TMGP Ep 44 with the blackbelt BJJ athlete, world-class strength and performance coach Alex Sterner

Oh, 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 44. I am your host Rosco. And today we're welcoming Alex Sterner onto the show for part two of his two-part series. Today we're joined by none other than Alex Sterner, a Brazilian jiujitsu black belt under the legendary Andre Galvo and one of the world's top strength and conditioning coaches in the sport of BJJ. Alex is the co-founder and head coach at Electrum Performance, the official strength and conditioning team behind elite grapplers like the ATOS squad who've racked up multiple IBJJF world titles. With a bachelor's in kinesiology from the University of Connecticut and certifications as a CSCS and USA weightlifting coach, Addex blends cutting edge science with realworld experience training some of the best in the game, including Andre Galvo, JT Torres, and Lucas Barbosa. In this episode, Alex breaks down how to optimize muscle growth, enhance athletic performance, and prepare your body for the unique demands of competitive Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He also dives into his powerful philosophy of movement optimism, a mindset shift that challenges traditional views on pain, posture, and rehab. Get ready to be inspired by Alex's journey, his passion for performance, and the wisdom he's gained from training the world's best. From frustrated fit, the Muscle Growth Podcast helps you get bigger, stronger, and better with evidence-based strategies, tools, and tips from our expert guests, the Gains Gurus, for building muscle, gaining strength, improving health, and increasing longevity. In today's episode, we dive into a wide range of insights, including plyometrics and the accessibility of jumping, why explosive movement should be part of everyone's training, regardless of level, the fear of being a beginner, how ego and discomfort prevent progress in new skill domains. Developing explosiveness and power, effective strategies to build speed, force, and athleticism. Training female athletes. Navigating unique needs while addressing and combating predatory behavior in the fitness space. Goal specific training. Tailoring programs to match individual outcomes from muscle gain to sports performance. The role of isometrics using static holds for joint resilience control and performance gains. Auto regulation and managing fatigue. Learning to adjust in real time to optimize recovery and long-term progress. sports specific training for BJJ, aligning strength and conditioning with the unique demands of grappling, and so much more. Get ready for a truly informative episode. Quick shameless selfplug. I'm 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. The 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 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 short-term 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 short-term 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, the most valuable thing you can hire me for is not to pander to your pre-existing fears and expectations. At that point, I'm actually useless. Where I'm most valuable to you is where I can guide you through this nuance, something that maybe you're scared of or that does have some legitimate short-term risk or whatever. And I'm helping you go through that thought process that guides you through that short-term risk to that long-term benefit. That's where I provide value. And I like to compare that to a therapist. Right? If you came to me and you said, "Hey, I have this trauma as it relates to my parents." Right? It's one of the first things we cover in the first session. And as a therapist, I go, "All right, cool. We're never going to talk about that." That's not a good therapist. Now, maybe one of those traumas was very recent and very intense, right? Um maybe now isn't the right time to go directly through. That's fair, right? Timing is important when we talk about like leaning into these traumas, whether uh emotional, mental, physical, some combination, right? Timing is important, but I would be a very bad therapist if I never even attempted to guide you through that. And guess what? When I do guide you through that, it's going to be uncomfortable. It's not going to be sunshines and roses as we talk about this deep trauma that maybe we have from our childhood. That's some heavy [ __ ] However, that's my value that I provide you. And it's no different in the weight room, right? we hear someone talk about an exercise or it's funny because um sometimes I'm doing some odd lift in my gym with clients there and I get a comment from somebody right where I can sense a little bit of that trauma or that fear and it's funny because I hear that and I make a note of it and I'm like this is something that we're going to touch upon later maybe not right now I [ __ ] I'm in the middle of my own lift right I'm sure as hell not going to talk about their trauma right now but I make a note of that because the most value I can provide is guiding somebody through that trauma is helping them challenge it and work through it in a productive fashion. And in that sense, what we do is not all that different than a therapist. Um, and that's why I also take some of these like reflection type strategies with it because the amount of mental walls that people will build up over these things are sometimes greater than their actual physical limitations. I'm sure you know this. I'm sure people listening to this know that. But then they go, "Oh, you know, I'm I'm a trainer. I'm not a therapist." I think we're a little bit of both, right? If you're actually helping people and you recognize, okay, this person has some real hesitancy over like loading flexion, right? And you just tell them, you're like, "Okay, uh, do a sit and reach where they are, you know, they're they're they're flexing their hamstring, but they're also flexing the spine. Are we in zero gravity right now?" Okay, we're not. Cool. So, guess what? That's loaded flexion. It's not a very significant load, but it's loaded. If you were sitting there like that and I came by and put a weighted blanket on you, right, something that weighs about 20 pounds, um, would you burst into flames? Well, no, obviously not. Okay, cool. So, now an even greater load at endpoint flexion is still okay. Okay, so that's 20 pounds. What about us doing a Zer Jefferson Jefferson with just the bar? That's just 40 pounds. It Oh, that's where we're going to light on fire. Got it. When we have the evil barbell, that's where the trauma comes in, right? Cool. So, we've identified that. So, now, how do we break that down? How do we start to train Jefferson's with maybe a kettle bell while elevated, right? Where we're starting lesser than that. And then all of a sudden, you recognize the point where you go heavier than a barbell. You let them work through that. Maybe they go even heavier than that. And then at a certain point you have them reflect and you go, "Okay, so when I first brought up the barbell for the Jefferson, you were very worried about that." Right? Now you're doing Jefferson's with 30 kilos in your uh with your kettle bell, but a bar only weighs 20 kilos. So you know that as far as the forces in your spine go, you've already done the barbell. You just haven't actually physically put the barbell here. So let's try it. Right? And I think again from that point of reflection looking at it that we have this emotional uh baggage with it and you just find a creative way to allow them to work through that baggage, you are a bit of a therapist. And I think the better that you embrace that and the more that you try to sharpen your communication skills as much as your actual skills for strength and conditioning and progressions and everything else. That's when you're really able to provide a service to somebody that really improves their quality of life. Not for some vanity metric, not for, again, not that those things can't improve people's lives. They can, but I think for real, when you have this transformative thing where someone goes from fearing loaded flexion, really fearing the barbell, to then eventually coming around and them accepting of their own will that like there's literally no reason why I can't do the barbell because I've just done that with a kettle bell. Boom. you slide over into that adjacent thing, they've broken down this barrier. And what is that going to do for them moving forward for the next 10, 15, 20 years of their life, it's incredible, you know? So, I think that that if more coaches embraced that that it was on this emotional level, they could get a lot more done. Absolutely. And I think you make a great point there about if coaches embrace this kind of thinking and philosophy. It's very similar to a physical therapist or a physiootherapist. I think if they also embraced this philosophy of getting people over their emotional trauma and helping them maybe in the gym more than just doing a you know the the bands which are the physios are famous for I think if they also tricked them and they hurt their back deadlifting trick them with an RDL trick them with the Jefferson with a kettle bell cuz they don't want to do they've seen barbells and scary and then like you said take them past the 20 kg and then be Hey, you've just done a 40 kg kettle bell. Let's try a 20 kg barbell. They do it. They're like, "Wow, this is half as difficult as the kettle bell." And now they're feeling confident in themselves. Their back issues getting better cuz they're getting stronger again, even in the plane of motion that they may have injured themselves in originally or a similar one. Um, but they're getting their strength back because they're actually working out again versus being scared. I've had physios and bios and etc etc professionals tell me you don't deadlift you'll hurt yourself it's guaranteed that you're going to be in a wheelchair and like top cyros in like South Africa have told me deadlifting stupid squatting stupid they didn't say bench pressing or anything but squatting and deadlifting is really stupid and I feel bad for them because these are uh professional medical people um even physios as well and they've studied this stuff so they know way more about the body than I do but I also know that there are other top physios and buyers that will say no you should deadlift you should um get strong and I much prefer that mentality than the you should never kind of work out really hard because the riskto-reward ratio is just not worth it and to me I'm like well I've actually hurt myself like sneezing funny. So, like I I really want to get a big deadlift. So, like and I think my back's been so much stronger since having this I want to bulletproof myself mentality versus uh I'm really scared that I'm going to hurt myself. I am really scared and you should be scared, but also like you shouldn't let that stop you from trying and load management and all the rest of it. So, I think you're exactly right there. If more coaches adopted uh a different mentality and were able to kind of help the the the clients more um maybe by taking away their ego and not trying to bash it down their throat and just like you said figuring out an alternate route to get to the same kind of uh solution in the end. Uh how important is impact training? So apply metrics like skipping for uh spine, bone and joint health and how can someone safely incorporate it? Yeah. Um surprise I view it exactly like uh any other stressor um dosed inappropriately. It can mess you up. Um but all this marketing of low impact insert uh activity here. I mean, there are times that we want a low impact tool, sure, but that's not inherently better, you know? Uh, same thing with something, I don't know, food-wise being low carb. There might be times that you want something to be low carb. There's also a totally reasonable time where you don't. So, um, yeah, I think, uh, I think impact, if we were to zoom in, um, to the most potent stimulus that I've ever provided to a client ever, over the course of a half a second, it's going to be a snapshot of a pio. It's not going to be partway through a squat, right? The squat, how many I mean, a max effort squat. What do uh Rosco, if you had to if you had to guess how long was the concentric phase of your hardest squat you've ever done? Um, long. It was It was long. I struggled. I I popped both my vessels in my in my eye and my nose um bled and and I stars and I almost blacked out. It was It was really bad. It was really bad. I was I was down in the hole and I just and I my one side went up and then the other side and I was like ah I got it but it was uh super shaky and and super dodgy but uh probably four five six seconds really really challenge. Yeah, that was just just going up. Yeah. Yeah. So we could take similar total forces, slightly less usually, but similar total forces and have that occur in a fraction of the time, literally a tenth or less because again that that uh you know landing and recoil for a pio is going to include both the eccentric and concentric component in a fraction of the time of a max effort squat. Right? So that stimulus is super potent and I think that anybody I mean anybody can benefit from that for sure. If you are over the age of 30 you can and should be chasing some level some dosage of impact weekly. Um, velocity is the physiological variable that slopes off most rapidly after the age of 30 and it slopes off uh very noticeably if we're not training it. If you train it, that slope is actually very gradual, right? Um, but we have to find a way to train power. We have to embrace impact. And as it relates to joints, I mean, there's ample data on this. Um when we look at different interventions for injury prevention, interventions involving plyometrics, um has a greater reduction in injury rates, it is statistically significant. It has been statistically significant uh in multiple independent findings. Um it's not really a debate. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to learn that. And I think a lot of people in strength and conditioning um haven't been formally taught. So they come up with justifications why they shouldn't. Um and I think it's like anything else. It's worth learning. And with a fairly low level of uh exposures per week, you can grab that lowhanging fruit. Do we have to turn everything in? Do we have to have a 45inute pio day? Hell no. Honestly, I've never even done that. Right? The times that I've even increased my volume slightly in plyios, I'm like, man, I'm feeling that. I don't need to go I don't need to go past that at all. 45 minutes for a single session is so insanely high volume. Not saying there aren't people where that's not relevant. I'm just not one of them. Um, and neither are the vast majority of my clients. I don't have high jumpers. I don't have triple jumpers. I don't have those people where we need to really be exposed to that a lot. But to get the lowhanging fruit to prevent that like sharp decline of that variable does not take much. Um and honestly as you start to get more and more acclimated to impact plyometrics power work um and it's not as much of a shock to you. First off the skill component of it is fun. It's just fun to do. And secondly when you lead off your sessions with that which is a solid placement for that type of variable anyways when you're most fresh. You feel good afterwards. Like, man, I actually prefer on my heavier deadlift days to start with pio. I feel better, right? Um, obviously ones that I'm accommodated to when it's a new training cycle, that's when I'll put those plaus before my deadlift. That first week, not going ham on my deadlift anyways. So, I'm feeling out those plaus and I'm getting to higher effort levels like I would for anything else as the weeks go on. But once you've been accommodated to it, man, getting some very aggressive jumping in there before you pull some heavy weight, dude, your body just responds well. It feels good. It's uh a very beneficial thing to do. Um people just have to accept that if they have an ego for their lifting, you know, and they're already, let's say, squatting 200 plus kilos and they've never had any experience with pio, they might kind of be afraid of that process where they don't look too good at it. And what's wild is that due to the learning curve and the physiological side of pios, which I could get I could zoom way in if we wanted to, but I think that's another discussion. Like I have I have certain clients that I've shown pio and their starting point, their floor is above my current ceiling. Like they are performing the pio and absorbing that concentric or sorry eccentric to concentric and the immortization phase. They're doing that so rapidly and so effortlessly that like I actually am physically incapable of doing that and it's the first time I'm showing it to them and I'm just like damn you nailed that, you know, but it's it's kind of crazy, right? But some people don't want to embrace that side of being a beginner again. So they avoid it and I think that that's a shame. I think it's a cool learning curve that happens very differently from strength work. Um, I think it's something that you actually need to recalibrate and relearn your technique as your physiology changes over time because you're capable of jumping differently. So, you have so you then learn how to do that uh as your body and the hardware changes. It's cool, man. It's fun. Um, and I just wish more people approached it with that childlike wonder as opposed to I'm this established person. I have a I have a 220 kilo squat. I'm not going to be jumping around and having people look at me, bro. Then do it in your backyard. You also don't need equipment. Like, you can go learn it. You can watch videos of of skilled people doing it and practice it in your backyard where no one's watching. There's there's almost no excuse not to do it, barring significant existing injuries and stuff like that, right, man? It's accessible. You don't need equipment to do it. The progress is fun uh if you accept that it's that it takes some time. Uh, but most of us, I mean, [ __ ] if you're chasing a super heavy back squat, you've accepted this is going to take time, right? So, like, I don't see how this is any different in terms of how we factor it into our mind. You're just afraid of jumping around and looking unathletic, which is actually all the more reason to do it cuz it's going to make you more athletic and then you'll look like less of an idiot jumping out. I totally hear you. I think that's one of the reasons why I was quite hesitant to add it to my gym program. I recently did this year. Um, it's still very minimal. Um, but like you said, I'm trying to do the minimum of like looking like an idiot in the gym because I'm the only one who does them in my gym at least, which is a public gym with mostly general pop. And the eyes I get and I I do I'm very bad at it. It's something that I've recently started, but uh I look I look weird, but uh I'm enjoying it and I don't really care. I've also started neck training where I have a head head gear and I I look completely ridiculous especially with my glasses and everything. I look my whole face gets pulled backwards, but I don't really care how I look. I'm there to get strong and I or stronger at least and I don't really care how I look. Um I think I look pretty badass doing some of the things but a lot of the other people get me really side eyes especially doing the jumps. Um and I do the the forward jumps as well. the vertical and the horizontal. And yeah, I take up space cuz I'm jumping somewhat far for myself. Um the guys there like they look at me super strange like what's this guy doing? I'm like plyometrics. But um I'm enjoying it. And Dr. Vanderight said that I need to do it. So I'm getting it done, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I wish more people would adopt that. Oh no, I'm sure hopefully listening to you they they will. Um, how do you see uh SP sorry, what advice do you have for athletes who want to develop explosiveness and power? So maybe you mentioned the plyometrics as a good starting point. Um, it's one of those fundamental things that we learn growing up. I don't, you know, maybe you or some of the listeners have have a kid, have had kids and watch them get to that exploratory phase where they start jumping. And guess what? They start jumping at that young age and for the next 10, 15 years, it is a regular daily occurrence for them. They do it all the time. They're jumping off the last two stairs. Why? Because they're exploring their bodies. And at a certain point, we lose that. At a certain point, like you've expressed in the gym, there's this societal pressure, even without words being said, just the looks that you get, right? with sprinting and with uh like jumping, power work, plyometrics, it goes from being a daily multiple time, how many could you even count the daily exposures? Like, you know, I count I count weekly exposures with my clients and honestly, if I have a certain number of weekly expo exposures written for them, it would be weird if they got more than that because that means they're just jumping for fun. And almost nobody does that. But as a kid, how could you even quantify what an 8-year-old has for weekly plyometric exposures? Go ahead. Like even how how can we even think of approaching it? Do you put a body cam on them? What do you quantify? They're just doing it all the time. And then way before the age of 30, but certainly by 30 when physiologically we start to lose this variable when we're not using it, we're not using it and we haven't been using it for a long time. So the body's like, "Do we need this anymore?" Hell no, it doesn't need this because you're never doing it. Um, so yeah, I think taking back that childlike wonder. Like again, we all we've done this. You we act like it's this foreign thing. I've never been taught how to do. Bro, you were as a kid when you jumped off that second stair, you weren't like, "Hey, Dad, can you teach me how to jump?" You just did it. Just do it. You know, and between the fact that you've done this before, between the fact that these neural pathways have existed, you jumped. I assure you, you jumped a lot. You jumped more in any random week in your 8-year-old life than you probably have the entire time from the age of 20 to 30. Like, it's kind of wild. And so, I think just getting back to that exploratory fa uh phase, you require zero equipment. A kid doesn't go, "Hey, hey, mom, can we go to the gym so I can jump?" Like, what? They're jumping in their bedroom. They're jumping in the backyard. They're jumping off the stairs. Like, just do it. It requires no equipment. There's no barrier for entry. Again, in the exceptions of like extreme either injury or like obesity, etc. But even clients that are quite overweight who have again that fear response, there's ways we could introduce power work and jumping at a tolerable level, lower volumes, lower intensities, limiting impact, but like it's way more accessible than the average person thinks it is. And even though they may act like I don't have experience with this, you do. You very much do. And the biggest difference is that now you've got all these inhibitions and societal pressures and everything else. And as a kid, that stuff just didn't exist. You were like, "Damn, I got two legs. I'm gonna see how far I can jump that way. Okay, I'm going to twist when I jump. Like, I'm gonna, oh, there's an object here. I'm going to jump over it." Like, if you reintroduce just some of that, just a little bit, just t a tiny bit. You can probably hit that lowhanging fruit. And sure, I can sit here and tell you, I think, oh, this is how many weekly exposures you should have. And you know, I think that a normal progression is leaping and then getting into bounding and then single leg hopping. Bro, you think a kid when they're playing hopscotch with their friends, they're like, "Uh, I haven't done the appropriate plyometric progressions to be able to hop from my right leg to my No, they just do it. Just do it." You know, so I really think that this is often times a barrier. It's this it's this self-imposed or society imposed or both barrier that we've created that every eight-year-old on the planet is proof that it just doesn't exist. So, just be a little bit more of that 8-year-old and you're going to start to get somewhere. And then from there, like, okay, sure, eventually you want to have some direction, some structure, but first, let's start doing it. And then we can talk about how many total exposures, good progressions, getting better at it, right? Like, of course, that's a part of it, but it's certainly not our barrier to entry. Um, so yeah, I think the biggest thing is just introduce some of that childlike wonder. break down some of that stupid [ __ ] that you tell yourself about how you don't know how to do it or you've never done it before. Like, trust me, you've done it. You've done it thousands of times. Exactly. And it's irrelevant if you've done it or not. Like, everyone was a beginner at some stage. Even the best person in the world had to start somewhere. Like you said, that person uh started back squatting with 140. That's great for them, but okay, they're in an exception to the rule. They already had a solid back squat from day one. But um especially it was for reps. That's that's crazy. I've never heard of of that. But well done. Well done to that genetic phenom. Um and uh yeah, the the one thing that I do worry a little bit about is that I like you am also over 200 lb and for every additional pound I actually wrote an article on it. Um it's an additional four pounds of stress on your knee uh for every additional pound of body weight that you on each knee I believe that you that you gain. Um that that for me is a little bit a little bit scary and like like you said like when I was eight or growing up I played really good sport. I would jump up and down for smashes for whatnot and not be worried because I was a I was a lightweight I was a lightweight individual. But now I'm a little bit more worried about jumping up and down for a smash for running for the ball. Um I I got a question though. So at the age of eight, were you focused on bulking? No. No, you weren't. But relatively speaking, were you gaining body mass relative to your total size? And did anyone break down the physics as to, oh [ __ ] you just increased 10% of your body mass in the last 6 months? Um, and do you know what that does to your knees? No, bro. You were still jumping. Like again, I I think that sometimes um you know that's that's there was this study um that a friend of mine that I went to school with uh he went into PT school. I did not. He shared this thing when we got out of school. It was a it was a study that showed that lower back uh compressive forces, lumbar compress uh compressive forces are five times greater in a box squat relative to the same weight done on a traditional full eccentric and concentric squat. And like I don't doubt that, right? You're like wedging your lower back between a bar and an immovable object. Like it makes sense that compression spikes considerably. Cool. Um, but like anyone who's really coached people knows that even when someone's back is kind of bugging them, usually box squats are way better tolerated than full squats. I don't give a [ __ ] what the total forces are. We've learned that like adding that information is maybe pulling us away from the outcome that we're looking for, right? And I think likewise, like respect impact, don't get me wrong. Like do not get me wrong. Yes, [ __ ] can like catastrophic [ __ ] can happen from impact. However, you are more prone to that negative outcome from not doing it than doing it. So, if you're at all worried, just start slower, but still look to add to it. And the crazy thing is when you look at actual plyometric programming and you start to look at people who really specialize in this a ton and you look at what their daily volumes are, man, a jumper in college does more plyometrics in a day than I do in a month. Like it's insane. Our ability to tolerate these greater volumes. And then if you even look at like if they're a a jumper in college, the the forces again, if we take that half second snapshot, even though they're much lighter than me, they are absorbing and producing far more far greater forces than I am. That's an important thing to recognize. They're lighter than me, yet they're absorbing and mitigating greater forces than me. So like, sure, I'm heavier, which might be like a consideration, but I'm also just not as powerful as them. So, I'm not exposing myself to those same forces. Um, so again, I do think sometimes that's a little bit of like uh like a mental masturbation that might get you away from the direction that you actually need to go. I'm not saying it's false. I'm saying that uh sometimes we may take that fact and and let it settle and be like, "Oh my god, man. I'm bulking right now." So, like, how bro, your body's adjusting. As long as it's not novel or the rate of change isn't massive. As long as you're not going from three sets of your broad jumps to 10, as long as you're not going from no plyometrics to doing four different ones for multiple sets on the same day, right? outside of these scenarios, like I don't need someone like again, are my recommendations going to be that different for someone who weighs um 80 kilos versus 110? Honestly, not really. Like, do I think either of them should start aggressively? No. Despite the fact that one guy's 30 kilos lighter, like I don't think he should start more aggressively. And then should they progress very rapidly? No, bro. Take it slow. And I think it's not so different when if we were to look at like the biomechanical forces present uh as you change direction in a back squat. We could be like, "Oh man, those forces really," Especially when we utilize the stretch shortening cycle, man, those forces spike. And then with every pound you add, it's more downward momentum that then needs to be reversed. We could be like, "Okay, we actually want to pause at the bottom of every single back squat because we don't want that that elastic force to increase total forces by a huge margin." But again, if we're progressing at a rate that is sensible, you're exposing your body to that and it will adapt to that, you know. Um, so I'm not I'm not dismissing the work that you did with that and it's probably very real, but I think that again when we look at most people's barriers to pio, it's not like the the barrier really is more imagined or self-imposed than it really is like, man, I should have known how fast I could have added volume to my uh to my pio training and I hurt myself. Like the vast majority of people just go from doing none and then they play pickup basketball which has a ton of plyometric type motions baked into it. Boom. And they blow out their Achilles. And if they just took some of those barriers off and trained a little pio before that, that might not have happened. Yeah. And the Achilles is it's it's hectic. It's a big injury. Um the ACL, all of those are really scary. And I didn't mean to to scare anyone with the four pounds whatever that it it is just something to note like you said um if you tumble at 120 kg versus if you tumble at 50 kg it it can be slightly different the total force but again you get used to it your body adapts all that kind of thing. You mentioned the difference between an 80 kg and 110 kg person. Would uh that brings me nicely onto the next question. How would you say it should be different for genders for man versus female? Should should they be training quite in a similar fashion or do you think it should be actually gender specific? What are what is your programming for? For sure. And I also I didn't mean to come off as like overly abrasive with that last one. Um I just Okay. Okay. Because I I I love to actually just be very positive with that and I and I like to have people excited to get into it. You know what I mean? Um, so especially something like pio, I think they're so much more accessible than most people think. So I just like to throw it out there. I'm not I'm not attacking that in any way. Absolutely. It's more so I want to welcome people to take shackles off and just get out and jump. Um, 100%. No, if I if I taken if I started like with the inhibitions myself, then I would never would have started the pliers. Even though I'm doing basics, I'm like 20 kg heavier than I used to be at school. I'll be like, "Okay, well, I used to jump around and play jump in sports and whatnot, and I'm not playing sport anymore, so I should be scared of jumping and falling and hurting, but I'm not not there yet." So, yeah. So, carrying on trying to build up the ability and the get rid of the inhibitions to feel comfortable to take that uh really high ball, jump as high as I can, and land safely. And the only way to do that is to practice or to lose 20 kg which I really don't feel like doing for sure. The practice is huge. Practice it. Yeah. To bring it to your last question uh training genders differently. Um I actually think that there is a lot of predatory information out there um as it relates to training females. Um, I think that I think that people have a desire to feel heard and to feel uh unique and have their uh differences recognized. Um, but sort of like I've gotten into with a lot of my different exercises and stuff, I really bake that into my training regardless of whether those differences are gender or limb lengths, um, experience level, what have you. So, there's a lot of different ways, you know, I I really approach a lot of my training with autoregulation. I have people really focus uh very intently on their ramp up or their warm-up sets um and allow that to give them valid information in terms of load selection for that given day. Um, so I, you know, I think that a lot of these differences as it relates to to men and women, I'm not sure what element you might have been alluding to, if any. Uh, you know, some might talk about like plyometrics and the Q angle of the hip. Um, some might be talking about how training will differ male to female, uh, with a monthly cycle. While there is limited data on that, the data doesn't seem to be overly clear in the sense that two women will experience the same exact thing at a at the same exact phase of their cycle. And what I think would account for all of that is a focus on auto regulation, on uh really gauging how you feel when you walk in and letting your warm-up sets dictate uh you know how much total load we place on our system based on how those lighter weights move. Um and I think that that's going to work whether I have an outlier uh for her ovulation phase or or whatever, right? And I also think that there's an element of like I don't need to ask you when you're ovulating to train you well, right? Like I just don't think when people are are forthright with information, that's one thing, but I'm not going to be like, "Okay, for me to write you the perfect program, you have to tell me what days you're bleeding and like, dude, no. Hell no." Right? I think that a lot of that comes off uh as more predatory. Like it's just not necessary. And even if we were programming off your cycle, what happens if it's supposed to be a heavy day, but other elements of your life happened and you're a bit behind on sleep and overstressed? You're if you're a good coach, you're going to have them autoregulate anyways. So why are we circumventing that process? Like just focus on that process and it will account for all of that. Um, so I think I I I really bake in a lot of differences uh from the get-go with different, you know, how we uh execute different exercises, how we uh, you know, our exercise selection or even the order of the exercises and how that individual may have certain goals uh or a history that you know causes them to do one exercise sooner in their daily plan than others. I think there's lots of differences we can take there and I just take it more as like a persontoperson thing as opposed to ah this is how I train guys this is how I train girls um yeah that does that does that answer it does it does I think I I butchered the question a little bit but you make perfect sense I think you've answered it anyway with the auto regulation with the person specific stuff so the exact question just for reference was do you see a difference in how male and female athletes respond to strength training or should we throw out gender specific programming? But I think you more or less answered that we should probably throw out gender specific programming. Train everyone the same but have each person train for themselves with their own auto regulation and be unique to each person. One woman should not train like the like a man and that man should not train like another man unless they're identical twins maybe. Who knows? But besides Yeah. So more identical goals like you know I sure on average more women come to me saying they want bigger glutes right than than guys when I'm discussing goals but if a guy tells me he wants bigger glutes I get it's going to you know two people with similar goals regardless of gender I'm going to train very similarly. No 100%. That makes perfect sense. and then we are going to wrap up soon. But what role do isometrics play in your programming and why do you think they're valuable? Um yeah, so I think there's a lot of different applications of something like isometrics. Um with my online programming, I have like a subscription base uh for jiu-jitsu and this month we're focusing on mat strength. I think a good amount of mat strength comes from our ability to produce force isometrically when you're looking at submission holds and things like that. Um, very seldom do those submissions uh work over a short time frame. You have to apply it uh over a considerable amount of time. And honestly, most uh skilled technicians that you get to will ramp that isometric strength and not go really hard from the get-go and slope off, but instead they start a bit lighter and and ramp up the the application of that strength as they go. So, I have a couple, you know, some like yielding and overcoming isometrics. I think uh you know I've just got some of that sprinkled into my online subscription this month. Um uh I also think that it can be useful in a strength context. If someone has like a sticking point or whatever, you could spend more time there uh to potentially build some strength. There's also a ton of relevance for tendon health. Um, I think a lot of times when someone has a ten, you know, a particular tendinopathy that they're dealing with, um, again, ramping those isometrics can get them to where they're actually loading those fibers without necessarily, uh, irritating them as much, uh, allowing you to elicit adaptation and potentially get them out of this cycle of that tendonopathy. Um, so I think there's a lot of relevance. And then there's just also a general pain reduction element. Um, something that I like for achy knees are things like uh wall sits or a mid thigh pull. Uh, those things tend to decrease that pain response for a bit, give us a window where we can train. If you then load those structures within that pain-free or reduced pain window, you can oftenimes again break that cycle and get them out of it. So, lots of useful uh applications for isometrics. They're not something that are like, you know, that I put into every program all the time, but there are a wide array of uses where I find them valuable. They sound quite valuable and it sounds like you're programming them as such, so they're getting the respect they deserve. And then last two questions. Um, how do you encourage athletes, you can just go quite quickly on these two. How do you encourage athletes to balance math time with strength strength and conditioning for optimal performance and recovery? And then lastly, maybe you can tie them together. As someone who's worked with worldclass athletes, what's the biggest difference you see between elite and average competitors? Cool. I'll start with the last question because it's faster. Um I think uh the biggest difference I could boil down to is my role. Uh so with an elite athlete, um I find that I have to be the brakes far more often than the gas. whether it's an average practitioner or somebody who doesn't really do any sports, oftentimes I have to push them into certain areas uh where they may not want to go. The elite competitor is like, tell me where to go and I will do it until my arms fall off. And at that, you know, at that level, I really have to tell them, hey, this contrast is important. There are times we're going to push really hard. There are times where, not because you don't want it, not because you're soft, not for any of those things that you might tell yourself, we're going to take a step back because ultimately, I'm not trying to turn you into a powerlifter or a bodybuilder or anything else. You are a jiu-jitsu athlete. That is our focus. So, we're trying to limit fatigue here so you can still excel at that thing. And that can sort of segue into that first question where um you know first off I write my programs with a very uh modest amount of uh total volume. Um not to go like on the deep end of like you know the Paul Carter type thing. I do higher reps and stuff but I just mean total total set volume um is you know not all that high. Um, I'm also aware of things that may cause them to burn their candle from both ends, uh, for lack of a better phrase. So, like doing a, you know, a lot of them are terrified of gassing out. So, if left to their own devices, they'll just do a ton of like interval conditioning work and like honestly that's just not generally what they need. And it overlaps so much with what they do on the mats. It can oftenimes be quite fatigue inducing. So, I limit that. I try to give them a little bit of what they want um but really sneak in a ton of what they need and with the stuff that what they need. Um I one final note with that is if you are spread amongst the general qualities of training um the general qualities I break down into strength, flexibility, uh endurance and velocity. If you're hitting your lowhanging fruit across those four uh variables, it is very hard to to push one of them so hard that it induces a ton of fatigue. If some of your daily volume is broken up, you know, on a day where I have, you know, today with I I train a group of uh highle competitors uh tonight actually um and if I look at their plan, today is a day where they start with two plyometric exercises. So today is a day where they don't actually have accessory work uh with um any sort of like single joint stuff, right? So like some of their daily volume is soaked up with plyometrics which tend to not be all that fatigue inducing. It's just two exercises and then it's their regular strength work. So because we have those other variables in there, there's never really the ability for us to like hammer one variable so hard that it induces a [ __ ] ton of fatigue. I also do full body training. So again, we're not going to be doing a leg day where they're getting, you know, 8 to 12 sets of quad focused work. Like not even close. Today for if we just look at quad focused work, they have uh three sets of eight on uh dumbbell uh Bulgarian split squat. That's their only quad focused work today, right? So three sets there. Yeah. I mean, if you're pushing the effort level pretty high, that's a good amount of work for sure a relevant stimulus. But three sets of eight, especially because they've been doing these, it's it's not going to kill them. Uh, and everything else, you know, we have a row variation, we have a press variation, um, three sets of each of those. It's very manageable and it's spread throughout the body across a couple different variables. So, it's not enough that uh if you've been running this program that this should ever be excessive for fatigue or soreness. So uh to answer your question and sort of uh summarize that I split it amongst the relevant general variables. Um I split it across uh body parts on any given session. So there just tends to not be any area where fatigue will tend to accumulate in any negative way in one area allowing them to still train their sport at a very high effort level. And I think that whether or not they communicate it like that, a good strength coach for any sports team uh or sports organization or whatever will be doing that uh you know again regardless of how they communicate it or whatever else. That makes perfect sense. So it sounds like it's all down to the programming in the end. Having good programming is super important. You mentioned overtraining there um in fewer words, but I've seen some bodybuilding programs uh that are totally excessive like 25 uh exercises, separate exercises in one day for for and like 22 of them being chest. Um and uh but anyway, we'll we'll pretend like those don't exist, but they do. I've seen them. Uh they're terrifying. Higher higher volumes for a single day. I have six exercises today. Yeah. Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me too. I do five or six. Yeah. And two of those are pio which go which go by quick, you know. So four compound movements, man. It's a nice bang for your buck session. Touch on a little bit of everything. Get them out of here. They feel good when they leave. They can train hard tomorrow. That's important. And I also love full body. I think it's also something that's often missed. I understand why you'd as a bodybuilder maybe want to do the split. Um, but I still think that there's definitely room even in bodybuilding for full body. Um, but yeah, I think full body, especially if you're doing u other training like Brazilian jiu-jitsu or another sport, it just helps not being completely gassed in your legs and then having to do the sport on top of that. So, I think that full body is a great way to kind of allow your body to adapt to the stimulus and everything and still perform with your sport at a good level. And then finally, what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own journey of muscle growth, strength, and or Brazilian jiu-jitsu, martial arts, etc. Um, okay. So, parting words of wisdom for anybody embarking on their own journey. Um, I sort of got through this a ton. Uh, and this is something that I would provide for you if you were one of my clients. Identify those barriers. try to work through them. There may be an appropriate time to work around them, right? But if we have those barriers, those limitations, those fears, they're very real to us. But I think the most freeing thing that we can do is actively working on and through those things. View them like a trauma that we've experienced. Just like that example that I brought up, it's not useful to identify that trauma and never address it and avoid it, right? you identify the trauma, you identify the triggers and everything else, then you find an appropriate way to directly headon work through it. Um, and I think once we do that, we start to eliminate some of those barriers that we have, it's a much more freeing experience. And if we're trying to really celebrate what our body can do and get better at different things, um, that is the good feeling that we get from training. Sure, a lot of us maybe initially came in purely for aesthetics. Maybe some of us that are listening still exclusively train for aesthetics. But it's really really cool when we have one of those barriers even in an aesthetic way. I had I had uh you know a shoulder injury in college for the longest time. Thought that I couldn't do lateral raises because of that. My delts you know never really looked all that good. Lately I've been hitting uh lat raises and I've been slamming them hard. And even from an aesthetic standpoint I'm very pleased with how my delts have been progressing. But it comes from that direct thing of of taking that that formerly assumed I can't do this type of exercise and working through that trauma and getting that benefit. It feels very good. It's a very intrinsically uh like rewarding Absolutely. Well, Alex, thank you so much for your time and your effort. You've been truly phenomenal and I can't wait to see more of you online and please keep up the amazing work. keep telling those glass backs how it is and keep producing amazing Brazilian jiu-jitsu artists and um other martial artists and strength people, etc. Thank you. So, 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 fivestar 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 at repswithroco for more insights, exclusive content, and full episodes. Visit the musclepodcast.com. Your support truly makes a difference. So, please like, share, comment, and follow. We're grateful for every bit of it. Until next time, keep pushing your limits and staying focused on getting bigger, stronger, and better.