Post-Contest Training Volume and Recovery Metrics

and what do you do with in terms of training volumes or post-show training volume is that a case of say you know for example you you've gone up to say 30 sets per body part per week is it a case now the body's adapted the to that stimulus you need to continue with that or can you quite happily drop that back and still retain lean muscle tissue? I would, it depends. You know, everything depends on the state of the client. Like I have clients that they're so sick of training, that's the last thing they want, right? So at that point, it's like, okay, let's go to minimum effective volume and just go through the motions for a week. And then usually after that week, they're ready to roll, right? So it's mainly just, I want you to really relax after a show. There's no reason after you've just put yourself through six months of brutal training to get ready for this show. There's no reason to jump in to more brutal training. You probably need a break. So a lot of my clients, I'll tell them, don't even go to the fucking gym. Go do some fun shit. Go for long walks. Okay. And then go do some stuff. de-stressed, your body composition is not going to turn bad overnight like that. Then the second week, we'll start ramping it back up. It's going to be different on everybody. We have people that respond really well to 20 sets of workout and I've got guys that respond best to 50 sets of workout. You're really just training them long enough to understand where they need to be. I think it's that case of monitoring, tracking, all those sort of metrics It's coming to play a hell of a lot when it comes to that of going, okay, well, if you don't have the metrics, how can you justify change? Yeah, absolutely. And that's where all the metrics come in, right? I mean, we've seen the best results. If we can get them off the stage and get their HRV back to a good parasympathetic state, then they typically never put on fat post-contest. even eating what most people would consider a caloric load that should put a lot of fat on right but again like like i said we are guys when they go into a show they're usually eating way more than everyone else uh but we that's what we don't you don't see us putting a ton of people on on stage you see us putting people on stage when they've been screwed up by six or seven other trainers and then they come to us because they're sick of feeling like shit uh and they're sick of not placing and so we fix them up and then that you know they place top five like holy shit i've never placed top five and then then if they if they just continue on you know we can get them in the top three we can get them we can get them where they want to go as long as they trust in what we're doing and just do everything we say it's not that hard of a process it's just it just takes a lot of planning but that's that's on our end right so we sit around we do the planning we do the whiteboard sessions we figure out what they need to do over the next 12 months and then we pick the dates and then boom. So the way we do it, it's almost like military strategic planning, right? Like I know I've got a whole 12-month periodization for you. I know in every microcycle what's the theme of that microcycle and how does it play with all the other microcycles in this mesocycle? What's the theme of the mesocycle? And then those things all have to line up with the next mesocycle in line to then bring you to a point where now you've built a championship physique. And the problem is a lot of people don't want to go through that process. They want it right now because, you know, Coach Chick Jack on fucking Instagram says you can get ready in eight weeks, you know. And that probably has to do a lot with the reason they want to compete, right? Like they see somebody who's, you know, Insta-famous and they're like, I want to look like that and I want to look like that now. It's like, well, cool, but why? Like you know what your sort of determining factor of like do you actually want to compete or do you just want the fucking fame and money that this other person got Yeah And the thing is they all want it until they realize what it takes to get it And then you weed people out real quick with that. Like you find out really quickly who can go that far. Like I had a client. She wants to look like Dana Lynn Bailey. I'm like, okay, bro. We need a UK. Okay. Like, I don't think you understand what it's going to take to get there. Like that, that is a, that is going to be a chore. Like they'll look at like Hattie, look at Hattie. He's got a phenomenal, ridiculous physique. And these girls will come to say, I want to look like Hattie. I'm like, I don't think you get it. Like she tracks every little thing that goes in her mouth. She knows that she does everything 110%. Do you actually have the mindset to be able to achieve that? Because that's a one in a bazillion type of mindset to be able to do that. Yeah. And for how many years has she been sort of at the top of the game too? It's just like, absolutely. Like that takes some serious dedication and seriously wrapping your head around that process and, and also finding enjoyment in that process. And that's probably going back to how these, why like she had a, a powerful enough internal reason and of this is why I want to sort of do this. And she's, that's why she'd been able to be at the top of the game for X amount of years. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that, there's a championship mindset that you just very rarely find and that's why there's very few people that go to the top and stay at the top