The Anti-Gym Guy's Guide To Strength Training

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Transcript

Why Gym People Annoy You

0:01

You are listening to this episode because you hate people that go to the gym. You hate the way they dress. You hate the way they walk after they've done a workout. You think they have stupid haircuts. Their clothes suck. Everything about gym people repulses you. You are, however, unfortunately, coming around to the idea that you gotta go to the gym a little bit. Oh, what? Today's episode is for the person that fucking hates the gym, but also likes jujitsu, and you could just cross that out and fill in with any other kind of sport. And you've been on the earth long enough that you no longer have the privilege of a 22 early 30-year-old body. And it has become clear to you now due to the accumulation of small injuries that at the time didn't really seem like a huge deal. Um, you know, a little bit of weight gain, no biggie. I'll just fucking go a bit harder when I play that social game of soccer on Sunday afternoons. Um that that's not working for you anymore. You're banged up, those those little accumulated injuries have become big ones. Old gray mayorship ain't what she used to be. Right? It's a it's fucking you've been fighting it for that long, that fucking long. People have been telling you, but you're like, fuck him, what does that kind of? I'm a fucking savage when I get out of bed just cause. Yeah. And uh, you know, you you probably were, but you're not anymore. Now,

The Brother Who Hates Gyms

1:37

this episode was inspired by the strength program that I recently wrote for my brother. Right on. Now, older brother, Abe, is uh an immense athlete. He's uh the archetype of who I just described. Yes, never been a gym guy, the anti-bro, anti-gym bro. He's that's right, he's opposite, that's exactly right, and uh fucking hates gym guys, Jesus, hates his younger brother. Fucking runners, hates runners. Oh shit. With great vitriol, I've heard at your birthday, I heard him just being like, oh, the the venom. He was like me talking about any number of things. That's right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he yeah, he's he's he's it's it's a special kind of toxicity that he has for these people. It's it's time, but uh it is, and you know, it's um I you know in his defense, he does he will train, you know, like if we used to train with me at the outdoor gym when we're doing calisthenics at Bondi, like he'd get around it from time to time, but the idea of like independently going and making the training thing his, you know, signing up at a gym or whatever is not part of his identity, no, not at all. And so um he has recently taken up or gotten back into some sports, he's always been a sporty guy, sure, soccer, tennis, and the like. Um, he's taken up a real fucking real fucking man sport. He's taken up pickleball. Like any good middle-aged man, right? Reclaiming his manhood. And look, I fucking see the pickleball, I see how much fun everyone's having. Yeah, I throw stones, but it looks thank you, looks like a lot of fun. You can keep it. Tried to get my parents to get into it. I think they were even they were like, no, people would be smiling too much. We're not into that. Um, too much fun. Yeah, too much fun. Um, but anyway. So, what does an anti-Gym bro person do, Joe? Tell us what they they can they hate it, but what what are they gonna do? They have no other option. Yeah,

The Real Reason To Train

3:41

so the the first thing is like we understand that you're not doing it because you love the gym. That's fine. Um, you are doing it because there's a practical output of this that you are chasing, and that is you want your body to not be in pain and you want your knees to feel good and your hips to feel whatever limber, and you want to be able to just go and play sport and just think about enjoying the sport. Yeah. Um and and you know, this is whatever jujitsu, rock climbing, fucking rugby league, same shit, right? Name it. Um, and so the first thing is you have to commit to being able to go to the gym twice a week, got to get there two times, and it's gonna take you about 40 minutes. Yep. Right? That's that's that's a decent, that's not too much. I think that's a pretty fair ask. Like if you've got to travel to get there, let's say 15, 20 minutes, and travel to get back, like you're pretty much getting done inside of an hour and a half, really. Yep. That's good. Yeah, that's that's better than my fucking warm-up. That's right. You know, and I mean here's the thing, like you you, and I've mentioned this before, you can look at the gym as like a uh like oh, it's kind of fucked that I have to do this thing, but you you only got to zoom out a little bit to realize that your entire life was supposed to be physically active. Yeah, like not not you weren't just flogging yourself all the time, but you were meant to be walking a lot, picking things up, putting things down, just just moving all the time. And then at times, on most days, probably doing something pretty physical. Yeah, whether it was whatever, going getting water or fucking hunting animals, or I don't know, fucking moving some rocks, braining neighboring tribe, you know, yeah, fighting, yeah, like you know, whatever, making babies because you had to have a lot of children, hip extension, yeah, symmetry, whatever, run from a bear. You had a lot of a lot of physical tasks in front of you, and now we don't have them, right? You just don't have them. And so it's like, all right, well, in exchange for your for your comf for our comfortable sedentary life, two times 45 minutes, an hour and a half a week at the gym is a very small amount to pay. It's pretty minimal. Yep. And so I think we have to you have to you know, I'm talking to you right now, this person. You know, uh I have a different person in mind, but of a very similar, a very anti-gym mentality. Get a name? No, it's a mutual friend. Read my mind right now, Jim. I know. You know what I'm talking about. All right, yeah. I'm thinking about him too. Um, but uh you so you're gonna look yourself in the mirror and go, all right, fucking the boys are right. I'm fucking here because I want to be strong and be able to do the thing, play my sport, do jujitsu, and so I'm gonna commit to the thing. So

The Two-Day Minimal Program

6:23

it's two times a week you're gonna go to the gym. At each workout, you are gonna follow essentially the same format. You're gonna do four different types of movements a squat, a hinge, a push, and a pull, right? So squat and hinge are lower body focused and then push and pull, upper body focused. When we say hinge, we're talking like a deadlift, a kettlebell swing, involves the hips, you leaning forward, a bit more posterior chain focused. That's right. The ass. And so it's four exercises. Fucking okay, can get through four, and you're gonna do four sets of each one. Right. Four working sets, four by four. Okay, fuck. Pretty like pretty digestible, right? This is very manageable. This is the program that I wrote for my bro. It was like, I'm gonna make this as simple as I'm gonna make it sufficient to get you a result, stimulus, but also uh minimal enough that you it's very hard to not do it. Yeah. Now you're probably gonna do one warm-up set of each exercise. Sure. So do a warm-up set. So let's say it's it's four, yeah, do your warm-up set, empty bar, squat, whatever, and then put some weight on, and then you're away. Four sets. And you're gonna rest 60 seconds between sets. Yep. It's a it's a fucking short rest. Yeah, you wanna you wanna keep tabs

Rest Timers And Fast Workouts

7:38

on that. I actually I had an experience with this one time, Joe, where I was running late, but I was like, I have to get this workout in. I only had half an hour. I usually take a leisurely 90 minutes, but I fucking got it done. How? I kept the timer to 60 seconds. There's no wandering around, there's no looking at the phone. And I was like, I was a bit gas like, yeah, man, I was pumping sweat, but I got all the lifts done and I was like, fuck, I can do this workout in half an hour. Who knew? Yeah, yeah. You know, I was like so surprised. But the great thing about it was I still lifted well, but I was working harder, but but I I just pumped it. And it's because I kept my eye on the rest breaks, and I think it is an important thing to note. Yep. I've had the exact same experience. And and if your rest periods run away from you, that you just you end up being like, How did I? It's 90 minutes later and I haven't finished my workout. Yeah, and I gotta go now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, versus like fuck 30 minutes and I'm done. Bang, bang, bang. And you also get that kind of semi-conditioning stimulus, right? It's a double benefit, yeah. Yeah, heart rate's up. Like it's funny, my my whoop that I wear doesn't often doesn't register like a like a strict strength workout. Okay. But if I do more of a kind of bodybuilding style way, it's like, oh, you did weights today. Uh-huh. Because my heart rate goes up and goes up, right? Yeah. Yep. Um, so in any case, one minute rest periods, use your phone. Like, it's super quick, right? Four working sets with a warm-year set, you'll get each exercise done in like, I don't know, fucking eight minutes. Yeah. You know, like it's it's very fast. And so uh, I'm not gonna, I don't think we need to do we need to give the exercises? No, not necessarily. I think it's some favorites, perhaps. Yeah,

Beginner-Friendly Lift Choices

9:18

I think if you're someone who has never ever, never ever done gym, right? Um, I actually think if we just start with a squat, an easier place to start, and we've talked about this, as opposed to necessarily putting a bar on your back, even though you can, if you're just someone who hasn't done that kind of thing before, a goblet squat's great because it's only as much as you can hold, yeah, which might be not much, or it might be a bit more, but it enables you to get into a really good squat position without, you know what I mean, like without fuckery. Yeah, I totally agree. I think um, I think, yeah, goblet squat, I think a rack squat like double dumbbells, yep, or two kettlebells is great. I think um uh I got my bro doing um goblet lunges. Okay, you know, nice to just like set up in the position goblet thing and then do the lunges and then change sides. Yep, yeah, I think that's golden. Yep. Um for hinging, I I do like a Romanian deadlift. Yep, definitely. I do like that, yeah, especially for a new person. Kettlebell deadlift fits into that as well. Very like it's a very similar, it's almost identical in terms of the like emphasis on hamstrings and hips, but by having the weight between the feet, I think for a lot of people that can feel a bit more natural. I would agree. Sometimes with the bar that in front of the shins, pitch you over a little bit. People people struggle with the hamstring flexibility. Yeah, I'd agree with that. But uh yeah, like dumbbell, dump like double dumbbell Romanian deadlift. Yeah, for sure. That's nice. Kettlebell swing. Yeah, kettlebell swings very, very good. There's a lot of good information out there. So that's a that's a it's an easy one to get on. Now for the upper body stuff for the push and pull, I like um I like a mix of things, but I think body weight is a great starting point. Yep. I think push-ups are excellent. I think deficit push-up is actually surprising. So even someone I know who's got like a good bench, like a very good bench, like a best in New South Wales, top five in Australia bench, getting him to do deficit push-up, like whether it's handles of a kettlebell, or you know how sometimes Jim has like push-up handles, or you know, you see a l bar. Yeah, something that range of motion through the shoulder is to cooks you. It's amazing what it'll do to really build build strong shoulders, but also build muscle. It's great. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, deficit push-up, wonderful. Um, you know, whatever. If you want to do like a fucking dumbbell press lying on a bench or an inclined dumbbell press, I like an overhead press just in general, like just single dumbbell or kettlebell. I think overhead for me, that's superior. But if you're someone who's struggled with shoulder issues, then hey, if I can give you my honest recommendation for one of the best supplements I've implemented in my daily, particularly for my jujitsu training,

Sponsor Break Electrolytes And Hemp Gi

12:04

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Finding Loads And Progressing Weekly

14:33

So a couple of general recommendations. We've got the format, we know how many sets we're doing, we're four sets, we're resting one minute between sets, uh, we're doing four exercises per workout. Leave the first workout, the first time you do it, uh, to give yourself a bit of practice to learn the movements. This is important. Once you've got a handle on it, make the next session, whether it's the second one or the third one, whatever, there's no rush, make that session about um finding a weight that is a good starting point for you. Now, this is a thing that does come up where people often will say, even if they're using art, they're like, but you didn't specify a weight. It's like, yeah, we don't know how strong you are. Fair. So if it says four sets of four, what we want for you is good technique. So in that way, we don't want it to be so heavy that you're like just thrashing around by the second or like it's too, you know. The the key thing is that you can keep good technique across the reps and all the sets. So you've got to, it's a bit of a fuck around and find out situation that you you've got to start lighter and then be like, nah, it felt a bit too easy. Maybe I'll do a little bit more. Yeah, uh, maybe that was a bit too easy, and it yeah, so you might find maybe the first couple of workouts are not like really hitting you because you're just finding your feet with what is the right load, and then just incrementally got to a point where you're like, oh, okay. So for me, the the the the hypothetical I usually or the the theoretical uh suggestion I give to people is if you say 10 out of 10 is like maximum, I can barely do four reps, and one out of ten is nothing, you're looking for that kind of seven, maybe eight out of ten in terms of effort. Yeah, what would you say, Joe? Yeah, I'd agree with that. And it's yeah, I mean, basically just pick up a lightweight, do the fucking, do the reps. Uh oh, we didn't specify reps. I'm gonna say eight to twelve reps for everything. Oh, okay. Yeah, didn't specify, but yeah, eight to twelve reps, to be honest, it doesn't matter all that much, but eight to twelve is a nice sweet spot where you get good good like enough reps to practice. Um, you're not the amount of weight that you'd be using for that kind of rep range is not gonna be so heavy that you can, you know, that you're running a high injury risk or anything like that. So it's just works well. Um, but pick a weight, do eight to twelve reps, let's just say 10 because it's nice and in the middle, and if it feels easy, you go a little bit heavier. And then when you get to that point where you're like, oh, I'm working, that's your working weight. And use that weight next time for all four sets. And then once you feel like you can, increase the weight a little bit. Now, when you've got a rep range, eight to twelve, you can also play around with the reps as a way to progress. So you can go like, say I did 10 kilos today and I performed 10 reps. Well, next week I'm gonna use the same 10 kilos and I'm gonna perform 12 reps. And if you can successfully do 12 reps for all four sets, then the week following you can go back down to eight reps and increase the weight. Yeah, heavy. And then you do the same thing again. Reps go up gradually. Once you hit the top, weight goes up, reps go down, and you just keep going up like this. And so you're aiming for an increase in effort of like five to 10% each week, be that repetitions or weight. Just think five to 10% increase across the board each week. And this um this guarantees that you're gonna be getting stronger as you go down the journey. Yeah, that's that's actually like it's huge gains, guys. Like I think you this is probably what's underestimated because I uh my old Russian coach If him had said to me, you just want to get 1% better a week, because over a year that's 52%. But obviously it's that's compounding, so it's more than that if you were to do the actual math. But you're like one percent a week doesn't sound like much, but uh it actually over the course of a year it's a lot. But if you're doing five percent, which is which you can, that's actually huge gains in actually a short amount of time if you don't, you know, don't be too self-critical.

Ego Self-Image And Gym Anxiety

18:25

I think speaking to the person who hates the gym, there's a little bit of uh self-hate in that. There's a little bit of self-loathing in that because you're witnessing someone doing something good for themselves, and you'll be like, fuck that guy. How dare you look after yourself? How dare you think you can be better than me? Look how fucking happy he looks with himself. Yeah, fucking so hoity to you it's like, yeah, they are better than you, uh, physically and uh emotionally and hormonally, like, yeah, but it's not about like I think the mis the misunderstanding because we're raised in such a comparative society, is that it's you and gravity and weight, and what anyone else feels about it's kind of it doesn't really matter. It's just allowing yourself to be cool with I'm trying to get better, and that's okay. That's not egotistical, that's just that's that's it's actually it humbles you actually it's like jujitsu, right? You go, I want to get better, but I'm probably gonna suck. And accepting that is tough, right? Yeah, but I think you know, if you're someone who just fucking hates this shit and you're like, oh, I have to give yourself permission to go somewhere new and and suck a bit, you know, like that. I think that's that's important. Yeah, that's right. And most of the people that are gonna be at the gym also don't know what they're doing. Yeah. Like this is the reality of it, right? Is you know, even people who have all the shit, they've got the weight belt, they've got the wrist straps, they've got every fucking, you know, they put a lot of money into looking like they know what they're doing, probably don't actually know. Yeah. So don't don't feel self-conscious about getting in there. So continue. And so the, pardon me. And so the I guess the main thing is to that point about like progression, when you're new to it, you are gonna kind of go in leaps and bounds for the first sort of three to six months. You need the gains, you do, you jump up quick. Yeah, it's gonna be great. And then you're gonna get to a point where the gains slow down a little bit and the weight's not going up by 10%, it's gone by five, or it's gone up by two, or maybe, maybe some workouts, it doesn't go up, it goes back a little bit, and you know, it kind of uh ebbs and flows, but you don't need to worry about that right now. All you need to do is just like apply yourself to the thing, do it, give yourself a minimum of six months. Yeah, this is what I would say. Yeah, do six months, just commit to just go, I'm fucking, this is when I start, this is when I'm gonna finish, right? It's this part of the year, that part. Great. Six months. And uh if you do that and you train twice a week and you come away from it and feel like you know what, I I applied myself and I don't care to continue, then I think you've earned the right to choose not to continue. You fucking don't. But I strongly believe you will feel very differently about it, and you'll be like, holy shit, I'm looking jacked. I'm feeling jacked. Feels good. You do become, I got my gym buddies, I got the fucking haircut now. Be surprised. You know, I got the fucking LSKD outfit. I'm thinking about going with the with the one piece, you know, wearing the crop top. Yeah, got my big bottle of water. Oh, the big the fucking scallop. What the fuck?

Aging Reality And The Six-Month Bet

21:25

No, look, I think the the hardest thing about it is as you get older, you have to work harder to stay the same, not even improve. And I'm not saying this to be negative. So I hang out with a bunch of young people. I'm the usually the oldest person in the group, right? I'm the unk, definitely. I'm worse than that, actually. I'm I'm Captain Dad. I'm the responsible one. Actually, I don't act responsibly in the gym, I act responsibly outside of the gym, so I can be irresponsible in the gym, so to speak. But the funny thing about it is all these guys are talking about going out, getting fucking hammered, eating McDonald's, doing all this shit. I'm like, do you know how perfect I have to live my life to just get this much better? And I'm getting fucking, as my friend Dan would say, mogged by 25-year-olds, like who are just fucking caning themselves, coming in, having a fucking spew in the toilet, getting down and then deadlifting 280 kilos. And I'm like, fuck. Do you know how much creatine and caffeine and sleep I had to get to just get 250 kilos? Like, I have to work so hard for minimal gains. But I'm happy to do it because I just I want to improve. So even if the improvement is only this much, the thing about being younger is you lack perspective. You just don't know what you don't know, and that's fine. But if you've gotten to this point and now you fucking know that you need this thing, I think embrace it. I think that's really important. It's not about, oh, you're old. It's just like, no, I want to still do jujitsu. I don't want to feel fucked all the time. That's not ego. That's just being honest with yourself and being like, you know what? Like, I'm gonna stop fucking myself up a bit. I'm actually gonna start fixing myself up a bit. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know what I mean? Like, I think I think it's very positive. No, it's I mean, we're obviously all for it. Yeah, you know, this is this is this is how we live our lives. Fucking obviously, son. Fucking look at us. So here's what you need

Voicemail Challenge And Wrap

23:19

to do. Uh give it a run, hit it six months, and then go to the webpage and leave us a voicemail and tell us how you went. Tell us how you went. We want to fucking hear the journey and hear if it was worth it or not. Catch you on the next one. Shoo