S6:E2 - STOP! Making these training mistakes - Training Mistakes Competitors Make

So are you looking to train for a comp, to get in the best shape of your life, to have those capped shoulders, the big booty, the dissected abs and chiseled midsection, pecs that are popping, big boobs, big boobs?

Please leave your abs inside the skin, inside your body.

Then this podcast is for you. We're going to be talking about training methods across the board, but specifically hypertrophy and getting in shape for for a comp. This is a topic that I have a lot of, I don't know, rage towards.

Yes, why rage?

Why rage? Because there's so many fucking idiots who talk about this topic. Well, just, uh, we're just talking about nonsense. What nonsense? Tell us the nonsense, Mark. So lat pulldown doesn't build your lats or your back. Deadlifts don't build muscle. You know, you should just say that because it thickens the midsection.

Deadlifts thicken the midsection, they make you blocky. All right, yeah, yeah, okay. Deadlifts.

What else is there? You shouldn't train— don't squat. There was a bicep thing that I saw.

Oh, barbell bicep curls.

Don't do barbell bicep curls.

Dumbbell rows.

Wow, the list goes on.

So the list goes on and on.

And there was one about squats too.

Everything, everything.

There's something like, if you, if you searched enough, you could find a nuance about every exercise and why it's bad.

Just pick an exercise you don't like and you can find out why.

You'll find an excuse. They're all excuses.

Correct. So people have a weakness and they turn that weakness into a fact, and then they walk around that fact like it's conviction, and then they present it as a theory because they have a weakness. They're weak. They don't like deadlifting. They don't like squatting because it's fucking hard. It's hard to take a set of deadlifts to failure, or that rep before. It's hard to take a set of squats to failure and go heavy week after week. And then they say, oh well, you know, it's not that good of an hypertrophy exercise anyway, you know, leave that to the powerlifters. It's like, come on, man.

I heard that from Amy. That was How was your squat, Amy?

I don't comment.

Well, that's just leg press. It's just easy. Well, you want a leg press because it's easier, right?

That's why you want a leg press. Well, yeah, because you can like that— the meme— outrage.

Yeah, outrage.

There's the meme. It's just like, well, because you can put 400 kilos on a leg press, right, and make it look good, but you can't put 400 kilos on the squat. Yeah, yeah. Okay, look, one is a bit more neurally taxing. Tom Platz can. Well, or Ed Coan can. And Ronnie Coleman.

There's always an exception, all right?

Yeah, there's always an exception. And look, and look, look, look, look, look.

And fundamentally, I mean, if you look at their size of their legs, Well, yeah, massive.

It's like you say, look at the biggest deadlifters in the world and have a look at their back.

Amazing. Amazing. They have muscles in places most people don't have.

They have backs on backs.

They have backs on backs.

But, you know, and look, look, some keyboard warrior saying don't deadlift for hypertrophy. Man, I got that. I put up my deadlift video the other day and when I did 194, and I won, I got a comment of I was an idiot because I wore straps. And then two, I was like, "Man, it's like 190 kilos." Like, "For reps." Yeah, for reps. And then two, the other one was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, more grip strength. Then the other one was like, the comment was, "I'm a clown because I didn't have a belt on and I was deadlifting in socks." And I was like, "You're right, I shouldn't have been in socks, I should have been barefoot. It enhances proprioception." And I'm like, "What?" I'm like, "That's okay, if you need a belt, right, to band-aid your shitty brace go ahead. I don't need that, not yet. Yeah, but anyways, that's ranting.

Well, I use a belt. I like a belt to just stiffen up that brace and really get into that position.

Well, to be fair, you have told me to use one, and I just—

yeah, well, it's just I find I can get into a better position with it. But the point is, we deadlift. The point is, we squat. And I know I've personally found— I used to compete in strongman. I, I did a lot of strongman training, um, back— was like 10 years ago. And I found that the muscular development, particularly in my erector spinae, just really like the back thickness and fullness from that training. There's nothing quite like it in terms of bodybuilding, traditional bodybuilding methods that you're going to get other than lifting heavy-ass weight. Because I mean, you think of it like this, right? People would say an iron cross, you know what an iron cross is in gymnastics, right? That's not a good bicep exercise. Why would you do that for hypertrophy? Well, the thing is, when a gymnast— I mean, number one, the best bicep award goes to gymnasts, not bodybuilders, if you've seen biceps peak of their— and they don't do any direct arm work, they do straight arm work. You used to be a gymnast, right? Exactly my point, you have amazing abs. But the point is, is because the bicep functions as to resisting load so the elbow cannot snap, right? The bicep has to get strong at that peak. So there are elements— I'm not saying don't do a bicep curl or bicep curls are bad, but what I am saying is that there's a part of training, when we look at hypertrophy or wanting the body to, to develop muscle, we need to look at it as structure first. And then if we want structure over that structure, we need to put muscle over that structure. But there are movements that allow maximal overload or loading on joints that you wouldn't normally get from a normal traditional, say, for example, a leg press versus a squat. You're going to have a lot more torque and load through the whole body in general on a squat. Through all the joints, and you're going to get muscle development in places where you're not going to get on a leg press because the range is shorter. So, I guess the point training things, and there is now studies coming out showing that end range training or training the body at that end range has a great application to hypertrophy and much more than people previously thought because they thought, well, you just have to train overload, it's all about load and stimulus, but it's not. When you train end range and you train proximal failure, you get even more development. But obviously training at end range and proximal failure, you don't want to be training end range with proximal failure because when you're at end range, you have a higher degree of injury. So you need to then decipher, and this is where I think people go wrong, is they can't decipher, okay, this is end range and we need to be careful of when we go to proximal failure at end range versus this is mid-range and at mid-range we can absolutely go to proximal failure. And then there's the other element of movements that have high demand on neural activity, which just take longer to recover. So for example, a deadlift. Yes, you're not gonna take deadlift to proximal failure or to that absolute failure, 'cause it's gonna be breaking down. You're gonna use, I know this is a big topic, but I got a lot of rants, a lot of steam.

No, no, well, I was just gonna say that like, as a disclaimer too, and that's where it comes down to exercise selection during comp prep, and it, which touches back on our other nutrition video, we go, okay, Your exercise selection should also mirror where your nutrition at the same time. Like, you're in the back end of comp prep and, you know, you, you, your calories are low and you're getting really lean. Picking those exercises like a deadlift or a squat that are going to be a lot more neurally taxing and going to take a lot longer to recover when you haven't got enough fuel from food coming in to help and aid that recovery, yeah, they're not going to be the greatest exercise to pick. But at the start, when you're full of food and you're trying to get strong and you're trying to put on a bit more size, like, get those deadlifts in there.

Are you saying that diet and nutrition need to be thought of as the same? What?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry, sorry. What I meant to say is, hang on, let me just go print off the same thing that I did for the last 4 competitors and I'll give it to you.

Just make sure you take the name off.

Just white out. I don't even change it on the laptop, just white out. But then that's where, like, exercise selection, like, deadlifts are bad. It's like, well, they're only going to be as bad as you can't recover from. And it's just like any exercise at the same time.

I think when it comes down to like how you train as well, I think your first workout that you do at the start should not be the exact same workout that you do at the end. And that's where it does come down to, as you go through comp, your training is going to change just like your nutrition. Everything changes. It's not you start at one point and you end at the same point. It's going to be different.

You went on this journey.

Oh yes.

Do you want to talk about that?

I have. Actually, funny story. When I worked, when I first walked in this door, I got under a bar and Tyrone, my coach, says, all right, this guy, this guy over here, oh, let's warm up at 20 kilos. No, it, um, warm up, warm up, uh, no, this is going to be working set. He's like, as if, come on, just get under it.

This is after I just pressed 15 kilo dumbbells on a flat bench the week before.

I'm like, oh, She can press 30, she can squat 30, right?

That's what made you want to train her. It's like, oh, strong, strong, I like this. Yeah, but gymnasts aren't good with their legs because they're used to rebound. They don't build the strength the same.

Biceps great, squats not so. Yeah, so I walked in and 20-kilo bar on my back and I got to about 5 reps and almost collapsed under the bar. Yeah, okay, that's not a warm-up. Yeah, no, it's not. So yeah, like going through where I was when I walked in that door, 20 kilo squat was like hell for me. And then now looking at how we have programmed our training throughout the time, like now I'm able to squat, might not be my strongest lift, but 40 kilos. It's double from when I walked in here. So for me, like—

How many reps?

Oh, way more than 5.

Think about 12 now.

12 reps now.

In a tricep. It's like squat more than 40. Yeah, yeah, 40 in a tricep with hack squat.

If you had actually a strength phase, you'd probably have like 60, 70 maybe.

There'd be a little bit more on there. But, and hey, well, the point is now the 20 kilos, which is what we've also done.

We have, we've been through some strength phases along the way, like not only, well, I mean, more after your last comp prep is where, you know, we've, we've really focused on, you know, we've done some strength phases through squats and your deadlifts and stuff like that.

Oh, absolutely. Like, it changed, um, from the day that said, the day that I started is not the same workout that I'm doing now, like a year later. One, you'd hope you're stronger And two, you'd hope you progressed as well. Like it's not gonna be the same workout day in, day out. Yeah, you're gonna do the same movement patterns, very similar programming, but the idea is to progress. It's not to stay where you are. You wanna look better, gotta lift stronger, build more muscle. It's always gonna change. It's always changing.

And I think exercise selection, say for you, you're not, 'cause your levers, you've got a long torso, long legs, I don't think you'll ever really enjoy squats the way someone like a Jack or a Matty Crooks would. Just, they've just got pretty short legs. You're a good squatter.

Yeah, I just don't like it. Yeah, I like deadlifting, but I don't like squatting.

Yeah, whereas you and I get that front squat position where abs have to engage.

Actually, front squats look good the other day, just FYI. It's on YouTube. And the tsunami squats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're really good. Um, but what we're gonna like —And that's what we're saying, you know, with nutrition, with training is, yeah, you're gonna have the same movement patterns and yeah, you're looking for that constant progressive overload and you want to train to proximal failure, but you need to, exercise selection is important from a mechanical, biomechanical point of view, because you need to look at how, you know, squats are never gonna be Amy's best lift, right? But at the same time, we need to look and go, okay, Is it applicable now? Yeah, great. We're in an off-season, we can squat. But as we get to the deep, you know, deep into comp prep, I'll probably pull it out and I'll probably put it on more on the hack squat just so it doesn't have to think about stabilizing and doesn't have to think about, you know, just— and it's not as neurally taxing.

But the squat also, for someone like me and Amy, the squat, because for me it's my range of motion, a few of your levers, because we can get so much out and range of motion through a squat, we can really recruit a lot of muscle in that and create a lot of damage in a good way that can definitely help hypertrophy, especially if you get us up on a board or that front squat position where we can load quite—

Might I add that 20-kilo squat I did when I walked in, I was sore for about 2 weeks. It was 5 reps, but it killed me. So yeah, it was, um, it was a shock. But I think also when it does come down to competing is too, like, what are the judges looking for? As well. When you compete, they're looking for that symmetry, they're looking for that even split, upper to lower body, small waist. And everyone that walks in the door is gonna have a different body shape, a different level of muscle mass. So really catering your program for how someone looks is so, so important. 'Cause when you get on stage, they want symmetry, they want everything to be even, looking good, popping. And if someone comes in and they've been squatting their whole life and they've got great legs, and then they get on stage and they've got no upper body, well, what's the point in that?

Well, that's what you need to look at, and you need to pick out the weak spots. As soon as someone walks in, first thing you need to do is, you know, you need to do that. What, one, if they're competing, one, it's a structural assessment, because that's, you know, I don't know, I still don't understand how you don't program without a structural assessment anyways. Don't get me started on that topic.

Don't get me started on that topic.

And then, and then two, you know, you need to pick out and go, well, What are your weak points in for what you want to compete? You know, we need to look, you know, for females, we need to look for that X-frame, you know, whether it be bikini, fitness, figure, yeah. And you know, guys, you want to look for that upside down sort of a Dorito, um, hide their legs. Yeah, well, if it's physique, then you know the legs don't matter too much, but you know, you still need to train them. But at the same time, that's where you need to pick out both. You need to then program and go, okay, structurally this is what we need, which is then going to enable you to look better. At the same time, you're going to put more mass mass because you're not going to have to be wasting time overcompensating and not hitting what you want to hit. And then we need to pick on the weak points and go, okay, we can do a little bit extra. We'll sprinkle that through and go, okay, you need a bit more delts, right? So we can sprinkle some more lateral raises in throughout the week.

Absolutely. On top of, on top of your structural—

little sprinkle.

I like a big sprinkle.

Protein synthesis is rate limiting, which basically means that if you want to prioritize a body part you do need to prioritize a body part. So I know for me, for example, when I wanted to really focus on arm gains and when my arms were probably at their biggest, I was training arms 3 times a week and less legs, less of everything else, to prioritize protein synthesis for my arms.

Does that sound familiar, Amy?

If you're, if you're going in twice a week legs and training legs and destroying your body and then expecting you're going to do this massive and amazing and your body's going to be able to recover because It's not just about how hard you train. It is about how hard you train, but it's also about how well you can recover from that hard training. And this is where sometimes you need more rest because protein is rate limiting on nutrition, hormones, genetics, all those other things. Only if we all had the myostatin gene.

Well, but you gotta remember, like, you only— you know, that's where you're gonna grow as well, when you recover. 100%. You're not recovering, then you're not gonna— you know, if you haven't got enough energy and calories coming in, then you're not gonna grow. If you're not recovering, you're not sleeping and recovering properly, then you're not gonna grow. Then you just pretty much can be stagnant. And any training program is probably not gonna be great anyways.

I think that's the biggest thing that I see as well. Like I have two girls that are about to step on stage in 3 weeks. And again, they walked through the door and both of them were like hip thrusting, for example, like over 100 kilos. And they were squatting body weight. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then I went to upper body and they were pressing 5 kilos. And I went, well, you don't need to do legs. We need to pull back some of your volume and we need to focus on their weak spots, which was their upper body. So I think when people walk through the door, they just think, I'm going to get this like, you know, one-size-fits-all approach. And it's like, well, that girl who's squatting 100 kilos and pressing 5 kilos, like, if I keep pushing her legs, man, she's going to be a great wellness competitor. Like, she's not going to be a bikini girl. It's just, it doesn't suit the criteria. Too bottom heavy, not enough top.

I seem to get the opposite because you're the second, you're the second female competitor I've had where it's the opposite. Amazing upper and low pull. I mean, look, look at Ree, who was trained for figure, and yeah, we went through like, we went through COVID and everything and all the lockdowns, but, um, we spent a lot of time just doing legs.

A lot of time. Yeah, levers as well.

Yeah, yeah, levers, like, oh man, I remember like Yeah, we did a lot of legs and we did a lot of structural work, and that's where it was important. Well, because, you know, from a structural perspective, she didn't move that well, you know, in the lower body as well. So it was, how can we get her moving better? It wasn't perfect, and it was never perfect in the end, but I think we had to get her front squatting in the end.

Yeah, that brace always.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, without everything falling down like a sack of potatoes. Yeah, but her legs grew, and then it enabled us to at the start where she would get so sore from one leg day, we ended up doing, I used to utilize the Toronto method where we did legs 2 days in a row, just to help try and bring up her lower body. Worked? It worked, it worked, it worked. There was a lot of, again, it's one of those ones where, you know, people underestimate time, building muscle takes time. And it is, Off topic, but a big point, you know, when people walk in like, oh, but will I look better if I do it in 6 months or if I do it in 12 weeks? Or if I look better, maybe I should just wait till next year. It's like, you'll always look better next year, and then you'll look better the year after, and then you'll look better in 10 years. Well, that's the thing though, that's what training is. You're building a house, you're setting a foundation, and then you're just going to keep adding to this house and over and over. And like, the mansion is always going to look better than the little shoebox down in Brighton.

Absolutely. I mean, muscle building, mass is also a function of the autonomic nervous nervous system as well, in that the more you can rest and relax, the more you can get into that parasympathetic rest and digest to facilitate that growth, the more you can get into that sympathetic and really go and push. And also, the stronger you are, the more your— the ability you have to recruit from the nervous system, the more muscular damage you can create during training. So for example, if you can deadlift 200 kilos versus 100 kilos, while the person who can deadlift 200 kilos, that is far closer to their neural potential is gonna get more muscle gains than the person who's just deadlifting. Obviously within reason, they have to also then marry that strength work up with hypertrophy work. It's 'cause there are obviously lifters who have to stay at a weight category and they stay at that weight category by continuing to do neural exclusive work. But if you took that person who has a very attuned nervous system and got them to do hypertrophy work, they're gonna break down muscle much faster so long as they can recover and build that muscle, they're going to get far better results. So it's where you need, I feel, to really maximize your hypertrophy potential. You know, if we looked at competing as a 12-month cycle, at the start of that cycle, there should be some general preparatory work along with some general strength work, building squats, getting the nervous system capacity up to then go into hypertrophy work, to then go into that real conditioning work where you're doing lots of supersets, triceps, drop setting, whatever it may be. To really break down muscle, to build it back up, and that isolation work as well. But the core of it, the core— I mean, the wider the base, the higher the peak. The core of everything, of starting, is strength.

Yeah, well, I mean, I got nothing to say.

That's pretty much bang on. And also skill work. I just want to say as well, skill, right? Skill. People don't talk about this as well, but, you know, this is where, like, a lot of programs, people put in a lot of exercises to be novel. Yes, there can be an effect, but if you cannot connect your nervous system to that movement or you're inefficient at performing that movement, you're not going to break down as much muscle than a movement that you're efficient at performing or you can maximize on. So it could be something as little as like a tricep pushdown versus like an overhead. Obviously one works long head and, you know, different heads of the tricep, but the point is if you can, if you practice that movement over and over and over and over and get really good at that movement, you're going to be able to break down more muscle than the muscle that, than the exercise that you have you haven't done before for novelty, for example. You are going to get gains from doing novel exercises, but there is something to be said for being— creating neural efficiency at exercises and doing more sets at those exercises to create more damage.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, I've got so many girls that walk through the door and I give them, for example, it's the most common one, like a lat pulldown, a row, and they'll— I'm like, what do you feel in that? Like, oh, my arm, my bicep, or my traps, this, that. I'm like, "Your lats." And they're like, "Huh, what's that?" And I'm like, they're doing these exercises and they don't actually know one, what muscle they're working and two, they actually can't feel it. And so many people that have come through the doors and I'm like, just do a simple movement and they just don't feel that muscle. They don't feel it working. They can't recruit those muscle fibers. So that's where like really breaking down movements, seeing how people move and like where they're going wrong. And trying to help build on that is going to, it's gonna make them look better as well. If they can feel a muscle working, chances are they're recruiting the muscle fibers to build that muscle.

Strip it back, strip it back, skill, then you can advance the exercise. Yeah, absolutely. Once you've learned the skill, so that lat pulldown turns into a chin-up.

Well, then you can do, but then you can also do both at the same time. Like you can do a chin-up on one day and then you can do a lat pulldown on your other back day.

All of a sudden you feel your lats.

Yeah, yeah. What's that muscle? You got some back growth. Wow. Wow. Big backs. Let's do it.

Let's do a brainstorm case study to really nail this home. We get a competitor, gets in the door. Let's say female competitor. They're— they've got 12 months to compete. They're 15 kilos away from their show weight. What phase? How are we starting their programming?

One, how do they move? Good answer. How do they move?

How do they move?

How don't they move?

How don't they move? Yeah, exactly. Pick out the weaknesses, pick out the strengths, and work from there.

So GPP, structural assessment, we look where they— well, firstly structural assessment, see where they're at. Can they reach depth on their squat? How do they function overhead? Squat test, the hip hinge, hip hinge, clap test, what's the knee function like? All of the above. Let's say they get gold stars on everything. Where do we take them? Amazing. Amazing. Usually don't see that.

I'm done, see you later. Yeah, usually don't see that. Job done. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think then depending on their training age, actually, I've got one at the moment. He's not a comp prep, but I've got a client like that at the moment. Walked in the door, did a squat, did a squat. I was like, I'm like, who are you? Yeah, I don't know what to do because this is like a unicorn. I think you can then just move on to a bit more. Yeah, you can start them on like an advanced GPP, and I think any sort of, for anybody, a general preparatory phase is going to be important. One, for not only for you as a coach, but also for you, for them as a client, to get used to you and your coaching and your programming, and to learn, you know, might be, you know, how you implement your tempo or pauses or quarters, things like that. So I think, you know, it's gonna depend how much time they have. How much time they have? Can you train 4 days? Can you train 5 days? Okay, you can train 4 days, let's start with 4. Just letting you know that, you know, you are gonna, you do want to compete, look, I think we will be leading into 5 days, just, I'm gonna give you get you, get you ready, get prepared. We're going to start with 4. Once we've exhausted all that 4 days, let's go into 5. There might be an upper, 2 upper body days, 2 lower body days. And what I would do is if they can do all the above, like start them one day, you'd have a squat day on lower body day. The other day would be, let's say, a trap bar deadlift. Um, and then on same as, uh, upper body day would get them benching, maybe dumbbells, still dumbbells. I still like dumbbells on— I still like bench. I still like— I still like dumbbell benching on the first day, and then just working through all the angles. So whether it be from overhead, you know, so seated shoulder press to 45, 60 degrees, 30 degrees, 15 degrees.

I think what it comes down to is that someone walks in the door, okay, how do they move? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? All right, we've done that. And moving on from there, it's like, okay, now what's, what's their goal? They want to compete? Cool. What category do they want to do? Where are they at? What's, what's the muscle that we need to bring up? Okay, cool. Now let's draw our attention to that. I think competing is about how you look. At the end of the day, you jump on stage, you were judged for how you look. You are paying people to tell you what is wrong with you. Like, what?

Like, what kind of people are they? I hope I look better than the person next to me.

Yeah, absolutely. That's what it is.

But I think it's like you said before, you're going to have those those same movement patterns and those base movements that you're gonna do, it's gonna be your squat, your deadlift, your bench, your vertical pulling movements, et cetera, that are gonna stay the same and you're gonna progressive overload. And then you're gonna look at and go, okay, let's say somebody needs more quads. Okay, how many, let's, we might do it 2 or 3 days a week. We'll go, okay, 1 squat day, 1 hack squat day.

[Speaker] So what you're trying to say is that the Instagram videos that we see, we can't all just do them. And look like a bikini competitor? Fuck. Why not?

If it was that easy, I don't think we'd be sitting here doing this video. I wouldn't have a job. I wouldn't have a studio, would you?

So the thing with the Instagram videos is like what a lot of Instagrammers do is they do a whole bunch of content when they're in shape, save it on their reels, do a whole bunch of photo shoots, and then for like 2, 3 years they're not in shape and they just repost, repost, repost, repost, repost.

They're killing it.

So hey, dude, man, you don't even look like that. Now. Oh, they've just given away my secret on how I give out all my photoshoot photos.

It's like, why don't you post like live training stuff? Like, what would you do? Like, what are you doing right now?

Why I have an oversized t-shirt on right now. Why I have an oversized t-shirt.

Yeah, one thing I was going to add to hypertrophy phases with strength, one thing that I do a lot of is the relative strength phase. I do like the 5x5 to begin, someone who's got, you know, A pluses on all their structure, and then adding with the 5x5 a lot of pauses. So like, say if they're squatting, there's always going to be a pause at the bottom to really hone in. Because again, we spoke before about— yeah, but, but also from an approachery— so it does two things, right? One is that it teaches people the skill, but also two, from an hypertrophy perspective, it increases time under tension. So instead of that squat being, you know, like 4 seconds, it's now 6 seconds or 8 seconds. And people really hate it because the time under tension is so long, but you need that tension in the muscle to really, to really obviously get it to—

Not only that, but also, you know, having those pauses, let's say in a squat at the bottom range, it's going to stop people from just bouncing out and losing that tension. Yeah, that's what the pause is, a lot of the pause there for. It's like, and that's why, you know, yeah, and I'm very much similar where at first, let's say everyone's, you know, advanced, blah blah blah, and you, you know, I'll go anywhere between that 5 to 8 rep range. I still do tempos.

I still do pauses.

Yeah, yeah, for that relative strength. I love relative strength. And you know, 5 reps with a bounce at the bottom is going to get a different stimulus to 5 reps with the pause under control, you know, with a controlled load. That's that, you're going to build different, you're going to build different, different—

The doll is in the detail. Yeah, correct, correct. From the programming to the way you execute, to the way you perform the reps, to how everything is structured, to where, like, every training program where you start and where you end, everything should be sequential. When you look at it in reflective and you go, this is where you started, this is where you end, everything should make sense. Your programming should always tell a story of, you know, if I was to look at someone's program, like you showed me Amy's program, I'm like, oh, this is where she started. Let me guess, you had this, this, this, this, this. You'd be like, you should be able to tell the story. And then you improved and, oh, this is what you did next. And let me guess, the comp was here. You should be able to read a program in a 12-month block and understand where the client journey or where someone was at that period and what they're trying to achieve.

Which is then like, if we look at Amy's program at the moment, we're on the off-season trying to build up, you know, certain areas.

Her most hated body part.

Or her most hated body part. My quads. And we're like, we spent— and that's where, you know, we've programmed for her now and we've gone, okay, we're going to spend— I've actually planned, I actually planned, it was 12 months.

We've got a new hack squat, just, I don't know if you know.

Yeah, I hate it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she knows it, loves it. I know it.

The front squat superset with Leg extension?

Leg extension? Or you got tsunami?

Oh, you just, just name them all.

We've got it all, whatever, whatever there is, Amy's got them all. But like, I've got Amy's, you know, I planned out— we finished comp and went through a bit of a recovery phase, and then I planned out the next 12 months. Was like, okay, this is what we need to build on, this is your weaknesses, this is what we're going to hit. And it was— first thing we did was— no chest, still no chest, still no chest. Still pressing. I'm not sure if you've realized, but you don't get judged on your big pecs when you get on stage. More shoulders. So, and protein's rate limited. Well, yeah, and that's why it's important. You're going to pick out the weaknesses and how Amy moves, or how your client moves, and go, okay, this is what we need to hit and this is how long we're going to spend on it, and etc., etc., etc. And like, Amy's spending 8 weeks on quads, and I think this is First time we've hit quads? Yeah, yeah. First time we've hit quads, we've already hit glutes and hams. And we spent a lot of time just sitting there, just doing the same movements.

Not underestimating the basics too. Like I'm not doing anything fancy. Like I'm not standing on Bosu balls doing squat jumps and all sorts of random shit.

Don't need to, why would you?

Exactly, like it's the basics. It's the basic movement patterns done repeatedly for a long period of time with progression. Volume and intensity.

How many times a week do you have leg extensions? Too many. How many?

How many? 3 times a week.

That's the correct answer. Yeah, so basically, so basically, at the moment, like, Amy's hitting quads. We're like quad specialization phase at the moment, and Amy's hitting leg extension 3 times a week. The first day may be 10 reps with a band. I think it actually is. I think the first day is 10 reps.

10 reps with a band is just not enough.

No, it's not. And then the second day, you got 20 reps? Yeah. And then the third day is 30 reps? Yeah.

Oh wow, don't let me forget it. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. And it's— yeah, on that note, if you want to have some fun on a leg extension, you should reach out to us. Uh, Tyrone, where can the folks learn more about you?

You find me on Instagram, Coach_Folino. So that's C-O-A-C-H_F-O-L-I-N-O. Um, and then you can also walk down to 381 Swan Street and I'll be here at Enterprise Fitness. Drinking coffee. Drinking coffee and training people on the leg extension.

And you can find me at Instagram @amydorrell. So A-M-Y-D-O-R-E-L-L. You also find me here at Enterprise, and I will not be drinking coffee because I don't drink coffee.

And you'll find me here at Enterprise. My— what is it? Instagram. That's the one. Is @markottobre. That's O-T-O-B-R-E. Are you the only one on TikTok as well? I'm on TikTok. Oh yeah, I'm all over TikTok. So make sure you check me out. But we're on YouTube here, so make sure you subscribe to our YouTube for more great videos. Just like this one, hit that subscribe and ring that— I'm waiting for Tyrone to say it—

bell.

Yeah, he always makes fun of me about this, but make sure you ring that bell for our notifications. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube to get all of our updates. Hope you had a fun time watching this. Oh, and stay tuned to the part 3. We've got a part 3 about to come out, so make sure you stay tuned to the part 3. In this one, we're going to be talking all about body dysmorphia issues, the healthy aspect of competing. It's going to be an interesting conversation. So until next time, Eat well, train hard, and supplement smart.

He said it. I thought he was gonna forget. I was waiting for it.