The Jordan Syatt Podcast

The PERFECT Dose for Strength Training, The Science of CNS Fatigue, Calorie Counting vs. 3 Plates and 2 Snacks, And More...

In this episode of The Jordan Syatt Mini-Podcast, I shoot the breeze and answer questions from listeners with my podcast producer, Tony, and we discuss:
- The science of central nervous system (CNS) fatigue
- The psychology of lifting heavy
- Training plyometrics for basketball
- Calorie Counting and My 3 Plates and 2 Snacks system
- The Perfect Dose for Strength Training
- And more...
Check out my episode about when I trained at Westside Barbell HERE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-syatt-mini-podcast/id1348856817?i=1000662175110
Watch my video on Food Noise HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLbvUgwlV0Q

Do you have any questions you want us to discuss on the podcast? Give Tony a follow and shoot him a DM on Instagram HERE: https://www.instagram.com/tone_reverie/
I hope you enjoy this episode and, if you do, please leave a review on iTunes (huge thank you to everyone who has written one so far).
Finally, if you've been thinking about joining The Inner Circle but haven't yet... we have hundreds of home and bodyweight workouts for you and you can get them all HERE: https://www.sfinnercircle.com/

Broadcast on:: 22 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

[upbeat music] - You were born, honey. - What's up, Tony? - Antonio. - Good morning. - Antonio. What's your word of the day? - [speaking in foreign language] - [speaking in foreign language] - Yeah. - What's, all right, so my first-- - I guess-- - I mean, is it a Serbian girl? - No. - No, that would probably be like serbiana or something like that. - Oh, okay, okay, okay. So what is it? - It's a napkin. - A napkin, okay, I like that. - I like that a lot. - Serbianta, you said en la serbianta? - Yeah. - Enla. - No, no, una. - Like una, one napkin, a napkin. - Una serbian. - Got it, yeah. - One napkin, please. - Okay. - I just think it sounds cool. - Serbianta, yeah, it's a cool word. - Serbianta, definitely, it's almost like, it's a little, what's the word? Like, serbianta sounds really cool. And then when you say it's napkin, it's like, oh. (laughing) What a laptop. (laughing) It sounds, yeah, it is, it's a little bit like, oh man, all right, I'm gonna cool. Like, learn this very cool phrase, very cool word. It's like, yeah, that's napkin. But you must feel like a little cool as you're asking, oh, una serbianta, it adds a little bit of coolness to the phrase when you're asking for it at a restaurant. - I think that's just, for me, that's just like, Spanish in general, it just sounds awesome, so. - Yeah, it does. All right, Hebrew one, I'm gonna go with like a small phrase. It's a tikfotzli, which is a-- - Tikfotzli. - Tikfotzli, which is-- - Tikfotzli. - Yeah, so it's a, you know, the phrase in English is like, bite me? - Okay. - Yeah. - Yeah, so it's the equivalent of that, but it doesn't mean bite, it means jump. So it's like, jump me. It's like, tikfotzli, like, jump me. It's like, it means the same thing, but it's jump me. Tikfotzli. - So you were just like walking around the streets of Tel Aviv, just being a menace. - Tikfotzli. - Tikfotzli. - You want this falafel? - Tikfotzli, yeah. - What do we got today, Tony? - Well, it's a Q&A, but I actually had someone write in about language, so I thought we'd start there. - Uh oh. - As a segue, no, it's not a bad thing. - Oh, I assumed that you meant about my cussing. - No, no, no, no, no. - I assumed you, we had someone write in. Like, immediate, I go to like third grade teacher writes home to parents about misbehaving Jordan. Yeah, wow, that's so funny. - That is funny. I mean, you do, I noticed you do get a lot of pushback on using colorful language on the podcast. - On every platform. It's not, it's not like I'm, people think I'm trying to do it. It's not, I don't try, it's just how I talk. But, anyway, what's the message? - Tikfotzli, say it to them. - Tikfotzli. - So, this is from Sandra's Fit Diary. She says, hello, Tony. I started to listen to the latest episode of The Jordan Side podcast, and right at the beginning, you were wondering if there is a German word for father empathy, since I'm German, I have to answer this. There is no word for fatherhood empathy, but there is the term mutter liba. I don't know, mutter liba. - Mutter liba. - For mother love. The first and most important love of a child will experience in its life, so in theory. - No, yeah, for sure. - The equivalent, mutter liba, father love, but it's not so common. And then she goes on to talk about how, you know, traditional gender roles probably put mother love on a pedestal. But anyways, she had a word for it. - That's super cool. That's very, very cool. Thank you for, it was Sandra, it was Sandra. - Yep, yep. - Thank you for writing in. Thank you, that's like super interesting. Danka, yeah, let's go. (laughs) That's very, very interesting. I love that, that's really cool. I appreciate that. Yeah, that's amazing, and it makes a lot of sense. - So, so now that the new thing is, I'm gonna be like, is there a German word for this though? Any time we come up with something. - Now everyone's gonna be writing in. Well, this is the French way, and then this is the-- - Which would honestly be really cool. - That would be really fun, right? Yeah, I'll send you those. - Also, and it reminds me, huge thank you to everyone who has left a review on the podcast. I think the last one we published, we had a number of people go and leave more reviews. If you have not left a review yet, and you enjoy the podcast, it would mean the absolute world to me. I'll say this, if you really enjoy the podcast, please leave it a five star review. They absolutely help the business and the show more than I can begin to express. It would mean everything. Like, we don't do sponsorships, or at least we haven't done them yet, and it knows maybe someday in the future if the right one comes along, but it's not sponsored, and we really do our best to bring the best podcast we can to you. So, if you could go leave a five star review, a written review would mean the world to both of us. So, if you could do that, it would mean a lot. - I just remember, did you do a podcast with Gary Vee? - Yeah, I did it two days ago. It was actually really fun. - A lot. - It was very fun, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really fun. - It's like old times? - Yeah, you know, it was great. So, by the time this podcast goes live, 'cause we're behind, they'll have listened to it already. - Yeah, yeah. - Or, if you haven't listened to it, it's published already, so you can go listen to it. I don't know what I'm gonna title it yet, but I think he was really excited because when the podcast, he had no idea what we were gonna talk about, and I think he assumed it was going to be what he normally does, which is more business related, but once it wasn't business related at all, it was very much about our relationship, his impressions of me, my impressions of him, how we got along, and then how fitness impacted his life. It's a very candid, almost like brotherly-type conversation, and it was very fun. I really enjoyed it. - I really enjoyed it. - I really enjoyed it. (laughs) That's so exciting. - Yeah, yeah, so if you wanna put the link to that episode in the show notes, 'cause it will be live by then, absolutely. - Quick notes. - I know that you, I saw you ask on your story yesterday or within the last couple days for more questions for this podcast, are people asking and they're giving you some good ones? - Yeah, they come in pretty steady. We're like just ahead of the curve. Oh, I also wanted to mention, if you submitted a question a while back like months ago and you haven't heard it, feel free to ping me again. There's a couple that got lost in the shuffle. - Okay, perfect. - Just with my note keeping the way that it's weird, I take like a screenshot, but then I have to go through my photos and I gotta figure out a better way to do this. - Just make it, what I do is I make folders on my phone. So I have one folder for just stuff, an album, an album just for inter-circle screenshots and another one for Q&A screenshots and another one. So just make an album for people's questions. - I love this, solutions, this is what I'm talking about. And if anyone wants to shoot Tony a question, his Instagram handle is in the show notes. You could shoot him a message and you could always bug him about him taking athletic greens and-- - Yeah, I've been getting a lot of those. (laughing) It's been like highest peak engagement. Like Tony, cut it out, stop. - That makes me so happy. That makes me so happy here. - What are you doing? (laughing) - I thought you were cool, man. - Oh, that's so funny. Just my pressure. - Oh wait, what are you drinking right now? You're drinking something that looked, I swear it was saki. That looks like saki. - Oh yeah, so this is like a-- - And by the way, it's 9 a.m., or 10 a.m. your time. (laughing) - This is the game we're gonna play, Jordan, is it saki? (laughing) - Is it saki? - That's such a good, that's a great game that we could play. - When you come visit, we're playing is it saki? (laughing) - Nice, nice, nice. - What is it? - So this is just a matcha tea. - It's your matcha actually. - Okay, yeah, yeah. - But, you know, a while ago, you were like, oh, you would be a green tea guy. (laughing) And you were like, how do you have your green tea? And so like, I had to really do some soul searching after that, and I was like, all right, I've been doing matcha lattes, like, let me just have it on its own. And to like verify, like, do I like this flavor? And the answer is yes. - Good, that makes me so happy. - It's actually a lot easier than frothing the milk and all that in the morning, so it's like a good-- - Oh, good. - Quicker delivery mechanism. - So this is just matcha? - Yeah, just a tea. It's just the powder with tea and-- - But it's a, for a new, 'cause this isn't video yet, sooner we'll be doing videos. It's a teeny, tiny little, like, it looks like a Japanese style, like a miniature miso soup cup that you could be having and oh, dude, it's beautiful, there's flowers on it. It's very zen, and it's like, it's small. It's a couple of thimble sizes. - Looks like a sake glass, yeah. I got these in Tokyo, I got a little set. - Oh, it's a pain tip. - Dude, that's awesome. It's a very like zen way to start your day. - I'm feeling good at it. - How do you make your matcha? How do you do it? You just take the powder and you put it in hot water. - Yeah, no, so you take the powder and you sift it through, like, a strainer, and so a little, it could just be like a bowl or whatever, but it's a special bowl, and then I have this whisker, this, like, bamboo wood whisker, and so I do-- - Oh, wow. - Two tablespoons of boiled water. - Okay. - And then I-- - Two tablespoons of boiled water? - Yeah, just a little bit, and it's just enough to, like, get it to dissolve. - And so the idea is clumping is not desirable, so you just try to make it as smooth and as perfectly dissolved as possible. - Okay. - And so, you know, you kind of work it around for a little bit, and then I pour it into this glass and I add a little more water to get it to this cup and to get it to the amount that I want, and that's it. - And that's the only cup that you have. Like, you don't have a whole teapot full. It's like, it's just that one small little cup. - Yeah, for me, I mean, so matcha's actually, I don't know what the caffeine rating is, but I find it very potent, so I don't use a lot, and it's just me drinking it, so I'm not gonna make a whole pot. - The typical cup of matcha contains on the low end 38, but on the higher end, 176 milligrams of caffeine. So yeah, traditional serving of matcha's about two grams of powder, two, three and a half ounces of water, which is about 70 milligrams of caffeine. So it's about a cup of coffee. - Yeah, it's like a little espresso shot almost. - That makes sense. Okay, that makes sense. - And I think with the milk, it binds with it a little bit more, and there's fats in there, and so you digest it slower. This way it's just like, straight to the vein, buddy. (laughs) - And what's this bamboo whisker that you have? You sort of glazed over that one. - It's like a, if you Google it, like a matcha whiskers, it's basically just like a bamboo with a lot of little tendrils. - Okay. - And-- - Oh my gosh, dude, you are-- - Because it's bungee, they, that's, it's really ideal for just kind of-- - You have like a traditional Japanese matcha every morning. - Yeah. - This is amazing. I love that. That is, yeah, I just Googled it. You know what, you're gonna laugh. I remember watching, what was the movie's name? The Karate Kid? Was it The Karate Kid? - Like it's on. - Ralph Makio, and like in one of the many movies that were made around it, like they went to Japan, and I remember seeing them use this tool. I think it's the only other time in my life I've seen that. So it sounds like a very relaxing, peaceful way to start the day. - Yeah, and it doesn't take that long either. Like you can draw it out and there's a ritual or whatever to that. - Do you do it? Do you do the ritual? - No, I just mean like in doing the action. - Oh, okay. - But like today I was like, oh, should I have three minutes? Okay, so not so Zen. - Yeah, it wasn't so Zen, but I was like, I'm getting my matcha, so I mean it becomes, it becomes as wrote. And I think that's a good point, it's like anything can be very intentional and- - Yes, that's a good idea. - If you have that intention or you can be like stress and in a rush, you choose. - You can have like a very ritual, (laughing) - I love it. - That's fantastic. - What do we got for it? - This is a podcast about fitness, right? - Yes, yes it is. - All right, we should, we should. - Dude, I love the banter back and forth. Like I like the slow star, it's just, I enjoy it. It makes it more fun for me. I've had a very small number of messages being like, I wish you guys would like get into it more quickly, but then I get way more messages from people being like, "I love it, I like the banter back and forth, it's fun." I almost forget that we're recording, which I think is important. - Yeah, that was bad. - It's a much more fun conversation for both of us, so. And if we're not having fun, then we're not gonna do it, we're not gonna stay consistent, so I'd rather make sure we have fun with it as well. - Awesome, awesome, I'm with it. So diving in, this one is from Stacey Wood 336. Hi Tony, I've been an IC member for several years and have loved every minute. I've learned so much since joining and I'm so thankful for both Jordan and Susan. Anyway, I have a question for the podcast and I'm not even completely sure what I'm asking. A while ago, I remember Jordan talking about the nervous system and how when we're really pushing ourselves, sometimes it can kick in and make us feel like we either can't or shouldn't push any harder and should stop. Question mark, like a protective mechanism, but I was thinking Jordan said, we can learn to push through that. Not that we're pushing through pain or any sort, but whatever the signal, the nervous system is sending. Is this even a thing? I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact process of it, but I remember I'm saying it had to do with the nervous system trying to protect us. And I'll interject here and I just thought this would be a cool jumping off point to talk about anything related to the nervous system 'cause I do hear it get brought up all the time. Like your CNS takes a hit when you do a heavy deadlift and like, what does that even mean, you know? - It's a great, amazing question. And this is Stacy, right? - Yep. - Stacy, thank you so much for not only the kind of words, but for your support for being in the inner circle for years, it means everything to me and to my family. So thank you and I'm so glad that you're enjoying it. It's a really wonderful question. It's also, I've found that the nervous system, central nervous system discussion or the terminology is often thrown around in the same way that like metabolism is thrown around. People don't really know what it means, but they use the word all the time. Now I'm not going to pretend like I understand it outside of a fitness context, if that makes sense. Like I'm not gonna pretend like I understand how it interplays with literally any other aspect of life. But I do understand it from a fitness perspective and especially from a strength training and performance perspective. Because the reality is your central nervous system, it plays a role in literally everything you do, everything. So with that in mind, when we're looking at your central nervous system and how it can really impact you, I think from the specific question of like, can you push through it? You can't push through it. Like if you're at a point where you've hit a significant amount of central fatigue, of central nervous system fatigue, that's a point like, all right, you need to pause and you need to either take a break and by a break, it's not like a rest period. It's like you need time away from the gym, from working out or just a serious D-load and we can talk about D-loads if we'd like. But while you can't push through it in the moment, you can cause it to adapt over a longer period of time. And this is another aspect of progressive overload, right? Where I'm trying to think of a good example here. You know what? Here's a really good, another, a good example that is not necessarily all about the central nervous system, but it will help you understand the central nervous system better. If you take someone who is very deconditioned and we could say potentially very overweight, they could get into zone two cardio just simply by getting up and walking. Like they're already in zone two, just simply getting up walking, maybe they're very, very heavy, very overweight, they're very deconditioned, they haven't done cardio in their whole life, just simply going for a walk as zone two for them. But as they do it more and more and more, the same speed of walking is now no longer a zone two. Now they're in zone one. And now in order to get into zone two, they have to walk a little bit faster. Maybe they have to go for a little bit of a longer duration. And then after a while, now even that higher speed is no longer a zone two. Now they need to jog to get into zone two. And then they need to go for a much longer duration to get into zone two. So you can see that this is a form of progressive overload. Oftentimes when people hear progressive overload, they're only thinking in terms of muscles, they're only thinking in terms of strength, but you can progressively overload your cardiovascular system. You can progressively overload your central nervous system as well to get it to adapt, to be able to handle heavier loads. And not just loads, but overall volumes as well. In terms of causing it to adapt, it's funny, it's one of those things where there will be times, especially the more advanced you get and the more intense you are with your training, like you will over train. And it's funny because this is not for the average everyday person, but for someone who's really taking their training very seriously and pushing limits, you will reach periods of over training. And there's even times where that can be even beneficial. There would be times when I was peaking for a powerlifting competition when I would deliberately over train. Not for a long period of time, and it wouldn't be excessive amounts, but I would push myself to the point of over training because then when I eventually took a D-load, there would be a period of what's called super compensation. So you reach this point of over training, you've pushed yourself past a limit, you take a brief D-load, one to two weeks, and then when you come back to training, you actually find yourself stronger than you've ever been, you hit this new max. And so you need to take that rest. You need to take that rest because if you continue trying to push through that over training and keep trying to train, trying to train, trying to train, trying to train, you're actually gonna end up D training. There is potential injury risk, but more your body will not be able to produce the amount of force, it will not be able to perform well. And this is where we see people who are like, for long periods of time, their strength is declining, they're pushing super hard in the gym, they're not missing a single session, they're working super, super, super hard. But, and this isn't just for one workout or two workouts, I mean like over a period of months, we're getting weaker. - This is like, like when you were seven months your deadlift went down. - Yeah, that's exactly right. I was training too hard, and specifically in that situation, and I've told the story many times, I won't say it again, but I was deadlifting too heavy every single week multiple times a week, which was causing me to have excessive amounts of central nervous system fatigue, which was causing my, the ability for my brain to cause my muscles to fire, it was, it was getting detrained, it was not as powerful as it should have been. And it was only when I reduced the intensity to my training that I could then actually produce more force my, I was able to have better adaptations and outcomes with my strength and performance. So, the central nervous system is not something that you can push through short-term, it is something that you can cause to adapt long-term to handle greater volumes and intensities and lows. So, I don't know if that answered the question, but hopefully it gave a little bit more insight into it. - Yeah, no, that's fantastic. It reminds me of an interview I was listening to with Charles Pollacken and-- - Rest in peace, he's one of the original, incredible, incredible coaches in the industry. - Yeah, I've been meaning to get some of his books, but anyways, tangent. But he was talking about, you know, training Olympic athletes, where you have to peek at a very specific time. And so, and one of the things he would say is like, I knew people weren't training hard enough when we were supposed to reach that peak several weeks before the event and they weren't getting a little irritable or depressed or tired all the time or, and it's like, those are the things you're supposed to watch out for, but for him, he was like, I don't want it most of the time, but I want it right at this peak moment. - Yes. - So that I know we're getting to that. - And keep in mind, this is for elite Olympic athletes. Literally Olympic athletes. This is not the average everyday person that is probably the vast majority of people listening to this. This is when you're a high level elite athlete and you, I mean, think about Olympic athletes. It's really remarkable when you think about it because they have to peek at a very specific time every four years. But then when you even break it down even more, it's actually more frequent than four years because there are world championships. - Qualifiers. - So they're like, you have the Olympics, but then you have world championships as well. You have qualifiers depending on the sport. There are certain like how many different qualifiers to have. Like wrestling is always so fun and interesting for me. Like I love watching the Olympic trials for wrestling because you've got so many matches that you have and you like, you don't know who you're facing and your training will change based on who you're facing. It's not just like one event like Bob sled, for example, which I'm not saying it's easy, but with Bob sled, it's like that's the event. Whereas with wrestling or any other sport where you're actually facing an individual, well now you really have to figure out, you have to strategize and your training changes based on who you're facing. So it's the peaking for a high level athlete is an art and science in and of itself. I think one of the greatest books I ever read on this was by Tudor Bampa, Puritization Training for Sports. If anyone's interested in the science of this, and this is a deep, heavy read, I don't encourage for the average individual who's not interested in this stuff, but if you're a coach and you are really interested in high level sports performance, peaking and periodization, Tudor Bampa, T-U-D-O-R, Bampa, Puritization Training for Sports, gives incredible insight into how this, this periodization works. And periodization is a fancy way of saying organization. It's the organization of your training. But Charles, I learned so much from him and I know he later in his career, he did some things that a lot of people weren't happy about, career wise, just like supplement promotion, blah, blah, blah, but no one can take away the incredible body of knowledge and work that he contributed to the industry. It's such a net positive to the world and to the industry. Learned so much from him and he, in what you're talking about is an amazing point where it's like, as you start to be over trained, you get more irritable, sleep is an issue. Also not necessarily like depression, but depressive symptoms, weakness. You see a downturn in performance. And I know for me, when I was competing in powerlifting, if about like a month, like three weeks to a month before my competition, if I wasn't starting to see a little bit of a downturn in performance, it was not a good sign. And then I would go harder, like I would push myself harder, like up until that last point where about two weeks out, then I could start, I could start de-loading and reducing my intensity, knowing I need the super compensation phase. - Yeah. And one more note, you don't train like that at all. - No, man. - No. Right now, I only trained to feel good. I guess it's not fully accurate because I don't always feel good during my training. Like it's difficult and it's intense. But it's funny, there were a number of posts in the inner circle recently of several different women being like, I've been in the inner circle for a year, two years, whatever. And only recently did I really start pushing myself. And like taking it, like I just recently understood what it means to work, like for a set of eight, to have eight reps be really freaking hard. And it's also worth noting that when you're doing like an Olympic sport, like Charles was talking about like Olympic weightlifting or powerlifting, you're often, you're not over-training your central nervous system from sets of eight. You're over-training from sets of like insanely heavy sets of one, twos, threes and fours. Like very heavy maximal effort. And what I actually found was oftentimes it wasn't always the weight that was contributing to the over-training. It was the mental fear, anxiety and stress, knowing that going for that weight puts on you. And this is one of the greatest things that Louis Simmons ever taught me is how to be more zen as you go for a heavy weight. Because the central nervous system stress that you accrue when you're seeing people slapping themselves and getting all hyped up for a lift and screaming, like that's a huge stress on your central nervous system. But if you can approach that heavy weight more zen and calm, the stress that will take on your CNS will be significantly diminished, which is a positive for most people. So if you can learn how to lift heavy and intensely without it taking over your entire soul, I think you'll actually have a lot more longevity and sport and fitness. But as of right now, even though my training can be intense and it doesn't always tickle, I'm not leaving, like I don't have to deload right now. Like I don't deload at this point in my training because I'm not training anywhere near that intensely. And at least definitely not a deload for a pre-planned week or two weeks of deload. If I have a day or two days where I'm really tired, which you know, my daughter is set to be born within about a month or five weeks. - Oh, wow. - Visratoshan, everything will be good. Like if I know there will be times while I'll be really tired and my workouts won't be good, I will have deloads just like I walk in the gym and I'll be like, I'm gonna do my workout, but it's not gonna be a good one. Maybe it's only gonna be 15 minutes. Maybe I'm not gonna go as intensely as I would have otherwise. That's a deload. That's a deload that was a non-planned deload that I went in and now I have far less stress in my body, my central nervous system. And so I might have needed that in the moment, whereas when I was competing at high level and powerlifting, well, I would have pre-planned deloads prior to competitions that would last a week to two weeks because I knew that I needed that time in order to supercompensate. And supercompensate is a way of saying you are going from a period of overreaching is what it's called. So you overreach, you over train, and then when you deload, your body will actually supercompensate and you will reach a new level of strength, ideally, that you have not seen before, which is funny. If anyone's ever been training really hard, then they go on vacation and they come back and they're worried, oh my God, I'm gonna lose strength. And all of a sudden, like they're lifting heavier than they were before vacation. Mazeltov, you're just supercompensated. - It happens to me every time I come back. - It's so funny. - Yeah. (laughing) - What that usually doesn't happen for is cardio-based training. Cardio-based training, you'll lose very quickly, which is why you'll often see marathon runners or track athletes, they're still running even often the day before a competition, whereas explosive strength-based athletes, they take a week, seven, 10 days off of training, they might do light movement-based stuff, but they're not lifting heavy a week before their competition, 'cause it's different effects on the central nervous system. - Man, that was awesome, awesome question, Sandra. - Thank you. - Very cool question, again, Sandra. - Of course, Stacy. - You could be in the inner circle. Oh wow, I'm an idiot, thank you Stacy. - No, that was me. - Thank you for being in the inner circle, thank you for your support, and thank you for that amazing question. So this one is from Jeremy Fisher Block. Okay, hey Tony, love the podcast you and Jordan do. I had a question for Jordan that I'd love for you guys to chat about sometime, if you guys think it would be a good topic. I'm an active person. I usually strength train four days a week, play basketball once a week, and I walk 7,500 to 10,000 steps a day. The problem I have is when I play basketball, my body kills after, knees, back, glutes, et cetera. I don't typically get sore from lifting, but basketball just fucks me up. One thing to note, I play basketball somewhat early in the morning, around 8 a.m., so I'm thinking my body could just be tired, could that play a role? I've also tried a million different ways of warming up, hitting the bike, treadmill stretching, active warm-ups, et cetera. Curious if Jordan has any thoughts on this or ideas to help address it. Now, I asked him a follow-up question, just 'cause I thought it would be good to have some follow-up. Yeah, thank you. And, well, I didn't screenshot it, but basically I was like, "Hey, how long are you playing basketball for?" Okay. And he said, "One hour." So I don't know if that's helpful, but then he said, "One more thing I'll add that I'm not sure is relevant or not, but it's something I've thought about." I was severely overweight for most of my life. I'm 5'8" and was up to 270 pounds. Now I'm around 185, but I've always had the thought. Yeah, I know, right? In the back of my mind that maybe being that big for a while could have done some long-term issues to my body. I don't know, just the thought that came up. In my mind, but you and Jordan would know better than me. Thank you for taking the time to read through all of this. Amazing question. I'm actually really excited about this question 'cause I've never discussed this before and I think the answer is gonna surprise you. And this is Jeremy, correct? Jeremy. Jeremy and other listeners. Because this is a topic I don't really discuss. There is a chance that being that heavy did damage, but there's also a chance that being that heavy also actually helped you out now because you've lost so much weight and you've lost almost 100 pounds. The bone density that comes from that is actually really, it's incredible. So your bone density might've actually benefited from that. Now the wear and tear on your joints could have absolutely played a role or could be playing a role. I would be very interested to know what your strength training looks like. The reason I ask is because there's a difference between traditional strength training and there are many differences, but traditional strength training, especially for general population, does not usually include a lot of plyometric activity. Whereas basketball is almost 100% plyometric. There's arguably, sprinting is the most plyometric activity you can do. There's like nothing more plyometric than sprinting, which takes a huge toll on the body. And if you are not trained for it, then it will absolutely wreak havoc on you, especially as you get older, especially early in the morning. And I know he said, I think he said knees, lower back, glutes, all that stuff. So, knee's back, knees back, yeah, these things like ankles, it's stacked against you partly because it's starting early in the morning. You're doing one of the most plyometric activities. Nevermind the sprinting, but also you're jumping and you're juking and you're spinning like basketball's insanely plyometric. There's so much directional movement, change of direction, hard stops. It's very intense and you're on a hardwood surface. Or who knows, maybe you're on concrete even like, you know, whatever it is, it's a lot, it's a lot, a lot, a lot. Now, my recommendation, if your strength training is purely low impact, which would mean like deadlifts and squats and lunges and push-ups and chin-ups, which are all great and should be the vast majority of your training, you would stand to benefit from adding some plyometric work into your training to start progressively overloading and improving your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints ability to absorb force. Because when you're playing basketball once a week, you're having a huge amount of this stress on your body, your tendons, your ligaments, your joints. And if you haven't trained yourself to absorb that force, if your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, your joints, if they haven't learned how to absorb this, you're taking more force and more trauma than you would otherwise. Now, there's other arguments to be made about what muscles need to be worked in order to help protect those specific joints. And we can talk about that, but realistically, good strength training trains those muscles. A good strength training program, it trains your hamstrings, it trains your glutes, it trains your back, like all these things should be taken care of. My thoughts are adding just a very small amount of plyometric work to start learning how to train your body to absorb this force and to train your muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints to be better at absorbing it and stronger while they absorb it, what I think probably help a tremendous amount. You're already doing everything else I would have recommended in terms of waking up earlier, getting a good warmup in, you're doing strength training, you lost weight, like everything else, you've already done all of that, which is why I'm like, this is the very rare scenario in which I'm like, all right, let's focus on the small things. If you were 250 pounds, I would not say do plios. I would say, you should not be doing plyometrics, you need to lose weight. You've already done all that. So with this in mind, you have a more athletic physique, you have a lower body fat percentage. What this practically looks like is, if you're training, strength training four days a week, two days lower, two days up, or I'm just assuming, two days a week on your lower body days, I'd like you to add in two to four sets of some type of plyometric training at the very beginning of your training, immediately after your warmup and immediately before your first heavy set of lower body lifting. - Can you give some examples of what's first? Yeah, of course. - For a metric. - So stuff you'd recommend? - So I'll give some examples and I'll walk through some progressions for it as well. But actually, so I mean, I program this within the inner circle, especially on like the, in some of the dumbbell only workouts, the three day week workouts, but do a little bit of plyometric type work. I don't often do it. Sometimes I'll do it for the four day workouts. Keeping in mind, most of the inner circle stuff is very gen population. So like, I don't wanna overload people. But in those three day week workouts or the dumbbell only workouts, I like having in there because generally they'll have more time to recover from it. And it is adding an important element of fitness and life and health in there, which is this ability to absorb force and to learn how to absorb this high impact on your body. So a very basic, I mean, we could start with low, low, longer duration. A very simple one could literally just be like jump roping as a form of plyos. But let's say you don't have the coordination for jump roping, then you just do little hops. Just do little hops. Now this isn't, there are different types of plyos which we can discuss. Like little hops are very different than sprinting, for example, but if your body isn't good and it hasn't been trained to absorb force and you're going right to sprinting before you've mastered little hops, that is not a good thing. Like you want to get good at absorbing these little hops. So I would say like you could start off with just doing small little jumps. Like even you could add this to your warmup, by the way, before basketball, just do little hops. You could do like two to four sets of, I would say, between starting off with 10 little hops and then progressively working your way up to somewhere between like 30 to 50. It's like bup, bup, bup, bup, bup. And your goal with these little hops is it's not to go high. It's not to be intense with them. It's to try and be as soft as you can on your feet. It's every landing you're absorbing the force, nice and softly. Like trying to imagine landing on eggshells, like boom, soft absorption. Now you have to balance the soft absorption with the quick hop, right? It's a difficult balance, but this is where you begin to develop the ability to absorb force and then create it very quickly. And so this is what I want you to focus on before we go into like box jumps and two broad jumps and all of that. Fricious little hops start getting better at absorbing that force and creating it very quickly, learning how to absorb it. And you shouldn't be jumping high. Just boom, like as high as you would with a jump rope, there's toes barely coming off the ground, pop, pop, pop, pop. And then from there, then you can actually start alternating feet instead of doing two feet at the same time. Go alternate, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Because in reality, when you're running, you don't have both feet on the ground at the same time. You have to learn how to develop that with individual feet. And this is just hopping up and down, but then you can start doing forward hops, lateral hops. - I've been doing side to side. - Front to back hops. - Side to side lateral hops, like you jump over a line. When you first start jumping over a line side to side, do it two feet. And then once you can do two feet, by the way, these progressions, I'm saying it quickly, but you should probably spend like just a month at like two times a week, a month between 10 to 15 hops, like two to four sets of 10 to 15 hops. Then the next month, you might go to 20 to 30 hops. And then the next month, you go 30 to 40 hops. And then the next month, you start doing alternating feet back forth, back forth, back forth, and starting off with like 10 to 15 per leg. And then you progress from there. But then you can do lateral side to side, and then you can do front to back. And every time you change the direction, you're now changing the force vectors. And you're changing the angles that your body is being, it's having force placed upon it. So you can start to strengthen them and learn how to absorb the force in that direction. So then once you've really started to get good at those, then you can start doing a little bit more intense plows, whether it's squat jumps, box jumps, broad jumps. One of my favorites is it's called a lateral heighten. That's like a skater squat, like side to side lateral jumping. Those are really helpful. The most, or one of the most advanced forms of plyometrics is something called a depth jump, which I was literally like, "Should I even say this?" Because for some reason, people who when they're not advanced and they hear that something is advanced, they wanna go right to the advanced one, thinking that it's gonna give you the best results. If you go to a depth jump and you haven't developed the ability to do the two feet hops, one feet hops, like these basic jumps, and you go to a straight to a depth jump, not only are you asking for a serious buck and injury, I've seen people rupture their Achilles doing them, you're also, you're not gonna get the benefits from them because you haven't built up the base in order to actually do it properly. But depth jump is something that is super helpful and would be great from a basketball perspective, rebounding perspective. But I actually, and what I would do before you go to squat jumps and broad jumps, which inherently have more stress because of the major eccentric component, I would go to a box jump for your first progression after these hops. Because a box jump, there's no eccentric or very little eccentric component. You jump on top of something and you don't have to go all the way back down to the floor. You land on top of it and the eccentric is mitigated dramatically. So starting off, and start off with a small box, start off with 12 inches, 14 inches, 16 inches, and then progress your way up until you can go higher and higher and higher. - And keep the reps pretty low on that, right? - Yes. - You can be fatigued on box. - Two to four sets of two to five reps per set, that's it. Yeah, so, and I think adding this into your training, making my way all the way back around should hopefully help you with your ability to absorb force and improve your joints and your tendons and legumes ability to handle a greater load and a greater volume of that throughout the course of an hour basketball. - So, you know, whenever you're playing sports, especially like a team sports, like a soccer or basketball, feel like the competitive energy is high and like you really push yourself and that's a really good thing. - I wonder if him just going to shoot hoops, like half court, casual, another day a week could be another form of conditioning for that. What do you think? - A hundred percent. Yeah, especially if you do like some drills. Yes, casual can be great. It just, like, I know there's different types of casual for different people. For one person, casual could just be going and like, I don't know, they just stand at the free throw line. They want to get a hundred free throws in, like, which is wonderful for your shot, like you're not doing anything for your actual, like, don't joints and tendons, right? - So, you got a jog, you get the ball, right? - Yeah, yeah. But like, whether it's like, maybe go do like a, try and get like 20 layups per side, right? And it's so funny, I'm not a basketball guy. I've coached basketball players, but like 20 layups per side, do different drills, like where it's like crossover drills because when you do a crossover drill, you have, it's almost like you're, that lateral movement, side to side movement, you're getting a little bit of light plyometric in there. So yeah, adding some of that in for sure, I would consider that what's called GPP, general physical preparedness, just getting a little bit of more work in there and improving your joint's ability to withstand that without being super intense and putting yourself at major risk of hurting your knees, your back or something. - Yeah, 'cause it's the once a week also that, for me, we're sort of like a red flag is like, maybe he's not getting enough throughout, like it's all just on one day, which it's just overloading one day as opposed to being spread out, right? - Yes, yeah, for sure. - All right, this is from AKY Gold. Question for the podcast. Is the method of three plates, two snacks, just as effective as counting calories? I heard Jordan talk about how, if you're obsessed with counting calories and it's all you think about, then it can actually contribute to your inability to feel full and satisfied. I've been trying the three plates, two snacks method, for about a week, not long yet. I know a huge factor, regardless of the method, is being consistent. So far, I do feel less hungry than when I was counting calories, but just wondering if it will be as effective. Thank you, Anna. - You know, it's funny, it's a great question. Effective depends on so many different things. Number one, it depends on your goal, right? And so here's what I would say, is if you're calorie counting and the calorie counting, it's different for every person. For some people, calorie counting is amazing and there's no issues with it. For other people, calorie counting can cause real issues with hunger, have some major issues from a relationship with food perspective. I just published a new video on food noise, in which I talk about my thoughts on GLP1s, which I think you and I should talk about. We should do a whole podcast on that. People were really excited about it. Well, let's put the link to that YouTube video in the show notes, just in case, but going back to what I was saying, if calorie counting is causing you to be hungry and have an unhealthy relationship with food, which would inherently make your results less sustainable, then that means calorie counting, in that instance, would not be as effective because your results would not be as sustainable, enjoyable, and you'd be more likely to regain it all back and develop a disorder relationship with food. Now, there's no question that counting your calories is way more accurate from the perspective of, you have a very accurate idea, how much energy you're eating, how much protein you're eating, if you're tracking your fiber, carbs, fats, whatever, you have a very accurate idea of exactly how much you're taking in. But that doesn't always make it more effective, totally depending on how calorie counting affects you and your relationship with food. One of my longtime friends and clients, his name is Rich. I think I had him on the podcast many years ago. Rich, he lost almost 100 pounds with me, just doing the three plates, two snacks method. And it was very effective for him because he's super busy, he's a father, he's a husband. He works in saying hours. He's like, I don't wanna track calories. It's like, it's just not gonna work for me. I've tried it in the past, I know I can't stick with it. So for Rich, calorie counting would not be as effective because he wouldn't do it. And it wasn't good for him. Three plates, two snacks was infinitely more effective and he's kept it off. So like clearly it was more effective. So we have to differentiate between, I think this is what I was trying to get at. There's a difference between effective and accurate. Calorie counting is a much more accurate way to track how much you're eating. But it doesn't always make it the most effective way to sustainably lose weight. That I think is a unique distinction that we have to make. It is three plates, two snacks is a very effective way to lose weight sustainably for some people. Calorie counting is a very effective way to lose weight sustainably for some people. And both methods don't always work for both people based on their response to that individual method. - Yeah, yeah, I can imagine myself loading a plate to the point where it's three meals worth, right? - Yes, which is like, then you're not actually following it. But yes, it's like, if you're trying to, but people do that with calorie counting too and where they're like, well, if they're eating at a certain time, they just don't track the calories, right? Like that's their way, like, oh yeah, like I'm just not gonna track these or they have this food. Yeah, I'm just not gonna track this food. So you can game the system however you want. And if you game the system, then it's not gonna fucking work, obviously. So it's like, if you follow the system, it works. But it doesn't mean that every system is the best system for you. And that's why I ended up coming up with three plates, two snacks. Early on in my career, early on when I was in my young 20s, I said I was only gonna work with people who wanted to count their calories. 'Cause in my mind, I was like, if someone's not willing to count their calories, then it's not gonna be as accurate, which means, which I thought means it won't be as effective. But I realized that when people were, there were a lot of people applying for coaching who were saying, I just, I don't wanna count calories. And I would be like, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna work with you. And I was like, I got to a point when I was probably 24, 25, or I was like, I need to make a change. There's too many people who are not willing to do this. And what I found really interesting is once I started taking them on and then starting them on three plates, two snacks, there were a bunch of people who, after a while of three plates, two snacks, then wanted to try calorie counting, and then it worked. They just needed to have an entrance and an introduction to it. So I was actually preventing people from graduating to another step by not accepting them on. So that's when I created the three plates, two snacks, as like an entrance is another option. And I've been able to help so many more people with that. - Yeah, for what it's worth, I really like three plates, two snacks, as like an alternative to this many meals a day. 'Cause I often think about it in terms of like, okay, like I usually have two meals a day, sometimes I have three. But like, if I'm thinking about like, hey, I've been, I've been eating a lot, I've been, you know, kind of loose with it. You know, it's like, all right, two meals a day tends to kind of get me back where I am. And I'm not hungry, I'm just, it works for my life. But all that to say is a meal, for me, could mean very different things. Like a meal could mean, you know, like a sandwich and a salad, or it could mean like, you know, four bowls of chili, right? Like it's, it's- - Yes, it's a little bit ambiguous. - Yeah, it's a little ambiguous. I like that you specify three plates, two snacks. It feels more defined in that way. - One of the reasons I did that as well is because a meal is very easy to, you could have it on the go, you can, you know, be sort of not present with a meal. It's very difficult to not be present when you're putting something on a plate. Like you have this inherent level of more presence and awareness, sort of making full circle back to what we're talking about at the very beginning, where it's like anything you can be more mindful with. And I've found that many people who struggle to lose weight, they often, they eat on the go without thinking about it. And I really wanted you to say, I want you to think about what's going on in this plate. And I want you to think about the quantities in which it's going on in this plate. And so just by having a plate, and it was funny is like, people, what if I want soup, that's fine, that's soup. But like you could put the soup in a bowl and then put the bowl on the plate. - Bull's that plate, man. - Yeah. (laughs) But it just makes you more conscious and mindful and aware of what you're eating, the portions you're eating it in. And it also will often force you, not always, but it will often cause you to sit down and eat that meal sitting down. Whereas, I don't know, you take it and you're having it on the run or whatever it is. And sometimes you have to do that, I get it. Sometimes it's part of life. But the majority of your meals, I would like to be a more mindful meal. Because that's how you're gonna be, that's how you create more awareness around what you're eating and the quantities in which you're eating it. - Yeah, absolutely. Let's try one more. This one is from Jamil Davis. - Oh, Jamil. - Jamil. - Jamil has been a follower for a while. He's one of the ones that gave me a stern talking to. (laughing) About bringing the powder, so. - Let's go, Jamil. Thank you for talking some sense into Antonio. - Hey, Tony, I have a question for you guys. So if we should ideally hit each muscle group twice per week, then how has Greg O. Gallagher, who I'm not familiar with, AKA Kino body, been able to make gains? He only trains two to three times per week. So he isn't hitting the muscles twice per week. - Yeah, so Greg is, I will first and foremost say, he's another, he's not an OG. He was in my wave of fitness people. And we're not like, yeah, my cohort, thank you, we're like second wave, maybe even third wave. In the online world, I think we're second wave 'cause the first wave was probably around like 2007, eight, nine, and then I came in around 2011, 12, 13. So maybe a second wave. - That's fascinating. I would love to like see a graph. - Yeah, Charles Polyquin was first wave. Polyquin was first wave. Eric Cressy first wave, and actually, you know, Eric Cressy started blogging in 2001, I think. So yeah, anyway, Greg is absolutely, you know, before I even start with Greg, I'll start with you don't need to train your hip muscles two to three times a week to make them grow. You don't need to train them two to three times a week to grow, you need a certain amount of, from a muscle growth perspective, you need a certain amount of stimulus and specifically mechanical tension on your muscles. And if you hit that, they'll grow. Regardless of whether it's two or three times a week, sometimes if you're doing it three times a week, it might actually end up being too much for each of our, have an overtraining stimulus and it might actually prevent you from growing. You don't need that much of a sting. The amount you need in order to grow, your muscles is actually relatively small. You don't need that much. I know people are like, well, how many sets and how many reps? I hate giving that out. There's not like one clearly defined, this is how many sets and how many reps and how many days a week you need to train. You just need to make sure on a very consistent basis, on a weekly basis, you are, if you want a certain muscle to grow, you are taking several sets of that muscle close to failure. If you do that every week, it's gonna grow as long as you're also eating to support that growth. That's it. It's that simple. So you don't need two to three times a week. Just one time a week per muscle group is plenty. Now, there's also a component and I'm very friendly with Greg. I've met him at least once. If you look at Greg, number one, like he's a freak of nature. Just like that dude is insanely shredded all year round. He is outrageously strong, like stupid strong. I think you can do one arm chin-ups. - He's a dude is jacked. - Dude, he's shredded, he's jacked all year round. And he's one of the most athletic people I've ever seen. I think he does like pistol squats with like 100 pounds. He like insane strength to bodyweight ratio. So, and this is also, you know, genetics play a role in literally everything we do. But what I will say, I'm not saying genetics is the sole reason why he looks the way he does. Like he looks the way he does because he absolutely crushes his nutrition. He's dialed with his nutrition. He, I would imagine he sleeps very, very well. I'm sure he focuses on that a lot. In the videos I see of this guy training, he's training freaking hard. When you watch his sets, he's taking his sets sometimes to failure, other times he's very close to failure. But there's no question that he is pushing himself insanely hard when he trains. And as long as he's doing that, he's going to grow as long as he's eating to support it. And if there's one thing I know about Greg is that his nutrition is dialed. Then once you take all of that into consideration, genetics, obviously play a role, which I know Greg would not refute. Greg is a genetic freak. A freak athlete, he's built a huge amount of muscle while staying insanely lean. So all of that also plays into it as well. But the main takeaway here is you don't need to hit a muscle two to three times a week in order for it to grow. Now, for some reason, when people hear like, you don't need to do this in order for it to grow, if I'm talking about strength, people often think, well, then the only goal is strength. If I'm talking about muscle growth, people think the only goal is muscle growth. Muscle growth is not the only potential goal. So just because you don't need to train a muscle more than once a week for it to grow, doesn't mean there aren't benefits from training a muscle more frequently throughout the week for other goals. So I think there are other potential benefits to training more frequently, but there are also more drawbacks to training more frequently. So it's always a balance, there's pros and cons to everything. It's why I offer two programs in the inner circle. We have the four times a week option and the three times a week option. And this is for everything, like we have the four times a week gym option, we have the three times a week gym option. We have those two options 'cause in my opinion, both of those encapsulate the best of both worlds. Three times a week, you train intensely, you hit each muscle group once. You also, you do get mobility work, you get some plyometric work. You get also more freedom throughout the week. You don't have to give a whole 'nother day where you can do something else where you're not in the gym lifting. Four times a week, you get a little bit more exposure to each muscle group where you can maybe spend a little bit more time on whether it's mobility, whether it's on conditioning, on strength endurance. There are pros and cons to both and I think they're both phenomenally effective. I wouldn't choose one or the other. I wouldn't just say one is inherently better than the other. I think if we're going to very, very, very specific goals, then we can start to say, okay, this one might eke the other one out. But the fact of the matter is both three and four times a week work really, really, really well. And also understanding that muscle growth is not the only goal. I think from a strength perspective, endurance perspective, flexibility perspective, there are other benefits that you can discuss in terms of training on a frequency basis. - Yeah, yeah, and at the end of the day, it's like you said, it depends on the goal, but then also the training history, right? Someone who's been training for 10 years is gonna respond differently than someone that's just starting, right? - Correct. - So the amount of frequency, the intensity should change, of course. I think about Dorian Yates. I probably brought this up on another episode, but bodybuilder from like the, with the 80s. - I believe so, yeah. - And like, I think at the time, everybody, you know, the conventional wisdom was you do tons of reps, right? And you do lots of sets. There was just lots of volume overall. And that's how you do hypertrophy as opposed to like strength training, right? And that's still a common held belief. And this guy would do one set as heavy as possible to failure. And that's all he would do. That was his whole training protocol for everything. And he got huge. - Yes. - So, I mean, you know, strength hypertrophy sets reps. Like there's a lot of wiggle room. And I do believe that people respond differently to different types of tricks, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. People respond differently. And you know, man, the individual component is so important. It's so, not only do people respond differently, but we could follow the exact same workout and lift the exact same amount of weight to the exact same amount of reps. And like, I might have one muscle group that gets way more, way bigger and stronger. Whereas you might have a different muscle group that has a, that reaction. So for example, my calves might blow up, but your calves might not. But whereas your shoulders get huge and mine might not. Even though we're doing the exact same workout, the exact same weight, the exact same sets reps, it's the individual factors play a major, major role in this. And people often overlook that. I mean, for example, like we could look at Susan, who's a freak of nature. Susan's also another freak of nature. Like she's insanely strong. She's also outrageously consistent. She was like working out within hours after her hip replacement surgery. Like no one is more consistent than Susan. No one is more dedicated than Susan. And also like when Susan and I work out, like there's no question I'm stronger than Susan from an absolute perspective. But she's way more defined than I am. Like she's way more defined than I am. Even though our workouts are often very similar, I write her workouts. I've written her workouts since 2017. So the individual component is a very important component that so many people overlook. - Yeah, awesome man. - That's it. - That's a good one, yeah. - I'm gonna head out. I've got boxing right now. So I'm gonna head out. - Oh, we gotta talk about that. - We'll talk about that next time. But thank you everyone for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a five star review a written, a written, written five star review would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you, Tony. I love you. Everyone, please give Tony a follow. Shoot him a message if you have any questions you'd like us to answer on the podcast. Have a wonderful week and we will talk to you soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]