TMGP Ep 43 with the world-class BJJ coach, strength and performance coach Alex Sterner — a deep dive into elite-level training, recovery, and building champions on and off the mats.

Woo! Another white boy with a podcast. Pronouns Jim Bro. Another white boy with a podcast. You want to see the video? It went viral. Hi gains gurus and welcome to TMGP, the muscle growth podcast, episode 43. I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Alex Sterner onto the show for part one of his two-part series. Today, we're thrilled to have Alex Sterner, a Brazilian jiujitsu black belt under Andre Galvo and a world-renowned strength and conditioning coach specializing in BJJ, Brazilian jiujitsu. Alex is the co-founder and head coach at Electrum Performance, the official strength and conditioning program behind some of the world's best BJJ athletes, including the ATOSS team that won multiple IBJJF world titles with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology from the University of Connecticut and certifications as a CSCS and USA weightlifting coach. Alex combines cuttingedge science with practical experience training elite grapplers like Andre Galvo, JT Torres, and Lucas Barbosa. On this podcast, Alex shares his expert insights on how to develop muscle growth, improve athletic performance, and prepare your body for the demands of competitive Brazilian jiu-jitsu and beyond. Get ready to learn from one of the best in the game. It's time to get ready to be inspired by Alex's remarkable story, his insights on BJJ training, and his mission to fix people's mindset with regards to movement, what he dubs movement optimism. In today's episode, we dive into a wide range of insights, including the origins of a strength focused mindset and how it shaped Alex's approach to coaching and training. The benefits of group training environments and how they foster consistency, accountability, and camaraderie. the evolution from a rigid neutral spine philosophy to a more functional focus on movement optimization, including using the back safely through the multiple planes of motion. A deep look at the mechanisms of injury and how the body when exposed to appropriate stress can adapt and grow stronger rather than break down. the principle that biological organisms adapt to the stress they're exposed to, highlighting the importance of intelligent progressive overload. Alex's journey from fear and movement avoidance to preparing the body for advanced ranges of motion through the concepts of preparedness and readiness. the importance of avoiding a one-sizefits-all approach to technique, emphasizing that every body is different and requires individualized solutions. A discussion on the zer squat where natural discomfort becomes a beneficial limiting factor that encourages mindful load management and progressive development. The danger of glassback propaganda. The overcautious narrative that breeds fear of movement and stifles growth. Sometimes jokingly referred to as glassback university. The immense power of reflecting on one's progress and how acknowledging small wins can be a potent motivator for long-term growth. How fear is often irrational, such as the fear of deadlifts, and how confronting it can unlock potential and confidence. A reframe of the outdated concept of wear and tear, advocating instead for dose regulation, movement variability, and smarter longtime training strategies, and so much more. Get ready for a truly informative episode. Quick shameless self-plug. I am uploading consistently on Reps with Rosco on various social media channels including YouTube and Instagram. So check that out for some epic fitness edutainment content. A little disclaimer, this show does not contain medical advice. Their views and opinions expressed by guests on the Muscle Growth podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs or the stance of the podcast. While we aim to provide valuable insights and information, it's important to approach all topics with critical thinking. I encourage you to do your own research, consider multiple perspectives, and form your own conclusions. Healthy discussion is always welcome, and I'm happy to engage with listeners in the YouTube comment section to continue the conversation. Lastly, don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, and X. Find us at the muscle growth podcast and myself at reps with Rosco. Welcome, Alex, to the muscle growth podcast where we explore subjects related to muscle science and hypertrophy. I'm thrilled to have you join us for today's conversation. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your journey into the world of strength training and Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Yeah, uh first off, thanks for having me. Uh happy to be here. Um, I guess, uh, the way that this all happened, um, when I was about like 13, started to get involved in, uh, jiu-jitsu and wrestling. And, uh, at that point in time, um, I was pretty tall. I just hit like a growth spurt. I was, uh, about 5 foot 10 um, and like 119 pounds. Uh so I was extremely lanky, extremely skinny and I started to to work on you know these combat sports um with severe physical disadvantages. Um and as the years went on as I started to introduce strength training and sort of problem solve uh I saw huge value in that. Um to the point where you know now I'm over a 100 pounds heavier than that. Um granted I'm a bit taller as well. Um but yeah, I mean I saw the value very immediately. Um and it it sort of you know got me so on board that I wanted to better understand it. I wanted to uh as I got a better understanding and I saw people with similar problems um I wanted to help them with that. And when I was at uh you know when I was getting my undergraduate education at the point in time you know at that point in time I wasn't sure you know what uh avenue I wanted to sort of take my life. I was still you know at this point I was years uh of jiu-jitsu and strength training under my belt. Um, I saw that the University of Connecticut, where I was going to school, was uh the top chinesiology program in the country and I was like, you know what, I love this stuff. Um, might as well see if I can get in. Um, long story short, got in, loved it. Uh, we had to do some interning. I took that super seriously. Interned under multiple coaches in the division one environment. Did uh, you know, something like eight times the required hours that we needed to for interning. really really tried to soak it up as best I could. Um yeah, and since then have uh only continued to really uh you know try to learn myself. I now have co uh coaches under me at my business. I'm trying to really help them learn uh so that they can better you know share their passion and their understanding with people. Um and yeah, you know, essentially built a life around it. That's amazing. And uh third time's the charm for getting you on onto the podcast. So really excited for that. And um is that Electrum uh coaching, Electum Performance, that's that's your business. How's it going? How's it having uh some coaches under you? Just briefly because I don't want to go too much into the business side of things, but are you enjoying it? Is it awesome? Yeah, it's phenomenal. Um, we've actually sort of brought that division one environment to our weight room where uh we don't have like one-on-one coaching. I think that's kind of a waste of the client's uh resources and and sort of a waste of our time. We do have individualized programming, but we train multiple clients at once. Um, and as a coach, I think that's really valuable, too. It allows us to sort of frontload our effort. We plan it out ahead of time, then we have multiple clients come in. And as a coach, being able to spread the floor, um, and just make sure that everybody's, you know, on track with things, um, is just a much more, uh, it doesn't lead to burnout in the same way that like one-on- ons might, you know, um, and it doesn't have the same types of ceilings. You know, people don't have to pay as much for your expertise and they get to stay with you for longer. We have clients that have been with us for eight, nine years. You know, it doesn't break the bank for them to train with us. So, we get a long time to train with them and that's also good for us because the longer somebody gets with you obviously the better their results, right? Um, so yeah, it's uh I love the business structure here. We also have an online wing uh that's really fueled by our social media presence. Um, which is I'm pretty sure how you found me. Um, and uh yeah, I mean things are great here. I'm actually outside. No, I'm kidding. It was online indeed. Um, yeah. No, that's amazing. And that's quite a unique uh perspective on things. Uh and I'm really glad that it's working during the group sessions. That's that's amazing. And like you said, there's so many benefits for the clients and for the coaches and you get to spread more of the knowledge and that kind of thing with uh at the same time, which is fantastic. So, it's a win-win situation. So, well done on finding what works and and kind of doing that. You mentioned that you were 119 pounds initially and you gained over 100 pounds since then. So, how many pounds are you now? Or at your biggest and now? Um, yeah. So, at my biggest was maybe uh a month or two ago I was walking around a little over 230. Wow. Uh right now I'm like 225 226. So uh yeah, just over a 100 kilos for those of you that have uh you know a number system that makes sense. Yeah, like in South Africa we use we use kilograms. How tall are you again? I know you said that you were really tall. How tall? Um how tall is that? Yeah. So I'm six 6'4. Yeah. So in I don't know that is really tall. Yeah. I don't know what that is in centimeters. Uh let's see. Very tall. I'm 188 and that's 6'2. But please do 19 190 193 very tall. Very tall. I don't look up to many people but you might be one of the one of the first on the podcast. Um, I know that you follow guys like um, Emanuel Pescari, other super strong people. I I know you you like some of his stuff. He likes some of your stuff because one of the cool things that I really like about your page is how you're not about that glass back mentality. That's a huge thing that we talk about often on the podcast is that terrible mentality of never bend your spine. But as a Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert and a zera squat enthusiast, I'm sure that uh bending your spine is a big part of daily life probably for your training for your clients. Uh just to confirm, is Electrum performance specifically for um martial arts in for the majority of people or is it also uh strength? Obviously, it goes in combination, but are the majority of your athletes uh martial artists? that's like the niche that we've carved out. Um that's where we, you know, we really do train the most and like the best fighters in the world in terms of uh the jiu-jitsu market. Um so we really have sort of uh owned that niche and brought a unique service um to that sector. But in terms of the people that we service, uh, our in-person facility is maybe about 50% uh, the jiu-jitsu community and maybe, you know, maybe 20% of them are like elite competitors, right? Uh, the other 50% are everyday people. Um, and I think it's I think it's useful to have a niche. Um, I think it allows you to blend even more of one of your passions into something like strength and conditioning, which is great for everybody. Everyone wants a coach who's passionate about the stuff that they do. Um, and it allows you to sort of own that space and really uh carve something out, but but obviously we train everybody. You know, we've trained people here um in very adjacent areas uh like MMA uh but also things that are much much further. I have an evaluation with a guy uh in a couple days that is taking disc golf very seriously. Um, so you know, I think, uh, like most coaches, we'll definitely work with anybody. Um, but our niche is something, you know, myself and my coaches, we all, uh, have trained jiu-jitsu for quite some time. Uh, you know, some of my coaches over a decade. Um, so it it it really is that area where we're blending a bunch of things that we love. Um, but yeah, we we service lots of different people. So, it's definitely your passion and that's amazing that you're doing a passion. So, congratulations for pursuing your your dreams. That's really inspiring. On that note, what inspired your focus on training the spine through bending, flexing, and rotating, especially with regards to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Yeah. So, um early on, I won't lie, you know, I uh I graduated from the program that I did, uh in 2014. So, it's been some time now that I've really been like a full-time coach. And at first, you know, you're afraid of making mistakes. You're you're doing things extremely by the book. And I won't lie, I was very into like, you know, the neutral spine uh type of paradigm. Um, but like you mentioned very succinctly and like I started to notice, I mean, my sport doesn't operate in that neutral spine. Not even close. Um, it's kind of funny. I I mentioned I don't I don't know if you know who Kevin Haynes is, but he came out here recently um and visited uh and we lifted together. Um, and he was sort of asking me about my movement optimism and where that started. And I won't lie, it was like right after I graduated uh from college. I was training my dad and you know, he's not uh his area of expertise is not strength and conditioning. Um, and I'm teaching, you know, I I don't remember if I was doing like a bench press or uh some sort of like squat movement or whatever, but I was like, "Oh, don't let your elbow or your knee like don't let your elbow flare or don't let your knee dip in. Like that's how injuries happen." And I remember he just offhand was like, "Well, then wouldn't you want to train that?" And I remember I just did not have a good answer for that, right? I was like, "That makes a lot of sense, right?" And my my very like dogmatic narrow approach in the weight room didn't really account for that, right? It was like, oh, this is a uh compromised biomechanical position. We want to avoid that, right? Because the worst thing you could do is cause harm in the weight room. Um, but it didn't account for that very, very sound logic where he was just and and it's funny because I basically in that moment, um, I wasn't ready to flip my worldview upside down. So I just I was like, "No, just do it this way. This is the right way." But man, that was, you know, that was more than 10 years ago. And it stuck with me. It it like it sort of like gnawed a hole in this logic that I had uh where I started to really question that and I started to look into more things where I was like, "Oh, lift with a neutral spine." But then I'm looking at the sport. I'm watching somebody do a mat return where they're not just lifting somebody around their body weight. That person is shifting their center of mass forward. They're making themselves heavy, hard to move. They're shifting around in the air. I'm like, man, the demands of the sport and what we're doing in the weight room with only these like braced neutral movements, it just doesn't seem to prepare you for it. And anecdotally, I started to notice when I did tweak my back uh and stuff like while I was training jiu-jitsu was a position where someone's sid smashing me and they're they're rotating my shoulders one way and my hips another way. something that I'm not training for and preparing and and it's funny that little comment from my dad just started to really uh expand and build on itself. Um and as I started to look more and more into it um you know in the last couple years I've started to read more and more literature um you know about these mechanisms of injury and the different types of adaptation that can occur in different tissues. There really just isn't a very robust argument for the fact that we should limit ourselves uh when it comes to any natural range of any joint. If you have a range, you can load that range and you will elicit adaptation specific to those joint angles. So, um yeah, it just it it just makes a lot of sense. And if we sort of unpack some of these things that we may have been told by either people with large followings or potentially in school or what you know whatever the scenario may be. If you just look at it from this basic logic of the fact that biological organisms adapt to appropriately dosed stress and it's that simple. You apply an appropriate dosage of stress. you allow that biological organism to adapt to that stress. And if it can handle a slightly greater stress the next time, that's what you do. That's true for a bicep curl. It's true for a bench press. And it's true for a Jefferson curl, right? And sometimes that stress, that increase in stress might be load. Sometimes that increase in stress may be an increase in range. Again, stress is quite general and how we want to apply that stress to the body. As long as we're uh very deliberate and thoughtful, um we don't have to break things down. You know, people will say something like, "Oh, sheer forces as if that's the one type of force that you know when it when the body encounters it, it's catastrophic." That's not the case. What's the dosage of sheer stress? How rapidly are we applying that shear stress to which tissues? Right? And again, if we have a starting point that is very uh tolerable, we slowly work our way up from there. And it doesn't matter whether it's a compressive force or a sheer force. It doesn't matter whether that joint is in some mid-range or if it's at, you know, endpoint flexion or extension. Um, we are adaptable living creatures and we should be trained as such. You mentioned a lot of uh things that we're going to touch on now. So, thank you for that. That all makes perfect sense. It's a really cool story about your dad and uh so kudos to him for setting you right because previously it sounded like you were just a rebrand of Squat University with the with the neutral stuff. No, but I mean honestly uh I even think if we look at um the social media environment or um you know what was available 10 years ago, we didn't have uh these very vocal proponents of move of movement optimism and things like that. Like it it really wasn't out there in the same way. Of course, there were people who challenged it and and I give them credit for doing so. Uh but I think that it's only been very well articulated in the last couple years, you know, and so even though I did have that little uh uh like weevil sort of like picking away at my logic and I was and I was looking for it, I couldn't just go on social media like you can nowadays and find someone like, you know, Emanuel Pescari like you said or you can go through plenty of these guys. Lucas Hardy, uh Range of Strength, I mean he has a bunch of great stuff for this. uh you know Kevin Haynes who I mentioned before uh there there's just a lot of people Adam Meakans we could go down the list of all these people who are now very vocal about this and love sharing this info with different amounts of evidence be it experiential or experimental there's there's a ton of it out there and it's accessible if you want to go find it but 10 years ago you know I it was just sort of my dad very casually poked holes in this logic and I didn't really have a place to look up to somebody who was really thinking this through and creating content on that, you know. So, that is also why I take that seriously, why I put that stuff out there because other people who have similar questions, I want them to take a look at someone who now has, you know, 10 years of thinking about this um and maybe a little further along and can help sort of usher them in that solid direction so they don't get stuck as a another glassback university, you know. Wow, that's a that's a good a good name for them. So, I assume you're not a fan, but anyway, um, me neither. Let's move on. Enough said about the dead pigs and all that. We've talked about that so many times here, but you've obviously know exactly what I'm talking about with the glass uh, the pig study and spine and all the rest of it, and all our listeners will know that stuff as well. Uh, basically, you can move your spine. It's not going to snap. And unless it does, but then, like you said, it's because you didn't prepare it correctly. You did too much too soon. And yeah, sheer force can be dangerous. Compression force can be dangerous. Getting out of bed in the morning can be dangerous. Um, just be be smart, be mindful, and you'll be great. Um, I like how you went from fear and avoidance to preparing for the awkward kind of motions, the awkward scenarios. I think that's great. And you mentioned about gaining strength in various positions, various ranges of motion, um, and adaption and how the body is amazing. can adapt to stress. That's like such a cool thing that the human body, like you said, it's maybe not unique, but I think the human body is unique in in many ways. And our ability to know how to adapt to stress might be quite unique in terms of versus other animals. Maybe they don't know that you can go to gym and kind of get bigger by adapting. They they just get bigger in nature sometimes if they're lucky or they get eaten. So it's like bit more bit more hectic for them. Um you also mentioned the Jeffson cool which I love. I do in my training. I get weird looks at gym often. People like it's a bad deadlift. I'm like yeah I know it's really bad. But uh I I like it. I think it's good. Again the sheer stress you mentioned um somehow being dangerous but the compression force or whatever is somehow not. I I I would tell you that I've hurt myself the worst being compressed in a squat. Probably one of my worst injuries I've ever had. Um and I haven't injured myself doing a Jefferson C yet. Not saying I can't. You definitely can. Um but yeah, it's all about like you said, it's all about practicing those positions and getting strong gradually. And soon my Jefferson will be more than a lot of people's deadlifts. And that's exciting. I hope. I hope. How often do you train Jefferson and Zera? I know you're a big proponent for Zersa squats, especially with the elevator. So, actually, hang on. That takes me to my one of my questions. What's uh let me just see. I had it here. Can you share a favorite exercise or drill that's unique to uh to you? And would it be zeres with the elevated foot? Um yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's a favorite. Uh I recently uh tore my adductor while squat uh doing zer squats. Um so doing variations that allowed me uh to still target, you know, the knee extensors um while limiting deeper hip flexion was very valuable at that point in time. So even though it's something I'd done in the past, it was it was something that for the last couple weeks, I'm like, this is cool because I can push this a lot harder despite the fact that I have a a very significant injury. Um so it was very useful at that point in time and that's how I view a lot of these things right it's a tool um they have very useful uh scenarios and in that case where it was like okay limit the stress on the adductor you know specifically adductor magnus so limit uh those those positions where you're in deep hip flexion uh and are trying to extend the hip um but I still wanted to get a stimulus elsewhere so by elevating the heels I was able to run with that for a while until, you know, yesterday actually made exactly four weeks since that adductor injury and I was able to hit a zer squat with the same weight that I got injured with. So, you know, as of yesterday, I consider myself mostly out of the woods. I do think some more explosive things like sprints, um, I'm going to be a little slower to introduce. I just started doing jiu-jitsu again last week. Um, but yeah, I I think these things are very context driven. Now, as a coach, I'm actually a huge fan of both zer squats and zer deadlifts. Maybe for reasons that a lot of people wouldn't be. And my uh my younger, less secure version of myself as a coach would probably disagree on a lot of these points. Um, but really these two movements have an incredible amount of individual variation based on range of motion across certain joints, um, based on your relative strengths and weaknesses, um, more so, I mean, even more so with the Zer deadlift versus the Zer squat. the ability to get to that bottom position, how high your hips are, how much of that higher hip position comes from hip flexion versus uh like that lumbar flexion. The list goes on. And I think they're very cool lifts that you can allow somebody to you give them very general things to focus on and then you allow them to come up with a movement solution that makes sense for them and you allow it to look differently than someone else's. I even tell people when I'm teaching them, do not make your zer squat or zer deadlift look like mine. Your unique uh anatomy, your joint angles, limb lengths, insertion points, etc., etc., is going to allow you to have your ideal technique look significantly different than mine. And I want that. So, I actually very much undercoach these two movements. I give them the basics and I have them start to figure it out. The other thing that's cool about it in terms of it being very lowmaintenance and um and something that I don't need to coach, you have something like a back squat. Let's say you have a very powerful athlete and you're teaching them a back squat. Uh there was a time where I had a jiu-jitsu athlete that had never done back squat before and on his first day he was repping out 315, right? You know, three plates on each side. Had never done it before. And you know, again, like you could tell with a a degree of consistency, like he would be extremely strong. Um, and with that, you have to sort of caution some load management since the bar's just sitting here and he can just move a ton of weight. I sort of had to be like, hey, let's, you know, even though he was repping out 315 and wanted to go heavier, I'm like, not today. Let's let's make sure we don't get uh we don't accumulate too much fatigue, etc. Man, zers, if you've never done them before, your limiting factor is going to be that discomfort. And people view that as a bad thing. I think it's fantastic. It actually it's like training wheels on load management principles. Oh, it's a new movement for you. Well, you sure as hell aren't going to load the rest of the system any faster than you can load these tissues. So, you don't you don't have to micromanage load either. Do what you can handle today. you'll probably be stopped by this and then next week look to build on that a little bit. But certainly people if this is still uncomfortable if it's week two they're not just going to add 90 you know 150 pounds they can't they will you know the pain will limit them. So in many cases in the initial learning phase it's a very hands-off approach for me that's not to say I'm not watching but I'm letting them figure it out. letting them think about and work through these movement solutions. And then even on a week-by-eek basis, I don't have to micromanage uh their load management. I don't have to be like, "Whoa, whoa, you're going to want to slow that down a bit." They're going to do that naturally. And what I like to do anytime there's a lesson sort of baked into the process once we get a few weeks into that lesson, I have them reflect on it and I go, "Hey, so walk me through what we've done the last couple weeks for uh, you know, for your load selection." And they're, you know, they might they might sort of brush by it. They're like, "Yeah, I don't know. My elbows hurt, so I only added a little bit each week." I'm like, "Okay, but we're four weeks in. We're five weeks in. You're starting to really push it more now." um what how do you feel about this exercise? And oftentimes, even though at first they didn't really like it, they're starting to come around to it. And I'm like, do you feel like we lost any time easing into the exercise? And like, you know, we you don't lose progress in that amount of time. Even though some people might freak themselves out and think that they do, they don't. And it makes a lot of sense to ease into it. And I and I sort of, you know, after reflecting on it, I go, you did a fantastic job there. And when we reintroduce other things that may not have those same like pain barriers, right, or discomfort barriers, um, we want to sort of adhere to the same thing. We want to start nice and easy and ramp up from there. And then a couple weeks into a program. The reason that we have this degree of repetition is so that you can get accommodated to this stressor and handle more. Um, so I think zerchers are a very cool option both in terms of learning the movement but then learning how to add something new to your repertoire. Something that when you do it wrong is very very obvious, right? When you hurt yourself, uh, you know, I don't know your story for squatting, but it might have been something that was a bit more novel or you made a jump too soon. There could be a million scenarios that if all of a sudden we have these training wheels on where we're limited by this, it's it's much harder to make that mistake. Um, so I find that very valuable. I love that from a coaching perspective and it allows me to teach somebody something without speaking nearly as much as I am right now. I say almost nothing, right? And I let them reflect on it and I let them tell me the lessons they've learned and just sort of guide them in that direction. I'm very glad that you're speaking now. It would be a bit awkward if you weren't. So that's that's really interesting about the the pain limit that you you mentioned there and kind of the training wheels. I never really thought about it like that and that probably means that you probably don't like the way that I zera. So I zosia and it hurts and then when I'm trying to overload I put the pad on and and put it in the crook of my my arm because I don't I want to get through the pain and still load kind of heavy. But like you said, that's kind of just for when you're learning. And then obviously if I want to be u a little [ __ ] I guess is is the correct terminology and just you know put the pad on then I can do that but you'd probably say just leave the pad and and kind of gain exposure to that pain. Um so you it does hurt what you're saying and should it should hurt. It's part of the process at first. A lot of us also forget that early on when we started back squatting um that didn't feel great. Yeah, it didn't feel great for us either. But as you start to get used to it, you get more efficient with your bar placement, but you also get consistent with it and the body adapts to it that it's not even unique to lifting. Um there are uh there's some data on linemen in American football, uh showing that the first two weeks of like spring training or training camp, they're covered with visible bruises. And after about two weeks of consistent football, they actually don't bruise as easily. Their body is used to that stressor, that very superficial like impact and you know, friction related uh thing. We don't think of that adaptation in the same way as we do hypertrophy, but it's actually not so different. And again bringing it back to that concept of a biological creature being exposed to a stressor and adapting to it. we we can break down all these systems and make them uh or or all these tissues rather and make them seem extremely different and unique and there are differences but there's also these overwhelming similarities and and with something like Zer um I know I mean maybe you're different but out of the hundreds of people that I've brought through months of searchers you will get to a point where the limit limiting factor being your musculature will be a breeze on this region. I think you've maybe just gotten into a pattern of above a certain load or effort level, you consistently add that pad. So, you're limiting the adaptation here while the adaptation elsewhere is still continuing. You gave it a little bit of time and eased into those heavier percentages uh without a pad. Man, I can even go now a couple months without doing any sort of zerure and still grab four plates easily. It's very impressive. I'll work I'll work up to that. I'll let you know when I catch up. All right. So, I like the way that you uh understand that people all have a unique anatomy and that you tell them not to copy you. I think a lot of coaches I've seen and hear from other people say, "Copy me." And it's like, I get that. like maybe for the first time kind of trying to emulate the coach, but like you said, not everyone's 6'4 and 230 pounds. Um, like it's not and your female lens everything's different. So copying the like the more or less kind of style maybe or whatever is fine, but having them find their own like width, their own uh kind of bar placement, all that kind of stuff, I think that's excellent that you take a unique perspective for them and that they can find their own perfect technique or as close to perfect for their structure as possible. That's fantastic. And then also you mentioned the reflecting on it. That's quite a unique thing that I haven't heard much uh on this podcast so far. So, I think that's really interesting that you let them think about it, maybe make it a slightly more academic and a bit more technical than just here you this is why you do this, I'm the coach, listen to me kind of thing. Yeah. So, I actually take that approach uh as often as I can and with as deepseated of issues as possible. Um, so another one that I'm, you know, you've also mentioned this topic, so I don't feel uh too bad segueing into it, but when people have excessive fear built up, uh, around certain exercises or movements, um, here's a story that has actually come up multiple times with various clients that fear deadlifts, right? And what I do with them uh is I bring them into uh adjacent movements first ones where they don't have these walls built up, right? Whether that's uh you know 45 degree, you know, back extensions on the 45 degree hyper, whether that's Romanian deadlifts or as I make sure to say to them, RDL's. And I have them start to load these movements and get more and more comfortable with them. And at a certain point, I have them reflect on the overlap that these movements have with the conventional deadlift or whichever one they're scared of, right? And I'm like, okay, so if we think about it, what are the differences here? Or one that I had with a client, uh, I was then going to program in conventional deadlifts uh, for her workout, and she I know she's had a barrier over this. we just in a done a couple months of RDL's and then I'm like, "Okay, so we're gonna do conventional deadlifts this month." And and the fear starts bubbling up and she starts having these uh these immediate complaints and I and I have her reflect. I'm like, "Okay, first off, what does the DL in RDL stand for?" Right? And she's like, "Oh, deadlift." And I'm like, "That's for a reason. It it's a variation of the deadlift." And men, if we look at a higheffort RDL versus a higheffort conventional deadlift, sure we can sit here and be like, okay, one is concentric only and one of them is going to be more constant tension. Okay, sure there's differences, but man, if we were to just zoom in on, let's say, I don't know, um, like pick two segments of the spine and if we were able to, you know, get some crazy X-ray vision and be able to to get objective measurements for all the forces going through there, and we've got a high effort set of RDL's, we have a high effort set of conventional deadlifts. I mean overwhelmingly are we going to see crazy differences or similarities in terms of the range of motion mo motion at that segment the forces present etc. It's going to be overwhelmingly similar and so I get them to do these adjacent things that I know are adjacent and I don't communicate that before we do them because that would just build more fear and more barriers. But I get them to do these adjacent things. I I turn them into a success story there. And then once we've come up onto this mountain, I have them turn around and I go like, look at how far you've come, right? And and look at what we've done that is quite frankly at the same height as this other thing that we've built up to be this fearful mountain to scale, right? But we've scaled it already. You just didn't know because we were we went up the mountain next to it. But we we did the process. We did the whole thing. and then allowing them to then repeat that process with the conventional deadlift, the one that they fear. Maybe they had a bad experience or someone filled them with some glassback propaganda or whatever the scenario, they start to understand through reflection, which is so much more powerful than however good my communication could get. I could never tell them at the onset. I could never speak words that are magical enough to convince them that this journey is worth undertaking anywhere near as much as I could bring them through an adjacent one and just have them reflect and guide them through this uh just thinking back on this process that they've already done and and give them credit and say, "Hey, you've actually already done the hard part. It's done." Right? Now it's the easy part. Now we just slide into something that's adjacent and these adaptations have occurred. your body's different than it was at the start of this, right? I I have them look back on their training log and I go, "You're actually, you know, you're you've you're doing double the weight that we started with on this exercise. Do you really think you are as illquipped for the conventional deadlift as you were three months ago?" Of course not. And that power of reflection is just so much more potent. It's been proven to them. They did it. And it's way better than me thinking, okay, if I just sit this person down and tell them how it is and I bring out these different research reviews and and just show them, man, fear is not rational. So, it has to be proven in some way. And I think that this power of reflection, if you have faith in your ability uh as a coach and as a communicator to just get them bought in on the journey, but then at at at very important points of the journey, stop them and be like, "Hey, flip back a little bit. Let's think about what we've just done." It can be such a transformative thing mentally that can allow someone to do these future tasks so so much more easily. Um, so that's actually a strategy that I don't just take with, let's say, zeros and them coming up with uh, you know, a solution uh, or some individual answer to how to do it. I also use it to break down some of the strongest fear responses that I'm sure like you've encountered, I've encountered, they're pervasive. They're everywhere. Um, and I feel that that while it is a more long-term strategy, is one that is so much more potent on an individual level when you nail it. When you know you have that time, when you can guide them through the process, you can stop them at the right time and have them reflect. Very, very powerful tool. I think that's a truly epic approach. So, thank you for that and I hope that all the coaches listening will take that advice. Like you mentioned, fear is not rational. So, kind of tricking them into doing a deadlift, whether it be an RDL or something like a deadlift, then they're like, "Oh, I've actually done an RDL, which might actually be very similar to a deadlift. I wasn't scared of that. I've progressed on that. Why can't I do the same for a deadlift?" I think that's a really fantastic approach. So, thank you for for sharing that. And then you mentioned you've mentioned a few times now about joints and that kind of thing. Why do you dislike the phrase wear and tear uh when it comes to joints and the spine and how should we think about joint health instead? Yeah, I uh I think wear and tear is of course a lot of these phrases are going to be reductionist. That's impossible if we're going to use two words to describe adaptation or the stress that occurs from training. Um even our conversation right now as we go from topic to topic, we have to simplify. We have to break these things down. I get it. However, when we're reductionist and a bit off the mark and it it increases or augments or creates fear in people and this like chinesophobia uh type of theme, that's when I take a real issue with it. So, um let's look at how uh it's sort of reductionist and off the mark. like anything else. Um, we've expressed that dosage is so important as it relates to inducing an adaptation that you're looking for. And the way that I like to put it is that the most effective things that we do in the weight room come with an inherent shortterm risk. They do. It's there. If we look at something totally different like cardio, strictly speaking, when someone is doing let's say some intense metabolic intervals, they are at greater risk for a cardiac event than they were five minutes ago. That's just true. However, that's not how we talk about it because we're aware that the long-term benefit is a decreased risk of that very cardiac uh you know, event that could happen while you do it, right? We all accept that. Nobody's out there fear-mongering, oh, assault bikes, they're they're going to kill you, right? Like, I mean, they are awful. They're they're your own their own unique brand of evil, right? But we accept that the long-term benefit is usually a decreased chance of that shortterm risk. And that's not so different for a bunch of these movements. And it's not so different for something like wear and tear. Yeah. Do too much too fast. Don't allow your body to adapt and repair positively. And you can break down structures within our joints, etc. adjust your dosage or your rate of change slightly and now all of those things that we have that short-term risk of wearing and tearing, we now have a chance to build and make more resilient. So adjust your dosage and uh it you know it's this universal trait that like wear and tear is happening. You know nothing about the athlete, you know nothing about their training, how frequently they're doing something, whatever. Someone watches a video, someone moves in a way that they don't like, a movement solution that they don't have or that they haven't explored, and they go, "That's causing wear and tear." Are you sure? You know that you have you have no idea what the total stressors are within that person's weekly schedule, let alone monthly programming, let alone like their yearly cycle with an on season and an off season or whatever. You have no idea. So this thought that in a single moment we can be aware of whether something is causing these like you know degenerative uh like breakdown of tissue versus not it's it's asinine. It doesn't make any sense. So, um I think drawing people's attention to the bigger picture, drawing attention to the fact that the long-term, like if we're going to argue against the shortterm risk of something, you're actually making a great argument for that long-term benefit, right? To go back to cardio, if you're worried about the cardiac event, well, what do you know? That's the long-term benefit. So, that's actually a reason you should do it. If you're worried about a deadlift hurting your back, well, what do you know? The long-term benefit is a more robust posterior chain and spine, etc. Right? So, when we start to look at things like that and we just become aware that the shortterm thing that we're scared of, can we can work against that directly with long-term benefit, the only question is how fast do we go? Where's our starting point? And how much time do we have between our sessions? and you start to focus on those questions and all of a sudden that long-term benefit becomes more attainable and that short-term risk becomes more manageable. And that's really the nuance and the more like the deeper understanding that this reductionist phrase doesn't even breathe any life into it. Shuts all that down before we ever have a chance of talking about those long-term benefits. you know, the very thing that they're scared of, they can actively prevent by probably doing the thing that they're scared of, right? And and you start to guide people through the thing that I tell a lot of my clients when I start to feel this resistance or this fear. To hear more from Alex, you're going to have to tune in again to the next episode on the Muscle Growth Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to the Muscle Growth Podcast. If you found value in today's episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a five-star rating and a quick review. It helps us grow and reach more people just like you. Don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, and X. Find us at the Muscle Growth Podcast and Reps with Rosco. For more insights, exclusive content, and full episodes, visit the musclegrowthodcast.com. 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