Mastering Hamstring Training: RDL vs SLDL- Steve & Mike

Summary

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The Improvement Season Podcast

Episode: Mastering Hamstring Training: RDL vs SLDL – Steve & Mike

Date: June 1, 2026

Hosts: Steve Hall & "Magic" Mike Chatterton

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Main Theme & Episode Purpose

This live, in-person episode sees Steve and Mike dive deep into mastering hamstring training, specifically discussing the nuances between the Romanian Deadlift (RDL) and the Stiff Leg Deadlift (SLDL). The episode also covers injury management, training programming, and listener Q&A, all delivered with the duo’s typical blend of banter, personal experience, and advanced bodybuilding know-how. The friendly tone is peppered with coaching tips and practical advice, making it valuable for lifters at all levels.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Catch-up & Life Updates (00:00–10:29)

• Personal Moments:

  • Steve and Mike express excitement about attending a Naruto orchestra concert.
  • Steve shares birthday highlights, including a nostalgic, custom Pokémon card gift and a deep appreciation for Neapolitan pizza.
  • Discussion on balancing work during holidays, challenges of training while traveling, and Oxford gym reviews.
  • Reflection on spending quality time with loved ones and the challenges of midweek scheduling.
    • "The more time we spend together, the better we are." – Steve (09:32)

• Travel & Gym Logistics:

  • Issues accessing Anytime Fitness due to staff schedules.
  • Resorting to Uber rides and high drop-in fees for decent training sessions.

2. Recent Training Experiences & Injury Management (10:29–17:31)

• Mike’s Hamstring Strain:

  • Hamstring tightness developed after SLDLs, likely due to accumulated fatigue and under-recovery signaled by declining leg curl performance.
  • Proactive deloading and cautious movement reintroduction recommended.
    • "Sometimes reps can fluctuate… maybe something's just a bit off." – Mike (11:40)
    • "Just being smart when something crops up..." – Steve (15:24)

• Dips & Joint Health:

  • Mike resumes unassisted dips, notices minor right AC joint discomfort, but left shoulder (old injury) remains strong.
  • Plans to substitute dips for controlled cable decline presses and further ease into high-stress movements.

3. RDL vs. SLDL: Technical Deep Dive (17:31–25:08)

• Transitioning Movements:

  • Steve returns to barbell RDLs after months with the belt squat RDL, noting higher starting numbers than before and a desire for stricter technique.
    • "I just miss barbell RDLs... sometimes we can be a bit too stubborn to our logbook." – Steve (21:12)

• Definitions & Execution Cues:

  • SLDL: Fixed knees, high hips, greater hamstring bias, less knee flexion.
  • RDL: Controlled knee bend, hips move back, involves more glutes/posterior chain.
    • "If I was to start with stiff legged deadlift, it would just be that the knees are fixed throughout; whereas in RDL you let the knees bend." – Mike (22:59)
  • Importance of avoiding technique "drift" under high loads for targeted development.

• Training Philosophy:

  • The analogy of being a "sniper" vs. "shotgun" in stimulus application—specificity trumps brute force for advanced lifters.
    • "We're trying to be more like a sniper... much more specific with the focus of that stimulus." – Mike (25:08)

4. Fatigue, Frequency & Specificity: General Training Talk (25:08–29:22)

• On Bent Over Rows and Compound Lifts:

  • Steve phased out traditional bent-over rows for more targeted movements; these "shotgun" lifts are great when you're newer but lose utility as you get advanced and chase specific weak points.
  • Novices should still do big lifts, but specificity wins for advanced hypertrophy.

• Fatigue Management:

  • Being selective in exercise choice and programming helps manage global fatigue, particularly as session volumes increase.

5. Q&A Segment (29:22–72:27)

Ninja Creamy Recipes (30:14)

• Go-to recipe: 250 ml liquid, 1 scoop whey, xanthan or guar gum, sweetener, salt, and optional berries.
• Smaller batches (250 ml) yield better flavor than large ones.

Maintenance Volumes & Surplus (32:07)

• Specializing in upper or lower body: no need to shrink surplus; monitor scale weight and adjust by results, not assumptions.

Bench-Assisted Cable Exercises (34:42)

• Use benches for stability if convenient, but don’t over-prioritize setup if you’re short on time or equipment is scarce.

Tennis Elbow & Direct Forearm Training (36:47)

• Direct forearm work may help but isn’t a universal preventative. Injury is multifactorial and can’t be "bulletproofed."

Book Recommendations for Coaching (45:24)

• Atomic Habits (James Clear), Conscious Coaching (Brett Bartholomew), Beyond Belief (Nir Eyal).
• Soft skills from outside the fitness industry are recommended for coaching growth.

Managing Dietary Rigidity & Food Anxiety (58:04)

• Flexible dieting is key. Gradually transition clients from rigid tracking to autonomy via exposure and skill-building.
• "I think experience and time really starts to cure you in terms of the anxiety." – Steve (60:57)

Injury/Sports Medicine (41:09)

• Injury risk is highly individual and responsive to cumulative stress, genetics, and biomechanics, not just exercise selection.

Muscle Groups to Improve (49:57)

• Mike: Chest, arms, delts.
• Steve: “Everything,” but especially quads, delts, chest.

Quick-Fire & Fun Questions

• Dream Podcast Guests:

  • Steve struggles to pick, values guests he knows deeply for better conversation; mentions James Clear, sports psychologists, and would welcome listener suggestions. (41:45–44:35)

• Ping Pong Winner:

  • Steve, due to Mike’s poor hand-eye coordination. (48:58–49:55)

• Ronaldo or Messi?

  • Steve: Ronaldo (personal bias), Mike: Messi. (55:24–56:14)

• AI Body Fat Accuracy:

  • Both hosts skeptical; AI typically underestimates body fat due to user bias or limitations in image analysis. (56:42–57:50)

• Building Muscle in Your 40s:

  • Absolutely possible, just slower and more dependent on training age than chronological age. (61:53–62:05)

• Switching from Push/Pull/Legs to Upper/Lower for Leg Focus:

  • Upper body volume can be preserved if you use antagonistic supersets and spread out sets, but trade-offs exist and it all depends on individual recovery and training history. (62:24–65:02)

• Strength Training Anatomy Book:

  • Both are familiar. Highly recommended, not much discussed but still popular foundational text. (65:02–66:13)

• Prepatellar Bursitis Management:

  • Aggressive rest/deload for acute onset; avoid aggravating motions. Seek expert advice if issues persist. (66:22–67:36)

• Mike’s Dating Life:

  • Progress is slow, partly due to Mike’s hesitance and tendency to focus on single conversations. Steve encourages broader approach and patience. (67:50–70:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The flies are going to come to it at some point. Flies to a bin, injuries to hard training." – Steve (16:41)
• "We're trying to be more like a sniper...much more specific with the focus of that stimulus." – Mike (25:08)
• "You can't force muscle growth...all we can do is create the conditions." – Steve (54:50)
• "All I remember from the last time is we were reviewing Mr. Olympia." – Mike (00:37)
• "Ada's come behind us now...she's hoping to get involved." – Steve (15:24)
• "I'm worse than an animal...anything requiring hand-eye coordination, I'm awful." – Mike, on ping pong (49:01)
• "Experience and time really starts to cure you in terms of the anxiety." – Steve (60:57)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Time | |--------------------------------------------|-----------| | Opening catch-up, personal updates | 00:00–10:29| | Hamstring injury & management strategy | 10:29–17:31| | RDL vs. SLDL: definitions, application | 17:31–25:08| | Training fatigue & specificity | 25:08–29:22| | Q&A: Creamy recipes, surplus during specialization | 29:56–34:18| | Q&A: Bench-assisted cables | 34:42–36:08| | Q&A: Forearm training & injury | 36:47–39:29| | Q&A: Book recommendations | 45:24–48:39| | Q&A: Diet rigidity & food anxiety | 58:04–61:24| | Q&A: Building muscle after 40 | 61:53–62:05| | Fun & rapid fire Qs (ping pong, football) | 48:58–56:14| | Mike's dating & life outside the gym | 67:50–70:49|

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Tone & Style

• Friendly, Personal, Experienced: Banter and jokes abound, but always lead into practical, expert-level advice.
• Realistic & Encouraging: Both hosts discuss their own niggles and setbacks, modeling healthy approaches to training, injury, and life stress.
• Accessible and Flexible: Advice is evidence-based but tailored to the “real world” of busy, advanced lifters.

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Listeners leave with actionable distinctions between RDL and SLDL, an appreciation for flexible but consistent programming, and a feel for the human (not just hypertrophy) side of bodybuilding.

Transcript

[A]

Happy Magic Monday, guys. I. Or happy, as I said last time, Happy Magic. Whatever day you are tuning into us, you're listening to Magic Mike, which means you're listening to the improvement season with your natty favorite natty BB Boys, Steve and Magic Mike. And obviously this is a special episode where we're both together live in person. Because I've come up to London because we're both going to go to a special music experience where a orchestra is going to be playing a ton of Naruto music, which we're so excited, excited about. So I've come up here, we're in person, which is, I think the second time we've done this, isn't it?

[B]

Yep. All I remember from the last time is we were reviewing. Was it the Mr. Olympia? I think it was, yeah. So that's all I remember from last time. We tried to get a nice cool setup going, but hopefully this microphone and I've sat here is sufficiently quality enough for you to be able to hear us and for Riverside to be happy and not to bug on us. Because I need to invest in some, like, proper external microphones. I've been thinking about doing it for a while and I think actually when we're in Bali. Yeah, I'd like to record some podcasts with some people there, potentially do some content would be really good and I think some external microphones will be helpful. But yeah, the mic. I don't know what I think. I maybe forwarded you a post on Instagram where it was like, advertising the Naruto, like, symphony experience, where there's an orchestra and they kind of have Naruto episodes playing, like on a big screen. And Mike was like, hey, that's right around your birthday. How about we do it for your birthday? So Mike is treating me to a Naruto experience, which I'm very grateful for and I'm excited because I don't know if. Have you looked at any of the reviews for it?

[A]

No, I haven't.

[B]

So I've done a little bit of, like, background. I didn't want to do too much. Like you can. They've got like some video showing you, like, what to expect that.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

Yeah. I didn't want to ruin it. So I haven't looked at too much, but all the reviews were like, it's glorious, it's fantastic.

[A]

So love that.

[B]

I'm excited for that one. And this is the only showing today in London and it's. There's only two in the whole of the uk. The other one's in Manchester. And it was like, I think it's tomorrow. Is it on Friday? Yeah, I think it's tomorrow. They're doing that one. So I think it's been in Portugal, maybe that's where one of the Reddit viewers was reviewing it from. So, yeah, other than that, it's good to be here with Magic Mike and to have you guys listening. Definitely down on the floor chewing a bone and hopefully won't get too involved because she's been all over Mike.

[A]

I know, I'm. I'm. I'm kissed, licked to death. So. But just because obviously, because we spent a lot of time trying to get things set up. How's your week been?

[B]

So, yeah, I actually. It was my thank you for all the birthday wishes, obviously, for this with Mike. And actually I've got. Mike got me a special pack of Pokemon cards and I need to grab it. I'm going to just grab it over here because it's literally over here.

[A]

This is special, special Pokemon cards. And it's actually really nostalgic. Looking at the back of the cards.

[B]

Look at that. So for the audio people only, it's a personalized Pokemon card where it's got me animated, shiny and got my own personal attacks. I've got the Bicep Birthday, Bicep Gun Barrage, databio, Inferno Blast. Love it. And I'm a legendary Pokemon. So, anyway, I don't know why I was bringing this up, but limited edition, so. So that. And yeah, this past weekend I was in Oxford, I think I spoke about it a little bit last time. So, yeah, it feels this week has just flown by for me because I typically work bank holidays. Anyone who's self employed probably feels a little bit the same way with that sort of thing, where you don't really take the normal holidays. Other people have. And always Charlotte is like, she gets them off by default. So she gets frustrated with me and because it was my birthday also on the bank holiday, she was like, hey, you should be taking that one off. We should kind of do something. So we went out for the weekend in Oxford, which was nice. It's just. It was so hot and I don't know, it's probably not obvious, we've got a fan on. It's very hot still. So it was mostly hard, like, I'm fine kind of with the heat. I don't love temperatures as hot as, like 30 plus degrees, but it's. Dogs don't do well in the heat, basically, they can overheat quite easily and so it just meant we couldn't Be as free and flexible as we'd like to. But I had some of the best pizza I've had in my life.

[A]

I saw. What was the rating again?

[B]

I didn't rate it out of 10, but we had a Neapolitan pizza near where we stayed. It's not near you at all, Mike, because it was in Headington, which is where we stayed, which is just outside Oxford in a little Airbnb. But the tomato sauce on it. Anyone who knows their pizza knows how important the tomato sauce, the marinara basically is super important. It was the best tomato sauce base I of memory can have had. And I've had pizzas in Naples, so it was very, very good. That was a long time ago. And then on my birthday we went to Renaissance Pizzeria, which we'll probably go at some point because it's on Battersea Road, which is in Clapham North. I think it's in Clapham north and so it's not too far away, basically. And this is where if anyone is in London or follows. Toot bite twice, guys. They're kind of food reviewers. We brought them up before, they loved this guy and they taught the guy that owns it, taught them kind of how to create pizzas and all of this. And they highly reviewed it, of course, so had a pizza there and I would say that was the best base I can recollect having. But the tomato wasn't as tasty as at the other place. So I was like, combine the two, perfect pizza. But certainly I think one of the best Neapolitan style pizzas I've had in London. So I had quite a lot of pizza recently and by funnily enough, we're probably gonna go give some pizza tonight as well. So, yeah, I'm big on my Neapolitan pizzas in particular. So that was good.

[A]

Yeah, I messaged you to say, like, oh, shall we go to Uzumaki? Because I did see that you'd had loads of pizza. And I was like, is Steve gonna be a bit fed up of pizza? But I don't think that's. I don't think that can happen.

[B]

No, I. I definitely don't get fed up a pizza. I just have. I don't know if that's the way I work is like, I have just had foods I really enjoy and I just don't get bored of them. Like my protein Croats. I had like my entire off season every day, twice a day. Continue to. So anyway, yeah, don't get bored of pizza.

[A]

The only thing I was Going to ask the gyms around there looked kind of just. You could only get to the commercial gyms.

[B]

Yeah. So they had a anytime fitness, which it would have been perfect. It was literally like a five minute walk away from Airbnb. But to get into an anytime fitness, basically it works by like a key pass.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the gym isn't manned at all times. That's part of the whole appeal of an anytime fitness, which meant it was hard for me to get in. So I was like hanging around the first day because they had staff there from 9:30 and I was trying to train first thing to kind of get out of the way before Charlotte's kind of up and at it. And so I actually. So I walked Ada like I do in the morning anyway. And then I like hung around. I've been watching Ozark. Ozark, Is that what it's called? I think it is. It's a very popular TV show. Anyone who's on Netflix, you probably have watched it because it's one of the best. Anyway, I watched like an episode of that, then went back to the gym and as I was going to like the door, like I was buzzing to talk to someone, someone who came out and held open the door and let me in. And I was like, oh, is there a member of staff up there? They're like, yeah, there's a member of staff up there. And I was like, oh, they've just let me in. Free session basically. So I just did my session then. But I'd already they WhatsApp. I'd WhatsApp them and message them on Instagram to try and get day passes. They eventually replied to my WhatsApp, but they were like, yeah, it's a ten pound fee for a day pass, but you can only use it when there's staff here. And so that was Saturday and then Sunday. I was intending to train because I wasn't going to train on the Monday because of travel and logistics and everything, which is kind of sad because Monday was my birthday and I love training on my my birthday. But anyway, they only manned from 10:30 on a Sunday. So I was like, well that's no good, that's too late in the day. It kind of eats into what we're trying to do, especially since it get so hot later in the day. So I ended up getting an Uber to the gym and that was fine. The gym have a key code, so I just paid for that and then got in there. So that ended up being like a 30 pound session to train at the gym because of the, the back and forth on the Uber. But hey, I'm grateful that I could go train and had the ability to get an Uber there. Like what a luxury to be able to do that. And like it wasn't ridiculously expensive. Expensive. And so yeah, ended up training at the gym and anytime fitness. So no good gyms unfortunately.

[A]

Yeah. I would say that's the only downside with the Oxford area generally, I would say is there's not a ton of great gyms from my recollection. But it's not like, yeah, there's not lots of good gyms about.

[B]

Buzz Gym in the city center looked like maybe the best and it was this basically a commercial gym. So yeah, there were really wasn't. There's one in Didcot. I forgot what it's called. It's called like Ironworks or something. And I almost considered going all the way there, but that was like a 40 minute Uber and I was gonna call. It's basically a pound per minute in an Uber in Oxford.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it was gonna cost. I was like, it's not worth it. Charlotte was like, oh don't you can go there on your birthday. I'll pay for the Uber and everything else. No, no, that's stupid.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So anyway, so yeah, lots of pizza, a couple of substandard gyms and just walking around in the heat. But it was nice to be with Charlotte and Ada for like lots of time. Me and Charlotte are really good. I don't know if this is like, dunno. I hope couples that marry or long term couples are like this. The more time we spend together, the better we are. So it was really nice to just have that actual quality time together which we don't get during the week. Like I won't see her like, like I've said before in the evening, she doesn't get back often till like 9pm I'm going to bed at 10, 10:30, so we don't get much time in the morning. She's rushing to go to work. I'm already doing client work. So midweek we don't get much time together. Get the full weekend and just to be like with one another was yeah, very nice.

[A]

So it'll be nice in Bali then because obviously we'll do the camp and then obviously you and Charlotte hopefully will come over and you know, you'll have a week to kind of explore Bali a little bit. Be cool.

[B]

Yeah, that will be good. How was your week?

[A]

It's been good. What have I been up to? Just what have I got I would say just the last week or so, just been navigating a few niggles.

[B]

I would just say, yes, you had your hamstring. How's the hamstring? Because me and Mike didn't have, have a formal check in this week.

[A]

So hamstring's good, which is good news.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So for the listeners the week before, I just felt my hamstring tighten up. It wasn't like I said, kind of,

[B]

it didn't pop, it didn't pop.

[A]

There wasn't anything sharp. It was just, I, I was done with a set of stiff legged deadlifts and I was like, and I don't get sore hamstrings at all. And I was like, it feels tight and like, but in a very unusual way. And I'm like, I think I know what this is. So. And interestingly, you pointed out in a check, in our last check in that my lying leg curls were going down, my head gone down, which I thought was actually really relevant, which potentially was a sign. But either way you were like, Mike

[B]

deload, as in before you went to do it, your lying hamstring curl performance was down. Kind of a sign that the hamstrings are under recovered.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And I kind of like, I hadn't consciously changed technique. Like, I hadn't consciously reset technique. I was just kind of like. And you know, we always talk about like, you know, sometimes reps can fluctuate a little bit. So I was kind of, at the time I was trying not to think too much about it. I was like, maybe it's just because everything else in that session had gone really well. So I was like, maybe just something's a bit off with the lying leg time machine. And it's the equipment at my gym also is very like, it's all Watson and some Watson stuff is a bit, you know, not.

[B]

You got a lot of Watson too. It's not great.

[A]

So it's just, it was one of

[B]

those, some, some bits are good, some bits aren't.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'll put it that way.

[A]

So I was just like, oh, maybe it's the equipment, maybe it's, you know, something else. But either way, that same week, that was when my hamstring tightened up and you know, call it a strain, call it like I'm almost a subclinical, like overload maybe or something. But it was definitely, I got out of the gym and I was, remember sitting in my car and I was like, it feels bruised as I'm sitting on my hamstring and I remember also just touching it, just brushing my leg, and it was tender. And I was like, nah, this is. You know, I've definitely done something. So we. So this last week, you're like, right. Deload hamstrings. So that's what I did. And it feels normal now.

[B]

Oh, cool.

[A]

So. Which is great. So that's all.

[B]

Well, you're due to hip hinge tomorrow or Saturday.

[A]

Saturday.

[B]

Saturday.

[A]

So I got extra day, but I actually. And I just went through the movement pattern on Saturday anyway. And again, there was no awareness. There was no kind of anything with it, so. Oh, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna ease into it. I'm not gonna necessarily try to, you know, beat performance. Performance or anything like that. I'm just gonna kind of warm up, get into it, and maybe potentially leave, you know, like, kind of two reps in reserve or something.

[B]

Like a week one type of deal. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And then. And then go from there. So. Just to play it safe. But, yeah. So fortunately, that's all moving. The only other new thing that cropped up, unfortunately. And again, it's not an injury, but it's just something that I had to navigate. So what we did start to do as well is with the dips. Okay. Is we. I got to the point where I was almost doing 30 reps assisted. So we. So it kind of made sense. We were kind of like, right on the last set try unassisted. And I tried it for the first week a couple of weeks ago, and it went well, but I was very cautious with it. And it was also very new because I haven't done it for a long time. So I. So I kind of like it. It didn't feel, like, massively stimulative, and I was kind of like, okay, Mike, just, you know, for the next week, just go in there a bit more confidently. Because I was like, right. I know the movement pattern now. I feel more confident. So I went in there, and there's obviously. In that plane of motion there. I think there is obviously still a tiny little bit of weakness on the left side, because when I. I think when I got towards the end of the set, I remember my weight shifting to my right side, and my right acromiocavicular joint just feels a bit sore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, so. And again, it's not an injury, but I can. I'm just aware of it. So I've just got to be.

[B]

At least it wasn't the left, I guess. No. In a way. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, the left shoulder feels great.

[B]

Yeah, that's good.

[A]

So. But it was just like, oh, God.

[B]

So something else.

[A]

Yeah. But apart from that, it's great. And I'm actually taking it as a really good sign because for a couple of reasons. One, I'm obviously in a healthy place where I can generate a high stimulus and, you know, so all of these things are good. And two, they're not injuries, so as long as I manage them, take care of myself, do sensible things, it'll be fine.

[B]

The reason I'm smiling is and the listeners will be able to relate to this. Of course, Mike is taking it as a positive because there's no negatives in Mike's world, which is great. That is a great way to be. I think about it as a silver lining because I think you can accept the negative aspects of it, but at least the silver linings just living by those. Ada's come behind us now. She's hoping to get involved. Can't really see her there. Well, I'm glad they're not too bad and that the hamstring you can get back into things and it's just, I think, a good example of being smart when something crops up and knowing, hey, it's like you said, the hamstring curls before the straight. A deadlift were down. So that maybe was a sign that fatigue is high and then that's what led to the injury. But like you said, you don't always know. Like, I've certainly had it before where performance can be down on one thing, but then I gained lots of performance elsewhere and it's just like a bit of a quirk of training. I always use the analogy of injuries when you're training for muscle growth are similar to like flies to a bin. You can keep that bin as clean as possible. You can kind of make sure that you're removing the rubbish, like efficiently and make it whatever. The flies are going to come to it at some point. Flies to have been injuries to hard training.

[A]

I've never had to use that before.

[B]

Yeah, they're going to happen at some point. You just can't avoid it. So the thing is just being smart about it, which is what you're doing moving forward, which is good. So for the dips now, are you removing dips or are you going to go back to just assisted or how are you thinking to approach it?

[A]

I was thinking this week to try to replace it just to be really super safe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And almost doing. The first thought in my head was almost doing like a sort of cable going down decline. Yes. Like a Cable decline press. Because I just thought similar movement pattern but I'm much more in control, much more easy to adjust the load because even with the way that I was using assisted dips, it's still quite, you can't, you know, you can't have minutiae control over sort of the loads and stuff. So I thought that might be a good thing to try this week.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

One thing I was going to ask you though is I noticed on your stories today was the first day you went back to barbell rdls. Yeah. Which was cool because actually your starting baseline is from my memory higher than when you left them.

[B]

It pretty much is. So yeah, I have been running the belt squat rdls for 20 weeks. So like 5 months and I just. Now we run mesocycles for so long where we don't. We, we used to have, and we've spoken about this many times this kind of more so like a five week kind of accumulation, one week deload and maybe we make some adjustments, excise swaps and then go again. Now I'm much more ready to make adjustments within the meso because it just lasts as long as it lasts. And sometimes I view an excise swap as a little bit of a mini deload anyway because you're learning it, you can't quite overload it as hard. That makes sense. And I just got, I don't know if you've had. You probably don't have this the same way because I imagine I know what you're like, Mike. You just plow on with a movement forever. I just get tired of some movements after a while or I'm just like, it's fine. But the belts for rdl, I load so heavy now and I was just like, I just miss barbell rdls. I just want to try them again. And so I was just like, right, it's been long enough running this movement. I don't have like obvious like issues with the belt squat rdl, but I also don't see the like I've run it long enough to know that hey, I can swap in something else. I think sometimes we can be a little bit too like how bodybuilders can be a bit too kind of anal about tracking every part of their nutrition, not having off plan meals, not being flexible with their diet. I think we can be a little bit too stubborn. Stubborn to our logbook. Similar to a meal plan where yeah, it's great to have the same lifts and have standardization and everything like that. But ultimately similar to like you just need to hit some macros, you just need to stimulate the muscle and if you can have, I don't know, some flexibility within your diet and it makes it more enjoyable. The same with training, as long as it's within certain bounds and reasonable. So anyway, that's me convincing myself that it was okay to remove the belts for rdl, which, you know, I'd say it to you if you've. If you're feeling sick of a movement and it's been in there for months, like, hey, you can swap in something else. So back to the barbette rdl, which, yes, I checked my logbook and I left it on 202 kilos, but I think I was getting maybe eight repetitions and my technique was definitely stricter. And the last time I did 200, I think I only got six or seven reps. So I would. It's kind of somewhat of a pr, but certainly in weeks to come it'll be a pr. What I do need to keep myself accountable to is it so easy. I'd actually be interested to know what your definition of a straight leg deadlift versus an RDL would be, because I have my definitions. But it's so easy for like stiff leg or straight leg deadlift to turn into an rdl. And I think that very often happens to me because I'm stronger. So as I progress, it just evolved, it degrades into an RDL where I introduce more glutes, potentially a little bit more posterior chain. And I still hit the hamstrings well, but it's not as biased to the hamstrings as it could be. And I noticed as I was doing maybe some of my sets, the initial reps looked really, really good. Like hips were staying really solidly high as the set went on. Maybe they sank a little bit. So I might even try and milk out, like 200 is just a nice round number. Milk it out for a while. But Yeah, I got 200 for 10, nine, eight, I think were my sets. And it felt good. The only thing is, the reason I dropped the RDL barbell in the first place, you all know Mike was. I think it was my. It might be my SI joint and. Or the tfl. It was like a combination of the two. I think maybe my TFL strain is still around, which is crazy to think it's been around like six months more maybe. It's definitely less, but I still notice it. Not when I'm training so much as out of the gym when I notice it. And I did notice my SI joint on the left side as I did before. But only notice it wasn't like it was uncomfortable, painful or anything like that. We'll see how it is tomorrow. But I think that's another reason why I need to maintain this load and try and keep it a bit stricter to a straight leg and try and bias the hamstrings more, which is what I kind of want to do with the lift. I always find it hard to convince myself because I'm like, my hamstrings and glutes both need to come up. So if it turns into an rdl, I'm not upset about it, but I would like to make sure my lower back doesn't get pissed off. Which I think keeping a bit more biased to hamstrings, sacrificing a bit of load because of that I think is probably a good move.

[A]

Definitely. I think what comes to mind there is, I think for us it's just so natural to want to progress and to want to kind of, for want of a better word, try to, if we've got it there, you know, why not try to go for it. But here it's like, hey, just don't be hasty. Just be totally comfortable with just sitting with where you're at at the moment and then when it just naturally feels right, let it come. That's kind of what comes to mind to me there, you know, but it's, it's hard for us. I think it's just a natural thing that we've always done. But like you said, staying healthy is the most important thing. You know, they've, they often say that, you know, the one thing that stops people is illness and injury, you know, and, you know, so that's, and sometimes it just requires us to be a little bit more patient, particularly with where we're at, the amount of time we've been training.

[B]

Your definition of RDL versus straight leg deadlift, what is it?

[A]

So, so if I was to start with stiff legged deadlift, it would just be that the knees are just fixed throughout. Whereas in RDL you let the knees bend and you kind of maybe sit back into things a little bit more. That's, it's not like a strict definition, but that's kind of how I differentiate a stiff legged with an rdl.

[B]

That's mostly how I see it as well. I think the other thing is the thing that happens when you let the knees bend more is the hips drop a little bit and that just, you end up bending the knees more. Hips sink a little bit, glutes Get a bit more stretch, but the hamstrings don't. It's similar to actually, if you think about it, similar to like squatting. If you squat down to about 90 degrees, you maximize like quad stretch but hip flexion you don't. But if you squat deeper, you might not get any more quad stretch, but the hips flex more and you get more glutes. So it's kind of like similar like you limit the range to the muscle you're trying to target through a straight or a stiff leg deadlift to the hamstring. Whereas for the rdl you just kind of get both in a sense maximized in that way. That's I think, one way to think about it. I also tended to think, I think this is the wrong way to think about it. Like RDls from Iraq, stiff leg deadlifts from the floor. I don't really think that's the thing. I think it is stiff, straight deadlifts are just more hamstring biased and focused. Stiffer knee, higher hips, rdls, slight bend in the knee, hips sink a little bit. And yeah, what happens is my high hips and less knee bend start bending more to allow me to use a bit more load, which can also happen. Like I did pendulums today. I watch my footage of pendulums and I've had lots of questions about why are you only coming to 90 degrees? I look at them and I'm like, yeah, it does look like I'm really sacrificing range of motion. But man, when I do it, they are so hard. It is humbling to not allow yourself to sink into that range. And it's the same on the stiff leg deadlift. As I noticed as I was going through, I was like, oh, it's actually really hard to not let myself continue to go a bit lower, bring in a bit more glute, maybe a bit more stretch reflex or what have you and come back up. So, yeah, anyway, I have to keep myself accountable.

[A]

Indeed. And again, it's hard thing, but I was going to say it's. I kind of again, think of that analogy of like you could, sure, if you wanted to do, say introduce some momentum and just whole body movement. It's a bit like a shotgun effect or a grenade. And sure it will have, you know, an overall magnitude effect and you're kind of having growth there, but you're not being a sniper. Whereas what I guess you're trying to achieve or we're trying to achieve is that you're a bit more sniper. Being much more specific with the Focus of that stimulus.

[B]

Yeah, easy. One I always think about is I used to be really big on bent over rows and I programmed them for most clients most of the time and myself included. And I think they absolutely helped my erector growth and overall back development. But now I barely program them because they are shotgun effect that you hit most of the back with bent of rose the way that we would do them. Whereas now I much prefer being refined about okay, what areas of the back am I really trying to hit? And I think that more global approach works really, really well. When you are more novice, you're just trying to grow everything really nicely. But as you get more advanced you want to be more specific about the areas that you individually need to bring up and also make sure the muscle you are trying to target is the area that's failing. So I think that is just something. If there's listeners thinking oh I shouldn't do bent over rows because I should be really specific, it's like well maybe or maybe not. Yeah, it depends. And also like have you got the time or the equipment availability to like try and target multiple areas of the back or do you just need some like a pull up and a bent over row and you just like wow, my back's fried and could be that way I guess.

[A]

Also just the thought that crossed my mind just as you were saying that there as well is the overall fatigue factor as well. Because if you think if you're doing a bent over row and you introduce a lot more muscle groups, that's more muscle groups, that's more fatigue generally generated and again that has ramifications. If it's worth it for that person then great. But you know, again for us it's, you know, we want to, in some ways we want to manage that a little bit better.

[B]

I have at times, I don't know if you ever get this. At times I get tempted to introduce some of these lifts. Like a deadlift off the floor recently has been really appealing to me just to be like, I just wonder how strong I am now. I'm so much more muscular than last time I did one. So sometimes I'm like maybe I'll just fuck it, do a set. I wonder how I could get for like 5 to 10 reps. Load wise it'd probably be pretty good. I'm built for deadlifts.

[A]

What am I built for? I don't think I'm built for deadlifts. I'm built.

[B]

You're good at benching?

[A]

Yeah, benching and squatting. Because basically I've got short limbs. So squatting and benching is where I'm at basically.

[B]

Now I have, I have long arms actually, but I have. My legs aren't that long. So squatting I'm not. I'm pretty decent squatter but my lower back always like can give out because I have a long torso and long arms which makes benching I'm not good at. And also I have a slap tear but deadlifts. I am like a crane in that sense. So it works really nicely.

[A]

I always heard if you've got long arms that is supposed to help you with the deadlift because then. Yeah.

[B]

Just don't have to move it as far.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's nice.

[A]

Yeah. But yeah, I think just kind of capping that off. I think like, I think it's always. It's so tempting. But that again, that risk to reward is like you just. I. Because I think if something was to go wrong, even if you were to just dig yourself into a hole like you hit pr, but then you just like for whatever reason, it's the thing that tips you over the edge and then you can't train for a week because you've got to deload. Like we'd just be kicking ourselves be like, oh, it's a week of training that we've missed. And you know, I always think if you've played sport in the past and then you kind of. If you get injured from playing sport and you hate the fact that you're not able to train because of that, that's kind of when you know you want to, you know, you're probably better off, you know, more going more towards training rather than playing sport.

[B]

Maybe, maybe if I do like my entire pull or like lower body session and then I do it.

[A]

Maybe. Yeah.

[B]

How much damage can I cause myself? But then it's not as the ego doesn't get it because you're weaker, but then you could.

[A]

That's what you could say. You could say like, hey, I did this and I was fatigued.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, true. So got an excuse.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. So it kind of works both way ways is tempting. But yeah. Should we get into questions?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Actually I can save this for another discussion at some point. Let's get into questions because we've got not actually I don't know what time we need to leave. Actually we. Yeah, we need to get through questions because we need to leave in at latest an hour and I need to change. I'm not going out like this. I need to wash as well. I think Because I'm sitting here sweating. We've got a fan on us. So, yeah, let's get to as many questions as we can within like the next 30 minutes or so.

[A]

All right, let's go. So we might actually do this one quite quickly, potentially depending on what you think. But Martin Cuppers, sorry if I'm saying that wrong, just asks, have you got any favorite locale creamy recipes or whey and additive flavors?

[B]

So, yeah, the reason that would be quick is because we've, we've talked about the Ninja Creamy so much. So I'm gonna just go really quick. Yeah, I do 250 mils of fluid, whatever fluid you want. I do a scoop of protein powder, whatever you want. And then having some xanthan gum or guar gum, a little bit of that, half a teaspoon works a dream. A little bit of salt sweetener of choice. And then if you have the calories, you can add in some berries, fruit or whatever. And then you, you're pretty good. You can top it up with a bit of water as well to get into the line. I don't know if there's anything you would change with that.

[A]

So I actually had. So I've gone back to my Ninja creamies recently.

[B]

It's got hot.

[A]

It's gotten hot basically. But I made a discovery. So I think my, the creamies weren't as good as they could be because I was actually making them quite big. So I was having 450mils of milk.

[B]

So they didn't taste very good.

[A]

No, so, so, so I just, basically I've had less. So I've done what you've done and I've done right. I'm just going to have 250mils and it just mixes better. It tastes better. I'm like, oh, it tastes like ice cream. No, no, it tastes better. So it's like, ah, okay, I can get into this now. So.

[B]

But this is why you follow a recipe.

[A]

I know, I know, follow a recipe, Mike. I'm bad for this. But what I would just say is bulk powders do a pistachio flavor, which I don't think they'd be done for a while. But when I have that, that makes a really nice flavor, ice cream flavor.

[B]

So pistachio is good. I had some great vegan pistachio gelato in from Swoon in Oxford. So if you're ever an opposite mic, go to Swoon. I'm gonna highly recommend. Right, Next question. Aurora Matteson asks if you are prioritizing training upper body and you putting lower body on maintenance volume, which Mike is. Would you necessarily require a smaller surplus? She said one of two. I have to find our other question, but you can go on.

[A]

So I actually don't think it should require you to have a lower stimulus because essentially the goal is still to gain muscle, isn't it? And I think ultimately your, your volume probably shouldn't change too radically because if you just think if you were. So if I use myself as an example, upper body went to kind of maintenance whilst my shoulder was injured and lower body was being specialized. But now I've just flip reversed it where lower body is on maintenance and upper body, you know, gaining. So the volume, probably the overall volume hasn't changed much and I still want to gain muscle. I'm still in a calorie surplus. We're still monitoring my scale weight and my body weight so we just kind of monitor it according to that. So no, Aurora, I don't think it needs to change. Just keep monitoring your body weight and just adjust your nutrition as and if you need to.

[B]

I get where she's coming from, but I think particularly for you, Mike, we're already trying to gain at like the slowest calculable trackable rate, basically like a pound a month there or thereabouts. And I think a lot of people gain quite slowly anyway. So I think the. I understand like, and the reason for that is because your muscle gain potential is low so you just kind of gain it an appropriate pace. Alongside that, Mike is someone who's been in training a decade and, and doesn't unfortunately have a huge muscle growth potential though he's going to be huge, don't worry. I get it. If, therefore, if you're only training like part of your body, then your total muscle growth potential that you're growing is maybe down. But if you are specializing, I guess part of the reason for that is because you're trying to like increase that muscle growth potential of that area. So I can also see the reason where it's like, well actually if you've got say 100 muscle growth potential and it was spread between everything and now it's just you're putting 100 or maybe it's like 75 towards upper body and then 25 towards lower body, it's still 100. So it's like you're still growing the same amount of muscle, you're just trying to grow it more in one area. So yeah, I think it's more moving around of things that don't need to be and minutia so just small surplus there.

[A]

Nice. Did you find that second question?

[B]

No. So I think that was just the one.

[A]

Okey dokey. Okay. Right.

[B]

So it's easier doing it in person, isn't it? The back and forth, the we're doing well so far. This is great.

[A]

The, the last bow asks exercises where a bench for stability is worth it versus not worth it. For example, cable flies, cable curls, cable lateral raises.

[B]

I think this is one of those questions where it's case by case as in not exercise by exercise. It's person by person, gym by gym. Try it. For me, if it's really convenient and I find a benefit from it, I'm doing it nine times out of 10. But if it's very inconvenient, then I'm like, screw it. So what I've been doing is like a tricep push down. You can do like a face away tricep push down where you bring like an incline bench and you can have the cable behind you and do a push down like that. It's really nice, really stable. But it's because I'm already in the gym where there's a bench right next to the cable stack and if it's free, I'm going to use it. So I do it that way. But very often if it was busy and I wanted you to tricep push down, I'd just be like, I could just set this up and I can just stand. It's not so unstable, It's a problem. So I would say it's one of those things where I'm like, I really don't think it's a big deal. But if it's easy for you and convenient, I'd for sure go for it. But if it means you haven't got time to get in the volume you could be doing, you could be spending your time better. Like it's just not worth the setup. Really? Yeah.

[A]

I think I definitely count myself very grateful that I'm also in a gym where it's not super duper busy, where every single piece of equipment is rammed. So I do have the sort of, you know, I have the opportunity to do those sorts of things. And sometimes you ask me like, Mike, why are you doing that? And I'm like, it's just for comfort, you know, it just feels nice for me. But you know, other people are not like that. So yeah, very individual. Yeah.

[B]

I would say just out of those, when I'm seeing like cable flies, cable cars, laterals, like I'm just think flies anything weight the Less stable the lift, the more important it's going to be. So, like cable flies, standing and trying to do them, there's quite a lot of instability using your body weight, but like lateral raises seated, like do them standing. Can try them seated if you want, but yeah. Anyway, next question is from David O', Connor, 11. Mike. Seeing a lot, including myself, of golfer and tennis elbow. Do you think this could largely be avoided if direct forearm training. To be continued.

[A]

To be continued. This is, I think, a really good question, David, and I think ultimately, I don't know. I don't know. I want to err on the side of saying no. I think kind of similar to what we were talking about earlier, before we started asking the questions. I think as trainers, we're always. We're always kind of walking a bit of a tightrope sometimes between, you know, stimulus and fatigue and I think sometimes. And also the other important factor is injuries are multifactorial, so there's never one specific thing. Yes. Strength and localized tissue, tissue capacity, as it were, that does play a role. And for some people, it might play more of a role than others. But equally, I think you can't, you couldn't be universal in saying, like, oh, if everyone did forearm training, it would totally mitigate, you know, all injury. So I just don't think we can say that some people more than others, but you can't, you couldn't screen that and know that beforehand. So. So, yeah, so basically I'd say we can't know for sure. For some people, it probably plays more of a role than others, but we don't know who that might be. So, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say to people like, oh, everyone must do forearm training.

[B]

Yeah. I can say for me, since I've been using the. Whatever it's called. Do you remember what it's called? The sport grips, which, if you need, I can hook you up. It's that machine. I wish I should have it, but, like, I can't. I've still had times which my elbows have felt a bit like, oof, something could come on here, but it hasn't come on, so I can't speak strongly on it. But the other thing is, I see this with lower back and a lot of people are like, oh, you should be doing things like Jefferson curls, so on and so forth, because it strengthens that area and then you're less likely to get injured. But I think it's that it's like, potentially it's preventative but not guaranteed by any means. Or stretch of the imagination. So, yeah, I don't think everyone needs to go train in their forearms or do Jefferson curls.

[A]

You can't. It is really much a misnomer to say provocative of injury prevention because you can't prevent injuries. You just can't.

[B]

Don't train.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, don't train. But then you'll probably have something else. And also, you know, again, just multifactorial anthropometry. So we're just talking about different body structures, limb lengths, Genetics as well. I definitely think genetics in terms of some people more predisposed to back pain, some people more predisposed to knee pain. It just totally. Everyone's got their trump card thing of slight injury susceptibility. And unfortunately, we don't discover. Discover that until we've experienced a couple of things. So, yeah, it's just such a complex thing.

[B]

I won't speak too much on it, but something I noticed recently, which I haven't had before with my knee tendonitis, I don't know the exact term for what I have below the kneecap.

[A]

Is that tendinopathy?

[B]

Just knee tendinopathy is what it is. Okay, so. Because I think there can be different knee tendinopathy. Can there be, like, quad tendinopathy? Yeah, knee.

[A]

And so you can get quad tendinopathy, which is more above the kneecap, and then your patellar tendinopathy is more below the kneecap on those patella.

[B]

Yeah. So my patellar tendinopathy, never an issue apart from, like, flag, like, during training, basically. But I noticed I had the weirdest dream. I had a dream that someone was, like, peeling off the skin around my shins. And I woke up and my knee was in, like, not agony, but it was painful and it got sore. And I noticed I was like, you know what? That's happened a few times. I've woken up in pain with my knees. And I think it got particularly bad because this weekend, I think I got almost 30,000 steps on the Saturday. Then I was like 20,000 on the Sunday. And then it was like 15 plus on the Monday there. And typically I only hit, like, 12, 000 through the week. And I'd never. Steps have never been a problem for me. I was like, yeah, they flared up because of just walking. And I'm like. I thought I was getting far away from. I thought I was, like, on the recovery from it because they've been feeling really good. But, yeah, they flared up just from walking.

[A]

But that's. That's also. Again, like, why, for some patients, I'LL say you could. No amount of rehab exercise is going to overcome, say, if you're aggravating it outside of the gym or aggravating it outside of your sport. And again, it's just an example where, yeah, all everything counts. Yeah, unfortunately.

[B]

So that was upsetting to me, but thankfully it hasn't impacted my training. I just. I'm feeling it more and it did impact my sleep a little bit. It was really weird. I was like, why have I got knee pain now? Like, I didn't feel it during the day at all. It's just when I relax. But that often is when I feel I've noticed it. It's like that's when pain comes on, when the body is just relaxed. It hasn't got any adrenaline or other things that are like, distracting you from the pain. Next question. Actually, I think I asked you that last one.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So my man Aaron. Hey, Aaron. He asks who would be your top three dream guests on the podcast.

[B]

Normally I have a really boring answer to this because I'm like, I pretty much had everyone on the podcast I would love to have on. There have been individuals I've reached out to that have said no, but that's quite rare that that happens. James Clear I've spoken about before. He was, I think, too busy at the time to be able to come on. I've spoken to. He's called Sam. I've forgotten his last name, but he's a sports psychologist. Does a lot of posts similar to like Richard Collins. That sort of vibe. He was too busy as well at the time. But dream guests, I was like, who would actually be like a top, like, dream guest? And I'm like, I'm kind of struggling because I feel like to get a dream guest on, you need to know them really, really well. And there's people like a Chris Bumstead or like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know of them. I don't know them deeply. Like, I can't ask really, like, good questions. It would just be a kind of surface level. So I struggle a little bit with, like, oh, who would be my, like, absolute dream guest? And then I come to, like, thinking about, oh, I'd love to chat to, like, Naruto from. From Naruto or like, go be interesting to talk to him. Someone like that. But yeah, maybe, yeah. So I don't have an answer for you, Aaron. If you have dream guests that you'd like to see on the podcast, I would be interested in that. Aaron, anyone? Yeah, dropping them in the comments because I might be Interested to follow them and do that. Part of my issue is just not having the time. Like, I've had a lot of guests on, and the majority of people I have on. I know. Know quite deeply. There's a lot of people that have been on. So now it's hard to, like, bring on people outside of that because I feel like I want to know their work deeply, but I don't have the time and capacity to invest into that. Yeah. So anyway, that's my personal struggle.

[A]

Hopefully. I don't know what. This only came to my mind because you recently mentioned it on your story, but Wesley, this is. It'd be amazing if Wesley could come back on at some point. It'd be cool to see how he's doing.

[B]

Yeah, I hit Wesley. This is like most master shot. I forget what he said precisely. It was something like, legit. That looks amazing on you. Something like that. So I was like, it's arms. It's basically all arms, that shot. So, yeah, I know. I almost. I couldn't say I know. But I'm almost certain Wesley would come back on. Terence would come back on Terence Rough and rough Diesel. So that'd be cool to kind of chat to them again. But again, I don't want to just be like, oh, just come on. Like, I want to. Like, I need. I need. Need a structure, layout, questions, and that's the thing that takes time. Like, I know of people that would be cool to talk to, and people are just like, oh, yeah, it'd be cool if you talk to this person. But it's like. But about what? Like, I need things to talk to them. I don't just have, like, infinite ideas that pop into my mind. Like, what have you been up to recently, Wesley? Like, that doesn't make for a great podcast, so obviously we do that, but it's a bit different.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I have to have a think because I would love. Yeah. To chat to him again. Maybe talk about his season a little bit. It where. How. Actually, what would be. For me, when I think about Wesley, what would be interesting to talk to about is how he's approaching his weak point to level himself up, to be more competitive in future. And then also, how did it feel, kind of getting the results that he got? That's what I'm interested in. I'm sure he's spoken about it, but I'd like to just chat to him about it. That's the thing. I'm like, I'm sure he's spoken about it and so be a bit Redundant. But it's different talking to someone, I guess.

[A]

Yeah. But I think, you know, people always maybe phrase questions in a slightly different way or again the way that you'd approach that, you know, even from what you just said, I think really, you know, would be really refreshing for sure.

[B]

Next question is from our guy Haj. Adapt and grow. Getting back into reading books. Do you have any book recommendations to get better at coaching, not training or nutrition related?

[A]

Oh, good question.

[B]

We spoke about atomic habits.

[A]

Yeah, atomic habits, very good one. Definitely recommend that I'd also potentially. So there's a guy called Brett Bartholomew and I don't know if you've heard of him.

[B]

I have, yeah. He's Sports psychology. No.

[A]

Yeah. In that kind of realm. I don't think he's a psychologist by background, but he's kind of like. He kind of goes into that and I think his. He's got a book called Conscious Coaching which came out a while ago, my friend. That and it's a little. It's more around communication. It's a little bit about. It's a little bit more, you know, college athletes, but still you can gleam a lot in terms of how to communicate with people. So that's a good one. And he's got a new book coming out soon which I think would also be quite valuable. I can't remember what it's about. It's like heroic something hero or whatever. I need to Google it. But Brett Bartholomew is definitely someone from a coach's perspective and more around the soft skills like communication. That would be a good one. I don't know if you.

[B]

The reason I'm smiling is because I searched in my Apple notes Conscious Coaching and I've got the notes that I made back February 2026. So apparently I listened to it quite recently and that was one that was actually recommended through James Hoffman. That's where I got it at least. So then I have no more. No more thoughts. Off the top of my head. I don't remember the always the books that I read or listen to. Oh, there was one really good one. Let's see if I can find it. And I don't read. You're like me, Mike. You just do audiobooks for the most part. I did like Same as ever by Morgan Housel. But that's not really a coaching book. I also really liked Beyond Belief which we've spoken about by Nir Eel. Then let's see. I was hoping it would come out to me, but it's not here. I don't think so. No.

[A]

Sorry, I think I. What came to mind there is something interesting which I think Eric Campbell talks about is books are really good for like the absolute fundamentals, like things that weren't, won't change. I think he actually mentioned it on the recent Stronger Culture episode where he was like, you know, books are great for like anatomy, physiology. So if you want haj. If you want to like brush up on your anatomy physiology, you know, stuff like conscious coaching, like, that's great. But if it's some. If you're looking for something a bit more recent, then that's when you need to go to the mass research review or a research review to look about, like, right, what is the current stuff? And that's obviously your more hard skills. And then again, soft skills. Just, that's when you can look outside of the fitness industry industry a little bit. So if it's soft skills, stuff like beyond belief, like. Yeah, anything. Just. I think if you can go outside of the industry a little bit, if it's more soft skills, I think that can be really helpful.

[B]

Yeah. Nice.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

So we have. Oh, it's your turn for me.

[A]

All right. So it's our guy, Jake Fit. Underscore. As underscore hell asks, I appreciate the response last week about not trying to help people who don't want help help. Anyway, Mike versus Steve in ping pong. Who wins and why

[B]

do you have good hand eye coordination?

[A]

Terrible.

[B]

Yeah. I was thinking Mike didn't have good hand eye coordination, so I'm going to say me.

[A]

You definitely win things like ping pong. Just. Yeah. Anything requiring hand eye coordination. I'm. Yeah, I'm worse than an animal. Like, I'm awful.

[B]

Yeah. I remember you saying your hand eye coordination. That's not. Not a skill set of yours.

[A]

No, I'm clumsy. In fact, actually I was diagnosed dyspraxic, so dyspraxic. They're terribly uncoordinated. The more stressed we get, the more uncoordinated we get. So, like, it's just a recipe for disaster.

[B]

Yeah, I could see that for sure. I am luckily blessed with, like, I'm relatively decent at most sports that I do. I don't mean that in an egotistical way. It's just. I'm just grateful for my dad, basically. He was a very good tennis. But not very good. He was a good tennis player. He's good at ping pong. He beat me. So, yeah, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm good at ping pong. It's just Mike's really Not great.

[A]

Yeah, I'm awful.

[B]

So Am Ru asks, which muscle groups do you want to improve? I have a really easy answer.

[A]

Well, mine's easy also. So I probably got three chest in particular. Delts, arms. I'd probably go actually chest, arms, delts, in that order.

[B]

Mine was easier than. That was everything.

[A]

That's true. I also want to improve everything. To be fair, I should have thought of that.

[B]

But my. Yeah, main ones would be mad quads. I really, really, really am excited to diet down and a bit nervous to reveal what hard work I've done there because that's the reason I have bloody knee tendonitis or patellar tendonitis is because of just hammering squat patterns, basically. So, yeah, quads. Big one for me. Delts. And I really would like to see my chest come up, but I don't know. It's one of those muscle groups where I'm like, I get a good stimulus, I train it really hard, but I just don't get the feeling it's progressing at the rate which I desire it to. But they're probably the ones that I've been working the hardest on this off season and want to see better.

[A]

Well, I remember vividly when we got the photos back from the WMBF Netherlands, and we saw your quads and we're like, holy. Like, we had no idea quads looked like that. And it was like, so. It's crazy.

[B]

Yeah, that's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's always a nice feeling when you get stage shots back and they're better than you expected. You're like, that's me. What the hell? It's not nice when you get them back and it's like, that's confronting. But you can always use a silver lining and be like, that's what I need to work on. So I've certainly had stage shots like that.

[A]

Okay, so Patrick Morris, he asks, do you think weight gain is more likely after a mini or regular cut, or is it all about post diet nutrition, regardless of diet length?

[B]

Oh, sorry, Yes. I should have just listened to Mike instead of trying to read it myself. I lost it. Do you think weight gain is more likely after a mini cut or regular cut? So. Weight gain more likely. It really all depends on what is going on post diet. Like if you're coming to maintenance or you're going into a surplus, the speed of which you're transitioning to maintenance or a surplus. I think to his second question. It's all about the post diet nutrition, regardless of diet length per se. Assuming that person isn't Binging because I would say like the longer the diet or the harder the diet, the more likely like a binge eating episode is gonna occur. But again that would come back to the nutrition regardless of diet length. So no, I don't think the mini versus regular cut is such an impact as opposed to the diet afterwards.

[A]

Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, I agree.

[B]

You can go a bit more quickfire if you have nothing much to add.

[A]

Nothing much to add. Let's move on.

[B]

So we have Aaron Henriksen. Backstarm. Is bulking beneficial due to the calorie surplus or just being at a higher body fat and having better hormonal energy availability?

[A]

I think my head immediately goes to being in a caloric surplus rather than the actual weight itself. I think it's different for someone who's coming out of a competition season. So I think there is probably a, a level where they probably need to get up to a certain body weight level, a certain body threshold point, a body fat threshold, their lower body, their lower body intervention point. I think that for them that that's relevant. But I think for people who are not in that situation, I think it is more a case of just being in some sort of. Whoa. Even potentially as long as you've got plenty of energy. So even if you were, you know, in a maintenance, you could still gain muscle. But it's, I think it's the surplus essentially, is what I'm trying to say.

[B]

Yeah, this is an interesting question because it's exactly as you said, because to grow muscle you need to be in a healthy environment. The match of the lights are fire for muscle gain, as we always say, is the training stimulus. And if you can't train hard because you aren't in a good hormonal or energy availability environment, then you're not going to be growing muscle. So like you said, post show recovery, that's a very unique situation where you're in a larger surplus and then outside of that you want to be within your kind of lower and upper intervention point thresholds where basically this body fat sweet spot I call it, where you feel you've got all of that good hormones, good energy availability and then I think a small surplus on top of that is like the cherry on top. And so yeah, I do think the surplus still plays a beneficial role outside of within those conditions and circumstances.

[A]

Yeah, I just want to add a small point. So Steve, your vlog came out yesterday, I think, and the point I really loved what you made in there is that you can't force muscle growth and what I was reflecting on when you said that is all we can do is create the conditions for muscle growth to occur. And it's exactly what you said. The. That surplus is the conditions, you know, outside, again, outside of the competitive situation, it's like, right, all we can do is create the conditions, which is what the surplus kind of does. And then we just got to let it happen. Create the stimulus. Obviously that's important, but, yeah, it's the conditions.

[B]

Yeah, for sure.

[A]

All right, so our guy Ali, he asks with the World cup, with the World cup coming up, Ronaldo or Messi?

[B]

So did they even. Are they still playing?

[A]

I didn't think they were playing. Like, I'm sure Messi's retired, but I do not follow football.

[B]

Nor do I. But I have never been a Messi fan. I've always been Ronaldo, and I think that comes from me somewhat supporting Man United and Ronaldo playing for Manu. So I was never really that big on Messi. So to that question, I would go, ronaldo, I don't know about you.

[A]

I. So again, I never really like, followed either. I might just go Messi, because he. There's something cool about him. And sometimes when I've seen him on telly, it's like, oh, that does look quite cool. But then Ronaldo's kind of similar as well. So. Yeah, I don't know. No, I'm going to go Messi, Yeah,

[B]

I don't really know them that well, but from what I've seen of Ronaldo, I like his work ethic, but I'm sure Messi has a similar thing. Anyway, let's not delay because neither of us follow them much at all. So Remy has asked, how good is AI at assessing body fat percentage? It said I'm 11 to 13%, but in my head, I'm easily 16 to 17%. Not that it really matters. Just curious.

[A]

I, again, I'm not an expert on AI and anything like that, but I can't imagine it's going to be very accurate at all.

[B]

So I can say I. From my personal experience with it, it's terrible. So I gave it some, like, client shots without the head. And because I like aware of personal details of being passed to AI, you don't know where it's going to go. But I was like, how many weeks out is this person? So on and so forth. And it was literally like, came back this. This was on, like, off season. I was like, they're pretty shredded. They're pretty, like, in good condition. Like, they were not going to need Much more body fat off and they were legit like high teens of body fat. So I think unfortunately AI has this horrible tendency to tell you what it thinks you want to hear. And I think in a body fat situation for you, Remy, it's probably like, oh, you've uploaded these photos. You probably want me to tell you that you're pretty lean. But it's like that friend who needs to be give you the hard talk. But it's just that people pleaser friend unfortunately. So yeah, there you go.

[A]

So Eating four PBS asks how common are issues with food anxiety or overly rigid dieting mindsets during cutting and gaining phases and how best to manage them.

[B]

So this is a good question. I'm. There's probably some good literature out there looking at this. I can't think of it. Probably look it up and that would be a better place to go to than just asking us because I think it'll be mostly based off our personal experience, but within the bodybuilding space and from what I've seen, like very, very common. And in regards to like how best to manage it's very individual schedule. An account I would highly recommend is breaking binge eating Jacob, Dr. Jacob Leonarden, who I'd like to get on the podcast again. In fact, I think I messaged him. He's meant to be coming on, but he hasn't. Oh cool. He hasn't got back to me. He's actually doing a research study that we're going to be talking about. But anyway, he'd be a great recommendation because he talks about a lot of these things on his pod, on his Instagram and has resources about it. But in terms of how best to manage it, it's really hard because it's so individual. But the philosophy we have at Revive Stronger is very much like a inclusive dietary approach versus exclusive, not a rigidity approach, a flexible approach. So I think if you haven't done any reading on flexible dieting, going to that will help you a lot. And then I think if I had a client it would be like tinkering. So like slow exposure therapy type of situations where we might move from like strict macros to macro ranges and then macro minimums. And then we might just go to protein and calories only. And then we might just go to, hey, when you have opportunities to eat out, just go and like think of calories and do it that way. And then eventually it might be like, oh, if you go on holiday you can just go and be mindful and like not have to think about it. But it's very, very gradual. You can't suddenly go from being super restrictive to like, like just mindful eating. And I think the, the goal is to get to this, like, autonomous place. Yeah, like autonomous ultra instinct type of situation with food, where it's like you can use the appropriate skill set at the times that serve you. It's like when me and Mike go for dinner for pizza. We've both already set it up within our day of eating and probably allowed for a thousand odd calories for a pizza. And then we're going to see what we order, see what it comes out like, and then adjust as we go. We don't need to weigh out every item and know precisely it's close enough. We're on the dartboard. We don't need the bullseye. I think that's what people get really anxious about. It's like, oh, I need to hit these macros to the absolute number. And you can't even do that. Nutritional labels are not 100% correct. So I think experience and time really starts to cure you in terms of the anxiety. You get better. But it's individual to individual and I think we get quite. I get quite a number of these sort of people and they have it at different levels because I've gone through it myself and so I enjoy helping people for it.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. I think the only small thing that I would just add to that is if there are any coaches listening. You do just have to know, like, right, when is this beyond my scope? And know like, right, this is. This is like a clinical issue now and this person needs to go and get help and it might be that.

[B]

That, right.

[A]

They go and see someone. Maybe you can also work alongside them or maybe they do just need to. They need to actually just stop coaching and they need to go and see. Get help first. I think knowing that I think is really important as well.

[B]

Yeah, scope of practice is really important. I think general dietary anxiety and things like. That's something in our scope. Yeah. But when it starts to become like binge eating behaviors or maybe they're actually purging like making themselves sick or anything like that, like bulimic type tendencies. That's when it's like, hey, you need to a Jacob Leonard and type of situation to refer out to.

[A]

Yeah, good one.

[B]

Quick fire ones now.

[A]

Cool. Right, we're quick firing. Right, okay. Is it me? No, it's you.

[B]

Oh, sorry.

[A]

We're doing so well.

[B]

Is it possible to add muscle into your 40s?

[A]

Definitely, yes, absolutely. Depending on your training age. Might and Level of advancement. It might happen a bit slower, a bit faster, but it's definitely possible.

[B]

Nothing to add to that one.

[A]

Okay. Drewgeese asks, switching push, pull legs to upper lower to bring up the legs. How to keep upper body at 30 sex, what 30 sets while maxing quad ham growth exercise selection, frequency, structure.

[B]

That's an incredibly broad question, Drew, and I'm struggling to even think about where I would start to try and answer it. Your the reason you would be moving to legs to three times per week frequency is to. First of all, you've got to that point wanting to spread out, I. E. It seems to be within the literature. Once we get to 11ish sets for a muscle group within a session past that point, we can't be confident that we're gaining anything more from that. That's not like a hard rule, but I think once you get to about 10 sets for a muscle group within a session, you probably want to start thinking about spreading that volume out. So if you're at 10 sets for like quads, you want to start thinking about spreading that over like two. Once you're at 20 sets and starting to move above 20, you want to start thinking about spreading it between three. But if you're not even at that point yet and you feel like you have more to give within those sessions, high frequencies aren't necessarily going to help. As we've said many times, frequency is just a product to get the highest quality volume done across the week. So if your leg training is legit, getting into do potentially 20 plus sets three times a week is definitely wise. Or even if you're within like 15 to 20, say. But spreading it over three days would allow for higher quality. That's great. But then you just spread your quant like you're training across the week. So with your upper body, how to keep it at 30? Well, you're just spreading. Previously you had four upper body days, right? Basically because it's push, pull, push, pull, and now you're having to do all of that in three days. And then it's a case of can you still commit to that and do it to a higher standard? Because if you can't, then either you need to find a way of spreading out some of that upper body volume onto the lower body days. But maybe it takes away from those. Or you need to just sacrifice some upper body volume to grow your legs more and then that could be a legitimate thing to do too. The other thing that helps me personally with the high frequency is antagonistic supersets. Super Time saving, very efficient. And so long as you can recover from it and progress with it, very, very beneficial. But it'll be a question of if you're increasing your leg volume, can your upper body. Can you still recover from the amount of work for your upper body within the kind of sessions that you've got? And again, I'd have to be working with someone to work through that sort of situation. But those are some of my initial thoughts on it. But like I said, I think it could be a whole podcast.

[A]

Definitely discussion. I think you answered that really well. I don't have anything else to add there.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Right. So Nabil asks how come that none from the UK US industry seems to know about strength training? Anatomy workout books, when these are like the Bible. It's really funny. Mike, guess what? I've got my bookshelf over there. Anatomy strength training, this literal book. Yeah.

[A]

Is that with all the pictures and.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's the one. I'm assuming it is, yeah. I don't know if you've got it, though.

[A]

I didn't. I. I'm pretty sure I did have it. I think I probably got rid of it, but I have had it at one point. So. Yeah, I'm. Yeah, it's interesting. I knew about it, I definitely read it.

[B]

So I'm trying to see where I wanted to, like, get it to show it, but I can't see it at the moment. But I have got it. Yeah, that was one of the first books I actually got got alongside.

[A]

It's not the science of strength training. No, no, no.

[B]

It is called. It's Anatomy and it's quite a thin book. But it's. Yeah, it's the one with all the pictures. I can't see it anyway. Yes.

[A]

So definitely have heard of it. So I'm not sure who hasn't. But. Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

Just isn't often spoken about, I guess. But yeah, it's one of the best sellers over on Amazon, which is partly why I ended up buying it. Next question, then.

[A]

Okay, so. Oh, this is probably good one. Any experience or tips with managing prepatellar bursitis? Again, good question. So, from my experience, and I could be wrong, sometimes these things can sometimes be a little bit more acute. And I often, sometimes say that if has. If something has come on very suddenly and very aggressively, I sometimes say that aggressive rest is the best possible option. And bursitis, again, is a little bit more inflammatory in nature in terms of its path. Say it might be worth just having a bit of an aggressive deload in that particular area. And you could also do something like cross education. So training the unaffected leg and working from there. Definitely avoiding things that aggravate it, deep knee Flexion, impact, etc. And I would like to think that if you can do that and you can do a good job letting it settle down, it should by and large improve and resolve. It's only if it's not resolving with, you know, those sorts of things that I would say you probably want to maybe go and see, you know, a small medicine doctor or a con, you know, a specialist in that, that area who, who might be able to guide you a little bit more on that front.

[B]

Lovely. I was trying to find it, but it must be downstairs on the bookshelf. I'm sad that it's not here so I can prove. Mike, I've got this one for you. Then Phil has asked, can we get a and dating update for Mike?

[A]

I looked ahead and I saw this and I smiled. Thanks, my ninja. I. Yeah, so I'm going to need to consult with my relationship coach. I think at some point because it's going a bit slow at the moment, which is partly my fault.

[B]

Partly?

[A]

Partly, yes, because I just, I start, I get, when I get on there, I get really overwhelmed. It's just. And it's just not, it's like, oh, so it's just going slow at the moment. Shall we say day. No dates at the moment yet. So any chats? Chats, yes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Chats, yes. But again, they're quite slow. So. And one thing that you said to me that I tend to do, which is totally, I do do this, I get fixated on one person. So. And I will to the exclusion of all other chats. And I don't ignore people, but I won't go out and message other people if like there's a conversation going. Whereas I probably just need to keep.

[B]

Cast your net wide.

[A]

I need to keep casting my net wide. So that's what. I'm not doing very well at the moment. And the current conversations are just very slow. Like I'll send a message, it'll be like two days later, get a message back and then it's like, oh, so it's a bit ping pongy over like multiple days.

[B]

I know you had that one chat where she was like, I don't want to talk to you here, I just want to meet up. Yeah, I empathize with that situation because I think, think it kind of. I can see it being a bit like when you're just online chatting, it's kind of hard to really have a proper chat. And meeting in person basically tells you everything. Like, you get to see them. So are you attracted physically? You get to have some chat, see if you have good rapport and like, banter, whatever. So maybe that's like, you just need to be like, hey, this is great chatting, but I'd love to just see you in person and.

[A]

Yeah, I probably should. I.

[B]

It's just time, effort, but.

[A]

But it's all of those things.

[B]

It leads to good outcomes potentially. Could be a wife, maybe. Yeah, true. You never know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we've got to get on Mike's case. I know it needs to be a priority.

[A]

I guess it does need to. It's just it. I was thinking about this today. It brings out every single insecurity that I have. Like fear of rejection, fear of like what other people are thinking, low self confidence. It's just bringing it all out for me and it's making it so hard. So, yeah, this is.

[B]

It's the best thing for you.

[A]

It's why it. It's true. Exactly. So it's why I've got to do it. I hate it, but I've got to do it.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. It just reminds me of my. That's. The dating apps were good for me because at least you don't have to go up to someone in a bar, like, cold, just going up. I thought you look pretty. I don't know, like, it's just uncomfortable.

[A]

Right. Slapped or like, so at least you

[B]

get someone being like, oh, I am actually interested in you, and then you get to have a chat.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But yeah, I. That, that's. It actually built my confidence and I'm sure you felt that on some of the dates you. You've already been on. Right. You built that confidence and now it's just been too long. You've kind of lost that a little bit. So, yeah, we'll get on top of Mike here. The final thing I have for Mike is curtains.

[A]

So I've done a good job in terms of. I've rearranged. I've. I've gotten in contact to rearrange the delivery, so. So they're on their way at some point, which will be good. I have got one set of curtains, but they are. No, they're in the bag because I can't remember which room I wanted them in. So I need the other curtains to remind me of what room I was going to put them in.

[B]

Oh, I'm hearing is excuses. Oh, my God.

[A]

I know, but they will come at some point and then they will be put up. I just need them to all arrive first. Then I'll get a It'll remind me which room I needed to put them up in and then I'll put them up.

[B]

Guys, thank you so much as always for tuning in for your questions. We really appreciate them. Again, if you've got Got Dream guests you'd like on the Revive Stronger podcast, drop them in the comments. We want to know about that.

[A]

Definitely.

[B]

And if there's any women that think Mike looks incredibly attractive and you like his sense of humor and what he's all about, if you've got any injuries you need help with and you want to kind of work in a date through some physiotherapy, use his magic hands, then yeah, let us know. Anyway, we'll let you know how the Naruto experience was, the pizza was and we appreciate you as always, if you are interested in coaching through Revised Stronger, that's what we do. That's what we help people with. So we'd love to be able to do that. Navigating, struggling with eating and being too restrictive, wanting more balance in your life or taking to a bodybuilder stage photo shoot, just getting into your biggest, strongest self, happy with all of those goals and outcomes and subscribe comment, all that good stuff. We'll catch you in the next episode.

[A]

Cheers guys. See you later.