kind of expect from natural versus enhanced?

I think a bit. Well, Well, that's a good question, and I think a lot of it comes down to also the person's mindset because obviously steroids work well or people wouldn't risk their livelihoods and their lives for some matter of doing to extreme amounts. They clearly work, and if you have an aggressive mindset, you can, you can make them work that much better because, you know, you got the mentality of, you know, I'm putting the super turbo fuel in my truck, now I'm going to take it out on the highway. I'm gonna take it out on the superhighway, not just kind of cruise around town. If you got that kind of mindset, you know, that being said, it can go up a lot versus somebody that's— I've seen people that have taken them that haven't gone up much at all. They're, you know, like, yeah, I'm gonna do my first cycle, I'm gonna, you know, hoping my bench goes up 15 pounds. I'm thinking, you're willing to risk this for 15 pounds? Like, come on.

Who's helped?

A lot of these, I hate to give you these answers of it depends, but I honestly could, you know, look at you with a straight face and I tell you I train everybody different and I just go off their feedback. And that's why, you know, I try to— I've written a lot of books that are long and stuff because I'm trying to put all my thoughts into paper. And, you know, sometimes it turns out to be 500 pages. And that's really how it is, is I'm just adjusting to people's feedback and I don't like operate off of one set of rules. That's why I learned from all these different disciplines like, you know, bodybuilding, strongman. Right now I'm reading a book on the psychology and physiology of warfare. I just try to learn from all these different sources and get people the best results. I don't have, you know, like a Ten Commandments of training type of thing where, you know, if, you know, hanging upside down doing bicep curls from the ceiling would get you bigger biceps than you wanted, that's what we do. It's just about getting people the results they want. Yeah, absolutely. Not following rules.

How often for you do you implement strongman training, say, with a powerlifter? Because obviously if they're always doing the same lifts, do you find they get niggles and things like that? So then obviously strongman training just to mix it up.

I think it's, I think it's, um, as long as they're athletic and you pick the right events, it's great in the offseason. So the ones I would, I would like avoid a lot stones. I mean, I got some people do stones once in a while, but that can be a bicep or, you know, tear pretty— tires definitely avoid because I've seen, I've seen, um, that's the most common besides deadlifting with your supinated hand. The most I'd say I've seen more biceps torn on tires. A lot of biceps torn on tires. I've gotten way less gung-ho on tire flips because of that. I mean, I think they're awesome, but like, that's, that's the potential, you know, if someone bends their arm or whatever. That being said, like yoke, farmer's walk, you know, things like that are awesome in the offseason. And even sometimes if someone's not like super advanced as they're prepping for a meet, you know, because you think about it, what's, you know, how, how, what better way to, you know, work your grip than a farmer's walk? You know, core stability with the, and just handling heavy weight. We're talking about building ligaments and tendons. I mean, people, you know, that, you know, squat 500 pounds can do an 800-pound yoke with some practice. So, you know, it's a great way to do it. And so offseason mostly because I think it's a, you know, they'll do like, you know, different phases. Like you might do like more bodybuilding type phase, more strongman type phase, you know, either 2 to 3, like 3 or 4 week blocks type of thing. That, and then sometimes even, you know, I want— we got good results with one of my top deadlifters. We did a lot of heavy sled drags pretty much all the way up to the meet. I think it helped a lot with his leg drive, and he went from, you know, 804-pound PR to an 848, which at that level you're going from like really good to one of the top in the world.

How long would that sled drag be?

It was about 20 yards, so the big thing is about like, you know, 18 meters or something about that.

So not too far, more just about explosiveness.

Yeah, I mean, it got pretty heavy, so it wasn't really like super explosive, but he was driving with his legs big time. And also holding on to the end of that, you know, because I'm talking about backwards pull, is, you know, it's tough on your grip. I actually— the video's not out yet, but we filmed a video today. I was putting a bodybuilder through that. He'd never done that before, dragging a sled backwards, and it was amazing. You know, they do all this stuff with like, you know, I'm gonna do 200 total leg extensions, you know, to go to failure, rest 10 seconds to get 200, that type of training. And then a sled drag, you know, 24 sets of 20 yards with a minute break in between, a heavy, you know, beat them down like a red-headed stepchild. So I mean, it was pretty crazy. All right, that point is what I'm trying to say is like not staying to like a certain amount of rules that are like, you know, that are there. I mean, because this this would work for him. Branch Warren only dragged sleds before he got his pro card, you know, because they told him he was bottom heavy. So prepping for his pro card, he never squatted once. He only dragged sleds. And any— and like, his legs didn't get much bigger, but they were super shredded. So I think there's, you know, and I went off on a tangent that you didn't ask about, but I think that's— we got to remember is there is some sort of, like we're talking about strongman would be in sort of this cross-disciplinary thing we're talking about here.

Now, that was very insightful because it's a good way to get the pressure off someone's lower back as well. So obviously you want to get their deadlift up. What's another way that you can get it up? The sled drag is a fantastic idea.

I think that's a good point, your lower back, because I mean, you can do them so heavy too. Yeah, You know, it totally takes the stress off. And another one you can look at is only— there's no eccentric to it. So, I mean, unless you're going down a hill or something, which you wouldn't want to do, but, you know, there's— so you can do it more often. So if you're trying to bring up a lagging body part and you want to train with higher frequency than you normally would, you know, you could do that with— for your triceps, you want to do overhead extensions with a sled, you could do backwards, you know, because there is only concentric. So you can do it a little more often because you recover a lot faster.

Yeah, that's awesome. What's your go-to exercises to get guys' lower back strong?

I like— I'd have to show you a video. There's one exercise, the Hatfield back raise. Kind of hard to explain here. I got a video of it though on YouTube. Then I got— I like the— have you ever seen— you know what a deadlift piper is?

Is that like basically you're doing a deadlift on a hyper? Is that exactly?

Yeah, exactly. 45-degree hyper. Yeah. Good mornings. And then of course, obviously, you know, deadlifting, but I assume you're saying like to help increase it for the deadlift.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I think like a lot of these strongman events, so I mean like, you know, obviously, you know, you're a yoke and stuff, so your entire body's strong, but if you're you know, moving with, say, you know, like, say, 1,000 pounds and you're deadlifting 700, obviously your lower back's going to get stronger from, you know, all the downward compression of that 1,000-pound yoke.

Yeah, heaps of goodies there. Thanks for that, George.

No problem.

Who's helped you the most with your understanding of how to get someone next level strong?

I would say with strength, it's a lot of people, so I've had a lot of help from people. Fred Hatfield would be one of my mentors. A lot of people I've trained with over the years, like a guy named Steve Hall who got me started, Odd Haugen, all sorts of people I've trained with over the— all my sort of training partners over the years. I trained with Paul Winter, Nart LeBar, Yorba Linda Barbell Club, Gary Frank in Louisiana. So all those people were super helpful on like working with them. Reading-wise, like I didn't know Fred Hatfield. We started doing seminars together all the time now, so I know him now. But like reading-wise, him. Reading-wise, for a lot of my hypertrophy stuff, I learned a lot from Charles Poliquin. Then, you know, also strength stuff from him, but a lot of the hypertrophy stuff, I felt like he was by far my biggest influence on that side of stuff from not knowing him but reading all his stuff. Now I know him, but like I read all of his stuff. In person, it would be Brian Dobson at Metroflex Gym who I trained with. So yeah, I'm definitely not a lone wolf here. I think Anybody to get anywhere is going to have to get some help from people, and I'm fortunate to have gotten really good help from really good people.

You've written quite a few books now. Are you currently working on one or looking at releasing one soon?

I just released one actually. I released one last month. It's called Built to the Hilt: Strength and Power Edition.

Okay, that's the new version because I've got the original.

Yes, it's so— it's nothing like it. So it's not like if you like bought the old one, it's all the same. There's like, you know, a strength program instead of a bodybuilding type one. It's a totally different book. So that's people— that's only, you know, that's one thing people have been asking me, is it like kind of— no, it's totally different. If it was called like, you know, Strength and Power, blah blah blah, that's all it's about is strength and power. In getting stronger. It's a heavy focus on powerlifting, a lot of stuff on strongman. There's not so much on Olympic lifting, but there's a lot, like a large section on plyometrics, compensatory acceleration training, all that stuff. And it's about 500 pages long. It's a very long book, and it just came out, and it's got— so far, I mean, the reviews have been better on it than the first one. I thought, see, I always thought My best books were Built to the Hilt for somebody that wants more science, and then Jailhouse Strong for somebody that just wants to, you know, something that's not written out like a real scientific level, just wants to get after it and do it, be entertained while they're reading. But a lot of people, the reviews have been astounding, so it's not really my opinion what matters, it's what people are saying.

They're really liking it, so I'm happy to hear that because I really like the Built to the Hilt, the original one, because it's almost set up like a resource. You just kind of, you've got the contents and then you just go to what you need at the time, which is awesome.

That's exactly how this would be. So if you just wanted like, all right, how do I get stronger in 12 weeks? I don't really want to learn anything. I just want to flip open the— there are programs in there, but I don't think you would, you know, this would be the book for you. It's if you really want to like, you know, there is that. So if you wanted to just get stronger, you could script straight to the programs and do that. But there's a lot of like the why on how to do this and like the advantage of like different types of periodization and stuff, you know, like so I try to keep it really like, you know, I'm gonna tell you what I do and then the scientific side of it that's in there is going to be, you know, not— there's no agenda there. It's just trying to find, you know, what's the truth to get people stronger. That's why I purposely don't like come out with one training system so I have to like and prove it's right. I don't want to do that. I'm looking, you know, like what Charles Poliquin, Fred Hatfield, like people like that are always looking to get better, the best results, not like have a system and somehow like, you know, use pseudo-proof that it's actually true.

Yeah, I think understanding is the most important thing because the more someone understands, the more, I guess, believing of it they're going to be because they're like, oh yeah, that makes sense, rather than just telling someone what to do.

Yeah, I agree. That's how I think too, but there are people that don't think that way. So that's why I've done books because, hey, if you don't really care, you're like, I don't really care about this crap. I just want to know what to do. I have no problem with that and there I have resources for you. So those would be the case in point example that would be like the Jailhouse Strong Interval Training book. All it is is a book of interval training programs. So there is like a slight intro and stuff, but like if you're like looking to know like the ins and outs and the science of it, you know, that wouldn't be the place to go. If you were about to do like a thesis on it, I wouldn't recommend you buy it to like make this a resource for your thesis. But if you're looking at like enough interval programs in a lifetime and just see what to do, then it's going to be the best $9.99 you ever spent in your life.

Yeah, I was very happy with it. So, um, highly recommend to anyone listening.

I appreciate that.

Okay, thank you, Josh. How can we keep all these strength tips and insights coming people's way? Like, do you have— what's best for you?

The best way to keep this coming is to go to my website, joshstrength.com, and sign up for my newsletter. It's free. There's no obligation. You don't have to do anything. You don't ever have to do anything. You should put your email address in. I send out the newsletter. I'm on social media quite a bit. My Instagram is Jailhouse Strong. We're always posting stuff of, you know, of various lifts and stuff. Facebook's the Josh Strength Method. I can't add any more like friends on my maxed out, but I have a big Facebook page called the Josh Strength Method. And then on Twitter, my name's Josh Strength. So that's the best way to, you know, connect with me. And of course, if you're like looking for coaching or something, You can get directly through my website. We obviously wouldn't tweet back and forth about that, but that's the best way to get a hold of me.

Awesome. With the Facebook, you don't have a fan page?

Yeah, Josh Strength Method.

Okay, so people should be able to like you on there and follow you that way. That should be good.

100%, yep.

Awesome. Thank you very much, Josh.

Thank you, Rhys. I appreciate you having me on here. It was nice talking. You seem like a really smart guy. Impressed.

Cheers. Thanks, Josh. Look forward to talking to you in the future. Okay.

And hopefully come to Australia one of these days.

Yeah, for sure.

Great podcast there with Josh Bryant and Reece Adams representing the Enterprise Fitness Podcast. Guys, if you haven't already, do subscribe to us on iTunes, like us on Facebook, and please, please, please share it on your social media places like Twitter and Facebook and take a picture of, of the episode you're listening to and put it on Instagram. But also do leave us a review on iTunes to help our ranking. I mean, if you love it or hate it, let us know. We love feedback, we love improving. And if you have any suggestions for the show, any questions for us, want any information about personal training with us, courses that we run, want to do a consult with one of me or one of my fantastic team members, email info@enterprisefitness.com .com.au. Our hotline is 1300 887 143. Phones have been ringing off the hook, so preferably if you have an inquiry or a question, do email us at info@enterprisefitness.com.au. Got a fair few shows up now for you guys to look at and listen to. If you like the backing track, this backing track is the official Enterprise Fitness theme song and anthem produced by my buddy Jamin. And on the song that we're releasing, Prodigal Son from the Wu-Tang Clan and Sons of Man raps on it, and it's absolutely superb. When you guys listen to it, you know, you can know it's the Enterprise anthem, that's for sure. So until next time, folks, train hard, eat well, and supplement smart.