Build Muscle Without the B.S. — A Straightforward Guide to Size and Strength

Summary

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The Art of Manliness

Episode: Build Muscle Without the B.S. — A Straightforward Guide to Size and Strength

Date: September 23, 2025
Guest: Paul Horn — Strength Coach, author of Radically Simple Strength and Radically Simple Muscle
Host: Brett McKay

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the essentials of building muscle and strength without unnecessary complexity or hype. Strength coach Paul Horn dispels common myths, outlines practical strategies for both beginners and experienced lifters, and provides a no-nonsense roadmap for getting big, strong, and lean. The conversation tracks the evolution from novice lifter through to intermediate and physique-focused training, interspersed with honest tales from the trenches, hard-won lessons, and Paul’s clear, actionable philosophy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Paul Horn’s Lifting Journey and Background

[02:23 – 08:20]

• Paul started as a skinny vegan in college, transitioned to lifting thanks to friends, which led to rapid strength and size gains.
• Early workouts were unfocused (“bro” routines) until injury forced him to learn better technique, leading to Starting Strength.
• Became a Starting Strength coach after attending Riptoe’s seminar: “I was the only starting strength coach in Los Angeles... I just would get these emails all day, like, ‘Hey, can you help me out?’” (07:31)
• Eventually opened Horn Strength and Conditioning, the first Starting Strength affiliate gym on the West Coast.

2. The Evolution from Strength-Chasing to Hypertrophy

[08:29 – 14:21]

• Most guys start to “get laid and look good,” then catch the strength bug, chase numbers, get stronger — but also often fatter and more injury-prone.
• Eventually, diminishing returns set in: “What it would take for me to put two and a half more pounds on my press… it might not be worth it.” (09:45, Horn)
• Realization: Being too focused on numbers can be unsatisfying; finding joy and sustainability is key.
• As Brett put it: “You’re like Sisyphus, just pushing up that boulder. You just go down the garage gym and just go up and down. That’s all you do.” (13:01, Brett)

3. Getting Started: Myths, Mindset & Early Programming

[15:29 – 18:38]

• Myth #1: You’ll look like a pro bodybuilder just by lifting. Paul: “You are not going to look like you take steroids unless you take steroids.” (15:38)
• Myth #2: You can get big, strong, and lean all at once — you need to build strength and size first, then cut later, not simultaneously.
• Mindset: Progress takes time. “You’re literally building tissue… it’s a biological process that takes time.” (18:38, Horn)

4. The Novice Phase: Programming for Size & Strength

[21:16 – 26:34]

• Simple, full-body, barbell-centric programs like Starting Strength are best for novices.
  • Four lifts: Squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press.
  • Train three times a week; linear progression (add weight each session).
  • “It’s motivating and super simple. And I think that’s really important for a beginning lifter.” (24:34, Brett)
• Paul’s take: Use ascending sets of 5 (ramping up to a top set) instead of three sets across. Fast, practical, keeps lifters engaged.
• Early wins and visible progress build consistency and identity as a “lifter for life.”

5. Benchmarks & Goal Setting

[34:14 – 35:37]

• “Plate goals”:
  • Press 135 lbs
  • Bench 225 lbs
  • Squat 315 lbs
  • Deadlift 405 lbs
• “If you could squat 405, like, you’re like in the 1% of people at that gym.” (35:33, Horn)
• Progressing from these to hundo goals (200, 300, 400, 500) or performing plate goals for five reps.

6. Nutrition for Strength & Size

[37:20 – 44:51]

• Protein is critical: Aim for 200g per day for most men.
  • “If you’re not eating enough protein, then you are wasting your time in the gym.” (37:37, Horn)
• Calories: Novices need to eat more than they think, but avoid getting unnecessarily fat (“old ‘gallon of milk a day’ advice made us so fat.”)
• “At most you’re looking at £4amonth. Anything beyond that... you’re getting fat.” (40:40, Horn)
• If already overweight, maintain weight and focus on body recomposition (gain muscle, lose fat).

7. Moving Beyond Novice: Intermediate & Advanced Programming

[47:20 – 57:51]

• Intermediate phase introduces:
  • Upper/lower splits for more recovery and variety.
  • “Train your lower body like a powerlifter; train your upper body like a bodybuilder.” (52:04, Horn)
  • Use rep ranges (e.g., 3–5 reps) to reduce grind, boost enjoyment, and account for “bad days.”
• Lower body: Focus on squats and deadlifts (few movements, lower reps).
• Upper body: Variety and higher reps for aesthetics (presses, pulls, isolation work).

8. Advanced Strategies & Sustainability

[59:36 – 62:36]

• At advanced stage, training often becomes minimal but focused: “I decided to see how little I could get away with… one set, and if I hit the reps, I’m done.”
  • Importance of learning to push hard: “If you’re a novice lifter… one set isn’t going to work because that one set isn’t going to be very stressful.”
• Simplicity in programming can reignite enjoyment: “Programming is so simple. Did you get all the reps you were supposed to? Great, go up next time.”

9. Cutting, Physique Goals, and Staying Lean

[63:11 – 68:14]

• “Everyone always talks about abs, but like you see a dude at the coffee shop and he’s got a big snake running down his bicep — you know that guy’s in good shape.” (63:19, Horn)
• Get to 10% body fat once in your life: “Figure out how to do it right because it’s hard… it’s a skill that you develop, and once you develop it, it’s pretty easy.” (66:32, Brett)
• Cycle between 10–15% BF for look and health; anticipate some strength loss under 13–14% BF.
  • “Once it gets below 15%, you know, 14, 13, then all of a sudden, your strength just, like, falls off a cliff…” (68:14, Horn)

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Memorable Quotes

“You are not going to look like you take steroids unless you take steroids.”
— Paul Horn, [15:38]

“The only thing that matters is the number on the bar. Doesn’t matter how fat you are. Doesn’t matter if you're having fun. It just matters that you put five more pounds on that bar.”
— Paul Horn, [14:04]

“It’s motivating and super simple. And I think that's really important for a beginning lifter.”
— Brett McKay, [24:34]

“If you’re not eating enough protein, then you are wasting your time in the gym.”
— Paul Horn, [37:37]

“Train your lower body like a powerlifter; train your upper body like a bodybuilder.”
— Paul Horn, [52:04]

“Everyone always talks about abs, but like you see a dude at the coffee shop and he’s got a big snake running down his bicep — you know that guy’s in good shape.”
— Paul Horn, [63:19]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Paul’s origin story & first exposure to lifting: [03:09 – 08:20]
• The ‘numbers chase’ & shifting to hypertrophy: [09:02 – 14:21]
• Biggest misconceptions for beginners: [15:29 – 18:38]
• Linear progression and why Starting Strength works: [21:16 – 26:34]
• Specific novice & intermediate program structures: [30:32 – 34:14]; [47:20 – 52:04]
• Strength benchmarks (plate goals, hundo goals): [34:14 – 35:37]
• Nutrition basics, mistakes, and bulking/cutting: [37:20 – 44:51]
• “Train your lower body like a powerlifter, upper like a bodybuilder” explained: [52:04 – 57:51]
• Cutting, staying lean, and physique benchmarks: [63:11 – 68:14]

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Resources

• Paul Horn’s site: hornstrength.com
• Radically Simple Strength & Radically Simple Muscle (books)

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This summary delivers the main ideas, actionable strategies, memorable moments, and the authentic voices of both Brett and Paul, providing both a frame for the episode and useful guidance for those wanting to cut through the B.S. and build lasting strength and muscle.

Transcript

[A]

Starting your own business means figuring out a lot of things you've probably never done before. Especially in the early days. When I launched the Art of Manliness store, I suddenly had to learn how to manage orders, track inventory, fulfill shipments, and make the whole operation look professional. It was a lot. That's why I've been using Shopify for years. It takes the chaos out of running an online store. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and 10% of all E commerce in the US from big brands like Gymshark to solo creators just starting out, it scales with you. You can launch a sharp looking site using their templates, use AI tools to help write product descriptions, or clean up photos and run marketing emails and campaigns all from the same dashboard. Shopify also handles payments, inventory analytics, shipping, everything you need to run and grow. Turn your big business idea into real sales with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial and start selling today at shopify.com manliness that's shopify.com manliness and S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com manliness check it out today. Brett McKay here. And welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Whether you've never stepped foot in a.

[B]

Weight room or you've been lifting for.

[A]

Years without seeing significant results, figuring out how to get big, strong and jacked can feel overwhelming. There are endless programs, conflicting opinions and a lot of noise about what actually works. Today on the show, Paul Horne offers a ground field tested take on what really helps average guys get stronger and more muscular without burning out. Paul's a strength coach and the author of Radically Simple Strength and Radically Simple Muscle. We discuss why you need to get strong before you get shredded, how and why Paul modified the classic starting strength program, the strength benchmarks men should be able to hit when to shift from powerlifting to bodybuilding style training. Why you should train your lower body like a powerlifter and your upper body like a bodybuilder. The physique signal that shows you're in shape, the body fat percentage every man should get down to at least once in his life and more after the show's over. Check out our show notes at AOWIM is simplemuscle.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Paul Horn, welcome to the show.

[D]

Yeah, thank you. I'm glad to be here.

[B]

So you are a barbell coach. We've met at a starting strength conference a long, long time ago. You've actually helped me with some. When I was doing the low bar squat, I was having some issues with shoulder tightness, getting under the bar. And you were very kind to give me a tutorial on a stretch on how to make that happen.

[D]

For myself, that is my biggest contribution to the literature. I figured out a shoulder stretch and made a YouTube video, and to this day, it's my most popular YouTube video I've ever put up.

[B]

It's important information. Well, let's talk about your background a bit. You've been training for decades, and you've been a coach for a long time, too. How did you get started with barbell training? What were you doing before that? When did you decide I got to pick up the iron?

[D]

Yeah, Well, I was wasting a lot of time in the gym like most young guys are when they start lifting. The short version is I was a vegan in college and I'm 6:1. I weighed about 160 pounds, and I was a camp counselor, and some of the other coaches were older and kind of bros and thought, you know, we're going to take you to the gym and try and bulk you up a little bit. And I went and absolutely loved it. Got hooked on the training, but my muscles were seizing up. I was cramping a lot. And my buddy, in his bro frat boy wisdom was like, you know, hey, man, I think maybe you need some protein. And so it went from, you know, being a vegan to eating tuna fish and then chicken and then full, you know, carnivore now. And so that was great. You know, towards the end of college, I had bulked up quite a bit and just again, doing bro workouts and things that you find on the old bodybuilding.com and T Nation and all the websites that we used to go to. And then I got hurt and I ended up having my first shoulder surgery from bench pressing. So I was out for three months for the first time since I had started lifting. And I thought, you know, I should try and figure out why that happened and maybe, like, if there's a right way to bench press. Because, you know, when you're a college guy and you're just screwing around in the gym, you just look at what the other bigger guys are doing and copy them and they don't know what they're doing. So in that hiatus, I stumbled across this book called Starting Strength. And since I couldn't lift, I just read about lifting, and it was, as, you know, the best book on how to do the basic barbell lifts and why you should do them that I've ever read. And it just, you know, it blew me away. I Was like, this is. I've never heard it explained this clearly. So I went back to my college gym after I recovered from surgery, and I started doing the starting strength program. And, you know, this was a time when the gym had one squat rack, and no one was ever in it. No one had seen a pair of weightlifting shoes. You know, belts were Velcro and nylon. And I just started doing this thing where you squat three times a week, which was crazy because we squatted. Maybe if we squatted, it was like once a week. And you did seven other leg exercises. And so I started doing this simple starting strength program. And all of my gym buddies were like, dude, what the hell are you doing? You're squatting three days a week. And I was like, I don't know. This crazy guy in Texas told me that I should do this. And within about three months, I was probably, you know, one of the strongest guys in the gym, which wasn't saying much at the time. But then people started asking, okay, what is this program? What are you doing? Started asking me questions about, you know, lifting shoes and technique. And. And then I got really into it, and my girlfriend at the time, as a gift, sent me to the starting strength seminar in Wichita Falls just to. I just wanted to meet Ripito, and he was like, my hero. I had been reading all of his books. And so I went to that. And back at that in. In those days, they just kind of pulled you aside and said, you know, we think that you should take the test for coaching. Like, we've been watching you, and we think you might be a good coach, and do you want to take this coaching certification test? Which was, you know, a very difficult test, but I thought, yeah, sure, you know, what the hell? And ended up passing. I was one of two guys from that group that passed and came back to LA and thought, well, that was cool, you know. Then they. They emailed me and said, your name's going on a. A coaching registry. I was like, okay, whatever. And I went back to my. At that time, I was working a marketing job for a tech company. And then within about a month, I started getting emails. The book started gaining more popularity. People were buying it on Amazon, seeing how dense and technical it was, and then going to the coaching registry. And I was the only starting strength coach in Los Angeles. And so I just would get these emails all day, like, hey, I see you're a coach. Can you help me out? Can you help me out? And I'm like, I mean, I'm not really a coach, but you Know, I know a little more than you do. And so it just became so frequent that I asked my wife then at the time if I could convert the garage into a personal training studio.

[B]

A little.

[D]

Put two racks in there, and I just started training people before and after work, and it just kept growing. And within about a year of that, I quit my job and opened up Horn Strength and Conditioning, which was the first starting strength affiliate gym on the West Coast. And it just blew up from there. I ran that gym for about eight years, and then the pandemic happened, and the rest of the story is me moving to Idaho and all that stuff. But that's. That's my little bio.

[B]

So, yeah, you're starting strength coach. And while you're coaching, of course, you continue to train. You did some competitions, some amateur stuff, I believe.

[D]

Yeah, I was a. What we would call a recreational powerlifter.

[B]

Recreational powerlift lifter. So you're doing the main lifts, and then you talk about. In your books, we're talking about today, it's radically simple muscle and radically simple strength. You reached a point with your training journey, as people say, where you started shifting goals, like, for a long time, and I had the same sort of thing. It was just chasing numbers, like, how much more can I squat? How much more can I deadlift? And then you reached a point like, man, this isn't doing it for me anymore. And you kind of became a bodybuilder. Tell us about that.

[D]

I mean, that is, in my experience, the evolution of most lifters. Most guys get into it because they want to get laid and they want to, you know, look good with their shirt off, and they just want muscles. And then, you know, a lot of it had to do with changing trends. CrossFit came out around this time. At the same time, starting strength came out, and there was this push away from, you know, machines and bro splits to like, hey, man, like, how much can you deadlift? You know? And it became a thing. Strength training became real popular. And so, like, you, a lot of us got into it and realized that, like, oh, this is, you know, now I have, like, a real goal. It's like a tangible, concrete number, and it keeps going up. If I keep training. And maybe you do a powerlifting competition and you're like, you know, who cares about how big my arms are? Like, how much can you squat? But then there's this point where, you know, when you start strength training as, you know, as a novice, it's fun because every time you go to the gym, you put more weight on the bar. And the stronger you get, the harder it becomes to put more weight on the bar. And so you reach this point where you're like, you know what? I am not really enjoying this. Like, what it would take for me to put two and a half more pounds on my press. It might not be worth it. And, like, who cares? It's two and a half pounds. Like, it's not a motivating training goal anymore. On top of that, again, as you may have experienced, most of us who were pursuing the strength thing got fat and we got hurt. So you get older and, you know, the weights are heavier. They're beating the crap out of you, and it's not fun. And you put on all this body weight because everyone's, you know, Ripito's telling you you gotta weigh 275 and you just don't feel good. You don't feel like you look good, you're hurting, and you're like, what am I doing? And we all seem to have the same epiphany around that moment in your training journey, as you said, where you look at the machines and the, you know, the hammer strength, bench presses and the lap pull downs and the, you know, the cable, and you're like, you know, those look pretty fun. Like, you know, maybe I should mix it up a little bit. And then you sort of move back into bodybuilding. And if you look at the history of, you know, the trend in fitness culture, that's how it went. The 90s was all about the bodybuilding, and then the 2000s was CrossFit and strength training and starting strength. And then everybody started shifting back to a little bit more bodybuilding, you know, and now if you go on fitness Twitter, it's just threads of guys posting, you know, like, no one's doing a squat at all anymore. It's all leg extensions and rows and isolation work. And so I like to, you know, I think what. What I landed on with my books and what works for me now as an older lifter is a mix of hypertrophy training, bodybuilding stuff and then. But you still, like, there's a part of me deep, you know, it's an intrinsic thing of I. I still have to squat and deadlift. Like, it's not a real workout. You're not on a real program unless at least once a week you're getting under the bar and picking something heavy up off the ground. So I. I assume that your fitness journey was very similar to that.

[B]

Very similar. So I, you know, back in the 2000 and tens got really into barbell training, starting strength, did recreational competitions like yourself and just chasing numbers, and it was great. It was fun. I was. It gave me direction. I enjoyed it. But, yeah, I reached this point. It was like, probably 20, 21, 2022, where I just started hurting. It was like, tendon stuff. It was just like, the tendons. It's just really hard tendons. And then I was just looking haggard, and I was fat. And my wife, Emerson, she looked and she's like, what do you. What's the point of this? You're like Sisyphus, just pushing up that boulder. You just go down the garage gym and just go up and down. That's all you do.

[D]

You come in and you tell your wife, like, honey, I. I pulled 5, 505 today. And she's like, okay, is that. Is that good? You're fat.

[B]

Yeah, Right? And I was just tired and beat up. And then also, I just started not enjoying lifting because as you said, once you get really strong, there's diminishing returns on your training. It just takes a lot, lot more effort to just add, you know, five pounds to the bar.

[D]

Yeah. The commitment, you know, might is. It's just, you have to say, is it worth it? Like, okay, I. My last, you know, squat PR was, you know, 465. I've detrained. I went on vacation, I got sick. I met 405. Now do I want to do what it takes to get to 470? You know, is that going to be fun? And. And a lot of times it's not. And, you know, and that's okay. Like, we hammered people so hard back in the day on. The only thing that matters is the number on the bar. Doesn't matter how fat you are. Doesn't matter if you're having fun. It just matters that you put five more pounds on that bar. And I can tell you what changed my mind was owning a gym and having, you know, relying on paying clients to keep coming back and paying me. And you lose a lot of clients if you're like, look, I don't care about your goals, because my goal for you is that you lift more weight. And they're like, great, I'm going to go to someone else.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

So, yeah, it's a. It's a balance. And. And that's okay, you know?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So what I hope we can do, this conversation is talk about your philosophy towards strength training and then muscle building. It seems like you've landed a nice, happy medium. That's kind of where I'VE landed as well with my training. And, and I think this conversation will be useful for people who maybe are, you know, been lifting for a long time, doing the barbell lifts. But I really hope, I hope we can get these guys who haven't started strength training or weightlifting at all and get them into it. Because what you talk about in your books, it's all about your goal with your clients is getting a little bit stronger, getting a little bit more jacked, more muscle, and then leaning out. And that is possible with barbells, along with some hypertrophy stuff, some bodybuilding stuff with a few, you know, dumbbells and a few machine exercises. And I'm going to talk about that. Let's talk about, for the rank beginner. When someone comes to you and they're like, I want to get strong. I want to start strength training. I've never really done it before. I might have messed around with some program that I saw. You know, people don't read muscle magazines anymore, like on the, on, on Instagram. What are the common misconceptions guys have about strength and muscle building when they first start working with you?

[D]

Yeah, well, there's a couple. One is that, I mean, I tell them all the time, you are not going to look like you take steroids unless you take steroids. I mean, I don't care how good you are at this. There is a difference between the guys, you know, the Instagram influencers, like you said, or back in our day, it was the guys on the covers of the magazines and the bodybuilders. Like, drugs work, and there's a reason that those guys are on the COVID of that magazine. So one of the misconceptions is like, oh, I just have to, like, you know, lift some weights and I'm just gonna be, you know, 250 pounds at 4% body fat. It's like, it's not, it's not gonna happen. So there is that layer of misconception, but I think the big one, the practical one that most guys have to accept and they're gonna learn it one way or the other, is that you can't get big and strong, you know, and lean at the same time. You have to do them in order. And if you're not big and strong yet, you got to get big and strong first. You have to build a foundation so that when you cut, when you go into a fat loss phase, you actually have something to show off. And so many times I'll get a young guy who's, you know, a buck fifty and he's talking to me about wanting to cut and wanting, wanting to see his abs. And I was like. And it's just like, dude, you're going to look like you're sick if you cut anything off of your frame. Right now you don't have any muscle mass, so you have to spend a period of time. You know, I use the word bulking cautiously because you can definitely get too fat and you don't have to do that, but you do have to get bigger in order to get stronger. And that comes with a little bit of body fat, hopefully. And if you do it right, you can skew it. So every, most of every new pound you put on is muscle. And so you still look bigger. You know, you don't look fat cause you're kind of filling out your frame. And then after you've spent, you know, a year, two years maybe, working on your form, learning how to lift, adding muscle mass, all that stuff, then you've sort of earned the right to cut. You've earned the right to say, okay, I've hit some benchmarks, you know, with barbell training, and I've put in my time and now I feel like I'm getting a little chubby and. And I want to spend six months trying to take as much fat off as I can while preserving the muscle mass. And that, you know, understanding the order and the importance of the order is like, that's the number one thing that most guys who haven't done it think they can do it all at the same time, and it never works. So they either figure that out or they never make any progress. They just kind of don't look really jacked and they don't look really lean and they're not very strong.

[B]

Yeah, and I imagine too, I had to learn this, that stuff takes time. You can't expect this stuff to happen in less than a year. Like, do the putting on mass and then cutting. I mean, you can make significant gains if you're first starting out with your strength and your muscle mass. But really the secret sauce to getting stronger, getting more jacked, it's just, it takes time. Like, you're not going to see instant results after you. After your first couple sessions.

[D]

No, it does take time. You're literally building tissue. It's a biological process that it does take time. The cool part is, you know, it's persistent. And as you add on those layers and then with intelligent bulking and cutting strategies, like the first run in both the bulking phase and the cutting phase is the longest because you want to get as much out of your novice phase as you can in terms of strength and size. And so if you're a true novice, that can take, you know, six months a year just to run out the novice phase, maybe early intermediate phase. And then the first time you cut, especially if you're 25, 30% body fat, and if you're going to try and cut down to where you can see your abs, which is around 10%, you got a lot of fat to lose. So that, that first block, their cycle of bulking and cutting is the longest one. But then once you get through that, the cycles get shorter because you don't put on as much fat, so you don't have as much fat to take off. And the cycles get more fun because, or your training overall gets more fun because you see a light at the end of the tunnel for each phase and you know, like, okay, a couple more weeks of this and then I can do something different. But yeah, it's getting people through that first phase. And I'll tell you, like, in my gym it was like the end of the novice phase, usually around the six month mark, where it's, they've been focusing on just driving up the numbers on those, on you know, squats and deadlifts and presses. And at that point it starts to get hard. They start laying awake at night thinking about their next workout. It's a grind. Every session is, it scares the hell out of you. And like, if they can make it through that and keep coming and not quit and get to the intermediate phase, they're lifters for life. But I've lost a lot of clients where they're just like, I don't know, man, like, this is really like, this isn't fun anymore and, and it's grindy and, and then that's it. They go, do they go sign up for jiu Jitsu or something and we never see them again?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so for someone who' starting out lifting, like they want to get bigger, they want to get jacked, they want to get awesome. You know those Death Star deltoids, It.

[D]

Sounds, it's, Is that a thing?

[B]

I think I've heard that somewhere. Death Star deltoids. I think a lot of guys, they, that's their goal. They'll immediately go to sort of a bodybuilder hypertrophy program where they're doing, you know, four day splits, six day splits where they're working one body, body part a day. You take a different approach. Seems like your first priority with someone who's first starting out is just to get generally strong and big first. So what is the best programming for that?

[D]

Yeah, I mean, the idea here is we're going to spend some time laying down a foundation. You know, we're going to build a foundation of just strength and size. You're going to learn how to lift. You're going to be doing these basic barbell lifts for your entire training career. They're always a part of the program. You may add other stuff, but. But this is really what's causing the most stress and doing the most work is squats, deadlifts, benches, presses, stuff like that. So we need to spend some time getting proficient at those lifts. You need to learn how to push yourself. You need to learn how to, you know, unrack a weight that scares you and try it anyway and then learn that, you know, you can do things that scares you, that scare you and all of that. So you need a lot of reps, you need a lot of practice time under the bar. And so a basic linear progression where you're just, you know, you come in and you lift one day and then you try and beat it the next time. So, you know, it's five pounds, it's two and a half pounds. But the program is very boring and very repetitive. It's just a couple lifts and all your. The only variable we're manipulating is how much weight's on the bar. So it's a very logic. This is why software developers love programs like this, because they get it, they can wrap their head around it. It's like, oh, I came in, I could bench press 95 pounds. Now I can bench press 185. I guess it's working.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So. And we want to keep it simple. You don't need all that stuff. You don't need six different chest exercises, and you don't need to be in the gym six days a week. You just need a simple program where you're getting better at the compound lifts and just driving the weight up. And so, you know, the starting strength program is a fantastic beginner program, like novice program. My version that I put in my book, a radically simple strength was just a modification of that program based on, you know, training real clients in the gym and needing to get them in and out in an hour, keep them excited, keep them, you know, interested in training, not too beat up, not dreading their workouts. So, I mean, do you want me to get into the details of my novice program?

[B]

Yeah, let's talk about, let's talk about, let's Talk about the general programming of. Let's start talking about starting strength first. It's really easy to explain. Whenever someone comes to me like, hey, Brett, I want to get strong and bigger and jacked, I'm like, you need to start with starting strength.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And I, I, the reason I tell them that because it's, it's literally, it's the best weightlifting program for a beginner. And I'll tell you why. First, because it's just so simple. There's just four lifts you have to do. That's it. It's just deadlift, it's squat, it's bench press and shoulder press. You're only going to train three times a week. Yep, anyone can do that. And then the workouts are easy. It's just like you're going to squat, you know, at the beginning of your workout the three times a week. And then one workout you're going to do bench press, and then the deadlift. And then the next workout you're going to do press. And then the next work you do do bench press and deadlift. And then it just kind of alternate, you alternate between the bench and the, the pressure and you're getting a full body workout. You're going to get really strong. And it's just so simple. It's like, it's fast. Especially when you're first starting out. You're going to be in and out of the gym in like 45 minutes even. I mean, I've got my kids doing starting strength. They're like, you know, teenagers. For them, like, the weight's really light, so they can get done in like 30 minutes.

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And for a person who's first starting out, I think one thing that keeps people from being consistent is just workouts can be too complex. They're doing too many lifts, and it just takes forever because they're doing like seven different exercises with, you know, three sets of 10. With starting strength, you're doing three exercises in your workout, and it's three sets of five. So the simplicity of it, I think, is one of its virtues. And then also with the linear progressions where you're just adding weight to the bar, incredibly motivating. I remember when I first started my novice linear progression, I was excited every workout. I was like, man, I'm gonna add more weight to the bar. This is exciting. So you get that dopamine rush, and that dopamine rush gets you motivated, and it just helps build that consistency for training. Like, I was not someone who trained consistently before I started starting strength. After That I am a guy. Like, I'm a. I'm a guy who trains even though my training has changed. Right. I'm doing different stuff now. Starting strength helped establish that foundation because it's motivating and it's super simple. And I think that's really important for a beginning lifter.

[D]

As you said, you know, this is something that takes time. And so you need quick wins. If you're not going to be satisfied or excited about your training until you can deadlift 405, like, you're going to be miserable. But, you know, it's. It is a long journey. And so you need those little victories, those small victories of like, hey, you know what? Like, today I might not be where I want to be eventually. You know, I might not be at my ultimate goal, but I'm better than I was last time, and I can see it. And so you're right. You get those little daily workout victories of like, lifting 5 more pounds than you did last time are enough to keep you going. And then by the time, for me, the big shift, what got me hooked was you do it long enough and then you look in the mirror or you look at your training log and you go, damn. Like, I, you know, I just went into the gym for like an hour three times a week, and I. I picked up some heavy stuff, and, like, my physical body has changed.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I mean, it gives people agency. You realize, like, look, you know, I might not be where I want to be in life, but I'm not useless. I have a say in how I present myself to the world. And it's very motivating. And if you can get the guy to that point where you have this realization that I can actually change my own reality just with work, just with effort, it's like it's a part of you. You're in the brotherhood of iron for life. You know, it's very powerful.

[B]

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[D]

Home.

[B]

And now back to the show. Okay, so starting strength, it's three sets of five. You're doing three workouts with these four different lifts. You've modified it. What is your version of sort of a novice program?

[D]

So my take on the novice program, the main difference with how starting strength approaches it and how I approach it just again, from, from it was a more practical strategy for running clients through a commercial gym. And that was starting strength is like the novice phase is your most productive phase. You eke out every little bit of progress that you can for as long as you possibly can. No matter how hard and grueling and grindy it is. If you can press two and a half more pounds, you do it. I look at my novice phase as the way that we're going to get you to the intermediate phase, because if we can get you to the intermediate phase of training, that's when we get more variety. That's when things get more fun. Everything becomes less grueling. You know, you, you space out your workouts. You maybe have upper and lower workouts. So my novice phase was like, let's just learn how to lift. Let's get a lot of reps in a lot of practice, let's build a reasonable foundation of size and strength, and then let's move on. So I do ascending sets of five instead of three sets of five. So this is an old Bill Starr thing. Rather than do all your warmups, take a five minute break and then do three sets of five at the same weight with a five minute break in between each one. We just do the bar and then, you know, we do a set of five at 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100% done. So your warmups kind of count as sets and it's real fast. And is it as productive for as long as the starting strength novice program? Probably not, because at some point those ramping sets tax you a little too much, and so you're kind of tired for your heavy set. But it's good enough to keep the workout really short and make a lot of really good progress and build that foundation. And it'll take you, you know, you'll be able to run that for about three to six months before it kind of stops working and you have to make some modifications. But every guy I've switched over to that program after running the starting strength program was like, God, this is so much like faster. It's just like, I like going to the gym. Just be. And, and again, if that keeps you training, that little modification, then great, you're going to end up in the same place eventually down the road. So, so that's really the big one, is we start out squatting, benching, and deadlifting, but we're just doing sets ascending, sets of five.

[C]

Gotcha.

[B]

That makes sense.

[D]

Yeah. And then we move on. You know, in the second month of workouts, we start adding in some chin ups and lat pull downs so we're not deadlifting every time. And, and then in the third phase of the novice program, which is like workout 25, sort of till it stops working, I start adding in some curls and tricep extensions just because, you know, curls are awesome. Guys want to curl.

[B]

Right.

[D]

So you've, by that point, you know, you've. I think you've earned the right to curl, to throw a couple sets of curls in at the end of the workout. And, and again, just like, just to keep it, you know, you give people a lot of what they need and a little of what they want want, and they're happy. So that's really the, the difference between my novice program and the starting strength. And again, starting strength is a fantastic program and it works really well. I've used it for decades.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so again, the goal here is just getting bigger and stronger, like putting on muscle mass, full body. The focus isn't like hypertrophy per se. There will be hypertrophy, your muscles will get bigger, but it's not like that's your main focus. Just get bigger and stronger.

[D]

Learning, learning again and learning the technique. Like five sets of five ascending is a, you get a lot of reps in there, you get a lot of practice, and we need that early on. And, and, and then again, it's also learning how to grind, like learning how to push yourself, and you have to learn how to do that. And so you need a lot of time under the bar and exposure to those sets that scare you. Towards the end of that novice phase.

[B]

Yeah, for a guy, you know, that first year when they're just starting out, they're doing that novice phase, they're learning the lifts, getting bigger and stronger. Like, what are some like good goals a guy could get to? What should they be going after? Like, are there any specific numbers you found?

[D]

Yeah, I mean the, the first tier of goals in my book or what we call plate goals, you know, a 45 pound plate. So you want to be able to press 135, bench 225, squat 315 and deadlift 405. So it's one plate, two plate, three plates, four plates and, and that's for one rep. So that's the first like benchmark that any guy can hit.

[B]

And if you do that, like you're going to be like stronger than a lot of people.

[D]

Oh my. I'm. Yeah. I mean the bar is so low, you know, and especially now with the, you know, influencer trend away from heavy lifting and back to the machines and stuff. Like there was a period in, you know, probably like 2010 where if you went to a gym, those numbers weren't that impressive. And to competitive lifters they're not impressive. But to the average gen pop gym goer, especially these days when all the machines are coming back, if you could squat 405, like you're like in the 1% of people at that gym.

[C]

So.

[D]

Yeah, and they're very reasonable goals. They're not hard to do.

[B]

And I think it, what it also is, it makes you generally strong for life. Like generally strong and healthy for life. Like you're not, if you get those numbers, you're not going to be beat up, you're not going to hurt, but you'll be able to like help move your buddy, you know, on the weekend. And it's like not hard because you're stronger.

[D]

Yeah, it's a solid, respectable foundation of strength and it's attainable to anyone. And the thing is that as you know, like the numbers don't matter. I don't care if you can squat 315, you know, I care that you're doing a program and you're trying to get a little better every time and you're pushing yourself, but you do have to have a target. Guys need to have a goal because you know, if you're just training and you don't have a. There's no Lighthouse, you're sailing towards, like it's hard to stay motivated. So that's the starting point. And then once they hit those, we can either move on to what I, in the book, I call them hundo goals. So 200, 300, 400, 500. Lately what I've been doing is just saying let's take those plate goals, you know, one plate, two plates, three plates. And let's just, instead of your goal being to do them for one rep, let's try and do them for five reps. So you're gonna end up, you deadlift 400, five for five. That's your sort of phase two target. And then you know, from there there's more goals, but most people never even get there. And that's okay. Cause that's when they, that's when they, as we talked about, start asking about more bodybuilding stuff.

[B]

Right. We're gonna get to that in a second. But before we do, we'll stick on this like mass phase. Getting generally strong, getting bigger. When you're first starting out, nutrition plays an important role. And I think I noticed with a lot of guys that start training is they're doing the program but they're not eating to fuel the game.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And what's interesting, people have a lot of misconceptions about diet. I think people have more misconceptions about nutrition when it comes to training than the programming itself because there's just so much stuff out there. But you know, really simply, what does a good diet plan look like when you're in this beginning phase?

[D]

Well, the high level concepts is it protein is the biggest thing. And you're right, the hardest thing to do is not the lifting, it's the eating. Because you have to eat three or four times a day every day, even if you don't want to, especially if you're a skinny guy. You got to eat more food than you want to. And when you get into like a cutting phase, you gotta eat less food than you want to. Diet is the hardest part of this whole thing. But the number one mistake guys make is they don't eat enough protein. And it's just if you're not, I used to tell my guys all the time, if you're not eating enough protein, then you are wasting your time in the gym because the protein literally builds your muscle tissue. So you're doing all the hard work, you're busting your ass in the gym, and then your body's trying to rebuild, repair and add more contractile tissue and you're not supplying it with the bricks it needs to build so undereating protein and then under eating calories. If we're talking about the novice sort of bulking phase for an underweight male lifter, it's they, they don't eat enough food and specifically they don't even eat enough protein. So carbs and fat, I, I try and keep this as simple as possible. Just hit your protein goal and at this point in my coaching career I just tell everybody Your goal is 200 grams of protein a day. More is better. Like if you, you know, if you're a 200 pound guy, fine, 2 20, if you're 185 pound guy, 200 is great. So for most guys just hit 200 grams a day and then with those meals will come carbs and fat and then just, you know, check your weight. If you're get on the scale every morning after you go to the bathroom naked and look at the number. And if we're in the novice phase or we're in a bulking phase, that number needs to be going up every week. So total it up over the course of the week and if you're a pound heavier than you were last week, you're doing great. If you're not and you go two weeks in a row, you need more food, it's a math problem, you're not eating enough calories. So the mistake that they make is usually it's gaining too much weight too fast. So when you first start training, if you've never lifted, I always tell people in the first like two, three weeks, don't worry about the weight on the scale because a lot of times when a guy starts picking up a barbell, he'll gain like 5, 10 pounds within a matter of weeks. After the first month that should start to slow down and you want to hit an average of about a pound a week. If you're a little fluffy coming into it, maybe you're going to maintain depending on how much body fat you have. But if you're, you know, just your body fat's a little high, maybe shoot for half a pound a week while you're trying to build this foundation of strength. But if guys are, if you're six weeks into the program and you're gaining three pounds a week, you're just getting fat, unnecessarily fat. And you're going to end up getting to the end of your novice phase and thinking, well this strength training just makes me fat. It's like, you don't have to do that. It's A very, very modest amount of weight gain that you need to build that muscle tissue. Because there's only so much muscle tissue you can build in a month. Yeah, your body, you know, unless you're taking drugs. So. And it's like two pounds of actual lean tissue. So that comes with other stuff. So at most you're looking at £4amonth. Anything beyond that besides a rank novice, Underweight, you know, 17 year old, it's like if you're gaining more than four pounds a month, like you're getting fat.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

The trick is you want to gain weight, but like keep fat gain to a minimum. You have to gain. You're going to gain fat as you put on mass. There's no escaping that. But the goal is like, make sure it leans more towards muscle tissue and less towards body fat. And I think, I know back in the day, starting strength got a lot of flack for the go mad gallon of milk a day and like all these guys just getting really fat and like eating sheet cake and dude, we were so fat.

[D]

We were so fat.

[B]

It was like, you don't need to do that. You don't have to get that to get big and strong. Like you can, you can get slightly bigger week to week.

[D]

So, so my first, you know, I, I looked around at the starting, I remember being at the starting strength coaches conference and looking around and, and we had some real strong guys there, like, I mean, real good lifters. And Matt was one of them, Jordan was one of them. And I looked around and I thought, you know, I'm trying to make a little niche for myself in this community and I'm not going to be the strongest guy. In fact, someone had totaled up all the training logs on the starting strength forms and ranked all of us coaches. And I was like, my strength was dead center. I was totally like mediocre. And I thought, you know, okay, I'm 252 pounds. I'm fat. I mean, I feel fat. I'm never going to be the strongest coach. So let me see if I can just lose, Let me see if I can get down to 10 body fat. I've never done it. Let me see if I can see my abs. And so I did. And it took, it took. But I think I was the first coach in our community to do that. And I remember texting Grant Broge, who, I don't know if you've had him on podcast, but a fellow coach and I, and I had just hit 10 body fat and I took a picture in the bathroom Mirror. And, and I sent it to him. I was like, I'm thinking about putting this on Instagram and it feels kind of lame, you know, like it's a picture of me shirtless. Like it. And, and he just texted me back, he's like, dude, post it. And I did. And, and within a matter of like a year, all these other coaches and lifters started just shedding body fat.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And that became, you know, starting strength is, as we've said, it's fantastic for lifting. It is a horrible book for nutrition, you know, unless your goal is to be a 275 pound fat lifter.

[B]

Power lifter.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And because a gallon of milk a day works. I've done it and it works, man. It'll put weight on you real quick. But most guys, like my average client is like, he doesn't want to be a powerlifter, he doesn't want to be a bodybuilder. He just like, like I said, he wants to be a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger, not fat and not hurt. And so that first time through of learning how to manipulate my diet to actually get down to 10% body fat was sort of the, what I thought I could contribute aside from the, you know, sort of more abbreviated novice program and stuff to fill the hole in sort of the starting strength community of like, hey, if you guys want to really talk about strategies for getting lean, like maybe I have something to offer because I've done it and then I did it a couple more times and I've gotten a lot better at it.

[C]

But yeah, yeah.

[B]

So yeah, if you're first starting out, put on some mass and if you're underweight, make it your goal to put on one to two pounds a week maybe. And then if you're already coming into it heavy, there's a lot of guys who they're starting out, but they're overweight, they've got a lot of fat tissue. Like you just reduce your calories. So you're losing about a pound during that strength phase. If you're bigger, you can get away with some recomposition so you can put on some muscle mass while losing body fat at the same time. So yeah, you can get put on muscle mass while reducing body fat as well, but it's going to be a gradual thing. You don't want to be no severe cuts where you're reducing calories way low. You just want to lose like a pound to a 0.5 pounds a week.

[D]

Yeah. In my book, I, I sort of break the, the novice Lifter into three categories. The underweight guy, the sort of like fluffy untrained guy, and then the overweight guy. So if you're coming in and you're just a rail, you have a high metabolism, you're a skinny dude, you know, for the novice phase, for the first couple months of the program, your goal should be to gain £20. And then if you're kind of in the middle, Maybe it's gained 10 pounds, slow it down, go half a pound a week instead of a pound a week. And then if you're coming in carrying a lot of body fat, what I say is just maintain, don't try and gain weight. And because you will be able to recompose. So the only time you can add muscle and lose fat at the same time, there's three scenarios. You are a brand new lifter, you're already carrying a lot of body fat or you're taking drugs. So outside of those three states, you're doing one or the other. You're building muscle or you're losing body fat. But so yes, for the guys who are coming in who have a high body fat percentage, just, you know, eat enough to kind of maintain, if the scale goes down a little bit, that's okay. If it stays the same, that's okay. Because if your weight stays the same, but you put, you know, a hundred pounds on your deadlift, you obviously gained muscle and lost fat. Right? And that happens all the time. Every time. I have my guys do body scans at the beginning, like body composition scans at the beginning of their training when we start and maybe at the six month mark. And so many guys are able to just recompose and it's amazing. And then it goes away.

[B]

And yeah, you gotta do something different. All right, so we've been talking about just getting your. For first guy starting out, you're going to do the basic barbell lifts, squat bench, deadlift, shoulder press. You're going to work out three times a week. You've got your version of what a linear progression looks like, sending sets of five on the lifts. And the goal is to add weight each workout. Let's say you've been doing this for a while and then you have to kind of modify your programs. You can keep driving weight at the bar. Let's say a client reaches a point like, you know what, Paul, I'm happy with how strong I am. Like I'm generally strong. I can deadlift 4,05, I can squat 3,15. I'm not going to do any recreational powerlifting meets. I want to start getting jacked. I want to get those Death Star deltoids. What does your programming look like for these guys? Because it sounds like you're going to keep doing these barbell lists, but you're going to add in some other stuff. What does that look like?

[D]

Yeah. So like I said, the intermediate program is where things get more fun. There's more variety and it's less grueling. You have hard workouts, but they're, you know, you're not squatting heavy, benching heavy and dead lifting heavy in the same workout. So my go to intermediate program, in the book it's called the intermediate B program and it's four workouts. And I have my guys run them over a three day week. So we're staying consistent with the three day training schedule that they're used to. But we move from full body to upper lower splits. Right. So now on Monday you're gonna bench press and then you'll do like a light overhead press. And then you'll do some like arm work, tricep extensions. On Wednesday you're gonna squat and deadlift. So I have you squatting heavy and deadlifting light and then some chin ups or something. And then the Friday, you'll flip Monday's workout so you're going to press heavy and bench light and then do some curls and bro stuff just for fun. And then the following Monday, so the fourth workout would be deadlifting heavy and squatting light. So it's upper, lower, upper. And then the next week is lower, upper, lower. So you have one hard week where you have two lower body workouts. And then you have one easy week where you have two upper body workouts and one lower body workout. And so we're spreading out the frequency. You know, you're not hammering yourself all the time. And the beauty of that is that it's, it's flexible. So with upper lower splits, you can train two days in a row. You don't need a day off in between upper and lower, which is nice. It's a lot more flexible that way. And then the other thing, I start incorporating and this is where I sort of branch off from starting strength. But it's something that I am very passionate about is introducing rep ranges. So before when you were a novice lifter, it was like, no, you get five reps. Your goal is five reps. If you don't get five reps, you failed. Okay? And that's okay, we all fail. You're gonna fail. But you know you have that target and you need to push yourself really hard. If you want to add more weight next time, you got to get that fifth rep. When we get into the intermediate phase, I like to, you know, pump the brakes a little bit on the intensity of the live and die by the fifth rep mentality, because guys are burnt out by that. And it's like, you don't want to hate your workout. Like, you work all day, your boss is yelling at you, your kids are, you know, running around screaming. You go to the gy gym, and then you get four reps instead of five, and you're like, can I do anything right? You know, it's like, it's. It's demoralizing. And so the rep range, what we'll say is, like, for example, you're gonna squat, so you're gonna go in and you're gonna warm up, and then you're gonna do one set of squats. And the rep range is three to five reps. So you have a minimum and a max. Your goal is five. But, hey, look, today if you only have three or four, that's okay. You're in the range, you still had a good workout, and the next time, you just try again, you know? And what you'll find is like, we all have bad days. Doesn't mean your training isn't working. Doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Maybe you didn't get enough sleep, whatever, but you walk out of the gym going, look, at least I got three, so that's okay. And the mental shift of taking that pressure off, it's like one of the things I get emailed about most when guys switch from, like, the Texas method, where it's like five sets of five rigid, to this flexibility, it's a mental. It takes a lot of pressure off, and it keeps them really enjoying their training more and pushing. If I tell you, like, hey, man, let's see what you got. Maybe you only have three today. That's okay. A lot of times guys will, you know, when they know that that pressure's off, they'll push themselves harder for five. It's a surprising, like, psychological thing. So we work up. You do one set of three to five, and then we do back off set. So instead of doing, you know, sets across, we're gonna do one heavy set, and then we're gonna take some weight off about 15%. And then you do another set for, like, if it's the squat, might be 5 reps or 5 to 8 reps or something like that. But if it's the upper body stuff, you know, you. Maybe you Push for as many reps as you can. But that other shift of like, you have one hard set, okay, you're going to warm up and you have one hard thing to do today. Especially on those lower body days where it's like the deadlift. Okay, look, dude, you got one set of three to five today and then after that we're going to pull a little weight off and then you squat, like everything gets easier. And so just giving guys that like everybody can do one hard thing, you know, I don't care how tired you are, I don't care what you can. You just get it together to do this one, one hard set and then you move on. And those two things, the rep ranges and the one hard set and then a back off set is what I found kept my clients and my current clients training with me because they're not constantly failing, you know.

[B]

So you're going to shift to a four day split. That means you're going to train upper body one day, lower body, upper body and lower body. Something you said in, in radically simple muscle. If like your goals, hypertrophy, it's like we're not just working on getting generally big and strong. We're actually going to do some bodybuilder stuff. You talk about, your philosophy is train your lower body like a powerlifter and train your upper body like a bodybuilder. What does that look like?

[D]

So we're talking about a trainee who's gotten to the point, like we said, where they've established that foundation of strength so they're moving heavyweight. So these workouts can be stressful and a lot of them are like, okay, I did the boring workouts, I built this foundation, I'm strong and I want to mix it up. I'm feeling beat up. I've accumulated some injuries. And so the radically simple muscle program, which was just supposed to be a PDF but ended up turning into a. My second book I have guys shift to, especially if their goal is now like aesthetics. You know, I've got this mass that I've built, but now I want to kind of shape it. So training your upper body like a bodybuilder and your lower body like a power lifter, there's a number of reasons for that. One of them is exercise variety. So bodybuilding typically uses lots of different exercises, isolation movements, and that's primarily because your upper body muscles can be segmented into basically pushers and pullers. You've got your lats and your pecs and they do opposite things. So if you do a Bunch of, you know, seated cable rows. That doesn't build your chest. You have to do some type of pressing variation. And. And those presses don't really build your back. And the upper body demands that there's a reason for it. If we contrast that to the lower body, you can think of hamstrings and quads as pushers and, or pullers and pushers, but they're both covered by the squat and the deadlift. Both of those functions happen in both of those lifts. So let's just squat and deadlift. Like, I don't want to do seven leg exercises. When squats and deadlifts work everything all at the same time, versus, like I said, I can't just have you curl because it's not going to train your triceps. So that's one part of it. The other part of it is, you know, aesthetics. When you size a guy up, right, and we all do it, you see a guy and he's like. Like, that guy's jacked. You're looking at his upper body, right? You're looking at those landmarks, those desirable aesthetic features. Cap shoulders, a vein in the bicep, things like that. Okay? That shaping, that is a bodybuilding. If you just focus on overhead presses, I promise you, you will not have shoulders. Would you say Death Star deltoids? Yeah. I mean, my shoulders never looked worse than when I was just pressing £200 over my head. Like, it just didn't fill out the deltoids the way that something like very light lateral raises do. So we need. There's a bunch of different examples of that with the upper body. You know, you need to do some curls. Like, chin ups are great, but curls, tricep stuff, it makes those muscles pop. And, and that's what we want when we talk about an aesthetic physique versus the lower body. You know, unless you're walking around with your pants off, your lower body just needs to be big, right? You need to have big legs and a big butt, and you could do that with just squats and deadlifts. So again, that will just squat and deadlift for the lower body, and we'll spend some time doing bodybuilding stuff for the upper body. And then finally, it comes down to high reps versus low reps. Bodybuilders use high reps. Traditionally, powerlifters use low reps. Your upper body joints are much smaller and much more sensitive. They don't have as much structural integrity as the lower body. If you think about, you know, your. Your hip joint, it's like a A sturdy ball and socket, your glenohumeral joint in the shoulder. It's like a shallow cup. And I've had three shoulder surgeries, so I can tell you that is a very unstable joint. Just banging out, grinding out heavy triples with bench presses and stuff like that. Your wrists are gonna hurt it. Your upper body joints are not as tolerant of heavy weights as your lower body, where you have more sturdy joints and a lot more muscle mass helping move the weight. So, you know, when you get into that phase of like, do I really care? Am I a power lifter or do I just want to kind of look good and feel good and, you know, then maybe you spend some time bumping up the rep range in the upper body, taking the stress off a little bit with loads that are less likely to sort of fall out of the groove and end up, you know, tweaking something. And then the lower body, I don't know about you, I do not want to do high rep deadlifts. Like, no, it's not fun. They're miserable. Like, and, and you don't have to, you could just do, you know, a set of five, a set of three. So squatting sets of eight is just, I mean, it's brutal and I use it sometimes for cardio development. But ultimately, like, I, I have a hard time counting past five for lower body stuff. So that's the philosophy is like, we'll do the bodybuilder stuff for the upper body because it's works better for the requirements and the demands of that. And the lower body we just take care of by training like a powerlifter, you know, and at that point in my training, one of the biggest shifts that I've made is squatting and deadlifting heavy every other week, which I, I thought would be counterproductive, but it's actually been, I mean, my, my lifts have never been better with only squatting heavier every 14 days. But you got to get to the point where, you know, you can make that work and we can talk about that another time.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. My, my programming has kind of shifted to that sort of train your lower body like a powerlifter upper body, like a bodybuilder. So my current split that Matt Reynolds has me on, it's Monday is lower body day, and I start off with a heavy set of deadlifts, and then I do accessory work after that for the quads. So, like, I've got, you know, I got a leg extension machine in my garage gym, so I do some leg extension like, you know, not high rep, it's like 10 reps, but going heavy. Do some calf raises. And then my upper body day on Tuesday, I start off with heavy bench press, just typical bench press workout. And then after that I'm just doing like bodybuilder stuff. So I'll do some shoulder work. So I do shoulder dumbbell presses, maybe some lateral raises so the assessor work is more shoulder heavy. And then I'll throw in the curls, tricep extensions, lat pull down. And then Thursday is my next lower body day. I'm squatting. Like my first lifts, the squat. Then after that I do accessory work for the hamstrings. So I'm doing a rdl and then I'll do some leg curls for the hamstrings. So and then Friday it's upper body.

[A]

Start off with the press.

[B]

So I'm doing like barbell press and I'm not doing a lot of sets. Like I do like one heavy set and then like two back off sets that are like as many reps as possible. And then my bodybuilder stuff, it's like more chest focused. So I'm doing like an incline dumbbell bench press.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then some cable flies or maybe some dumbbell flies. And then I'm doing, you know, great exercise. Then a curl variation and another tricep exercise variation and then a row for the back. Just get a different. And that's it. And it's. Yeah, my lower body days like are fast because really there's not much there. Yeah, upper bodies days take a little bit longer because like you said, you can do a little bit more variety on the upper body.

[D]

I'll have to send you my. So at the end of the. I added a program after radically simple muscle came out because I did an experiment. I was at a point with my training that I was just, I mean, I've been doing this for a long time. As my buddy says, my training partner, man, I hate training. I just hate not training more. You know that feeling when you haven't worked? So, but, but it's like training just got after decades, just got. I just hate it. But so I was like, how can I make this fun? Let me, let me try something. And so I decided to see how little I could get away with. So I just picked, you know, a couple bang. For your buck exercises, I think I, I did a, like a bench press, a row, a squat, a deadlift, a pull up, you know, like a overhead press, curl, lateral. I just one exercise for kind of each thing. And then I just started doing one set and I was like, I'm gonna try and hit eight reps and if I hit eight, that's it, I'm done for the day with that exercise. And and then my rule was if I don't hit eight two workouts in a row, then I'll do a second set. I'll do like a back off set. So I go in thinking, one set. And it worked for a couple weeks. It was like, I'm getting eight every time it's going up. This is great. And then I'd stick for two weeks and so I'll do a back off set. And then the week after that it would move and so cut the back offset. And so I'm just, literally, the workouts are like 30 minutes. It's one set. And man, I'm having a great time in the gym again because again, it's that mental thing of like, look, I'm only doing one set, so I got to make it work. But that type of program, and I always tell guys who email me about the book, the reason that it works is because I've put in the time to figure, you know, to learn how to grind, to learn how to like really push yourself. And it just takes, it just takes time to, to understand what you're capable of. You know that you are, you have a lot more in you than you think. But if you're a novice lifter, like, you don't know how to push. So one set isn't going to work because that one set isn't going to be very stressful. But if you get to the point that like, you're at where you, you know, I've seen your deadlifts and stuff like that and, and you're like, look, Brad, you have one set. That's it. Like you will, that will be a very stressful set for your body. And I was, I was, it was totally an experiment. I put up a YouTube video about my new training experiment and I'm never going back. Like, it's so fun. And the programming is so simple. Like programming is, people make programming so complicated. It's like, look, here's the weight. Did you get all the reps? You were supposed to. Great, go up next time. You didn't. Okay, well, you need to add a little bit more stress, then do a second set. Did it go up next time? Good. Like it? That's it?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

No. Okay. So once you get to that point where you, you know, you're working hypertrophy workouts can Become a lot of fun. And it can also become really fast. Sounds like you're kind of doing some Mike Metzner, like heavy duty type stuff there with the one rep or one set workouts with the exercises. I'm curious if a guy's with their, if their goal is now physique at this point in their training. When you're lifting for, you know, strength, the goals are pretty easy. It's like, well, if I just get more weight. What are, if you're working on physique, like, what are some good physique goals or benchmarks to hit for the average dude?

[D]

Yeah, so there's, there's two. I mean, in my book, I talk about getting your bicep vein, getting arm vein lean.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Like, everybody always talks about abs, but like you're walking around with a shirt on most of the time. But like you see a dude at the coffee shop and he's got like a big snake running down his bicep. You know, that guy's in good shape. Like it's, it's a, it's a good, like, it's cool. So that I much prefer that metric and that's just reaching a certain level of body fat. So numbers wise, I always tell guys that your first goal when you cut is 10. You want to get down to 10 body fat. You should get down to 10 body fat once in your life to figure out how to do it right because it's, it's hard. I mean, for some guys, they'd like walk around at 8% body fat, whatever. I hate you. It's not me. It's probably, it's not you. Like, most of us are very hap. Our bodies are very happy to not be 10 body fat. So, you know, you cut down to 10 and that's usually where you can see your abs and, and your lean and, and. But you kind of, you're gonna look kind of skinny with your clothes on. You look pretty ripped, you know, at the beach. But the pro, once you get down there, you know, now when you bulk back up, your body's. You're going to skew more towards muscle gain than fat gain because you've, you've sort of. The nutrient partitioning changes once you get that lean. So your body is much. It's much easier to put on muscle and not as much fat once you strip it off. So the first goal is 10 and then you're gonna. And then once you get sick of restricting, you know, of being miserable and dieting for that long, because getting to 15 is not hard from. But as you start getting close to 10, your brain starts messing with you. So that last 3% is. Can be brutal. Of course, now we have these miracle GLP drugs that just make this whole process, like, super easy. But. But yeah, you want my. My goal is you get down to 10 body fat. You can see the veins in your arms. You know, that's a good measure. And pay attention to when that comes. Like, mine pops up around 13%, so that's kind of my gauge. Do DEXA scans. So you. You want to get good at, you know, understanding your visual cues, like, of, you know, your level of leanness. So. And then you. You're tired of that, you want to go back, start moving weight again, setting PRs, bulking back up. Right. So we're gonna bulk back up till we hit 15. Okay. That's the. That's sort of my cap. Of course, I'm saying that to you right now at, like, 18, because I have not been taking my own advice, but traditionally, you want to just cycle between 10 and 15%. That's my approach to this. 15. You still look good. You still look athletic. You know, you can still see maybe your top abs, and it's a. It's a healthy, athletic physique. You'll look good with a shirt on. You'll look like a big dude. And then every so often, you know, you got a vacation coming up or a high school reunion or something. Maybe you use that as motivation to try and cut back down to 10 or 12% or something like that, and then you just keep cycling, you know, as you want to. But. But hitting that first 10 is like hitting those. Those first barbell goals, you know, those tier one goals.

[B]

Yeah, that's. That's exactly what I've done. Like, I did a pretty big cut in 20, 23.

[D]

How lean did you get? I think it's a 10.

[B]

I didn't think I got to 10. I probably got down to 11.

[D]

Okay. And then it was fun, right?

[B]

Yeah, no, it was awful. It was terrible. And then after that, I've just been bouncing back between. I've been hanging around. Like, 15 to 12 is where I've been hanging out at.

[D]

That's great. And that's great.

[B]

That seems. It seems to work for me. And then, like, the. The physique part, you got to keep training hard because you want to maintain muscle mass, but a lot of it's just nutrition. It's just learning how to learn to reduce calories and be okay with being hungry and things like that. But again. But it's a skill that you develop, and once you develop it, it's pretty easy.

[D]

Yeah, you learn how. You learn to, you know, how to deal with the cravings that you. You don't eliminate foods. You replace them. You know, if you. If you have a. I mean, you know, if I have a habit of having a cocktail at the end of the night, it's like, you don't just try and, like, sit on the couch and stare at the wall. Like, you know, get us. Get a sparkling water and put lime juice in it and make it. You know, there's little psychological hacks to. For that last part, but, man, yeah, it's. It's no fun. And you're training. You know, a big misconception guys have is like, well, if I'm cutting, then I'm gonna get weaker. And that is not true. I find that most guys can hang on to their strength in the gym. I mean, at least maintain. I've had plenty of guys set PRs during a cut, but it's usually once it gets below 15%, you know, 14, 13, then all of a sudden, your strength just, like, falls off a cliff, and you feel like you're 100 years old.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And then you just got to ride it out and do the best you can to finish the cut and then. And. And then get back to eating like a normal human.

[B]

Well, Paul has been a great conversation where people go to learn more about the books and your work.

[D]

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. This is fun. I'm glad we got to reconnect. Everything is on Horn strength dot com. That's my website, and you can find links to books and all my stuff there.

[B]

Fantastic. Well, Paul Horn, thanks for time. It's been a pleasure.

[D]

Yeah, same. Thanks for doing what you do, man. I appreciate it.

[A]

My guest today is Paul Horn. He's the author of the books Radically Simple Strength and Radically Simple Muscle, Both available on Amazon.com. check out his website at hornstrength.com and also check out our show notes. At AWIM is simplemuscle, where you can find links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanless.com where you find our podcast archives. And while you're there, sign up for a free newsletter. We have a daily option and a weekly option. They're free. It's the best way to stay on top of what's going on at aom. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us your Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot, and if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think.

[B]

Was something out of it.

[A]

As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time's brain, Brett McKay your mind tile listen, a one podcast would put what you've heard into.