The 'Optimal' Training Debate and Social Media

Do you reckon there's anything that hasn't been named? Do you reckon there's anything out there? Probably not. If you're coming up with an exercise now that hasn't been named, there's probably a good reason why no one does it. Tell that to Kasim. We've had this discussion as well, because we were joking about coming up with an exercise that we're going to name after ourselves, but there's nothing. There's nothing. It's all been done. I'll play devil's advocate. I'm good friends with Kasim, and we don't agree on a lot of things. We take some polar views. He hates us. Well, he's blocked us. He's blocked all of us on Instagram. See, that's one of the things I don't agree with him with. If you want to come up with stuff, then be willing to debate it and argue your point, But I did get a bit irritated when they started the Kaz hip thrust. And I was like, fuck, man. It's just a quarter rep hip thrust at the top. But then I thought, you know what? Fuck it. So I call it the Kaz hip thrust. And the reason is I'd rather do that than say I need you to do a hip thrust on bench, but only the quarter rep at the top. It's just easier to say do a Kaz thrust because everybody knows what that is now. It's definitely – yeah, he's made an impact. He has. Yeah. No, he has. I like his shit. Why the fuck did you block me, bro? I didn't say anything to you. I didn't say anything either. Yeah, he blocked all of us. He blocked the whole gym. He blocked all four of the coaches. Yeah, I don't know. He's off us. I like his shit. Yeah, I don't know. He's got some great stuff. You know, just like with everybody, I've got some good stuff and I've got some stuff that people think is just shit. And same thing with Kaz and everybody else. The more stuff you put out there, the more stuff people are going to find that they like this stuff but they don't like this stuff. you know I agree with a lot of his stuff I disagree with a lot of his stuff as well like I don't feel like we need to get so fucking pedantic about hitting six soccer mirrors in your lower lat you know so I think if you just if you just focus on pulling the muscle finding exercise that work really well for you and just keep keep working getting stronger and bigger everything going to yeah well this is a it actually a really good discussion that is on it this like optimal verse just like getting the work done sort of discussion point it sounds like you you very similar to us where it like just do the things you enjoy yeah train hard make sure the principles are in play and you're probably going to be fine like but i think there is a i think there is a need for you know more targeted intent training like that as well um i use it a lot for like rehab stuff or if i've got beginners teaching them how to control things and how it's supposed to feel but the way i look at it is some of that stuff where you're being really really myopic about how you pull something and train that's really good for beginners and then when you get in the middle of your journey you just need to fucking smash weights and get big and do things that especially when you get older do things that don't fucking hurt and find exercises that do feel good but then i also see a need to put that stuff back in at the very end when you need to do that detail work you know because they're just getting just smashing foundational movements isn't always going to build a symmetric complete physique sometimes you need to now dial in some of those really you know look at the the angle of the pull and the line of the pull and really dig into a certain aspect of a muscle but i don't feel like people need to be doing that for a whole fucking workout and taking 20 minutes to set up each exercise. Yeah. I think it just gets back to the same point we had, which don't get caught in the weeds. Most people, it's just not going to matter. No, because some of those movements feel fantastic. They feel fantastic. But overthinking your training to that point, especially for some of the early intermediates, it's like, dude, effort's probably the factor for you. Everything that I'm seeing from you right now is actually amazing form-wise. You look great. Just fucking eat and train hard, man, at that point. it's a funny one it's a funny one but it's something that I'm like you don't have to hate someone fucking for having a different point you can like a lot of different coaches and whatever else it's like you can disagree you know what I mean I like who is it Mike Boyle is like be the best thief you can be sort of thing man just bid from this guy bid from that guy that's what's going to create you and obviously you're going to have your biases and I think that's why clients come to you because of your biases it's a shared bias they come to you for whatever else but just just deal just deal from a little bit obviously give credit always give credit always give credit always give credit always give credit but it's like that's what's going to create you you're not just fucking fuck this guy because he disagrees with this one minor point that guy's probably got a hundred good points for the one that you disagree with everyone probably agrees on 99.9% anyway like it's it's always these little fringe I think part of the problem is none of context when people and that's the problem with social media you're watching a one minute clip and you're not getting the whole story so you know if we're going to use specialized techniques like that we need to figure out when it is and isn't appropriate most of the guys teaching that stuff that um uh who was that that came up with stuff that they're um i can't remember the name of the guy that ben pokulski and and they all learned from but um like the functional it was more like the functional range stuff or whatever but uh none of them built their physiques like that they all built their physiques the way we all did get in the trenches and get really fucking strong really good at foundational movements but but that's not sexy it doesn't sell well that's what i was going to say is that they're also trying to sell products and so they've got to kind of reinvent the wheel you have to be very if you're going to niche down yeah sometimes you have to niche down to some of the silliest shit yeah it's like what we were talking about with the the tiktok thing if we did something educational no one would watch it but you put fucking trend and i read it or uh you get a picture a video of me doing a pull-up and dragging my dick across my wife's face and that fucking goes gangbuster but if i give you some actual usable information no one gives a shit which is exactly what happened last week when we put that put that pull-up video on it's crazy oh really did you see that no i don't think i saw that one did it go crazy again yeah i think we'll just start rolling from here that's crazy the trend one but oh the trend one was that was ridiculous i was really surprised about that So how not the spot to pull up? That one went. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's fucking pretty funny, bro. Did you see? That's pretty funny. Full dick in the face. No, it was full cock. Did you see the cock movement? By the way, does it close up with that? That's actually pretty funny. That went viral. I like how you got the hangover cunt in the face, guys. In the face. That's too good. Just for transparency's sake, that was a stunt cock that wasn't actually my dick. I was about to say, good job, man. I wish. I wish. Look, man, big hands, big feet, big ass, and then I was like, what the fuck happened? Stunt cock. God damn you. Going... Wait we on Yeah we I cut I cut that I cut I work that out so that it works out well The camera unfortunately just overheated I reckon there was some machine I reckon just cut away to It's just this big cock. Fuck! No, there was... No context. So, we were just talking about, like, early influences and somehow we got into, like, this optimal thing. But I want to go back to the early influences. Some of the original programs you ran, where were you... Were they... You just got them from books or were they, like... Where were your initial actual programs from?