Beneath the Barbell
Beneath the Barbell dives deep into the world of strength training, fitness, and nutrition. We explore the science behind building muscle, losing fat, and optimizing performance, with expert interviews and practical tips to help you reach your goals.
Beneath the Barbell
Strength Training Simplified: Alan Thrall's No-Nonsense Approach
Join us on an enlightening journey with Alan Thrall, a powerhouse in the fitness world known for his multifaceted roles as a powerlifter, bodybuilder, gym owner, and former Marine Corps bodybearer. Alan opens up about his unique fitness philosophy centered around progressive loading and diverse exercise patterns, offering listeners a treasure trove of insights into the world of strength training. Discover the balance he achieves between his passion for gym ownership and the honor of serving as a Marine Corps bodybearer, shedding light on the distinct responsibilities and training required for this prestigious role.
Explore the intricacies of building physical and mental strength as Alan shares valuable lessons from his Marine Corps experience and his journey through the fitness industry. Learn practical advice for beginners and seasoned athletes alike, from overcoming the fear of errors in the gym to the benefits of varied training techniques. Alan's enthusiasm for helping others find joy in fitness is infectious, and his insights into conquering self-doubt and setting realistic goals are sure to inspire listeners to persevere in their fitness endeavors.
Uncover the impact of social media on the fitness industry through Alan's personal journey of leveraging YouTube as a powerful tool for gym success. He offers a candid look at navigating the pressures of comparison culture while staying true to one’s fitness goals and aspirations. Whether you're an aspiring content creator or a fitness enthusiast, this episode brims with actionable tips on aligning gym routines with personal goals, avoiding burnout, and embracing the multifaceted definitions of strength. Tune in for an engaging conversation that blends military honor with the world of fitness, all while encouraging listeners to appreciate their unique journeys.
I would do those movements, you know, one, two or three times a week, depending on which movement it is, and I would try to focus on progressively loading the weights over time. Exercises I would include, so, some sort of squatting pattern. The next one would be some sort of hip flexion, any sort of bending pattern, hinging pattern, some sort of vertical press, maybe a horizontal press, and then the reverse of that or the same as that. That, but a vertical pull was. He put a band in a squat rack, uh, you know, horizontally in a squat rack, and then he was doing push-ups on the band. So he's wobbling around and it's just stuff like that that I might see people doing and like, oh, that looks like fun. I'll just try that out before my bench press session to avoid any acute spikes or any acute jumps, rapid jumps in volume and intensity.
Speaker 1:So if you want to be the strongest power lifter, the best power lifter and I don't mean in the world, I just mean you want to be your absolute maximum potential you want to reach that. Yeah, I don't think running is going to help you, maybe a little tiny bit. You have full control over whether or not you show up to the gym. You have full control of your effort in the gym, and then that goes outside of the gym as well. So I think that, stacking those small wins, progress is inevitable. At that point, social media is a highlight reel. It's just. It really is a highlight reel, and there's been plenty of times where you've seen people that you've known or seen online. You see them in person, you think you know you don't look the same.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Beneath the Barbell Podcast. My name is Ammar and today I have a very interesting guest for our first episode. Now, you may know him from YouTube or follow him, or maybe even go to his gym. His name is Alan Thrall and he is a powerlifter, bodybuilder, personal trainer, gym owner, youtuber, influencer, you name it. He was also in Marine Corps and he's named world famous body bearer. Now that's a lot to think about and there's a lot of stuff going on around there. I'd like to ask you what's the most interesting part of your whole career? What is the thing that fulfills you the most?
Speaker 1:Fulfills me the most, it's got to be the gym ownership Because it is, you know, for ever since I've been, you know, an adult, I guess it has been what I've wanted to do, and so getting to do it every day, getting to continue doing it I've wanted to do, and so getting to do it every day, getting to continue doing it and, you know, being successful enough to make a living off of it and support a family, that's certainly been the most fulfilling. I would say the most interesting has probably been some of the things I got to do in the Marine Corps, like you had mentioned, but fulfilling certainly the gym, getting to do that every day, and it makes me happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's also my dream as I started going to the gym, getting to do that every day and it makes me happy. Yeah, that's also my dream as I started going to the gym. I always dreamed of at least having like a home gym that's filled with the equipment I want to have, or own a gym Like. That's been a dream since I started trading, as you mentioned the Marine Corp. I have an interesting question about bodybearer, because you've put that in your resume and I think there's an interesting story behind that. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Marine Corps bodybearers, it's a small group of Marines. It's, you know, 12 to 15, maybe that's it 12 to 15 Marines within the entire Marine Corps. And these Marines we would perform funerals at Arlington Cemetery for fallen Marines, as well as dependents, so wives or maybe even children of Marines, and so that's what we would do every day is just perform funerals of Marines, and so that's what we would do every day is just perform funerals. And the Marine Corps body bearers are a bit different than any of the other branches, so the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, and that we only use six Marines, whereas other branches will use eight. And then we will also do things like we will curl the casket up. It's a salute, but we'll pick the casket up. It's a salute, but we'll pick the casket up to head height and hold it there.
Speaker 1:So certain things like this that we take pride in and it's a reason why the strength standards for the marine corps body bear are so high when in comparison to other branches and so we took a lot of pride in not in you know ourselves in a way, but just pride in our duty and in the fact that we got to represent this Marine in his you know final goodbye of bearing the casket. And so, yeah, the. I would say that the training for that, the, the training you have to go through in order to graduate, in order to be considered a body bear, in order to be accepted as a body bearer, was the hardest training I've ever done in my life. It was more extreme than boot camp in order to become a Marine. It was very, very difficult. So, yeah, I did that for the last, probably the last 18 months of my contract while I was in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting and very honorable line of work, especially in the Marines. I've heard some stories about Marines, I've watched documentaries, but I never heard about body wearers. That's why I wanted to elaborate on that a little bit. As we talk about the strength, it also kind of fits in the story because you had to pass that physical test and, as you said, like for some people watching from sidelines so to say, yeah, what's that, you know just carrying. But there has to be probably a lot of strength training involved in that yes, absolutely, and uh, even more than just strength.
Speaker 1:To get into that, there are stand, there are gym standards, stuff that we can all relate to. You know standard landmarks in the gym. You have to lift this, lift this amount of weight for this many reps. So they have minimum standards in order to even go to training. If you can pass those standards, you can go to the training. And while you're in training, you have to not only be strong enough physically but you have to be strong enough mentally. So the whole point of the training is to break you down and to try to get you flustered, try to get you to lose your bearing. While you're doing the funerals, you have to stay stone-faced. You can't show any expression. If we're carrying a casket and it's a very heavy casket we're carrying for a long distance you can't grimace on your face and you can't show any emotion, you can't breathe and exhale, inhale.
Speaker 1:You can't make all these noises. You have to be as a statue, and so training is really to push you to the point to try to break your bearing. You have to show that you have what it takes to not break your bearing. You also have to have certain things like what's called drill. You have to be able to drill you know up to their standard, which is marching. Certain movements that you do in silence, without a cadence, and if you're, if you have no rhythm, if you're very clunky, if you don't know how to you know if you're marching is really ugly, if those sort of moves don't look good, then you wouldn't pass the training for that anyways. So there's things other than strength, but, yes, strength is an important part of it.
Speaker 2:As we are at the strength part, like what are the most common mistakes that beginners make when they start their journey into strength training specifically? But you can also connect it to bodybuilding, because bodybuilding is closely related to strength training specifically. But you can also connect it to bodybuilding because bodybuilding is closely related to strength training. What's the things you see in your gym as well that people do that they could immediately change and see immediate progress in strength I would say the most common thing is actually thinking that they are being fearful of making mistakes.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes a new member of the gym or just a new lifter especially with all the information online, it's easy to feel like you're not doing anything correctly, oh, I'm not lifting enough weight, or my technique isn't good enough, or am I? What exercise selection, you know, what exercise split, should I follow? Should I do upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body? Should I do both on the same day? I don't know, it's just overthinking things. My technique isn't very good. I'm not going to add any weight, I'll just stay with the empty barbell, and so oftentimes I think that people feel like they're doing too much wrong. So I would say that you know you're not.
Speaker 1:Your first day in the gym is not going to look pretty.
Speaker 1:As long as you're not trying to lift way past your capacity, I think you're okay. Your technique, as you get more comfortable, as you get stronger, as you add a little bit of weight to the bar, all of these things will help improve your experience in the gym. You'll learn a little bit along the way, and what's great for a beginner is that any sort of resistance training you do, if you're just consistent with it, you'll make improvements. So you don't have to worry about all the specifics. I would say that that was the biggest mistake is thinking that they're making every mistake in the book, when I wouldn't worry too much about that. You know, if you go online and you find a few videos or a few Instagram pages that you like and you say, hey, this is pretty good information, just stick with that. You don't need to continue searching about every which way to squat a barbell. Just find what works for you, stick with that for a little while and then, as you get better, you can learn as you go.
Speaker 2:So that's what I would say the biggest mistake is thinking they're making too many mistakes. Yeah, just lift the damn weight yes, exactly yeah, and like if you see someone in your gym doing some mistakes, some basic mistakes, or if you see that you can help him in some way, do you approach him, or are you just like?
Speaker 1:so if I was in, if I was in a commercial gym, uh, I would most likely not. Uh, unless I, unless I had some sort of relationship with them and even if we've never talked, maybe we both go to the gym at 6 am every morning. I see him every day, every day. We're always in the squat rack. He's in the squat rack, I always see him. And even if I've never talked to him, I might feel comfortable enough to just chat with him Like, hey, man, are you running a program or what program are you doing? And maybe he says, oh, I'm doing starting strength. I'm like, oh, cool, yeah, strike up a conversation. Maybe that would lead to me talking to him so I could help him.
Speaker 1:But I would never go into a gym, see someone doing something wrong and go approach them and say something. Now I'm in a little bit different position, at Untamed Strength, because I'm a gym owner. If someone's doing something that's wildly dangerous, which isn't often, but I will approach them and just talk to them. I'm not going to talk down to them, but I'll just ask them if they'd like a couple pointers, a couple tips, and usually they'll say sure, they're not going to be cocky enough to say no, I got it, you know, but as long as they're not endangering other people, like they're squatting outside of the squat rack and they're like failing a weight and dropping it behind them or they're throwing dumbbells.
Speaker 2:Yeah, doing some stupid shit.
Speaker 1:Yes, or they're possibly damaging the equipment. Those are instances where I would say something immediately. But if someone is just kind of squatting and it looks a little bit, you know what we might say ugly, you know I might talk to them. But that's because I'm a gym owner and so I'm automatically I have a little bit of authority, but I would always kind of ease into the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially in commercial gyms. I train in commercial gym and you never know what kind of a person you're going to walk into and if your approach is friendly and all that, he may think of it a little bit differently and act a little bit differently as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I imagine that there's a lot of people, especially nowadays, even with emails and DMs, I feel like a lot of times people have an agenda of, uh hey, I'm emailing you, you know, for these reasons, and they just want to sell you something, or they just want to get you to like their page or share their page or something like that. And uh, it could be like that in the gym I could see people kind of talking up other other people so they could sell them some supplements, or maybe talking to them because they want to offer them personal training services. So I just, you know, people are kind of like shut off from that, of like, yeah, leave me alone, you know, don't talk to me.
Speaker 2:Um, it's not as, maybe not as friendly and welcoming as it was before the internet yeah, of course, social media definitely made it a lot worse, especially with with the filming and gyms and I don't mind filming in gyms, but filming other people and then posting on social media for attention and likes, it's just horrible. Yeah, so you've been lifting and coaching for quite a long time, probably your entire life. How was your approach to building the strength foundation changed throughout the years? Is it the same as you started or did you evolve with it?
Speaker 1:I think there are basic principles and there are these pillars of programming advice for building strength. So I don't think that my and I still believe in all of those. I don't think that my approach for building strength. So I don't think that my and I still believe in all of those. I don't think that my approach to building strength has changed much in the past 15 years because I think those basic principles still stand the test of time. I think that my personal approach has changed a little bit. So someone might say, you know, squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press, that's it, that's all you have to worry about. Do sets of five. Only you know whatever. Don't do assistance work, don't do reps outside of five reps and et cetera, et cetera. So there might be people who are a little more strict in their recommendations, but I think that generally my approach to building strength has not changed a whole lot.
Speaker 1:Again, it's just my personal preference of yeah, you know, I'd like to do some stuff other than squat, bench, deadlift. I'd like to do some calisthenics. I'd like to follow a little bit different routine and maybe more of a hypertrophy or bodybuilding type routine. I'd like to throw in a little more conditioning. I enjoy running. So I'll do that. Maybe I'll do a little bit of strongman. Uh, maybe I'll do a little bit of strong man, and that's all just based on personal preference, not because I think it's better for building strength. I just think that where I'm at, you know, in these phases of my life, I just enjoy those things more than the other.
Speaker 1:But as far as building strength, I think that I think that the barbell, I prefer the barbell over machines or dumbbells. I prefer heavier compound movements. Um, I would do those movements, you know, one, two or three times a week, depending on which movement it is, and I would try to focus on progressively loading the weights over time. So that would be like my very rough outline of how to build strength. But again, we can. We can go back and forth about what strength is all day. Is strength a your one rep max barbell back squat? Is it the amount of pull-ups you can do? The amount of push-ups you can do? You know, the sky's the limit for what we can define as strength, I guess. So, yeah, my to kind of recap I don't think my approach to building strength has changed, just my preferences. I've just got interested in more things as the years went on.
Speaker 2:I've noticed on your YouTube channel you've done a lot of different things, and that's also my main principle. I'm sticking to bodybuilding, but I'm not like you know, the bench press is not the most optimal. I'm not gonna do it ever again in my life. It's important to not only because to build strength and to build muscle, it's also important to enjoy it at the end of the day. If you don't enjoy it, then why were you going in the gym? Try to find something else that's fulfilling you more than gym.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and some people just don't really get into lifting a barbell and you could certainly build a lot of strength and get plenty strong doing a leg press, doing a hack squat, doing machines. So, again, a lot of what you just said. It does go down to to personal preference. Some people prefer calisthenics and you can get plenty strong doing that, so so, yeah, it really comes down to preference as far as what style or modality you want to pick, but the principles remain the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also what you said the definition of strength is for everyone a little bit different. Let's say, for someone who's doing calisthenics, he may find that the more pull-ups he can do is a better definition of strength than the amount of weight you can push on bench press of strength and the amount of weight you can push on bench press. The people who do bench presses or powerlifters think that strength is the more you can bench press or the more you can deadlift and whatsoever. So basically, strength depends on what you're doing yes absolutely Depends on the definition.
Speaker 2:As we mentioned the bench, I noticed in I've watched in one of your videos that you don't really like to bench press and that's kind of counterintuitive. As for someone who is doing powerlifting, like bench press, deadlift and squats are the basic movements, but yet you don't like it and I also. There's this interesting quote from you and it says like if you were the last man on earth, would you bench press? And it got me really thinking like would I be bench pressing? So how important is bench press for strength gains, unless you want to compete? If you want to compete in bench press, then you have to do it, but apart from that, how important it is.
Speaker 1:I think it's a great movement and I do think it's important, especially if you're a powerlifter. There's no way around it, you've got to do it. And I think that if you're a strength athlete, it can certainly be used to improve whatever metrics of strength you're trying to improve. If you're trying to improve, if you're a strongman athlete, even an Olympic weightlifter, a CrossFit athlete, I think the bench press is great. So there's nothing wrong with the bench press. I just, especially in the past, I have not, I've not loved it. There's just other things I'd rather do.
Speaker 1:And you know, for a couple of years I was going through some issues with a pec tendon and the bench press would always bother it. But I just kept benching, kept benching because I thought I had to and it would just be this up and down of I'll dial it back, rehab it a little bit, push it really hard, have to dial back, rehab it a bit, and it was just a cycle and I thought, why do I keep doing this to myself? So I said I'm just going to take a break from bench press and I started doing more pushups, weighted pushups. That didn't seem to bother it. Doing dips didn't bother it, and so I thought I can have a perfectly fine strength training, muscle building program without doing bench press. With that said, I have been bench pressing as of recently. I bench press about once a week. I've been doing axle bar bench press and, uh, I enjoy it. I just I think that I can't overdo it, whereas before I used to bench press, uh, up to four times per week, um, sometimes, sometimes, two bench presses in one day, so more than four times a week, uh, and that was when my bench press was best, was at its highest. So I think that high frequency does work, but only short term.
Speaker 1:And so, anyways, I know that if I was to try to beat my one rep max, my best bench ever, which is silly to think about, but you know, if you, if I define myself as a power lifter, if I identify as a power lifter and I squat, bench deadlift and that's all I do, we almost get so tied to it that we can't, we can't be seen doing something other than bench, squat, deadlift. You know, oh, the power lifter is doing lunges, or the power lifter is doing a leg press. I'm going to stop benching, I'm going to start doing dips. You know, in the long run, who cares what you're doing in the gym. So yeah, so there was just it was a lot of that that I would. I just kind of said I'm not crazy about the bench press. It kind of bothers my pec. Why do I keep doing this?
Speaker 2:I can do other things.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, uh, incline, uh bench press were you doing that as well? Or the incline bench press, uh, feels a little bit better, but incline bench press was bothering my pec still a little bit, but uh, but yeah, I just, I prefer overhead press, I I prefer dips, I prefer weighted push-ups. That I've really enjoyed in the past year. Um, but I still do incline bench and I still do uh bench press, flat bench press as well. I'm following a program right now by a guy named Will Rattel and there's bench press in it and I thought, yeah, I'll give it a try and yeah, it feels good. It just I know that I can't overdo it.
Speaker 2:So well, as far as we're on bench press topic, like, there are a lot of strong opinions online uh, if you do this exercise, you're gonna make your muscles grow, if you don't do it, you're stupid. And you know those, those clickbaity videos everyone is making them now and I see a lot of stuff that uh uh happens online and uh, that kind of makes some exercises label them as the best or as the worst. Do you have any kind of exercises that you would include in program just because they are the best for something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2:Leave something out because it's deemed to be not so good for certain programs.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what I would do is to answer that question. I think that the exercises I would include would be some sort of knee flexion, so some sort of squatting pattern. That could be a barbell squat, that could be a dumbbell goblet squat, that could be a leg press or a hack squat. That could be a split squat. That could even be a lunge. So there's a number of things you can do. It could be a zurcher squat. There's a number of knee flexion exercises you could do and I would include one of those.
Speaker 1:So basically the natural movements we do every day. Yes, so that's what I would definitely include, unless there was some sort of huge limitation that they couldn't bend their knees or load their knees very well, but most of the time it's going to be some sort of knee flexion. The next one would be some sort of hip flexion. Any sort of bending pattern, hinging pattern Could be a barbell deadlift, could even be a trap bar deadlift. It could be a dumbbell Romanian deadlift Could be picking something up with the floor, like a sandbag or an Atlas stone, some sort of bent, hinging pattern. And then, as far as the upper body, some sort of vertical press, maybe a horizontal press, so an overhead press. Dumbbells, barbells, a log for strongman. Horizontal press could be a push-up, could be a chest press machine, coulds barbells, a log for strongman Horizontal press could be a push-up, could be a chest press machine, could be a barbell bench, could be a dumbbell bench, and then the reverse of that or the same as that, but a vertical pull, so a pull down or a pull up, a horizontal pull, like a row, dumbbell row, barbell row, machine row. So I would try to get those movements in row, barbell row, machine row. So I would try to get those movements in. And then I like doing some sort of trunk exercise, maybe an ab exercise, like a crunch, or a leg lift, something like that. So as long as those movements are the meat and potatoes of your program, you can put any variation you want in there. So those would be the exercises that I would like to include.
Speaker 1:Now, if there are specific goals that this person has, like I want to be in the 1,000-pound club for squat bench deadlift, we're going to probably do squat bench deadlift. But if they were just to say yes, if they were just to say I want to go in the gym and just be healthy, just build some muscle, lose some body fat, feel better, I could do a number of different things. It doesn't have to be with a barbell. And then the exercise that I don't worry too much about would be exercises that are typically labeled as prehab or activation or warmup exercises.
Speaker 1:Simply because I want to make the best use of time while you're in the gym and I don't think that doing, you know, 15-20 minutes of, like, some very small, single, joint, very light isolation exercises are the best use of your time. I don't think it's enough weight or enough stress to stimulate any sort of adaptation or to force any sort of adaptation, and I sort of think it's a waste of time for most people. If you want to do it and you have the time to do it, go for it. But those are the exercises I don't really include in. If I was to work with a personal training session or a personal training client.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you've mentioned the warmups as well. How do you warm up for a training? Do you start immediately with the exercise and then climb the weight up, or do you do a little bit of cardio before, or something like that?
Speaker 1:I kind of treat this as a do whatever I feel like on that particular day if I have time.
Speaker 1:So there's a number of things I can do, and this just goes with experience in the gym and just trying things out. But if there's something that you see, maybe even you see on Instagram or you see on YouTube, and you think you know, I'd like to maybe try that, maybe put that in as a warmup, because it's going to be very light anyways. So let me give you some examples of warmups I would do. I would say most often I do jumps, mainly because of the program that I'm running, the Haas Project. There's jumps that are prescribed, but let's say I'm starting a workout, I'm going to do some jumps. They might be vertical jumps, box jumps, they might be broad jumps, jumping over a hurdle, lateral jumps, side to side, anything you want. You could jump rope even, whatever. But I'll do that for about 10 minutes. I'll just put a timer on 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, and I'll just pick a variation that I'll do some sort of jumping and I'll just do it for those 10 or 15 minutes. I'll rest however I want. I'll start very slow, very short, you know distance, or very short height and then I'll just kind of ramp up intensity as I go, as I get more and more warm. So I really like jumps. I put them in as a warm up for my workout. Sometimes I'll do things like, if I'm having an upper body session, maybe I'll do some medicine ball throws or some fast plyometric pushups. There are times where I think, man, I haven't got a lot of cardio in this week, so I'm going to ride a stationary bike for 20 minutes and I'll do a minute fast, a minute slow, minute fast, minute slow for 20 minutes. So that's my warmup, as well as some conditioning. Um, there are times when, uh, I actually saw just this morning one of the guys was uh, he put a band in a squat rack, uh, you know, horizontally in a squat rack, and then he was doing pushups on the band. So he's wobbling around, um, around. It's just stuff like that that I might see people doing and like, oh, that looks like fun, I'll do that. I'll just try that out before my bench press session, and so, honestly, I just kind of use it as play. If I see something I'd like to do, I'll do it. It'll be light and I'll go from there.
Speaker 1:But as far as I used to follow a very strict routine of I'm going to do these stretches, I'm going to stretch each muscle static stretch, dynamic stretch, warmup. I don't follow any of that, I just really it's a, it's like improv. You know, I got 15 minutes to warm up. I'll just do whatever thing I want to do. I'll do some kettlebell presses overhead, kettlebell squats, kettlebell swings, whatever I want to do Now. With that said, if I go to the gym and I'm very pressed for time, like I only got 40 minutes to get this whole, all these exercises in I'm doing squats first. I'm just going to go usually go to the rack, do some body weight squats, do some squats with the empty barbell, put a little bit of weight on, depending on how I feel, just ramp the weight up as I go. So I'm just warming up with the actual movement I'm going to do, which saves a lot of time. But again, if I have time, 10 or 15 minutes will be spent just having some fun, doing some play, whatever I want for the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's an interesting approach to see the warm-up as a play somehow and to experiment with different things and you may even find some exercise that you look that you feel a lot better on your muscles, and then you can try to really incorporate it in your program and then increase the strength and muscle size using that exercise that you tried as a warm-up. That's a really interesting approach. I'm going to try it as well. The next thing I want to ask is related to warm-ups. It's the injury prevention and it's very crucial for longevity. What are your tips for staying basically healthy and fit for any kind of strength training or bodybuilding, whether it's CrossFit or whatever? What would you suggest to anyone beginning his fitness journey to avoid injuries and to be as safe as possible?
Speaker 1:I would say, to avoid any acute spikes or any acute jumps, rapid jumps and volume and intensity. So if I start out doing two sets of 10 reps on an exercise, I don't want the next week I don't want you to do six sets of 10 reps and then 10 sets of 10 reps. That's a huge spike in volume, in the amount of reps you're doing. Maybe I go to the gym and I do 30-minute workouts. Okay, I'm going to start bumping it up to 75-minute workouts. You're bumping up your volume too quickly. Given that the initial dose is enough, sure, you could go into the gym and do move your arm in the air for two sets of 10. That's not doing you anything. But if you're actually using a productive amount of weight, don't jump up in volume too quickly, and the same goes for intensity. So, weight on the bar. If I go to the gym and I do 100 pounds for two sets of 10 reps and it was moderately challenging I don't need to go to the gym in two days and do the same thing with more weight.
Speaker 1:I think people often think that they hear progressive overload and they think I need to add weight every single time I go to the gym Because if I don't, I'm wasting my time. But how silly is it to think that way. If you do two sets of 10 with 100 pounds today and you do two sets of 10 with 100 pounds in three days, does that second workout not count? Is it a waste of time? No, surely not. It's still providing some stimulus so you can do the same workout, the same weight, the same reps, the same volume, for as many sessions as you need.
Speaker 1:Once you feel like you notice that, hey, this weight is getting, it's not challenging enough, it's noticeably easier than it was when I first started doing it, it's time to jump up and wait. So that's what I would say to avoid injury and even burnout, avoid acute jumps and volume and intensity. And I think that people get stuck with this 6, 8, 10-week block of training or programming. Okay, I'm going to start this 8-week program, so I need to make this amount of progress in 8 weeks. I mean the goal for everyone. I'm sure everyone plans on lifting and exercising for the rest of their life, so just spread that out over a longer period of time. Don't worry about where you'll be at in two months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right, I'm guilty as well in that area. For example, my goal was when I started going to the gym to reach the 100-kilo bench press, and as I reached it I was gradually increasing the strength. And as I reached it, my next thought is 120. And the thing is I can't really break that barrier in my head to just add one kilo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why not 105?
Speaker 2:Yeah, why not start slowly, step by step and, like you said, in a longer period of time of six months? You're going to reach it, but you have to be patient with it and you have to go one step after another. You can't just lift 100 kilos and then immediately put 120 and then go for it. It doesn't work that way and then go for it. It doesn't work that way. So, as we are talking about plateaus, how do you help your clients, how do you help your friends or anyone asking to go through the plateaus? First, physical training how can they format, because you're going to reach the point where you just can't push further. Now, how do you approach it physically, in terms of programming, and mentally, how to fight that plateau that can drag on for quite a long time?
Speaker 1:Mentally it's going to happen, and so you have to just accept that, that it's all a part of it. You can't just be going to the gym because you're seeing progress so quickly. It has to be something that you just enjoy the process of lifting weights, you enjoy the routine, you enjoy going to the gym, it makes you feel good. And so if that's all there, someone's going to go, regardless of if they're making progress daily or weekly or monthly. So if you can create a program for yourself or for someone else that they enjoy doing, that's going to get them to just keep showing up, which is probably, over time, going to help them push through a plateau. As far as programming how I would deal with it, it sort of depends on the individual. If they are stuck, if they just started lifting today and they're not making any progress for the first six months or something like that, they're doing something wrong. They might be too afraid of adding weight to the bar, they think they're too timid, they think I'm not doing this correctly, and I would assure them hey, everything looks good, it's time to add some weight. Maybe they just are unable to push themselves and so they're just really timid. So if it was a beginner. It might be just your approach to training. You might not be adding weight, you might not be trying very hard, you might not be consistent. Whatever the case is, if they're a little more intermediate or if they're making a bunch of progress as a novice and now they're moving on to intermediate, but they just keep getting stuck a lot of times, if they're following a beginner program, in general I would say that once they're moving on to an intermediate program or intermediate programming they probably need a little bit more variation in their routine. So it doesn't mean they need to go do overhead dumbbell squats on a BOSU ball or anything wild like that. But if you've just been doing squats for six months, maybe we'll start doing some pin squats or some high bar or low bar squats, one or the other, maybe some pause squats.
Speaker 1:For bench press. You might start doing a little bit more incline benching, a little more close grip benching, pause benching, touch and go benching benching a little more close grip benching, pause benching, touch and go benching. For deadlifts you might just do a wider grip deadlift like a snatch grip deadlift, a pause deadlift, a deficit deadlift and just adding some of those variations. It's now a new movement and you can sort of try to progress that movement and see how that transfers over to your main measuring sticks of improvement just my squat bench deadlift. If you've been doing just sets of a five by five or a three by five for so long, maybe we'll start doing a couple of sets of eight reps, ten reps, and just trying to get better at those new variations I think can help break through some sort of plateau.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, as you said, a little bit of variation goes a long way. But I've also seen you experiment with all kinds of exercise and I think that's part of who you are and part of you challenging yourself to try something new. How does that affect people mentally? How does that affect people mentally? How does that affect you mentally when you start completely new program from, I don't know, powerlifting to crossfit or whatever else you do? How does that help you mentally to just uh stay focused, to to uh keep going to the gym, to does it, does even you, how can I say a little bit more strength when you go back to your regular programming, so to say?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so kind of two parts to that question. So I would say that I don't care what anybody else thinks about my fitness journey Maybe I did a long time ago, but when I quiet all the noise of Instagram and YouTube and comments and social media and if, deep down, I really want to start doing something, I'm going to do it. I don't need you know, there was a time where maybe I was really into powerlifting what I talked about earlier with identity. I'm a powerlifter, I squat bench deadlift and I put all this information online about squat bench deadlift and then I kind of get an itch to. You know, maybe I want to start running. Oh no, I can't do that because I'm a powerlifter, I don't do that. Or maybe I'm tired of, you know, eating all this food and weighing 255 pounds. I'd like to just be more comfortable. Like you know, 220 pounds, I want to lose some weight. Uh, oh, I can't do that, you know. Then I'm, then I'm everyone's going to think I'm on a cut and I'm trying to do it just for aesthetics and I'm doing whatever. You just get so attached to what other people think and, uh, I broke away from that. And so if I'm like I'd really like to start running, uh, I'm just going to go do it. If I say, you know, I think it'd be really cool to be able to do a handstand or a handstand pushup, whatever, I'm going to start doing that. So it just comes down to me wanting to start doing something because I genuinely want to start doing it, and so I just I do it. It's never like all right, you know, someone said that I should start running because it's good for my health. I guess I will. Or someone said that, you know, I'm not strong unless I can do a handstand push-up, so I'm going to start doing that. It was never, you know, it was just organic. Whatever I wanted to do, I just started doing it. Um, and so that's how, that's how all that came, came about. Uh, and in terms of how has this stuff helped other things?
Speaker 1:In retrospect, one thing that pops into my head was I did a bodybuilding routine that a guy named natural hypertrophy he wrote a bodybuilding routine for me and I did it for about a year and a half and I didn't really do any strongman. I jumped back into a strongman competition. I did really well and I was surprised at a couple of things. One. One of the events really tests your glute and hamstring strength and endurance and I did really well on that event. I got second place. Didn't think I was going to do well. I actually did better on that event at a lighter body weight than when I was heavier, doing strongman only.
Speaker 1:And I thought back and I said, well, I've been doing a lot of Romanian deadlifts and I didn't usually do those. So maybe it's that constant high reps or that constant tension on my glutes and hamstrings and it transferred over to the strongman event. Another event required a lot of arms and I never really trained my arms directly. I don't take arm training very seriously, but I was when I was doing this bodybuilding program and I did really well on that event and I thought I think it's all that arm training that I did. So there are certain things, yeah, that I wouldn't think had helped with another sport, but it did so in a sense I learned from experience. Maybe I should do more. Maybe I should have people that I'm training for strongman competitions. Maybe I should have them doing more arm work. Maybe I should tell them to take their arm work seriously because it's going to help. More tricep work for lockout, more Romanian deadlifts, more lower back extensions for these strongman movements. So that was definitely a learning experience for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So basically, try everything that you want to try and you may even like it, and if not, you can always go back to your regular programming and keep doing that regular programming and keep doing that. As far as the combinations go, do you draw a line somewhere where you say this and that can't go together, like, for example, bodybuilding and marathon running? Or if you want to do it, you're just going to do it anyways, even if it's kind of counterproductive to do such programming.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that I mean, if you are trying to excel to the highest level highest level that you can in any sport you're going to have to be fairly specific. So, if you want to be the strongest powerlifter, the best powerlifter and I don't mean in the world, I just mean you want to be your absolute maximum potential you want to reach that. Yeah, I don't think running is going to help you. Um, maybe a little tiny bit, um, but I don't think that. I don't think that those two things really go together.
Speaker 2:Just for just for cardio, for example, not really marathon running.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you were to say I want to do some cardio, I wouldn't suggest running. I would say, okay, do an elliptical, maybe a stationary bike, maybe a rower, maybe just treadmill, inclined treadmill, walking, something that's going to elevate your heart rate, but not something is, you know, not the running's that demanding, but it does tie your legs out if you're running fast or running up and down hills and that does affect your squat training and your deadlift training more so your squat training, and so I don't think that those two things go together. But I don't program for myself right now, thinking I need to improve these things, so I'm gonna, or this thing, so I need to incorporate all this stuff.
Speaker 1:I think that it's more of I just enjoy exercise. I know that I need to do resistance training. I know that it's more of I just enjoy exercise. I know that I need to do resistance training. I know that I need to do some cardio. So I'm just going to pick and choose what I prefer doing, and so the majority of the time it is lifting barbells, because I enjoy doing that. There's some calisthenics mixed into that, some body weight stuff, and there's some machine stuff sometimes.
Speaker 1:And then, as far as cardio. Running is one of the only forms of cardio that I really enjoy, and so that's why I do it so much. Not because I think it's going to make me better at anything else, I just enjoy running, so I do it that way. But to go back to your question, yeah, there are certain things like power lifting or olympic weight lifting and running that don't really go together. If you're trying to maximize one or the other and it's the same with if you wanted to be a runner, if I wanted to run my fastest 10K, I'm still going to lift weights, but I'm not going to worry too much about increasing my 100 max in the gym. So yeah, if you're trying to, it's sort of like a dial or a burner on a stove. If you turn one all the way up you're trying to, it's sort of like a dial or a burner on a stove. If you turn one all the way up, you're going to have to turn the other down a little bit.
Speaker 2:You turn both of them up at the same time and you're going to burn something, yeah, so basically what we talked about intensity, like you said, if you want to be best at one certain sport, then you have to dedicate yourself, obviously, to that sport. But if you want to be a little bit of this, a little bit of that, if you want to be healthy, you don't even have to go to the gym every day. You can go two, three times a week and then do some light walk or running or whatever cycling, whatever you like. Yeah, like you said said, basically, either bring that all to balance or bring only once, one thing, uh, completely up and the others just dial it down a little bit. Uh, as we're talking about that, we I would also like to talk about the topic of self-doubt and negative self-talk. What advice would you give for people who are struggling with that and they are doing good in gym but they feel like it's not really the best and they always put themselves down in this kind of fighting inner demons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that stacking small wins is the most important thing. If you're down on yourself and you think I'm not good enough, I'm not big enough, I'm that. Stacking small wins is the most important thing. If you're down on yourself and you think I'm not good enough, I'm not big enough, I'm not shredded enough, I don't look good enough, whatever it is any sort of negative talk or self-doubt I think that just sticking to something, sticking to a plan, sticking to a routine, sticking to a program saying I'm going to start going to the gym three days a week, you are in full control of that. You are the one who goes to the gym or who ensures you go to the gym or don't. You're the one who makes the decision. You don't have as much control over how much weight you can lift. If I say I want to lift 300 pounds by the end of the year, that may or may not happen. That's somewhat out of your control. You can do your best. But to say I want to go to the gym three days a week for every week of the year this year, that is in your control, and so I think that putting forth goals that you have full control over is going to help boost your confidence. I'm going to go to the gym. Another thing would be effort. I'm going to go to the gym and I'm just going to try my best for that particular day. Maybe I'm going to go to the gym. Another thing would be effort. I'm going to go to the gym and I'm just going to try my best for that particular day. Maybe I'm not feeling great so I can't lift as much weight, but I'm still going to do my best for that day.
Speaker 1:You have full control over whether or not you show up to the gym. You have full control of your effort in the gym. And then that goes outside of the gym as well. I need to. I wish I could be better at sleeping and get rid of some of these. You know bad habits of binge watching TV or scrolling on my phone. You need to break those habits and get to bed, whatever the case is. It's somewhat obvious stuff, but it should. You know, it should be said. So I think that stacking those small wins. Progress is inevitable at that point, and you can't help but build some confidence if you just stick to something and you see it through to the end. Or maybe there is no end, but you just stick with it for as long as you can. I think that that would be the best way to improve or to get rid of self-doubt and negative talk.
Speaker 2:What I find interesting also is looking back backwards. And if you feel yourself, if you feel doubting yourself from time to time, I just look backwards and I think to myself look, I've been going to the gym for an entire year, making progress. This is a time where I'm not really feeling well or not making much of a progress, but if I look back one year before or 10 days or 10 months or whatever, you will see the progress. And I also like to look at my older pictures where I actually can see the progress. And I think looking back is also a good way to just kind of fight with that self-doubt. Do you think social media plays a big role in this? Like setting unrealistic expectations for everyone? Because on social media everyone is jacked, Everyone is natural, even though, like 99% of them are not. Everyone is lifting insane amount of weights and kind of like a lot of people are putting others down with their videos. They're like, if you can't bench press, I don't know three 15, you're not a man, and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that it's uh, it's sucks, it's unfortunate, uh, and the only way to for some people to only get past it or away from it is to completely get rid of it and just not be on social media. Um, but it's, it's just, yeah, it's so easy, because social media is a highlight reel, even, you know, even someone who doesn't boast and brag and say, oh, look at me, look what I can do. I try not to do that at all, um, but even I, you know, oftentimes I'll just post something that I think is, I think is post worthy. So I'm not going to post me, you know, squatting 135 pounds or something. It's going to be my PR or a big set, and so I'm just posting all of my highlights. Even when I take a picture, if I say, oh, I'm going to take a picture, I look, I feel like I look really good, I've built a lot of muscle and I'm proud of how I look, I'm going to take a picture. I'm going to make sure I look my best in the picture, right, and it's, you know, same with just taking a snapshot just out in public, with a whatever picture. You're not going to look like stupid in the picture You're going to have to try to look presentable and smile and look great and turn to the camera. So everyone's always trying to look perfect and with the photographs nowadays of how we can just look at our phone to make sure it looks perfect and edit it, um, it's just.
Speaker 1:It really is a highlight reel and there's been plenty of times where you've seen people that you've known or seen online. You see them in person, you think you know you don't look the same. Not that I like judge people that way, but it's just the truth and I'm sure people feel that way when they meet me. So, yeah, it's just such an easy way to edit yourself and look perfect. And I think, if you just remind yourself that this is a highlight reel, everyone behind this is a real person. It's a little easier to accept and when you meet people in real life, not online, you're not judging how they look or how they, you know, whatever. They're just another person. So, yeah, I don't have a great answer for it and how to get rid of that, but it's tough and I get it. I get that people get stuck in comparison mode. But social media is a highlight reel, whether we think it is or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you said, everyone posts just the best stuff, just the good stuff, and everything that's uh happening behind the scenes is just left out. And it's mostly a lot of shit happening behind the scenes and we only see the, the big smiles and uh big muscles, big lifts, and we don't say see all the failures behind uh the those images.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we tend to think you know one more thing about that. We tend to think that, wow, you know, I look at this guy online and man, he's just such a good lifter, such a good power lifter man. I wish I could be as good as him as a power lifter. We put our all worth in this title of power lifter, but we hold more than one title in life, this title of power lifter, but we hold more than one title in life. You might be a very good husband, a very good dad, a very good coworker, a very good employee, a very good boss, whatever. All you need is other titles you can take pride in knowing, hey, I'm. I might not be the best power lifter, but I'm a damn good husband, I take care of my family, whatever it is, and you can take some pride in that. And so you know, I think we again, we just get in that comparison mode of man. I wish I could be as good as that guy at this one specific thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I see a lot of people trying to normalize the bench press of 225 that's 100 kilos, uh. And a lot of people say, yeah, that's not impressive and all that, and as, if you look at, look at statistics, I think there's like less than one percent of gym goers that can actually uh bench press, uh, 100 kilos. That's fucking impressive. That's. That's one out of the hundred and that's what I wanted to ask you. You, you have your own gym. How often do you see amazing feats of strength as compared on social media?
Speaker 1:Uh, might not be the answer you're looking for, but pretty often because so so untamed strength is untamed strength is a there are.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of member not. So there are some members in there who who go in there because they're a high level power lifters or even local level power lifters or they're strongman competitors. But the majority of people will go in there just like the atmosphere, they just like basic strength training, because the gym name is Untamed Strength strength is in the name. The majority of people going there are focused on strength, building strength, not that they're all specifically powerlifters, but they do care about strength, not in the sense that they're judging anyone there's grown, not in the sense that they're judging anyone there's.
Speaker 1:There's uh grown men, you know, in the gym uh, who bench less than a hundred pounds. There's women in the gym who bench press over 300 pounds. There's also women in the gym who bench the empty barbell, you know. There's men in the gym who bench 500 pounds. It's just the spectrum is so big. But anyways, the gym is sort of uh self-selecting in that the majority of people going to the gym care about strength and so by default they're going to be pretty strong. So I do see like seeing women in the gym deadlift over 405 or over 440, you know, if you're in kilos over 200 kilos, uh is you know I stop and watch. I'm like nice good pull.
Speaker 2:But I see it often I see it a lot.
Speaker 1:Uh, there's women who can deadlift over 500 pounds in the gym, um. So I sort of get um almost like uh, numb to this stuff, like I see women deadlifting, you know, 450 pounds and uh, it's just another day at the gym, but going to maybe a commercial gym or more of a health club, you're not going to see that very often. So, yeah, I do see that very often. But to come back to your point, I really don't give a shit if you bench press 225 or not. As a grown man Again, like I mentioned earlier, you might be a really good dad, a father, a good contributing member of society, but you only bench 185 pounds. I don't care. That doesn't mean you are less than a man or less of a man just because you can't bench press that. I think that that's a it's just a silly way to talk and's a very immature way to talk. Do you know the YouTube channel Fitness FAQs?
Speaker 2:It's a calisthenics channel.
Speaker 1:The guy's name is Daniel. He's been making content for like over 10 years, but it's Fitness FAQs Fitness Frequently Asked Questions.
Speaker 1:He just recently posted a video. So he's a calisthenics athlete. You'll see him. He's very muscular. He's a natural athlete, very muscular, very lean, like a typical calisthenics athlete. You'll see him doing pull-ups with 50 kilos, just doing reps, 10 reps, whatever 50 kilos, doing dips with just as much or more. Incredibly strong, very, very strong, repping out handstand push-ups, free, unassisted handstand push-ups. But he doesn't bench press, and I guess he just recently started bench pressing and he made a video about how he can't bench 100 kilos. You know what I mean. Like you, look at this guy.
Speaker 2:Anyone who looks at him, he'll be like, yeah, he can bench press 200.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, I would love to have a chest like him and I'd love to be strong like him. He's doing pull-ups with 50 kilos easily, really clean pull-ups. He does 20 muscle-ups effortlessly crazy strength but can't bench 100 kilos. You know, like, is he like less of a of a man because of that? Or it's just silly to talk about? You know, I guess the more you open up your eyes to the strength, the different displays of strength I might take an olympic athlete like an olympic gymnast and maybe they can't bench press 100 kilos does that mean they're weak?
Speaker 2:you know, it's just silly to think, yeah, yeah, exactly, and uh, with uh that social media thing, I wanted to show you one video I don't know, uh, if you have if you've seen this guy. His name is uh jim reaper and he goes, but do you know him?
Speaker 1:no I don't?
Speaker 2:he sounds like a like a meme page or something he basically does the videos where he looks for the people who are putting down others like who are doing stuff that we talked about, and then he takes their, their best lift and bench presses it with one arm or something like that. It's crazy. That's good. I'm going to share it right away. Do you see it? Yeah, let me.
Speaker 1:He's a big dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is the video I wanted to talk about. He lifted, with one arm incline, 143 kilos 315. And this is just For me. This is damn impressive and he seems to be like a very, very down-to-the-earth guy.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, he lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or like my waist, and this is the attempt for the first time, he failed it. Get it and then the second time is just crazy.
Speaker 1:God dang.
Speaker 2:And to just it's like very, very hard to just hold the balance, yeah, the hand, and wrist strength.
Speaker 1:It's not just arm and chest strength, it's hand and wrist strength. It's not just arm and chest strength, it's hand and wrist strength to hold that. Yeah, that's. That is sort of a testament to, you know, the importance of good genetics. He is a big dude who is built for strength just the size of his arms. He's just probably got massive bones, you know, underneath all that muscle. So, yeah, that's not, he just probably got massive bones, uh, you know, uh, underneath all that muscle. Um so yeah, that's pretty wild. That dude is uh built for strength, for sure yeah, he, he made some amazing videos.
Speaker 2:Like I said, he always looks for the guys that that uh are looking for, those uh likes with uh putting down people and then he takes their videos and then takes looks for the max lift they did, they did and like does, does insane things that he does incline bench press or he, he does their I don't know deadlift one rep max for like 20 reps on bench press insane, insane. Yeah, now back to you. Uh, you've been creating youtube content for like 12 years or even maybe even more. All right, how did the fitness industry or like whole landscape change? Talk about YouTube, how did it change over the past 12 years? And were you at one point just living off youtube or were you always having like business on the other side and youtube was just like something you like to do?
Speaker 1:yeah, when I started youtube, I my very first videos are just uploading videos to youtube of my some of my training uh, it was kind of like an instagram of, oh I did, I did a here's my 315 squat and I'll post that video, and so that's what it was at first. That was before I had the gym. Once I had the gym, I started making some videos just highlight some of the members training at the gym and I would post that online. So it was sort of like marketing. But nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew who Untamed Strength was, so people weren't really watching videos from this random gym. But then I just started, because I had some free time, I started to make instructional videos. So I started using Instagram to teach I'm sorry, using YouTube to teach and I was one thing about my success on YouTube. It's timing. If I tried to erase all of it and do everything all over again today, I don't think I would have nearly as much success.
Speaker 1:Um, so I was a part of this era in YouTube where we were, uh, where it was very popular to teach. So power lifting is huge Boom. Strength training is huge, huge boom from like 2014 to 2019, like these five years and there were all kinds of videos online of how to squat, how to bench press, how to deadlift Three tips to help your squat, three tips to help your bench press, fix your squat with these tips. That stuff was very, very popular. It's far less popular now, especially in long form content, maybe short clips on TikTok and Instagram but you know guys like Johnny Candido and Omar Esau and all these guys making these types of videos. I was just a part of that time and so that's why, since I was making those videos, and people were like, you know, wow, I can learn how to squat and deadlift and I can get coaching online on videos. I can uh, watch videos about people sharing programs and um rating programs, all this kind of stuff. So it was definitely a time when, uh, that was on the rise and I was just a part of that Um, and then it maybe evolved into more, you know, like vlogging content.
Speaker 1:That was really popular day in the life, and so there was like this mystery about oh, you know who's this? Oh, I've heard, I've seen Brian Shaw, one world's strongest man, you know. I wonder what his, what an average day is like for him. I wonder what he eats for breakfast. I wonder what his house looks like. I wonder what his house looks like. I wonder how much money he makes. So you watch these vlogs. It's like reality TV in a sense, and so that kind of became more and more popular. But yeah, so I think that that's kind of how the how everything has evolved over time.
Speaker 1:And as far as me doing YouTube on the side or as a full-time thing, I've always been a gym owner first and foremost. And even when I was having a lot of success on YouTube, when I was at my all-time high, making the most amount of money I made on YouTube and posting the most content, getting the most views, that was all going back to the gym. So I was like, yes, you know, I'm making some money from YouTube, so now I can expand the gym, I can buy more for the gym.
Speaker 2:It was never like invest more in business practically.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so it was always the gym first and foremost, um, and I never once thought about maybe I should just do YouTube and not the gym. No, no, no, the gym was always what I wanted to do. Youtube was just helping that. But there was a time I don't remember the exact numbers or the specifics of it exactly when it happened, but there was a time when I was making more money on YouTube than I was making at the gym, and so YouTube was bigger than the gym. That's drastically changed now. But, yeah, so there was a time when YouTube was bigger than the gym, but it was never. My attention was always on the gym. It was never. Maybe I should just do this youtube thing because I don't really like this gym thing or this gym thing's not working out never, no, it was never like that yeah, now that you explained it to me, it's kind of it kind of uh it can be seen in the videos that it's not your main thing.
Speaker 2:It's just it feels like a hobby to you that you like to share it with other people. But it does feel like the gym is your main thing. But were you expecting to reach this much people? You have almost like a million subscribers and over 150 million of views on your YouTube channel. That's quite impressive. Were you expecting that much?
Speaker 1:No, I was not expecting that. I was not expecting that at all. I've told the story before, but the very first time, the very first video that really I would say went viral, that was very popular, was my very first how to squat video. I made an instructional video about how to squat and at the time I'll tell the story again. But at the time I had all of my YouTube notifications was, my notifications would go to my email. So if Amar subscribed to my YouTube channel, I would get a notification, so-and-so subscribed to your YouTube channel, if someone commented on my YouTube channel, it would pop up in my email, because I, you know, would have like one or every other day or something like that. Um, but uh, one day I had after I posted my how to squat videos.
Speaker 1:The next day, uh, my phone wouldn't load my. I trying to turn my phone on, it wouldn't load. Turn it off, turn it on, it wouldn't load. Turn it off, turn it on, it wouldn't load. And, um, I just said, forget it and I set it down. And then my phone made a email alert and, uh, I went to look at it and there's a little email icon at the bottom and there were like 5 000 unread emails. And I opened it up and it was just so-and-so subscribe, so-and-so just much subscriptions. And I'm looking at it and my first thought was a little bit of panic. I thought, shit, what did I do? You know, like, did I do something wrong? Or like I was like I was exposed or something like what is what happened? Uh, and I'm looking at the channel, I see all these comments and I'm like what did I do differently? What happened? You know, I didn't post it, but the video, I guess uh, was shared on reddit and it was on the front page of reddit. It got moved to the front page of Reddit, which was really popular and uh, so anyways, that's, that was a kind of like the first exposure of uh, oh, wow, this, uh, this is really something.
Speaker 1:And I didn't get, I wasn't getting paid at that time. I didn't have monetization on my videos, um, didn't have. I don't remember when I got monetization, but it was after. You know, I had some success and so, yeah, and then it just became okay, I'll post more of that stuff. And it was like I already posted how to squat bench deadlift, overhead press. What more is there to share? And then I would just make smaller videos, like additional tips on how to squat, three tips for if you're falling forward on the squat, losing balance on the squat, maybe fix these three things. I'll make a video about that. Or, okay, let me talk about this program, what I like about it, what I don't like about it, let me talk about the best program and the worst program, whatever. So I would just make videos all about training.
Speaker 1:And it did get to the point where it was treated like work. You know, I didn't when I said YouTube was bigger than the gym. I didn't have a lot of members, I didn't have a lot of personal training clients, so so I had a lot of time in the day, I didn't have a family, I wasn't married, so I had a lot of time in the day to make videos. So I would just make videos all day. You know, I was my nine to five and I would post two videos a week, three videos a week, whereas that's not what I'm doing now, and so there was a time when it was treated like work. But I just had, I just had a million different you know ideas of what I wanted to post, what you know, all know, all this stuff. So it was just endless, and I just don't have as many ideas now, and so that's what that explains, like the less frequency and all that, and I don't want to just continue making videos that I've already made.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and basically making videos is also kind of like your job and, as you, the more you train with it, the more you think about it, the more ideas you get, the less you think about it. Train with it, the more you think about it, the more ideas you get, the less you think about it, then you don't have much of the ideas and probably that's why you focused more on the gym. Now, is there anything you could suggest to content creators, including myself, like what is it better to focus right now on just getting the content out or just making good quality content and then hope that you're going to kind of make a community around your channel?
Speaker 1:I think that in your position, if you're just starting out, I think that getting a hold of people with big followings is the best option. If you can get as many as you can, because you're just, in a sense, piggybacking off of their name. If you can say as many as you can, uh, because you're just, in a sense, piggybacking off of their name. If you can say, uh, podcast with Ronnie Coleman about training for the you know, uh, bodybuilding, whatever that's going to sell itself instead of instead of uh, you putting your name on it or something like that, um. So I think that if you're consistently posting that sort of content with other people, that's going to help you a tremendous amount. And then, beyond that, I would just suggest don't try to copycat other podcasters or YouTube content creators. Try to have your own spin on it. Whatever it is your own creativity, whether it's that, your style of talking, your delivery, the type of questions you ask, the amount of research you do, whatever it is just have your own spin that you take pride in. It could be something like hey, I'm going to do an interview that a lot of people do, but we're going to eat hot wings, you know, like hot ones. The interview YouTube channel, so you just have some sort of some sort of creativity to it. I think that that'll help you kind of stand apart.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, if you're doing, if you're interviewing, doing podcasts or just YouTube long format YouTube videos with guests, trying to get someone that you that has a lot of viewers will help, but also someone that you have followed along with so that you can have some sort of connection and, like you're doing, you're doing a great job of asking questions, uh, about me, like I can tell you actually know what you're talking about. You're not just saying, like you know, hey, do you have a YouTube channel? If so, what's it called? Or, uh, what's your gym called? You know, like you know, you obviously know these things. So, uh, that's helpful.
Speaker 2:Okay, these things. So that's helpful. Okay, thanks for the praise. Of course, yeah, I stumbled upon your YouTube channel and, as I sent you an email, I didn't really expect for you to even answer it and I'm really honored to have have you as my guest and, like when I saw your following number, I was really, really excited and I really tried to kind of formulate the interview as something someone who wants to get to know about the strength, the type of questions he would like to ask, and I'm really glad you liked it and you enjoyed it, and I'm really glad you liked it and you enjoyed it. For the end, I would like to ask you one particular advice, so just one advice you could give for someone starting their strength journey what they can do right now to just start off good with strength training.
Speaker 1:I would say we talked about it a little bit, but I would say, figure out deep down in your heart what you want to do in regards to being in the gym. What exactly do you want? Do you want to? I just want to build more muscle. I just want to get stronger. I don't really care about muscle, I just want to look better so that I can, so that girls are more attracted to me. Honestly, whatever it is, focus on that and then plan your routine around that.
Speaker 1:I think that sometimes people will get stuck in you know, I want to get bigger muscles and think that they need to follow a very specific powerlifting routine and now they're a power lifter and they don't like it and they get burnt out on it, or the other way around. You know, I just really care about strength, but I just keep following these bodybuilding programs and I just it's just not exciting, not rewarding, Maybe this gym thing isn't worth it. So they're training like a bodybuilder. So just figure out what you want to do and then pursue whatever that is, Because I think that's going to help you following whatever style of training you actually enjoy.
Speaker 1:Doing Something that you look forward to is going to help you stay consistent, More than just me telling you to be a man and be consistent and have discipline. There's a little bit of that. That goes on. You do have to go to the gym often when you don't really want to, but if you can make a program or a routine or some sort of lifestyle this goes along with diet as well that you can follow and that you enjoy, that's not too restrictive, that can help you get to your goals. Figure that out and run with that and stick with that for as long as you can. So that's my advice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now that you mentioned it, my first goal when I started going to the gym was to get girls, and I was like very skinny, I'm 1 meter 90 tall and I was like 70 kilos, like skin and bones, just that. And as I progressed and I've been going to the gym for almost like a 10 year, 10 years now the shift of what's dragging me to gym has changed. Now I want to be healthy. I still want to build bigger muscles, but I want to be, in first place, healthy for my family and that's what drives me to to go to the gym. So, like you said, you always have to find something to just push you and keep you disciplined and not just man up and go to the gym. And, lastly, I would like to ask you one exercise for each body part. So we have shoulders, front, rear and side delts, then we have arms, biceps, triceps, chest, back, quads, hamstrings and calves.
Speaker 1:So what am I? What is the criteria here? Like my favorite exercise.
Speaker 2:If you would have to do only one of these exercises for the rest of your life for that muscle, what would it be?
Speaker 1:Okay, so that changes a little bit. I will admit that I am not a bodybuilding professional or a bodybuilding coach, so I would refer to someone.
Speaker 2:You can also go for the exercises based on powerlifting. In that case, we don't have to go specifically body parts rather than movements. What would you?
Speaker 1:go for. Yeah, so every movement I'm going to pick and there is a little bit of personal preference here, but every movement I'm going to pick is a barbell movement, simply because I think that the range of motion, the amount of muscles involved and the loading capacity for a barbell, I think, is great, and I just like being on my feet lifting weight, more so than sitting down on a machine and lifting weight. There are some times when I like to sit down and do whatever a chest press but I just like being on my feet. It improves a little bit of balance. I can move around, however my anthropometry feels that it needs to.
Speaker 1:I'm not locked into a machine, so to go over those I don't remember all the muscles you listed, but shoulders, it would be a standing overhead press and then a second would be a push press, so overloading it with using some legs as well, any of the muscles in my legs. It'd be a barbell back squat. As far as back, I'm going to pick a pull up. As far as a chest movement, I'm going to say dips or a weighted push-up. Um, and then calves, I would say jumps, or running would be my preferred exercises. Uh, I don't think I hit all the muscles you listed, but that's kind of roughly how I would. Uh, I would answer that, but if you want to repeat any of them for clarification, let me know.
Speaker 2:No, it's all good. It's kind of what I would guess. Coming from someone that has more of a powerlifting experience rather than bodybuilding, it kind of makes sense to involve more of a compound movements, more barbell movements to just hit a majority of muscles with different kinds of movements, and I think even for bodybuilding all of those movements are legit. You can do them as well. It increases your strength, it can increase the muscle size, so why not? Yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, thank you for coming to my podcast uh thank you for uh taking time out of your day uh to just help me out with this stuff. I'm really excited for the first episode. I'm hoping it's going to reach a broader audience, uh for our viewers. You can check the untamed strength uh dot com right.
Speaker 1:The website's train untamedcom train untamedcom.
Speaker 2:It's going to be linked below.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah. And then the Instagram is untamed strength. Youtube channel You'll find untamed strength, but the website is different. It's train untamedcom. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so train untamedcom. Also, if you're in the area, you can visit his gym. It's basically for strongmen and powerlifters. It doesn't feel like a classic commercial gym, it feels like a little bit more than that, and if that's something that you prefer and you're in the area, you can check it out. Also, online training right, you're doing that as well.
Speaker 1:Online programming and coaching yeah, yeah. That would probably be best to just email me my direct email, which is just untamedstrength at Gmail. Easy enough, and I check that multiple times a day, the same place you contacted me.
Speaker 2:Thanks again, Alan Thrall, for such a wonderful experience with the interview and to all our viewers. Subscribe to my channel and I'll be posting more podcasts in the future, Also training videos and everything related to bodybuilding and strength training. You can check it out on my channel, Alan Thrall. Once again, thank you and I hope you have a nice day and remaining of the week.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. Thank you for having me man, I appreciate it.
