What Advanced Lifters Get Wrong About Training & Science - Geoffrey Verity Schofield

jeff i've been watching your instagram and seeing your physique you're looking pretty sharp when is the bodybuilding show this is what i demand to know I'm not sure. I am fairly lean, I would say. Maybe 10-ish percent, 11 percent.

A couple people who have competed themselves have snuck in my DMs and said, bro, you're like 8% or 9%. So I try to be conservative with that because I don't know if you've experienced this, but sometimes you think... you're leaner than you actually are, and then you keep dieting and dieting and dieting, and you're just like, your scale goes down and down and down, and performance is still okay, so I don't think you're losing muscle.

But you're just you keep getting leaner and leaner and leaner and leaner. And then you realize, OK, what I thought was maybe 12 percent wasn't quite 12 percent. And so I found that either coaches who coach people to stage or people who have gone to stage themselves. they rarely mess up their body fat percentage assessment. It's usually the ones who are kind of hopeful and looking to get beef lane and then they see a glimmer of abs and then, oh yeah, I'm 12%. It's like, yeah, well.

You could be six, seven, eight, nine percent higher than that. So yeah, I would say about 10 percent. And it's getting to the point where every kilo makes a noticeable difference. So if I go down a kilo in body weight. I can feel it. I'm getting hungrier at the end of my workouts. If I'm bogged up, I will never get hungry at all, really. And certainly not during a workout. So I can kind of feel that creeping up.

But yeah, in terms of shows, I don't know. We'll see. There's the WNBF China. I don't know if their first show was this year or not. It might have been this year in April. they're probably one next april uh you're well set for that and yeah having seen your physique uh you don't tend to showcase like a full physique update that often i'd love to see you hit like the symmetry rounds uh the muscularity rounds like all the bodybuilding poses because, yeah, I mean...

Clearly, just knowing your kind of fat-free mass index, knowing your weight, your height, and how lean you are, you'd be competitive on stage for sure. So it would be exciting to see you on a bodybuilding stage. I'm always trying to push Jeff to step on the bodybuilding stage.

stage but yeah looking at you i wouldn't be surprised if you're just slightly under 10 to be honest because you have like striations through your lower back proper christmas tree uh quads are completely separated some lines coming through the hamstrings it's you're really not that far off from what i've seen like true bodybuilding stage condition but you're right

The body is a survival machine and it hides body fat and holds it in every nook and cranny possible. But you're looking good at that weight. It's not that you're so depleted and fat or anything like that. You're kind of like as lean is probably you'd want to be if you're not competing, I imagine. Yeah. Again, there's like this threshold where if you go below it, your body's just not happy. And I think I'm right.

There, I'm around 90, this morning I was 92 point something, 92.5 or something. So just over 200 pounds. And I'm trying to get to 200 pounds just because I've been running more. And I think it'll... Obviously, if you lose fat, it helps your running as long as you still feel okay and you feel like you have enough energy. And so it is around that point where if I dropped five pounds, I would feel worse, I'm sure.

And I would have less energy and the body fights back. And yeah, it's in every nook and cranny. And when you get totally shredded, every muscle group looks different. right like your hamstrings look different quads delts change probably the most um you start seeing like weird veins and stuff so i would say it's hard to say what my stage weight might be

But I wouldn't be surprised if it was another 10 pounds, 5 kilos or so. But again, it's hard to say because I haven't competed and I don't want to lose that fullness.

So it's a little bit of a balancing act there. How much do you try to keep of that? How hard do you push? Listening to Alberto Nunez has helped me a lot because it's the idea that you push, push, push with the diet and you flatten out a little bit. We don't want to push too hard and flatten out too much.

potentially even risk muscle loss, which is normally not a concern. But when you're getting that lean, I think the body kind of just takes from wherever it can. So yeah, I'm kind of just going gradually. I maintained 93 to 94, maybe 95 kilos and 205 to 210 pounds for about six months. So that is a very happy body weight for me. Yeah, the leaner you get, the tougher it is to lose more. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's Brandon Kempter says, like, deplete, replete, repeat.

and i just it's just a nice saying of like how it has to go in that final route because you have to deplete you have to look a bit flat at times to kind of lose the body fat there because yeah if you're refeeding all the time you're looking full all the time well the body's burning like and it's not burning body fat but at the same time

When it hasn't got any glycogen to burn through and it's just burning through fat, it risks also taking some of that harder muscle away. And so it is a balancing act for sure. And it sounds like you're feeling some of the diet fatigue symptoms.

kind of kicking around when you have been pushing a bit longer and so maybe you're near that like you said like theoretical lower intervention point of body fat where hey i could survive here and be fine and eat a maintenance and it wouldn't be a hassle but digging below this or is that that's the true digging phase of like a bodybuilding prep yeah like i i and your physique will be so transient right like if you have a higher carb day you'll you'll see it have you'll feel it

you'll have a high carb meal and you can just like feel and you could see the vascularity. Like you have a high carb meal and then you go look in the mirror and your veins and the abs are just like, I've just extended down or you could, you could just feel. the insulin release go through you. Whereas when you're bulked up, it's a lot less of a sensation. And so, yeah, there's a lot more fluctuation from day to day. Like some days you push a little bit too hard.

And maybe you're retaining a little bit of water, but then you increase your water and then a few days later it flushes out. And so, yeah, I'm kind of just getting to know the process of like, how does water intake affect me? carbohydrate refeeding. I'm still not counting calories at all, which some people find to be truly wild, but I'm just trying to get a grasp on what my body needs and how it responds.

to how much food intake, both high and low. And I could see why a lot of bodybuilders, they don't just stick to a certain level of calories every day, right? Because you kind of have to... get to know your body with how it refeeds a little bit and how you do on low days, high days. And so when I see a study that says something like, there's no benefit to refeeds, I'm like, yeah, but...

Almost all professional natural bodybuilders seem to use them pretty regularly. So yeah, I think the game changes from like 10% onward. And these strategies can be a lot more helpful.

when the study is probably on people who are in a very different situation. Yeah, for sure. It comes back to a discussion you've had a lot of times on your channel and things you've spoken about is like tempering people's... kind of leaning into science too hard and like the outcomes and...

remembering who it's done on like people are all good and well remembering hey if it's done on a mouse probably don't apply that to a human but they say well is that human anything like you uh because yeah like you said they're getting exotically lean requires sometimes some different protocols and things like that and i've done it without refeeds and i've done it with them and i have to say refeeds was a

better approach whether or not it was just psychological but part of it's a mental battle at that point anyway so at least the research has shown there's clear psychological benefits which i always think hey the mind the body follows mind anyway so uh

so you haven't actually said that no you're not thinking about competing is that is it is it still on the cards like it's something that you're like once you feel confident enough comfortable enough and it lines up in life it's in the back of my mind and it's one thing

As a content creator, I think the stakes are a little bit higher. But also I have to sort out, is this something that I actually want to do? Or is it something that just like my audience... wants me to do you know what i mean and so is it just like content um i think i saw uh you know tnf

I have seen his stuff over on Instagram mostly. I really like his stuff. I think he's cutting now and preparing for a show. Obviously not purely for engagement, but he was joking like, oh, like to get engagement.

250 days out or something um and so yeah it's for me it's it's difficult to separate out this is something that i really want to do uh and and doing it i guess for the right reasons uh if i do it i'm not saying i'm doing it but you know maybe um and so yeah we'll see um either china or maybe hong kong um but

Yeah, we'll see. I also have some running goals that I kind of want to check off first. I think it's possible to run while prepping, but at a certain point that probably would become a little bit challenging. So I'd probably just, if I didn't prep. I would just go all in on that, yeah. Do you follow Sam Okunola by chance? yeah yeah yes so you saw he did his old like a marathon days before like a bodybuilding show yeah uh clearly isn't optimal like it is that hey you're a master of none as in

He was better as a bodybuilder just focusing on bodybuilding. He didn't bring his best, but it definitely can be done. It's just like you know you're sacrificing on both ends a little bit. Yeah, and they're not entirely in opposite directions because running... helps with fat loss. But yeah, I think getting exotically lean, he's a good exception. I think it's a really nice case study to show that, hey, yeah, it is possible to do both at a very high level.

I imagine it would not be ideal because, yeah, you're trying to do two things and running is quite tiring and then you're low on body fat as well. And so, yeah, that must be tough. Hats off to him. for doing that. It's super impressive. And I think stuff like that does show what is possible. I mean, not many bodybuilders run. And so seeing someone do that, yeah, super impressive. Yeah, it's very true.

Actually, interestingly enough, both of you are quite big guys too, like heavy. And I always think that doesn't help in terms of like joint connective tissue strain, although I guess the body is quite adaptive in that regard. And like you said, being leaner, being lighter definitely helps. But he's obviously, well, both of you.

clearly very kind of elite in terms of like genetics aren't bad by any means uh i can imagine a number of people who might try to do both and really not too well yeah well i think i don't i don't know his background

as much if he started lifting first and running later. For me, I ran for 10 years and then lifted. And while lifting, I sort of have barely ran. barely done cardio for the most part and so adding running back in it's a little bit of like newbie gains getting them back but then also listening up to my body because it's it's different from lifting lifting does not prepare the calves the ankles the shins the hips in the same way like if you do a normal lifting plan and then you go and try to run

you'll get sore in weird places that running just doesn't, it's just a different type of fatigue. Right now I'm only running once every four days. And so I think because I have that base. I don't necessarily need as much. So I'm on my upper body days. Right now I split is upper, lower, upper run. So I'm running basically every four days. Occasionally I take a day off.

I'll do like low intensity sort of stepping on the treadmill on the upper body days after the session. But I'm only running once every four days. And so... I actually do need that long to recover, though, in between the high quality sessions, because running at 200 plus pounds is definitely a different experience than 150 pounds. And so, yeah, I have this sort of muscle backpack.

That certainly makes me both slower and also does seem to prolong the recovery. I could also just be older. It's hard to say. But yeah, I do. I don't like the age thing. Yeah, I mean. 36 versus 26 is not that big of a big of a difference um but 50 pounds certainly does for sure yeah yeah it's interesting i uh obviously see you running and like

Oh my God, would I ever be interested? I have a little bit of a running background. I was never, I don't think as serious as you were, but certainly I was gifted to some extent in the running area and endurance space. And I think it was back in lockdown.

there was like a 5k for charity or something and I just was like oh I'm gonna do it and I just did it and I got nearly under 20 minutes like for a 5k and I'd never run and I was just like i kind of tried like i was like i could probably have pushed it and got under 20 minutes and a number of people like screw you steve like i never run oh sorry i always run and you never run and you're better at running than i am and it's like oh okay

Maybe I should have been a runner, but it definitely beat me up. It beat me up in areas that I was like, fuck, why did I do that? And this is why I don't run. Although it's like anything novel, right? You just... you should ease yourself in and as long as you do that you're going to be all right but um yeah it's probably you'll get to a point where the running you might decide if you want to take bodybuilding to stage you might decide to be like right now i'll just

do my steps and like commit to this 100% and yeah I mean it'll be exciting to see you just it makes such a difference seeing someone in bodybuilding trunks and hitting the poses

It's just like that you really reveal kind of, are they made for bodybuilding? Because as you know, it isn't just... muscle size like they don't check your fat free mass index on stage they don't check your body fat any of that how you shape how you put together all of that stuff you balance top to toe so but i can totally see it being a stress like or

also the thought of and it's really good that you're talking about it having a good reason why you want to do it specifically because if you're doing it for other people or peer pressure or anything like that i just can't imagine that turning out well and I think it's good that you wouldn't do it for any of those reasons. Yeah, and I can see why some people might, but I do think it's important to kind of separate out those and sort of think about why you might want to do it.

And I will say that I, I used to look at the guys up on stage like five, six years ago and think these guys are ridiculous. Like how, what is even this? And then now I look at it, I'm thinking, huh, like, how would I, you know what I mean? And so, but you're right that it's not just muscle, it's how everything is put together. And I do think that on social media.

You can definitely manipulate things to make yourself look way better than you actually are, if that makes sense. Especially some types of physiques. Like my physique is not balanced. it's not proportional, I guess I would say, right? Like I do have some very strong, strong points, but then also my weak points, you don't necessarily need to even show those on social media, right?

I often do anyway. But with the lighting and the angles, you hit a side tricep and you're just like, whoa, what is even that? You stick the tricep against the lat and then... It just looks crazy. And so I have some very strong poses, but I also have some poses that are quite weak. Like my side triceps is very strong.

My side chest is quite good. My most muscular is pretty good as well, especially like hand on hips where, you know, it accentuates the long head of the tricep sweep and the delts and the upper traps.

and the quad sweep all of those are strong points for me but then if i look at like a front lat spread i just cannot get it to look good it's just like i i i'm just not structurally as good in that pose i have a pretty narrow waist which helps same with the back lat spread i just can't get the lats to spread all the way out i think that's like a mobility issue or

getting enough internal rotation at the shoulder to really get everything to sort of stretch around the scapula. And then, let's see, abs and thigh, also not a very good pose. You know, you have to have this sort of mobility.

to get everything around and get the lats to stretch around and so yeah there's there's some stuff that i would need to work on for me personally whenever i do something i tend to get quite obsessive with it and like really get focused on it and dial things in and go all in on it and so if i did decide to compete it wouldn't be like oh there's a show in a month or something you know what i mean like it would it would be fairly

planned out. And so, yeah, I have some good strong points and certainly a lot of potential, I would say. But I have to work on the posing. I have to work on the conditioning. Certain poses I need to really bring up.

um and then certain muscle groups even could could use a lot of work as well yeah it's the posing piece is a lot larger than a lot of people realize especially it's not just hitting the poses like a lot of people can hit them but hitting them for their physique specifically it's taken me a long time like my front double bicep i've finally got to a point where i'm like if i

shift my hips over here and i twist i'm like i can i can pull it off it looks a bit x-framey i'm like i can't hit it like everyone else straight front on because i

Unlike you, I have a blocky waist and not the sweeping quads and stuff like this. But I always view bodybuilding as a bit like top trumps. Like you have your cards, you have like... some things have more strengths than others you learn what your strengths are whether that's like our crazy condition symmetry muscularity certain poses and not other poses um but yeah i think you'd be surprised if it sounds like most of your things are

kind of posing tweaks and mobility issues and if you work on that it would be homework but i think you'd be surprised how far that could then take you but that's exciting that it's not off the cards but i definitely think like you said you want to make sure it's something you want to do

Most people, if I have a consultation with them and they're wanting to step on stage, I always ask like, what's your reason why? Nine times out of 10, it's because they're like, it's a challenge. It's like a itch. They just need to scratch. They've heard a lot about it. They're very committed to it. They've been training a long time and they want to embrace that process, the journey, learn the lessons along the way.

thankfully not many people come to me like i want to win a pro card or i want to boost my social media following if that happened yeah like guy like i think you need to rethink this yeah i think in terms of like financial

I just don't see that really doing a whole lot. And so, yeah, it wouldn't be for that reason. It would more just, I guess, to see some kind of... possibility or just just to see how things go um because yeah there is that curiosity about like oh how would i do um whereas before you know five six seven eight years ago you see these guys on stage and they're like the same height as you and the same weight as you

but you're not in stage condition and you're like, all right, well, I have some work to do, but you go through a few bulks and a few cuts and then another bulk and then all of a sudden like you cut down and you're like, I'm pretty lean and also still.

pretty heavy and things are like things are looking pretty good so yeah i think and and you're a really good example of this as well where it's not like you live for five years and then you're just done you know it's like the craziest thing i've i've heard three years now right like you make most of your gains after three years and then like you might you might as well give up or hop on the sauce or something and so yeah you just sort of keep chipping away and then all of a sudden

You kind of look at these physiques and think, hey, man, I'm not too far off, you know? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And... an easy way people can think about this too is look at kind of if there's height categories weight categories or what have you and just like like you said just be like where would what category would i be in do i look like i belong in that category so i think if you'd end up being a heavyweight

pretty much all the time but you're also like six foot two as well six six feet yeah six feet okay i mean that's better but you'd also want to be a heavyweight at six yeah ffmi is the one time when men lie about their height to go shorter yeah i'm like i'm six foot in my squat shoes but if you ask my ffmi i'm five for eight uh but yeah yeah so yeah that's exciting though and um yeah i guess something to think about for you in the future absolutely and

Where was I going with this? Yeah, man, in terms of muscle gain potential, this is the point I wanted to make. You were saying at the start there, now you're at this level of leanness. Every kilo you lose... it's like you can see the change i think people forget that about once you've met like average muscularity every like

pound or kilo above that you suddenly look like way more impressive i know that happened for me i think i was kind of in and around average muscularity after like 10 years of lifting kind of looked like a guy that

lifted if you took off his top and like a little bit more muscular than a swimmer type of deal um like for us we wouldn't term that someone is impressive but then every kilo above that suddenly it was like oh what's happened steve suddenly you've transformed i'm like i actually haven't gained that much it's just i'm

like a step above what you typically see. 100%. I mean, that's something that I've been thinking about for a while now. And every kilo of muscle means more and more and more and more. Right. It's not a linear type of thing. I've seen comments online, something along the lines of. He made 80 percent of his gains in the last two years.

And I'm thinking like, yeah, I mean, I gained four pounds in the last two years, but like it does, especially if it's sitting in the right places around, around the delts, around the lats. He brought up some weight points. It's just. it does make a significant difference. And, you know, you might gain 15 or 20 pounds in your first year or year and a half or something of lifting, and you can see it.

But if I put on 10 or 15 pounds or 20 pounds now, I'd be like, I mean, it sits different, I think, because the muscle is sitting on muscle. And so it... is a standout type of thing and and the crazy thing actually is that the best enhanced guys are like 100 pounds on top of that, you know, of lean body mass, maybe some is water and glycogen and stuff. But it's I do think there is something to be said for.

advanced natural muscle growth, not looking linear. I think Eric Helms is another good example where I think in his offseason, a couple of years... Also four or five pounds or so. But like you can, it's a very clear difference, right? At least to people who have an eye for it. And yeah, so I think it's one of those things where it's not quite linear.

And even if you made theoretically, hypothetically, a certain percentage of your gains in five years, that doesn't mean you're always going to look that way plus a little bit. It can be a dramatic difference. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think that's well said. And it just furthers why people should give it a chance. Like, and that's part of the fun too. Once you've been lifting a while, I think you'd probably be the same, Jeff. Like if you weren't gaining like... barely any muscle you still go and train and do this thing so the fact that hey it might take someone a bit longer in the early stages i wish i'd kind of had that perspective when i was early on lifting i think i had a period of time where i was like

I have bad genetics or everyone bigger than me is on gear. And I think that just put me in a bad place for a couple of years. I wish I just could have skipped that phase. Yeah, no, I mean, I was the same. And ironically for me.

A lot of the things that I blamed on genetics were stuff that I wasn't even really training. Like, I have a post. 2001. where it's like i have bad ab genetics no i just wasn't just wasn't training my abs like i i i mean occasionally rarely i would do like a set of

a crappy set of cable crunches, you know, where it's like all hip flexor. Because as a runner, you develop strong hips, hip flexors, because you flex your hips when you're running, but you don't really ever crunch your abs. And so my hip flexors are strong. using those, doing cable crunches, and I'm like, well, I guess I have bad ab genetics. And so, yeah, the more you learn, the better your genetics seem, right? Because you actually keep making progress and you bring up the weak points.

I'm going to do a whole video on this, but even my lats, there was a time when I was like, man, I have bad lower lat genetics. They just have high insertions. No, it's just underdeveloped. I just was never, ever targeting the lower lats. because when i was doing pull-ups it would be this kind of stuff right where you're not actually driving the elbows down in front uh and i'm lean enough now where you know if i'm doing a back double biceps

and I flex my lats downward, I can actually see the fibers of the lats. And it's actually really, really cool because I didn't have that in 2001. I had a bit of a Christmas tree because I had a decent lower back from a lot of deadlifting, but I didn't have really any meat down there. I mean, it's...

It's like my insertions have gotten better. That's essentially what it looks like. And so you have to wonder how many people who talk about how they have bad insertions or something, they just haven't trained. that area. Because if you're doing all your vertical pulls like this, where you're shrugged up and it's essentially a high row, you're just not really going to develop that area. And I could think of a ton of different examples where

people are blaming their genetics when they're just moving in a way that is not really targeting that area. And thus, if you think about it in terms of proximity to failure, you have a lot of people arguing about Should I be zero or one or two? If you're pulling in a way where you should be driving the elbows down and in front, and they're actually sort of skewing out to the side or you're shrugging up.

Your lower lats might be 10 reps in reserve, even when you're pushing to failure or beyond failure, just because they're so far removed from the path that would actually get them some stimulus. And so, I mean, it might be 15. reps and reserve. And so no one's going to grow off that. Why would you grow? You'd have to be a complete genetic freak to grow with that far away from failure. And so, yeah, moving better and improving my exercise selection.

have helped a ton for sure there are so many great threads that i want to pull on that discussion uh because i think that really encapsulates a lot of confusion for people because yeah the saying i often come back to is like you truly don't well first of all

like you can look like you have poor genetics within the first few years of lifting but give it 10 years and then suddenly you have good genetics it's just like you've just been doing it longer than the average person probably and being committed to it but learning how to really target certain muscles is so underrated because i do think there is an element uh maybe it's a genetic proclivity for some muscles to grow better than others like my arms grew easily from pulling

But once I learned how to train my lats, similar to you, suddenly it looked like I had high lat insertions to low lat insertions. It was just like, I think my back is probably one of the areas I brought up the best. And similar with quads, I really struggled to grow those. Adductors, no problem.

But my quads, like I've really had to battle to bring those up. And this is where I just, I think that sometimes... maybe some evidence-based practitioners and the science can dumb things down too far where it's a thought that comes to mind was a recent post from Menno was essentially saying like,

The pump, self-swelling, does nothing. It wasn't as harsh as this, but, like, essentially, you could interpret it as, like, it's useless hypertrophy. But I'm like, in your example there, you do a pull-up, and you're not getting a lat pump. You know what I mean? Your lats aren't...

doing anything i don't know i've seen my best growth in certain areas when i've been able to get that biofeedback it's like well it might not have a causal effect of hypertrophy but it could be a tool in your toolkit to like diagnose certain lifts it's similar to some of there was a time in the biomechanics area they were saying like what was it sensation is like meaningless you just need like visual technique to look correct i'm like ah but

For some people, if they've really got a stubborn area they're trying to bring up, I think that sensation is needed. So my muscle connection is one that's even debated, like in the evidence-based space, right? I think there's a reason bodybuilders have spoken about it so strongly for a period of time. Oh, 100%. And this is where often you have to take weight off the bar or just choose a different exercise. Like I don't do pull-ups super often. I did...

I did a few sets of pull ups today and it's just harder to keep it in the lats because you kind of have to move your body along with. So, you know, I felt my biceps way more on. these pull-ups compared to a pull-down. But with a narrow neutral grip, it's just harder to keep everything there because, you know, unless you're doing like a front, what's it called, a front lever plank or something where your feet are out.

a plant where your feet are out in front of you. But then it's very taxing on the abs. So this is where choosing your exercises well and giving up on some exercise it's not very it's not very inspirational right like but i don't really do barbell bench press anymore because I feel it in the triceps or in the shoulders or I just I don't really feel it in the chest as much as with dumbbells or some machines or like a power fly or something. And so I do think that.

the sensation and the pump are they're relevant yeah to say they're irrelevant is a little bit silly because i do think that they matter the issue i think is when people put too much emphasis on them and they're like oh man i can't progressively overload because i didn't feel my hamstrings on that rdl quite as much as the last set and it's like you can use it during your warm-ups to feel things out

And you can, you have to be present in the gym, right? Not just during the set, but afterwards and before, between sets and during warmups. And so, yeah, moving well, I think it's just so underrated. And if you're doing moderate reps, you're probably going to get a pump, right? Unless you're doing low reps, in which in case you probably won't, and then that's fine. But...

I think doing a myriad of rep ranges is probably a good idea. And the higher rep stuff, you're probably going to get a pump. And if you don't, or if you're getting a pump somewhere else, I mean... If you're doing some kind of pull down and your biceps are just blowing up, I don't know, man. I think that's a skill issue. Yeah. Yeah. Really well said there, Jeff. And something else I think you'll appreciate is.

You've probably had it count. I know you've been called out as like a fake natty so many times and often it's from people who have gone on steroids relatively early within their lifting career and i was just thinking through as you talk through that i think it's maybe they live for five years and they are under the impression they've

gained 80% of the gains they should because some people kind of espouse that and then they see people like yourself Jeff who have then done another five years on top of that or what have you and they're like how could you possibly have gained like look that different like i just they don't understand it at all and i think it's because they just kind of gave up a little bit too early where if they did do another five years they might have had that opportunity to kind of

focus and break things down actually what you mentioned there in terms of being present that sounds like that whole like deliberate practice in terms of like learning and i can't remember like to become a expert in something you have to have whatever it is ten thousands of deliberate practice but it's like that deliberate practice a lot of people just go through the motions expect it to come on especially in the early years it kind of does yeah then as a newbie it can but as an

intermediate to go advanced you have to deliberately put effort in and think about these things on a higher level and yeah i think a lot of those unfortunately guys who get frustrated and they don't take that next level they go on gear and then they don't understand why

you've been able to do it where they had to go on gear to be able to get those results i don't know if you feel like that maybe it just kind of when you talked through i was like i can see that now yeah i mean it's one of those things where And if someone wants to hop on, obviously, it's a personal choice. But I do think that once you do that, it does almost slam the door shut on some problem solving opportunities.

because you can always just up the dose. And I think that's what a lot of people do. They hop on pretty early. Sometimes they get good results in terms of their response, which I think a lot of it, that is genetic. sometimes they don't get good results and they're like oh was it was it bunk gear or something it's like well you know maybe you still have to train well right steroids they i mean

you're not going to turn into like the Hulk or Mr. Limbia, especially if your training is not good, right? So I know there have been some studies floated around, oh, steroids gained more muscle than training. And I've highlighted those. In the long term, I don't really see that necessarily happening. But in the short term, it might. And it's one of those things where it has to be intentional and it has to be quality time in the gym.

And you have to have that iterative mindset of trying to get better over time and really being observant and trying to assess things. And so nothing is given. Nothing is promised. Very few people can sort of... stroke their hand across the dumbbell and start getting muscle beyond the first maybe year or two there are people like that i've seen people like that i'm not one of those people i don't think you're one of those people

Those people are like, those are the true freaks. And ironically, often they don't even end up doing super, super well either because they have the same issue as some of the steroid guys where like they get results so quickly and so easily that they never have to learn. um and so but if they do then i'll like holy shit watch out like that's you know those are the ones who who go really far and start winning world titles and stuff but the um

You have to be intentional and observant and you have to try to be getting better over time. And yeah, nothing is promised. You have to really put in the work and be consistent. and keep learning over time. And I mean, I look good after five years, but the idea that you figured everything out and it's just been perfect, I think is a little bit of a myth.

I'm sure you've seen these charts where it says like year one, year two, year three, year four, year five. I mean, maybe in theory, but it rarely works out that way in practice. yeah yeah i know exactly the charts you're speaking to and certainly i've kind of seen it with myself and others where there's like growth spurts almost happen where it's just like i unlocked

I don't know, training intensity, like true hard training. I understood now what failure was. Or like you said, you learn, you watch a bunch of N1 Coach Kassem stuff. And finally, it's like, wow, I unlocked like my lats. I know how to train those now. Like you learn these things.

Or I know one for me was nutrition for a time. I was like, hey, it's super important. I stay super lean and partitioning ratios, the most important thing. And I was like, it's like, man, you never fed yourself to be able to actually grow. So yeah, you go through those. lesson to learning some people travel that a little bit differently but unless you've got like a really good coach right at the start you're gonna not grow just in a linear fashion yeah on that note jeff this year

Does anything come to mind in terms of changes to your training or anything that you've been doing that has kind of helped you grow and you've seen kind of a bit of an unlock there? I know from following you, at least from, I think. chess training might have been something where there was a bit of an unlock hi guys steve here just wanted to take a moment of your time to remind you of our online coaching service

At Revive Stronger, we pride ourselves on providing personalized service that will take your physique and knowledge to the next level. If you're interested, check the description and sign up. Yeah, I would say actually almost taking weight off the bar, and by bar I mean dumbbells, was quite helpful because I am quite triceps dominant. And so even on a dumbbell bench press or a dumbbell incline press,

they'll get a little bit extension-y instead of actually using the chest. Additionally, I'm somewhat delt dominant, so I'll tend to flare out and elevate. at the shoulders, and it's just very minimal peck from that position. I'm stronger when I'm out here, but even just moving here, I can feel... there's just slack in the chest. Like it's just, again, it might be five or 10 reps away from failure, essentially, even if it was a slow rep near the end. And so being able to tuck the elbows more.

Not so much that the triceps sort of get back into play, but somewhere around here, I have found it to be very useful. And then actually also not going quite as deep. Because when I go deep, I tend to get more of a front del. stretch and then also like the triceps get a stretch at the bottom and it just tends to be not as much chest and so it's one of those things where if you have a weak point

So for me, lats, chest, you might need to be very particular about how you move, right? Like it might be the difference between here and here. Other people might not even really be able to see it. but you can feel it. It's like if you're typing on the keyboard and you miss a keystroke, you can feel it. Other people can't see it. They can't be like, oh, he missed the J. No, you can feel that you missed it when you're typing. It's the same thing when you're lifting.

You can feel if things are going a little bit askew, and it's happening because it's easier, essentially, right? You're starting to get into a certain position because that position is more comfortable. And it's easier and you don't have to hold that muscle you're trying to train to the fire. And so for me, using less range of motion, using a particular...

sort of arm path, not too tucked, not too flared, keeping everything where I wanted it. And I'm not even pressing much more weight. I've gotten stronger for sure, but... If I use too much weight, I revert into the old patterns and thus I can feel attention going off the chest. And so, yeah, I would say that's a big one. And then back trading.

you're kind of laying the foundation with this kind of stuff, right? Sometimes you have to take a lot of weight off the bar, kind of humble yourself, use it a weight that is appropriate for you because your weak points, they're weaker, right? because they're smaller by definition. And so because you're taking out your strong points and you're just trying to keep it on the weak point, sometimes the weights you can lift are really not what you want to be.

but it might be what is needed. And then you can start to load things up a little bit more. Like for instance, my pulldowns, I had to kind of reset those. I reset those maybe last year. And now I'm back up to 300 pounds for five with a more lat dominant technique. It's essentially like that. Like I want to pull like this where I'm leaning back and kind of like.

retracting, because I do pretty strong traps, but it's driving the elbows down in front. It's pullover-like. There you go. I'm imagining a pullover, essentially, because I'm trying to keep... the elbows away because essentially I mean shoulder extension that's what what the lats are doing so I'm trying there's a slight lean back because as the weights are fairly heavy you can't stay perfectly vertical because you have to offset that

I mean, if it's more than your body weight, you kind of have to. But it's not so much that you're swinging a zero swing. You're initiating with the lat and then driving down. And I'm also not too concerned about this last little bit. If it's a one arm pull down, I might because I want to drive down with one side. But on a bilateral, I'm really just happy here. Right. If I flex my lats, flex, flex, flex.

I really end up like here. The minute I go down here and try to get it to the chest, that's rear delts, that's retraction, maybe a little bit of teres. But if I go from this back position... and flex my lats, my arms actually come forward. I imagine the lats actually flex the shoulder when you're all the way back.

Yeah, being not too concerned with the range of motion and just trying to keep it in the lats. But another benefit is it goes out of the biceps too when you're driving down in front because it's more of an arc. And so... Yeah, I'm happy with the progress there. It does just take a lot of focus because I'm happy to use other areas if needed. And so if you start ego lifting or swinging or cheating.

that's when you start actually going backwards. Because the area you're trying to stimulate is actually getting less. And there's a bunch of other ones. Quads have been tough to grow with the running. My squat patterns have probably taken the hardest hit. But again, same thing, keeping the knees forward, keeping the tension on the quads, and choosing movements that make that easier.

has also been very, very useful. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I know maybe, I don't know how long ago, but there was a time of which I remember viewing your content. and looking at your technique and being like, this guy is going like, his technique is so far off like a technique cyborg, I can't believe it. But he's big, he's muscular, and he seems to be convinced this is good. And I...

evolved my kind of philosophy around technique as well where i viewed it more on a spectrum and i kind of lent into being a bit more aggressive and pushing that way and that definitely unlocked new growth but i do think and it sounds like you've kind of gone through this period of time where you've

lent into that but it's like ah the areas some weak areas aren't growing i need to get a bit closer to mr technique cyborg yeah and kind of make sure those are being worked but not so much that like hey i'm leaving so many reps in reserve and i find that happens for me where i i kind of start off with might look like quite pristine technique not

like perfect from visually outside of certainly getting aggressive and as i progress it i slowly move towards that ego lifter and i'm like now i need to reset it again and come back i don't know if you find yourself needing to do these like form resets occasionally, and I'm kind of torn between which is better, like allowing better progression and slightly decaying technique and then resetting.

or just being super strict with things and never allowing any kind of deviation, I think you could make arguments either way. I think sometimes the type of person who only ever has strict form...

probably needs a little bit more aggression with the progression, so to speak. But the type of person who is always pushing the weights up, up, up, up, up, they probably need the opposite, right? And then... once you're developed as a lifter you kind of can go by feel to a certain extent like i i know when a set is sloppy enough that it probably wasn't very useful like today i was doing hammer curls

with the 35 kilo dumbbells it was too heavy it was fun but it was too like i could just it wasn't it wasn't enough range of motion and stricken enough right like if you're cheating or you're dropping off on range of motion like one of those could make sense but if you're both cheating and you're dropping off on range of motion

i think i think that's a clear side it's just too much weight and so i went back down to the 30s but i think sometimes that kind of thing where okay the 35s probably not the best decision But it made the 30s feel pretty easy, actually, like they felt better than usual. So sometimes you can justify on some movements. I do think that injury risk.

has to be calculated here for me i don't see myself ever getting injured on a hammer curl but would i do the same thing on like a preacher curl with a dumbbell like oh yeah just like get a few reps heavier sets of five where you're slamming out of the bottom position to make the lighter set now like to me that doesn't that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and so yeah you have to know yourself you have to know the exercise and then you also have to know

what seemed to produce the best results in the past which is not always super clear when you're gonna gain like two pounds a year yeah yeah i think there's there's definitely something to that progressive mindset in the gym Because I just think without that, you're not as aggressive. And I think having some aggression in the gym is super important for just making sure everything's working as hard as it can be to put it in as simple terms as possible. I think there's probably a combination of...

ways to do it. I think maybe that's why you probably heard of like the top set back offset. kind of people doing that i imagine that's why that got popular where people are like very progressive aggressive on that top set and then the back off they're like more controlled feel the muscle it probably kind of gets a nice combination of things going on but i definitely feel you on

had it with a few movements recently where i was like ah like if i was to progress this lift my form would have to really break down and my like to use a mike israel term the stimulus of fatigue trade-off it was just starting to fall out of favor i was like let's just reset this i was like This feels better. And I also loved your comment on the range of motion because obviously that was like really in vogue getting the biggest stretch possible on a muscle. But I do think sometimes people forget.

First of all, they think about range of motion and maximizing the stretch for the exercise as a whole, and they forget about the muscle they're trying to train. I was bringing up like a squat. People sink it really deep. They stretch their glutes and adductors out loads, but maybe they even sacrifice some knee flexion. And it's like, well, you're doing it for the quad.

like what are you doing here you're maybe not maximizing uh what you're trying to maximize there but also i've noticed on chess training with myself and clients where if they really go for that deep stretch it's like sometimes they actually feel weaker

And it just feels all in the shoulder. And it's like, if you just hold it in a decent range and where you still feel strong, they're like, again, the biofeedback on that in terms of like pump and actually feeling the chest work as opposed to other areas is always much better.

yeah for sure it's one of those things where uh actually jonathan warren he's one of the guys who kind of uh inspired me to start trading the chess that way initially I heard of him because he critiqued one of my videos. And it was a video from a few years ago. And I think it was a good thing that it was a few years ago.

Because if someone critiques something of yours a few years ago, you can kind of separate yourself from that, right? It's not you that's being criticized. It's like a version of you. And he was right. He was 100% right. Everything he was saying, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy knows his stuff. There are some channels that it's just hate where I don't even watch. They'll name drop my name in the title or mention me or something.

And it's like, it's just a waste of time because I know what it's going to be and it's not going to be educational or accurate. But his stuff was on point. And he said something like, yeah, he's twisting a little bit here. He's probably like.

setting himself up for injury and this was like two months before my ql injury that took me out for like 10 months i was like all right yeah this guy this guy knows his stuff and so i started watching a lot more of his videos and i've been on his channel like five or six times by now And so I'll learn from anyone. And if what they're saying makes sense, I'll give it a shot and try it out. And I wouldn't say that chest is like a standout muscle group for me.

but it's certainly improved a lot. And yeah, not going for a super freakish sort of Arnold Dumbbell Fly Ranger motion. I mean, his chest probably would have grown from a whole bunch of stuff. considering, you know, all the variables that go into that. And so, yeah, I think just being humble and trying to learn from as many people as possible goes a really long way. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think I've probably seen every bit of content you've done with Jonathan just because I enjoy...

Jonathan, I enjoy your discussions when you're out there and being interviewed. Yeah, you're getting interviewed all over the place, actually. Was it on Skip La Cour? Did I see you on Skip's channel? Is that the right person? Yeah.

team skip if that's the same person or skip i anyway i saw that interview i was like oh cool like this is a like going into the enhance realm a little bit discussing stuff there and yeah jonathan um he has some really interesting perspectives that I guess I haven't seen as much.

described elsewhere and had a number of people actually request for him to be on the channel so at some point i have to bring him on to talk through things and yeah he has he is a combination of some entertaining i guess some people might take it as like very much shit talk

content to very educational and in-depth uh stuff over there so i'm sure a lot of the listeners will know him but if you look him up and i've been on i was on his channel a while ago so yeah i appreciate him bringing me on uh in terms of

so those are like things you learned this year about at least some of your training anything within obviously you probably consume too much fitness content like I do as well. Is there any like shit storms from the past year that you've just been like, oh my God, I can't believe that was a thing. Anything that comes to mind, I can bring some up if you have nothing that springs to mind.

The dissertation is probably the biggest one. Yeah, I mean, Solomon Nelson's probably the breakout fitness YouTuber of the year, I would say. He's been quiet lately. That means he's brewing on something. Yeah, I mean, you never know. He's like the opposite of Greg Doucette, where his posting frequency is completely the opposite.

Yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest one. And maybe just the pushback against science in general. You know, that was kind of like, I don't want to call it the cherry on top, but that was like. sort of the uh highlight or low light but but it's almost been happening for a while the sort of pushback against science um and i think that's part of the reason why

There was so much pushback against, you know, against Mike. And so it's been interesting. Some of it hasn't been particularly fair, I will say. Some of it's in the communication as much as the actual science. And, you know, I have a few. This is something I've talked about before, and there's a few people in the science-based community.

who sometimes reach out to me in DMs, like, correcting something I put out or clarifying. And I really, I won't name drop, but, you know, I really appreciate that because, you know, I want science to do well. It might seem like, but I actually genuinely do because I still keep up with it. And I do think there is a lot of value there. But sometimes the communication has issues or.

It kind of gets rolled up in the marketing side of things. And I mean, there are so many really good science-based channels, but a lot of them are pretty small. 10,000 or 20,000 subscribers or something. And so in some ways, it's almost been hijacked as a term, and it doesn't mean as much as it used to.

Yeah, if I was going to bring anything up, I was going to say the kind of almost pseudoscience base lifting in a sense also got... pushed too far where oh man i can't this is so funny it happened today there was i would call him a child he's certainly a teenager in the gym and i just don't even know what he was doing he had like a i think it was like a

i think it was like i don't know judo belt or something some sort of long belt type looking thing that he attached to the cable station and then was just doing isometric like kind of hammer curl type things i was just like i don't know like i couldn't not look at him and like look like uh guy do you need help like so i just i do think it is that case of there's there's a few segments to like the issue with i guess the science-based lifter like yeah

segment of just like i don't know those teenagers that are like trying to sound smarter than they are and kind of try and over optimize things as it were and kind of majoring in the minors and then you have the other case of it where you have legitimate science-based communicators that maybe people feel have and i would agree there are people within that space who have overstepped in terms of i think maybe they've leant too far into trying to just grow and they haven't kept true to that

kind of academic side of things and there's even been dispute within the space where you have like some of the other PhDs where they're like social media PhDs and they're kind of calling them out so that's That's been an interesting thing. I think it's like lots of things that get popular and get used. Eventually, they have like a bit of a come down and they get brought back to where they maybe should be. And it's kind of just the world's way of correcting. Yeah, I kind of like...

the transition to evidence-based rather than science-based. Because in reality, there's a lot of different types of evidence. And I almost never see someone actually trained. purely according to the science because if so okay well we know volume is important and it doesn't really seem like there's any end point to more volume being better according to the science so like

Is anyone actually out there doing like 40 or 50 sets per muscle group per week? What about like length and partials? Okay, maybe there's some benefit there. Or at least like lengthened and stretch focused stuff. Okay, we also know that treading to failure is important or very close to it. And so if you actually had a science-based plan, it would probably be illegal.

Because it would destroy people. They'd get rhabdo and stuff. And so, yeah, I think you have to combine the science with something reasonable. And a lot of that reasonableness is what people have already been doing. If you look at the Silver Year guys or before that, what were they doing? which exercises, roughly how much volume, how do they structure things. And so, yeah, when I see some entirely new exercise, I might try it, but I have to understand why.

I think that's one good thing that Kasim does. He explains why. He's never like, hey, do this because it's cool or do this because I always understand why, right? It's clear the goal is always communication. He's not trying to sound smart. He's trying to actually make people understand. And that's where if I hear someone use too much flowery language or too much technical language.

you know, if I hear a lot of humoral, I'm out, bro. Like, I know what you're talking about. I just, I don't know if the goal is to actually communicate because I think trying to wow some beginners with your language versus... actually try to communicate there's often a difference there and so yeah when i when i hear if it happens occasionally it's not the end of the world but if it's like

I know what they're talking about because I have a base in this. So they would have to say some really wild stuff for me to not understand. But it's also unnecessary. You can just say shoulder. that's sufficient, right? And so, yeah, when I see that too much, I know the goal is not actually communication. The goal is to try to impress people. And I'm not impressed by that personally. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And yeah, to the point, I've always much preferred evidence-based practice.

Obviously, people always talk about how anecdote is the weakest form of evidence. But sometimes I think and I've kind of understood this better now where it's like, well, but if there's a lot of anecdote, it might be weak evidence. But if there's a lot of it and we have some.

studies but there's one two on i don't know tens of people it's like well think i'm gonna listen to the kind of anecdote from the people that are just like me maybe a little bit more and weighing that appropriately i think the best evidence-based practitioners do that someone like an eric helms comes to mind as someone who's i think does a really good job of balancing things here

But again, some people have used those kind of PubMed studies and like it sounds flashy and fancy. It's like you just can't ignore that override evidence completely. All the lifters, all the science-based guys that I respect, they're also lifters. And so they have the BS detector where... a study comes out and they're like, yeah, I don't know about that. Like that doesn't really, they're lifters. So they've lifted, they've talked to lifters, they've studied the history.

They know the lore, the ancient tablets of lifting. And so when some new study on 12 people comes out and says, actually, everyone was wrong, they have just that little more and often a lot more skepticism. where, okay, let's wait for some more research, or maybe let's just ignore the study, or let's wait for a meta-analysis. Or, I mean, even if a meta-analysis says something for me at this point, if it says something that is...

very surprising. I kind of want to know why. I might dig into it. I might try to find out why it's a surprising result because... If people have been trying to get jacked and we've kind of agreed on some things being important, then they're probably important. I do think maybe steroids have muddied the waters a bit. you know, like the 70s and 80s and 90s. I don't think trending advice was necessarily getting better from decade to decade because, you know, there was there were people who.

we're just sort of playing a different game and that still is true today as well but yeah i think a mixture of science and anecdote is very very useful and I mean, I think anecdote is actually underrated. I know you're probably familiar with the hierarchy of evidence where meta-gnosis is at the top and then personal anecdote is, I think it's at the bottom. Or the other way around.

Right, right. Not for me. Of the pyramid. Yeah, not for you. Sorry, you're describing your personal one. But I actually think that you have to look at the context and... what you are trying to do i mean if you're trying to run a 10 second 100 meter you better be studying up on people who did it on the guys who are running nine nine nine eight nine seven nine six

the one guy who ran nine five like yeah you better look into their training their diet their sleep how they achieved it what were their strategies what kind of techniques did they use drills like you better reading up be reading up on those people specifically. And especially if you're already a 9-8 guy, okay, there's not that many people ahead of you that you really have to sort of show you evidence.

The further you go in anything, the fewer people there are to learn from. If you're like a, what, a 2600 ELO chess player. OK, like there's people above you, but it's not a ton of people. And so if someone comes up with a study on chess saying, hey, you've been playing chess wrong and all the people who are your heroes and our legends have been playing chess wrong.

okay, I understand why the instinct might be, well, you know, and so it's the same thing with lifting. You have to pick your sources well. And I think untrained lifters are... it makes sense to use them for studies just because they're going to be getting muscle a lot faster. I mean, if they try to use you or I on a study, they're not going to.

They're not going to be disappointed. I'm not even sure if I would sign up personally. And so, yeah, I mean, the idea that we should only use advanced lifters, that's ridiculous. You're not going to be able to detect anything. The study would have to be super long, but then no one would sign up. So yeah, I think one of those criticisms of science is just a little bit silly because science is not even for the advanced lifter.

It's trying to inform population averages and what is reasonable advice for people who are fairly new to this. But as an advanced lifter, you're going to have stuff that's unique to you, stuff that you kind of have to just figure out yourself. either through going in there or maybe talking to other people or observing other people or listening to people who have gone before you. But yeah, I think the idea that an advanced lifter is like, oh man, these studies, they just...

They're not specific to me. Yeah, they were never going to be. That's not a reasonable expectation. Yeah, it's actually interesting. It's a thought that's come to my head a few times, and it comes back to your point of learning from everyone.

still try and keep a bit of a pulse on the enhanced space because they are advanced and they can they can see changes within their training a bit faster than us because they've got faster growth potential so long as they haven't upped the dose and changed things in that respect right so i'm always like oh if they've noticed something

like they can grow I don't know 10 times the pace of me so maybe there is something to what they've noticed there so I always find stuff like that interesting but it also comes back to your initial point of like after that five years and then to get from intermediate to advanced and to press on you have to just you're your own scientific experiment and everyone's that little bit different and yeah it doesn't matter at the start but as you get

more advanced at this those little bit differences matter much more yeah this is where it's so easy to plateau as an intermediate because you have all these roads leading off and you're not sure which you should pick And they all lead to somewhere where you can't really see the outcomes either. And so, and even if you have a coach, they don't know for sure. Hey, why'd you write it in two sets or three sets? Or why'd you do this split?

you're sort of just making educated guesses and then trying to work through the process over time uh i mean i've had people reach out to me be like so how much muscle can i gain in three months i'm like What? How long is it a piece of string? I don't know. It's hard to say. And so as an intermediate, you're no longer guaranteed growth, right? It's very possible and very easy.

for an intermediate to not grow at all, right? Like you're going through the motions or maybe you're just not eating enough or you're not close enough to failure or your exercise selection just is not very good. There are way more reasons that you can plateau.

And it's hard to find out why you're plateauing sometimes because it could be multiple things. And then you fix one of them, but you're still plateaued because everything could be perfect. But if you're not eating enough, it's like it doesn't matter how optimal your stuff is. So this is where it is a very confusing time. And then you're also not getting that dopamine release of feeling like you're making really good progress, which you had as a beginner.

That's why I think a lot of people give up. And it's kind of a shame because just because you're not growing, that doesn't mean you're not learning. And if you view it as, hey... Maybe I didn't really gain very much muscle this year, but I figured some stuff out that's going to set me up in the future. You know, at least gives you hope. One person accused me of selling hopium.

If that's the worst, you can call me like, okay, bro, like I'm selling hopium. Like if you don't have hope about building muscle, you're not going to build muscle, right? You at least need to believe to a certain extent that you can grow. or at least will in the future. So yeah, I think taking an optimistic mindset, at least cautiously, is a good thing. And that's something I consistently see in the guys who make it, the guys who break through.

the guys who have the so-called amazing genetics they were optimistic they they just believed they could do it if they saw other people do it they're like hey well why not me and so but the guys who were like pessimistic or natural limits or really low or, you know, 23 FFMI or something or, you know, whatever, you know, they're almost setting themselves.

up for failure because if you believe that you're not going to grow are you really going to be are you really going to be destroying yourself for that last rep where it takes five six seven eight seconds no you're going to give up and then you're going to be giving up earlier than that so yeah at the end of the day it's a mindset yeah for sure i hope you yeah i mean that's not a bad thing at all and i think

Having that kind of positive mindset is so important. I've even seen it with clients where if they have a very pessimistic mindset with their training, they just, again, they inevitably leads to poorer outcomes than someone who's very positive. They believe in it. give forth better effort. So I think that's really well described, Jeff. So we kind of covered your lessons, some of this year, some of the bad things that happened this year. What about...

kind of some of the trends that are going to come into next year do you have anything in mind that you think is going to be like that's the new i don't know science-based lifter shitstorm uh maybe a return to bro-based lifting um like i haven't looked into this too much but something called diamond gym i've seen just a few clips and it seems like this super hardcore gym where there's like forced reps on deadlifts and that kind of stuff

And I think the more you're in the industry, the more you see how most things are just a reaction to things that happened before them. Like low volume, it's super popular. Why? Well. High volume was super popular three, four, five, six years ago. A bunch of people, myself included, got burned by that. And then there was a reaction to it. And so you just see this.

It's like one of those things where it measures an earthquake and it's just gone back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Yeah, you just see this. That's wigging. Yeah. And so it's just recently it was the science-based nerds doing these optimal exercises. And, you know, maybe now it'll be like just ego lifting to the max where everyone's just.

crapping out discs from deadlifts that kind of stuff so and then who knows what's after that there'll be some kind of reaction to it some kind of pushback some kind of something that goes viral, some injury or something, and then it'll go away and something else will rise and take its place. And we'll be here talking about how silly it is.

It's funny, I had that in my notes, the return of the barbell. I can totally see it's going to be like a... counter swing it makes me think of i don't know if carnivore sprung from veganism but certainly felt like hey veganism became popular let's go into carnivore yeah and you just see this kind of swing between the two because that's what humans do i don't know if

do you have any thought i think maybe like longevity might be something that's quite big it's already growing massively in popularity i could just see it being even bigger next year and then ai and like technology i don't know if you have any thoughts surrounding like ai and do you use that at all in your business and what you're doing uh so my app does use ai

to sort of try to replicate my coaching. And I almost think that I've been asked before, like, would you have used it as a new lifter? And I think I should have, especially as an intermediate.

Would have I? I'm not sure because I'm not like an early adopter to things. So personally, I don't know if I would have, but I definitely could have benefited from it. And then you get into AI with like... content creation i don't know if you've seen these channels that are clearly ai they can respond so fast like something goes down and then they have a video out

three hours later and i'm like just what the heck like that's that's so i i don't know if content creators will be replaced by ai probably not entirely But I do think that AI is likely going to take some of the pie on YouTube and other platforms just because it's going to be fast. It's going to be fast. It's going to be watchable.

Sometimes like the AI guy just repeats what people said in the clips and you're like, all right, this is kind of silly. But sometimes they say some kind of funny stuff and it's like actually, it's actually decent. And so.

Yeah, I'm kind of curious as to where that'll go. Will platforms regulate it if content creators get pissed off from just this flood of AI? I don't know. But it's something that I'm... definitely keeping an eye on um because it does seem to be kind of the way of the future yeah i've seen some translation at least on youtube and on instagram and i'm

shock in fact i heard myself translated on a reel and i was just like why why does that sound like i'm actually speaking spanish like literally i'm like if i didn't know any better like it's unbelievably good so yeah it's definitely going to change the world a little bit there and i think that might also have a bit of a counter swing towards like community and experiences and wanting maybe i think there already was a bit more like

content on YouTube, you probably know better than me, was getting very edited, which I don't think you ever really lent into the highly scripted edited store stuff. You've always been pretty raw. But I think people then went back to that kind of more raw, unedited, unscripted content and started liking that. So I think there's...

Whenever there's something else, like if you don't go down that route, there's another route you can kind of go down and take. But I do think probably we'll all use AI to some extent in the future because it just seems, like you said, it seems to be where the world's going. Yeah, and it'll be so fast that, you know, there are some professions that are probably going to get pretty wiped out. Like if you can be, it's just going to be automated away.

um like a lot of routine paperwork and stuff it's just gonna be i think it's gonna be just so so much faster to do it that way that it's it's pretty much gonna be impossible for um for

people to do it yeah and so but at the end of the day i think if someone is worrying about ai they're getting really sort of anxious about it just believe in yourself like you'll figure it out you're a winner you'll you'll get it done one way or another you know we'll find a way it's funny i remember i don't know how many years ago this was now but we were trying to transcribe episodes of the podcast

but you'd have to listen to it and write it out as like that was the way you transcribed them. Now I'm like, man, we're recording on Riverside. It literally just spits out this transcription as soon as you're done. I'm like... Man, it's crazy how times change and how quickly that changed. Yeah, I think when one door closes, another door opens type of deal.

Jeff, this is going to come out probably early January for the next year. And obviously there's been some reflections on this year kind of coming through into 2026.

do you have any like for people that are taking their bodybuilding maybe a little bit more seriously in the next year do you have any like words of just things that you want them to hold on to any words of wisdom or even things that you're kind of always at the back of your mind to remember moving forward when there is so much kind of overwhelm of kind of information just realize you don't get to do this a really long time and every year matters

Every month matters. Every week matters. Every session matters. Every exercise matters. Every rep matters. Every second of every rep matters. And so whether you zoom in or you zoom out.

The process is going to be what gets you to your goals. And so, yeah, saying, oh, I'm going to do it next year or, oh, where am I going to be in five years? Just focus on what you can control. And so it's... that day that set that moment of that rep that you really can control and so i'm not necessarily doing every rep or every set like it's my last right you have to be able to think in the future and not just

kill every single session or cook yourself. But you're trying to do the best you can and get the most out of yourself every single day, every single workout, and then trying to get better over time. The process is important, but getting that process back over time is really what things fly in.

Love that. Yeah, I think that's a great mindset for people to have going to next year. Definitely a growth mindset, which I love. Jeff, thank you so much for your time. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. And these always go down so well. People really enjoy kind of getting your perspective on things. And I love the chat.

keep update with you if they're not already where should they be heading uh i would say my instagram would be the best place i share my stories uh my workouts on my stories on a pretty regular basis

And I might start actually posting on the normal posts. From the grid, yeah. I've been doing like four posts a year or something, if that. And so I might start... doing doing that a little bit more i've caused a little bit of controversy with my first few posts which uh is exactly what i was looking for so yeah i might start start posting more there uh but yeah instagram at

jeffrey verdi scofield i think is my handle uh would be the best place i have it linked i have it linked below and i'll make sure your youtube is linked over there too because you're doing great content over there as well so yeah thank you again jeff and thank you guys for listening we'll catch you soon Чёрт.