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You're listening to Mondays with Matt. I'm Matt Reynolds, the founder and CEO of BarbaLogic and Turnkey Coach. Each week I share lessons from decades of lifting, coaching and business to help you get stronger, coach better, and take action. Let's dive in. Happy Monday, everybody. This is Mondays with Matt. I'm Matt and it's Monday, so that's why we call it that we're going to dive right in today. I've got quite a few notes, so I want to try to get through them as best I can. And today the topic is the problem with chasing sweat and soreness or how do we know if our workout is actually working to accomplish the goal. Right? And so I'm sure many of you who are listening to this today have crushed yourself in a workout. You left like completely drenched, covered in sweat, sore for days. And you thought to yourself, man, that was a great workout. I've been there too. And the answer is like, maybe, maybe not, right? That's not a great quantifiable evidence of a great workout. And so I was thinking about as I was building the notes for this, for this live stream. By the way, you can always ask your questions in the live stream, throughout the live stream. It'll take the last 10 minutes or so and knock out your questions quickly. But I was thinking about as I, as I used to train powerlifting exclusively because I was competitive in it versus having, doing some CrossFit because I owned a CrossFit gym along with the powerlifting Strongman gym, all at Strong Gym. And So I did CrossFit for about a year pretty consistently and did it with Rachel and with our head coach there versus Strongman that I also competed in at a high level, I was thinking, you know, I was, I was rarely super tired when I was, when I was competing or training for powerlifting. It was heavy, certainly, but I wasn't exhausted, you know, drenched in sweat, et cetera. I was super tired after strongman, right? I mean, by the way, even though I didn't get tired in powerlifting, not very tired, at least quantifiably, comparatively, I got really strong. Like, I got really strong. I got my squat up over 600 pounds. I got my deadlift over 700 pounds. I got my bench press to 460, so I got really strong. So I made, I made clear progress when I, when I trained Strongman, I was extremely tired, covered in sweat, covered in tire marks, covered in, you know, ripped up arms from the, from the stones. And I also got really strong. And then when I did CrossFit, I got really hot and sweaty. I got the most tired, the most hot and sweaty, but I did not get more strong. So. So getting hot and sweaty and doing a really hard workout is not specific to whether you actually make progress. It's also not totally exclusive. If you get hot and sweaty, can you still make progress? Of course, because I did in Strongman. A lot of people do. But it's not that. It's not making the thing the thing, right? So the trap in fitness culture is that we often chase, like feeling sensations, right? Sweatiness, soreness, you know, delayed onset muscle soreness, the pump, like how big of a pump do I get? The post workout exhaustion, how tired am I? Oh man, that was a great workout. I'm completely exhausted. And we use those as the proof of effectiveness, but they're really poor, misleading metrics that often lead us away from real progress, right. And not towards it. And so one thing that I was talking about with Dan is that we can tie this to my book Undoing Urgency. I, I think this chasing soreness, sweatiness, hardcore exercise is really an example of urgency and fitness, right? So it reacts to feelings rather than following a deliberate plan. So we, because of that, we can apply the game plan, which many of you have heard of before, that we use at Barbalogic and I talk about in the book. So the game plan framework, game G A M E, goals, actions, metrics, execution. So the first thing we have to ask when it comes to training is what, what are our goals? Or what is our primary goal? Right? And then what are maybe, maybe one secondary goal. So things like strength. I want to get stronger. Okay, that's a goal. It could be health or longevity, right? It could be performance, like athletic performance. It could be cardiovascular fitness, it could be body composition or fat loss. Right? Any of those things. But you can't do them all at once. And you can't chase, say, hypertrophy and fat loss at the exact same time, not very effectively, right? So you have to really pick which one is at the top tier, what's the S tier, right? And then below that you can have maybe one or two, I might argue two is too many kind of sub goals. And so then once we understand our goal and as a coach, if you listen to this and you're a coach, one of our main jobs is to help our clients find the goal, the right goal, so that then we can work down from the goal and say, okay, now what are the actions that need to happen to move the needle towards those goals? To move us towards those goals. So if my goal is strength, and this would apply to all lifts, let's apply it to squat. I want to improve my squat, right? What are the actions? Well, easy, easily enough, it's a squat, squat variance, things that improve the squat, squat technique, squat form, get a coach. All of those sorts of things are really important to build up your squat. Squat heavy enough, squat hard enough, it does have to be hard. I'm not arguing against hard. Right? Simple, hard, effective is what we want to do. And so what are those actions? And often what I want to do with actions is I want to list out like just three or four, maybe that support the goal. I don't need 10, I need the most important three or four. If I do these things, I can guarantee you that my squat will go up. Right? And then following the actions, we have the metrics. What are the metrics that we're actually using to track progress on your squat? That would easily enough be something like a one rep max, three rep max, five rep max, sets of five across, right? Three by five across, continuing to go up. It could be the same weight, but doing more volume over time, doing more sets, more density. All of those things could be done. But ultimately for strength, we want to see the load on the bar go up, right? And at some point we've got to add some hypertrophy. So maybe it's strength first, it's hypertrophy second. Okay, Once I do the strength stuff, I'm sort of semi tired from the strength stuff. I don't want to do 10 sets of, of squats. I want to do three sets of squats and then I want to do five, five, six sets of other things that will support the squat. Maybe that's a leg press, a glute ham raise, like whatever those things are, those are my actions. Then I'm going to say like, what are the metrics that support that? Okay, well that means that everything that I've laid out as a metric, all the work that I'm doing in the actions, should make the metric move and go up. Or maybe you have two metrics or three primary metrics. A lot of times we take the top one and we call it the North Star metric, right? And then comes the day to day training, the execution, right? Following the plan, sticking to the program, you still want to make intelligent adjustments. There's time. Like you've got the flu, you're sick, you're overstressed, whatever. The thing is, you might have to back off a little bit. Maybe it's way, way, way too light. And you need to go up a little bit, but not go up so much. You don't. I have clients do this sometimes. They have what they would consider an easy workout. They have something that they hit all their squat reps totally fine. They're like, I went ahead and put 50 more pounds on and did it for a set of three. And it's a grinder. And I was like, okay, cool. Now how am I supposed to program you next week? Because you can't go up and do another set of three. Five more pounds or ten more pounds than you just did, right? So the execution has to be very intelligent. Following a plan. I have a plan in place that feeds right off of my goals and actions. I measure that with metrics, which is the pr. We'll get into actual specific metrics later on in the show. And that's how I follow. Now let's think about, let's step away from the game plan for just a second and think about training versus exercise, which I've talked about more many times. But there's, there's a great differentiator here, right? Exercise is really just activity. It's increased activity, just moving your body, right? It's getting something done. It's often workout focused and feelings focused and sensation focused, right? Did I sweat? Am I sore? Do I feel tired? And it's often very random. There, there are certainly ways to do CrossFit or something like a CrossFit type, you know, athletic style training or kind of training in all modalities. You can do that and still periodize it and still have a plan in place. The thing that I hated the most about CrossFit for many years is, is they would have the hopper. You know, they have the thing like with the ping pong balls in it and they pull it out and be like, oh, okay, thrusters, right? And then they go get another one and they'd be like, oh, toes to bar, right? Oh, a 400 meter run. All right, let's do that. Well, here's the problem. I've never done that workout before. I'm probably never going to do that workout again. So I don't even know if I do well on the workout because. And CrossFit didn't care because they didn't care about metrics. They cared about, did it make you hot and tired and sweaty? And did you, did they put you in sort of a competitive culture or atmosphere? You were competing against the others in the same class, right? So people make progress on CrossFit. I don't want to say they don't. This isn't to dunk on them, but they didn't often use quantifiable metrics. Training as opposed to exercise is part of a structured program with purpose. And it doesn't always mean a pure strength training based program. Like maybe you're Preparing for a 5k or a half marathon or something, maybe you're preparing for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match or tournament or whatever. So what we want to do in a, in training is we want to complete the planned work and just smartly adjust based on the data that we have, based on the metrics, based on, you know, on some level, how I'm feeling a little bit, there's a little bit of subjectivity there. But ultimately it's objective metrics focused. If the weight starts going down and the goal is for the weight to go up, we've got to change something, right? If I'm not hitting all my reps, I'm supposed to, we're. We have to change something. So again, that core idea from Barbelogic is that we train for strength first for almost everyone. So we're training that force production back to what we talked about last week as the foundation of our, of our training. And then we can add to that based on our goals, right? So I'm gonna strength train. If I'm running, I'm gonna strength train and I have to run. I can't just string train, but I also don't just want to run, right? And so that's how we continue to move down the line. Now let's talk about metrics. Good metrics versus bad metrics. I try to not use moral judgment on things, but this is probably the best way to explain it. So good metrics are objective metrics. They can be quantified, they're quantifiable, they can be measured. Strength, simple. I mentioned it could be any rep max, right? 1 rep max, 3 rep max, 5 rep max, 10 rep max. Or working weight increases 3 by 5 across. The weight continues to go up on any lift. It's not just one rep max on the squat bench, deadlift, press, whatever, right. I can, I can most easily understand that I'm making progress in strength training as the weight on the bar goes up, right? But that's not the only metric because there are other metrics we can use. For example, maybe for hypertrophy or even on some level for strength. The volume I can do at the same weight. So I often have, or I do have PRs, like how many times have I bench press 3:15. Right. I think I've done it 13 times. Once. That's a long time ago. As I come in and I do 3:15 to work back up to 3:15. I do 3:15 for 2 now at 47. And the next time I do 3:15 on the program, I do 3:15 for 4 or 3 or anything more than 2, then I have quantifiable evidence that I got stronger. Right. Even though the weight on the bar didn't go up, the reps did with a heavy weight. Right. I can also look at things like bar speed and quality of reps. Now, I will say that's very hard to judge as an individual yourself. This is where the units that, that we use that measure bar speed, and there's lots of them out there now are really good because I can measure the bar speed compared to previous bar speed days. I can also have a coach that can identify that when there's a third party watching, I guess the second you, the barbell and the coach, let's say. Right. So the coach is a third party. They're watching. They can often. They certainly can tell quality of reps. And for me, I've can see my clients and know whether this is kind of a slow day or fast day for them. Clients are different. There's some, like, very explosive clients, and they're fast all the time till they're not. And there's other clients are kind of slow, clients that are kind of slow all the time. But there's still a variation there in how fast or how slow the bar speed is Right now. What if it's not strength? What if it's like body composition? Right. I want to lose fat, and I want to at least preserve muscle, if not gain muscle. Well, then the quantifiable measurements are circumference measurements, you know. Right. I measure on my waist and my arm and my thigh and my neck and those sorts of things. Right. Can take those measurements, the scale trends with the measurements. Right. Typically, if I have clients that are losing weight or want to lose fat, I want the waist measurement to come down at a greater slope, decrease in the line faster than the body weight does. Right. And so I've got a lot of clients I do nutrition coaching for, and I. I kind of want their body weight to mostly plateau while the waist continues to come down. If that happens, I know we're truly recomping. Right. We're truly holding on to muscle or even gaining a little muscle, and we're burning primarily fat. This is really important, right? So, and this is where if you really want to get into it and gamify it, you can do what I've done. You can buy, you know, you can buy Hume Scale or in Body, I think it's called whatever, you can buy one of those scales, Smart Scale. Withings has them that will measure these things, right? Athletic performance. I can measure things like a 1 mile run or even like benchmark wads to come back to CrossFit. Something like those original female wads. Like Fran, right. Annie. Annie was on. If you do that on a routine basis. And I remember doing Fran. The first time I did Fran, it was like, I don't know, 13, 14 minutes. And I got down to where I could do Fran in like five minutes. Well, okay, I made quantifiable progress. Cause I did the same amount of work in less time, so there's more density. Uh, it was quickly performed. Right. So I can do all those things like you can also do like distance covered in a set time. I'm, you know, exercise bike, a rower. I'm gonna do this for 15 minutes. You know, how many calories does it say that, that I used in energy or what was the distance that I covered? Those are all quantifiable evidence, right? Cardiovascular fitness. We could go. Heart rate metrics are awesome. Peak heart rate in a workout, average heart rate in a workout, resting heart rate. Right. And even looking at things like. Which I think are a little less important, but VO2 max. Because most of us aren't doing the actual professional version. It's basically what our watch and phone tell us. Or hrv that heart rate variability, again, hard to understand. Here's the easy way to understand it. So heart rate variability is the variability in the space between the beats. And if you're somebody that it's like a drummer. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. There's not a lot of heart rate variability there. I'm sweating because I shaved my head. Healthy is your heart rate is able to go up and down and change based on what it needs. Right. So the more heart rate variability we have, the better. It almost sounds like you shouldn't, but you should. And so those are all quantifiable measurements, metrics that we can take. And then long term, if I want long term goals, I'm looking at things like. Or longevity goals, let's say I'm looking at consistency over weeks and months. Right. Did I get in and do the work? Recovery quality, how you feel day to day in life, that's a little bit subjective, obviously. You can track sleep, sleep quality, sleep recovery, things like that. So the good metrics are objective and quantifiable. The bad metrics, I'll just give you a few of them, are subjective and non quantifiable. Right. How sweaty I got. Well, I'm not working out at all. I just shaved my head and my forehead is sweating doing this live stream. Right. So not really, not even exercising. Right. I could be training. It's middle of summer training outside and no air conditioning. It doesn't matter how little work I do, I'm gonna get super hot and sweaty. I can train really hard in a cold room or in the middle of the wintertime when I used to train in the garage with no heat. You basically couldn't tell you were sweating at all. Right. So sweat's not a great one. Hydration changes that, right. It's not really effort. Soreness is a poor judge. Again, very subjective. How sore am I? Dom's delayed onset muscle soreness like this is really a sign of novel stress. Like novelty is not guaranteed progress or growth. I was thinking about, every time I think about soreness, about probably 10 years ago was the last time I went roller skating. It was for Kaylin, who's 21. It was for her birthday, so maybe her 11th birthday sounds about right. And I went roller skating. I hadn't roller skated really since I was a little kid. And so the next day my adductors and groin were so sore it, I was like I could barely walk and all I did was roller skate and really exercise. I didn't train, that's for sure. And I wasn't, didn't have any quantifiable measurable progress. Right. So soreness is not necessarily a prerequisite. It's not. Right. So you can make excellent gains without soreness. And the more trained you are, the less sore you're you're going to get. Right. People will often talk about the pump, right? Bodybuilders, like how, how much blood got pumped into the muscles, like how pumped I was or how tired I feel, or how exhausted my biceps or shoulders are after a workout. Again, very subjective. Right. So all of these things can feel productive, but they often lead to overtraining, poor recovery, stalled progress. They take away from the progress of the strength training. So even in CrossFit things that are objectively measured distances, repeated workouts are far better than I went all out and died. Right. I got a good workout in cause I got super hot and sweaty. So let me, let me pause really quick. I do want to mention that just exercising for the sake of exercising on occasion is totally fine. Right. If you're in a situation like we were in Arkansas a few weeks ago and I did some stair walks and jogs up and down a whole bunch of stairs, that was like in the moment to get my heart rate up and do some exercise. But that's not what I do all the time. I came back home and squatted, you know, the next day after, after I got home. So we have to ask where are my feelings and my sensations taking me? Right. Chasing sweat and soreness often leads to inconsistent training, burnout, frustration, injuries all the time. Minimal, real, real results. Right. And distraction from the things that really matter, which is your progress in the weight room, your family, your faith, your business, long term health, things like that. Right. The better path is the minimum effective dose path where you do the least amount of work for the greatest return on investment on a program, an actual program that's written on a plan that's actually written that drives progress towards your goals, whatever that goal is. We again, don't want to be a jack of all trades, master of none. And then you measure those things objectively. Right? Right. So the call to action for this live stream is to review your current routine with the game plan. If I know what my goals are, does my training support? Do they. Does it support those goals or that goal? Am I doing the right actions to support that goal? Am I measuring the right metrics? If strength and hypertrophy are the main thing you want to drive up, then the waist measurement is not the most important thing. Right. If I want to lose weight, I want to those waist measurements become really important as well as strength because I want to kind of hold strength or increase strength while losing those waist measurements. Right. So again, everything we want to constantly come back to. Simple, hard, effective barbell work with objective progression is always going to beat feelings, bro. Science or hit just for the sake of getting hot and sweaty. Right. So there you go. There's another episode of Mondays with Matt. Let me dive into some questions here. Before I do, let me talk about the Strength Based Guide to Conditioning ebook. We got a great ebook out there. If you're someone who likes to sweat and include conditioning in your workouts, which is just fine. We have a free conditioning training guide that walks through how to improve your conditioning without needlessly interfering with your strength training or wasting time on workouts that don't move you towards your goal. Download it for free as always at barbell hyphen logic.com conditioning101 that's barbell hyphen logic.com Conditioning101 if you want to improve your conditioning while continuing to get stronger, download it there @barbell hyphen logic.com conditioning101 all right, next week we're going to talk to Blake from Dominion. We're going to talk all about weightlifting belts and why they're important. And so let him fill us in on how Dominion's been doing over the last couple years, and we'll answer all your questions about weightlifting belts and what kind you should get, et cetera. Okay, I'm going to check for questions. I've had a bunch come in over the week. Let's check it out. Me wipe my head sweaty. I'm gonna turn my fan on too. Okay. All right, question number one says, is pump or is getting the pump a good metric for hypertrophy? Obviously, I've talked through this. Is it a good measure for hypertrophy? Right. So let's even get out of strength, especially for isolation exercises. I've heard and read different things regarding pump being assigned for useful hypertrophy. What are your thoughts? Uh, no, in general, they're not. Now, if you never get that, you're probably not working hard enough. The best metric for hypertrophy, I believe at this point the data shows that it's the volume, like the number of sets that are within one to five reps of failure. So you want to get inside five reps. Right. If you constantly train at to failure or just one rep away from failure, you're probably going to overtrain. But you need to make sure that you get as many sets in as possible. When you're trying to do hypertrophy inside five reps, where you have five reps or less left and preferably somewhere in like two to three range, works really, really well. So, and you want to do that with a weight that's heavy enough that it's something you can do between 5 and 30 reps per set. Right. So 1 to 4 doesn't really carry over very well. It carries over great to strength, but it doesn't carry over that well to hypertrophy. Over 30, we don't see any measurable improvement. But actually up to 30 reps, which probably pretty rare that we do 30 reps in a set. Uh, as long as it's within one to five reps of failure is, is the best way to quantifiably measure that. I'm, I'm going to build hypertrophy so long as I'm eating enough Protein and doing the other stuff, sleeping and recovering. Right. All right, question two. I feel like I'm not working hard enough. If I'm not sore the next day, does that mean I need to switch up my exercises every workout to chase soreness? Definitely not. Right. So obviously also kind of talked about this a little bit during the show. No. As a matter of fact, you really shouldn't get sore. If you're doing a program, you are going to be sore the first several workouts of the program, but then the program doesn't change a lot. The weight often goes up by a little bit, or the volume goes up by a little bit. And what you'll find is your body will adapt to the novelty. Remember, soreness really comes from newness. Novelty. I'm squatting three sets of five, three days a week or two days a week. I do that for six weeks. The squat doesn't really make me sore anymore. I'm still gonna get some fatigue. Right. But it doesn't really make me sore. So soreness is not. That just tells me that you did something that you're not used to doing, and you ended up with all sorts of lactate and gross in your body, and hopefully you didn't get rhabdo. You end up in the hospital. Hospital. All right. I come from a CrossFit background and decided to devote myself to some time to develop strength. How hard should that first workout be? I'm used to really pushing myself, and I'm afraid if I'm. I'm going to miss it, especially on early lp. Okay. I talked about this some over the last couple weeks as well. That first workout in needs to be really conservative, like one set of five on the lifts. Right. Maybe it's just one set of five squats up. You know, work up, start empty bar, add a little weight, do it another set of five, add another little weight, do another set of five till you get something that's heavy enough that you could probably do it for eight or nine reps, but you only do it for five. And you're done squatting that day. Because especially if you come from a competitive background, cyclists are famous for this. Cyclists who don't ever squat. And they're like competitive cyclists. You put them on a. Put a bar on their back. The first day, they squat 3:15. Like that wasn't even that hard. Then they can't walk the next day. Cause they're not used to the eccentric component. They don't have that in riding a bike. Right. So we don't want to chase Soreness. What I would do in CrossFit, if you're really like, if you really like CrossFit is I'd still do some CrossFit. I'd train two, three times a week with weights, barbells and I would put in a smart low impact wad. Whatever you want. Metcon at the end that is still gives you that 10 minutes of, I mean and that should be what it is like 10 minutes. 10 minutes of just enough getting hot and sweaty and. But you're picking exercises that are smart enough so it ramps up your heart rate and your cardiovascular fitness and your endurance. But it doesn't, it doesn't beat you up and make you sore. I hate box jumps and especially when they jump back down off the box. If you do a box jump, you bo. Jump on the box, step down, jump up, step down. But the, the landing, the hard, you know, running down the street, these things are not going to be conducive to getting strong. And it's not going to be long as a crossfitter that's used to working really hard that you're going to get those three sets of five up heavy enough that you're going to be like yeah, this is pretty hard. It's different kind of hard, but it's still hard. Right? We got a few more minutes. As a busy dad with young kids, I only have 30 to 45 minutes to train. Is it better to go all out and get super sweaty every session or should I hold back and follow a program? Hold back and follow the program. But you can do the same thing I just talked about with the, with the over ambitious crossfitter. You just maybe do one exercise, maybe do squats. One set of five, first workout, two sets of five second workout, then three sets of five and then give yourself 10 minutes at the end to do a little bit of that accessory circuit type thing. That is smart. Helps add some hypertrophy, doesn't beat up your joints. It's a great way to do it when you have 30 to 45 minutes. So still follow the program. Um, I'm in my mid-50s and recovering slower chasing soreness used to motivate me but now it just makes me dread the next session. How do I stay consistent though without that soreness feedback? This is what I love about Turnkey Coach is that the software has the metrics already built in so it's, everything's automated. So I end up becoming on some level kind of a. I gamify everything, right? So I, I kind of numbers chase. That doesn't mean I'm constantly trying to pursue a one rep max or three rep max or five rep max. It's, it's maybe a volume pr. It's, maybe it's a pull up pr. It's a, it's a, you know, barbell curl for three sets of eight pr. Like whatever the thing is, well, it automatically tells you on Turnkey Coach when you hit a PR on any lift, any set and rep scheme, any weight, those things are logged on Turnkey Coach. So I can see what my progress is. So I want to chase those quantifiable metrics as much as I can to make sure I'm making progress and not worry about the soreness. Right. Two more. I think my wife and I started lifting together. She gets really sore and thinks that means the workout was great, but I barely get sore anymore. Who's doing it right? Maybe both of you. Maybe neither of you, but probably both. You have, as a man, you're gonna have the ability to recover quicker cuz you have more testosterone, more muscle mass. So you'll recover quicker than your wife will. Now, to be clear, I assume you're using different weights, right? Because if she's using the 10 pound dumbbells and you're using the 10 pound dumbbells, she might get really sore. Using the 10 pound dumbbells and YOU might be like this. You know, this is not even hard work. So I'm going to assume training at the same time, but with different barbells, different weights and that's a, that's the way to, to do it. And listen, if it's more new for her, if you've trained some in the past and you're not getting sore and it's relatively new for her, so she's still got that novelty effect, she is going to get sore. So it's, it's highly possible, if not probable that you're both doing it right, you're just not getting sore. And she is. Right. Can chasing soreness or sweat slow down progress? Well, yeah, because the more sweaty I get and the more, unless I'm doing a podcast, I'm sweating in here. The, the more sore I get. Like that sort of stuff that clearly shows that it's contributing some level of stress to your body. So we have to budget the stress. So if I'm going to do those lifts and I'm going to get hot and sweaty, you just have to note the hot and sweaty is going to take away from the strength training from the lifts a little bit. I still think a Little bit of that is fine. You can do that intelligently. Low impact, like we talked about doing stuff like the airbike and. And the rower and just, you know, body weight circuits where there's not a heavy, eccentric component or a pounding on the pavement, things like that. You can do that and still continue to make good strength progress. If you want to be focused on strength, I get rid of all that stuff and I'd focus on strength. I eat my protein and sleep my eight hours of sleep at night. Right. So that's how I would approach that. All right. Any other questions to come in today? I think that's. I covered them all. Excellent. Of course, Miguel, it was great chatting with you last week. All right, so there you go. There's another episode of the Mondays with Matt live stream. Why we want to not chase sweat and soreness and what how to know that your workout is working again. Follow that game plan. Set your primary goal. Make sure the actions support that goal. Make sure you're measuring the right metrics that support the goal and support those actions, or the actions will move the needle on and then go out and execute by following the plan. Stay in the course every single day or every week, week to week. It's a great way to continue to make progress year over year. So there we go. Another episode with Matt on Mondays. Hope you guys have a great rest of your Monday as well as a great rest of the week. And we'll see you next week with Blake to talk about Bell.
Episode: Stop Chasing Sweat and Soreness: How to Measure Workout Progress
Host: Matt Reynolds
Date: July 15, 2026
In this episode, Matt Reynolds addresses a common misconception in fitness: the belief that feeling sweaty and sore is evidence of a successful workout. Drawing on his experiences as a competitive powerlifter, strongman, and CrossFit gym owner, Matt explains why chasing sensations like exhaustion, sweat, and soreness often leads trainees and coaches away from genuine progress. Instead, he offers concrete strategies for measuring progress using objective metrics and introduces his GAME plan framework for setting and achieving meaningful fitness goals.
Feeling hot, tired, or sore after a workout is often mistaken for a sign of progress, but these are misleading metrics.
Sensations like the pump, DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), and exhaustion feel productive but are typically poor indicators of effective training.
Matt presents the GAME approach for training, both for athletes and coaches:
Goals: Establish a primary (and possibly a secondary) concrete goal (strength, health/longevity, performance, cardiovascular fitness, body composition, etc.)
Actions: List 3-4 key actions required to progress toward that goal (e.g., squat variations, technique work, coaching).
Metrics: Use quantifiable measures to track progress (e.g., 1RM, 5RM, sets across, volume, bar speed, circumference measures, heart rate).
Execution: Progress by following the plan, making intelligent adjustments based on data and personal context.
Matt explains a crucial distinction:
Good Metrics: Objective, quantifiable, and linked to your goal.
Bad Metrics: Subjective, feelings-based, and non-quantifiable.
Quote:
"Soreness is really a sign of novel stress. Novelty is not guaranteed progress or growth." [37:00]
Regularly review your program using the GAME framework.
Chase minimum effective dose: Do the least amount of work required for the greatest return, avoiding the trap of being “a jack of all trades, master of none.”
On chasing feelings:
"Simple, hard, effective is what we want to do. Not chase feelings, bro science, or HIIT just for the sake of getting hot and sweaty." [53:30]
On soreness:
"You can make excellent gains without soreness. And the more trained you are, the less sore you're going to get." [39:14]
On CrossFit randomness:
"They would have the hopper... I've never done that workout before. I'm probably never going to do that workout again. So I don't even know if I do well on the workout..." [24:00]
Q1: Is getting a pump a good metric for hypertrophy?
"No, in general, they're not. The best metric... is volume: the number of sets that are within one to five reps of failure." [56:24]
Q2: Should I switch exercises every session to chase soreness?
"Definitely not... Soreness really comes from newness. The squat... for six weeks... doesn't really make me sore anymore. Soreness just tells me you did something you're not used to." [58:39]
Q3: For busy people with 30–45 minutes a session—go all out or stick to the plan?
"Hold back and follow the program. You can add 10 minutes at the end to do accessory circuit-type stuff, but still follow the program." [1:01:20]
Q4: Can chasing soreness or sweat slow down progress?
"Yeah, because that stuff clearly shows it's contributing some level of stress to your body... If you want to be focused on strength, I'd get rid of all that stuff and focus on strength, eat my protein, sleep eight hours." [1:06:14]
Matt’s delivery is direct, conversational, and pragmatic, weaving together personal experience, stories, and actionable tips. He speaks with confidence and clarity, emphasizing simplicity and effectiveness over complexity or trendiness.
Next Episode:
Matt will discuss weightlifting belts with Blake from Dominion.