What Is The Fitness Menopause? | Modern Wisdom Podcast 173

Yusef 0:00 So I- I've got quite strong views on this, which is that everybody wants to be a bodybuilder.

Jonny 0:06 (laughs)

Yusef 0:06 But nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weight.

Jonny 0:08 Have you ever spent weeks trying to improve your hammer curl, for example?

Yusef 0:12 (laughs)

Jonny 0:12 Because you, because you were t- you read an article on T Nation th- that spoke about how it attacked the biceps slightly differently, and you felt like that was what your life was missing? If you know who Zyzz is?

Chris Williamson 0:21 If you know who Zyzz is, yeah, that's it.

Jonny 0:22 That's it. Like that's the, that's the certificate.

Chris Williamson 0:24 That's the ƒ.

Jonny 0:24 Like if, if you know who Zyzz is, this'll all completely make sense-

Chris Williamson 0:26 Make sense.

Jonny 0:27 ... to you, and you'll just be sat there nodding along.

Yusef 0:28 Did the squats and milk program, which is ... So three times a week, you take your 10 rep max, you do a set of 10, and then you keep the bar on your back and you take five to 10 deep breaths, and you do another rep, and you keep doing that until you hit 20. And then you have a gallon of milk a day. So I was having a gallon of whole milk, 4.7 liters-

Chris Williamson 0:44 (laughs)

Yusef 0:44 ... of whole milk every day, just sat in class. And I remember doing this and, like, throwing up raspberry whey down my top while I had the bar on my back.

Chris Williamson 0:53 (laughs) .

Yusef 0:53 Doing these, like, squats and milk, being so out of breath.

Chris Williamson 0:58 (wind blowing) I'm joined by Jonny and Yusuf from propanefitness.com. Look at that.

Jonny 1:06 Hello.

Chris Williamson 1:07 So good to see you. Are you doing some boxing?

Jonny 1:10 I was just enjoying the, the effect.

Chris Williamson 1:12 You're like a-

Jonny 1:13 It's quite impressive, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:13 ... like a cat. Uh, today, we are talking about the fitness menopause. It's something that we've dropped on podcasts for the last couple of years. I'll start off. I'll try and give a, a broad definition so everyone knows what we're talking about, and then we'll, we'll take it from there. So, fitness menopause was something that I'd identified within myself toward my late 20s when I'd been doing bro lifting, fitness stuff, bodybuilding for a while, and realized as I became chronically aware of my own mortality as I approached 30, uh, realized that I was getting out of breath going up a, a big hill and I was kind of a little bit bored of just doing, you know, chest Mondays and chest Tuesdays and chest Wednesdays and curls and stuff like that, and training purely for aesthetics. And I was just disenchanted. I kind of lost my love with training. Um, certainly lost the motivation to do it without really grinding myself to get out of bed and, and go to the gym. Um, so then just started trying to do different things. The fitness menopause describes a period, I think, in a lot of fitness people's lives, who perhaps have just entered into the world of training by doing bodybuilding or bro style lifting, um, from just the age of teens or early 20s or whatever, and then never tried anything else. And as they approach their late 20s, they think, "Oh, hang on. Like, this, this maybe isn't fulfilling me in quite the way that I thought." How do you think about that as a definition? You reckon that's about right?

Yusef 2:48 I, I mean, that's about right. It, it applies to a very specific subsection of people. And a- are we Millennials or are we-

Chris Williamson 2:55 No, we're technically ... Yeah, it's '84, '84 till '96.

Yusef 3:00 Eigh- okay. So, so I think in that case then, (clears throat) Millennials tend to fall into this bracket quite well because there was this surge of the popularity of weightlifting, bodybuilding, that kind of stuff, kind of coinciding with like T Nation's rise and fall and then bodybuilding.com and all of these like, um, like Simply Shredded.

Jonny 3:19 Z-Zero.

Yusef 3:19 Remember that? Yeah.

Jonny 3:20 Oh god. Simply Shredded is fucking wild.

Chris Williamson 3:21 Jesus Christ.

Yusef 3:23 (laughs) So all, all of those kinda things.

Chris Williamson 3:26 (clears throat) .

Yusef 3:26 And so most 18 to 22 year old guys got swept up in this, and usually it was the only kind of physical activity they did apart from maybe five a side, which is the other like (laughs) most popular young male activity.

Jonny 3:43 (laughs) .

Yusef 3:43 Um-

Jonny 3:44 I've h- I've, I've heard.

Yusef 3:47 ... standard issue. (laughs) So yeah, I, I think most people will have gone through a few years of that. And Jonny and I always say that the minimum entry requirement to even consider having been in fitness menopause or gone through it is you have to have done three to five years of pec deck and leg press.

Jonny 4:05 (laughs)

Yusef 4:06 (laughs)

Jonny 4:07 That's, that's just how I think. Like, anyone that like ... You know when you feel like you're one of these people who did something before it was cool? So I think we all did fitness before it was cool.

Chris Williamson 4:16 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 4:16 And now there's loads of people wanting to do fitness 'cause it's a bit cool. So like people are getting into the s- the strength sports and starting. And you just think like, "You're just missing-"

Chris Williamson 4:23 You mean, you mean real, real fitness?

Jonny 4:25 Real-

Yusef 4:25 You haven't had the induction. (laughs)

Jonny 4:26 You haven't had like the, like h- have you ever spent weeks trying to improve your hammer curl, for example?

Chris Williamson 4:32 (laughs)

Jonny 4:32 Because you, because you were t- you read an article on T Nation th- that spoke about how it slightly attacked the biceps slightly differently-

Chris Williamson 4:39 Yeah.

Jonny 4:39 ... and you felt like that was what your life was missing?

Chris Williamson 4:41 Did you-

Jonny 4:42 And you went-

Chris Williamson 4:42 Did you practice two kilogram, uh, Arnold press just so that you could really get the form down?

Jonny 4:49 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:49 Um, yeah. So y- you're totally right. Here's my reasoning for why I think people fall into bodybuilding. Timing's one of them, so definitely if you're anyone probably n- now in 2020 between the age of 26 and 34, probably you'll have been, uh, seeing this rise, T Nation, bodybuilding.com, Muscle and Fitness, stuff like that.

Jonny 5:12 It's if you know, if you know who Zyzz is.

Chris Williamson 5:14 If you know who Zyzz is, yeah, that's it.

Jonny 5:15 That's it. Like that's the, that's the certificate.

Chris Williamson 5:17 That's the ƒ.

Jonny 5:17 Like if, if you know who Zyzz is, this'll all completely make sense-

Chris Williamson 5:20 Make sense.

Jonny 5:20 ... to you, and you'll just be sat there nodding along. If you don't know who Zyzz is, this will be like, "What? I quite like fitness."

Chris Williamson 5:25 Mm, go g- go Google him.

Jonny 5:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 5:26 Um, yeah. So here's my reasoning. Uh, timing's one of them. Um, but my other reason, and this is why I, I think the front end of the bodybuilding and fitness training, that kind of fitness training funnel continues to get good traffic in the front end (clears throat) is that it's the type of training with the lowest mechanical barriers to entry and the lowest amount of skill requirement of any physical sport on the planet. Now I can take anyone who's listening, I can take your mom-... into the gym tomorrow, teach her a supinated bicep curl to probably within about 80% of the compliance and proficiency that I can do it in after 15 years of training.

Jonny 6:07 Yeah.

Yusef 6:07 And you can increase her back width, get her a sick taper-

Chris Williamson 6:10 (laughs)

Yusef 6:10 ... um-

Chris Williamson 6:11 Get her jacked. Get your mum jacked so that she looks real mean when she's walking the dog. But yeah, the, the barriers to entry to doing bodybuilding are so, so low and people don't like doing stuff that they suck at, you know? Like think about weightlifting. The snatch is essentially an impossible movement. Like it's completely ridiculous.

Jonny 6:30 Physically impossible.

Chris Williamson 6:31 And, and s- and some people just do that and another one all their life. You know, Klokov.

Yusef 6:38 And they're still not- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:38 Klokov just does variations of snatch and clean and jerk, and he's like, he's in his 40s and h- and still massive, but you get my point.

Yusef 6:46 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:46 Like people don't like doing stuff that's challenging mechanically 'cause they feel silly.

Jonny 6:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:50 Whereas you can go into a gym tomorrow and get externalized rewards, socialized rewards, don't really need to worry about what the, what the internalized gains are. It's like, "Oh well, I can't really touch my toes anymore and maybe my shoulder aches a bit, but look at that, I've gained an inch on my chest."

Jonny 7:07 Well, we've all been involved in han- like a big guy in the gym, you're like 19, big guy in the gym who's been like strutting around working up to a big set of incline dumbbell press. And he comes up, he goes like, "Mate, just hand over the dumbbells for us, please." And you have to pick up the dumbbell and give it to him, and then you watch him go... (imitates set grunting)

Chris Williamson 7:24 (laughs) Partial rep.

Jonny 7:27 Yeah. Because he feels good at it because he can just set his own rules. Like no one's checking his form on his incline dumbbell press. It's like, "Well, I lifted the biggest dumbbells in the gym, mate." So I'm just going-

Yusef 7:36 So that's the, the, the, that's like the, the entry level, isn't it? The way you can, you can even set your own rules for range of motion and everything else. Powerlifting is kind of the next level up, but it still is very much unfortunately like the, the sport for non-athletes.

Chris Williamson 7:50 (laughs)

Jonny 7:51 And, and it's, it's, it's why it's got the, um, the reputation of like at least a beginner and kind of low intermediate level is that it, it's just got the reputation of like people who were never any good at any other sport or athletic activity.

Chris Williamson 8:04 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 8:05 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 8:05 And just kind of-

Chris Williamson 8:05 But it's not wildly athletic, is it?

Jonny 8:08 Well, no, and it allows people to justify being, being fat, not being able to touch their toes, like all of the kind of things that would normally just not fly in another sport. But instead it's, it's almost-

Chris Williamson 8:19 Poor diet, too much caffeine, Haribo during training.

Yusef 8:22 ... it's an advantage, like at, at, like at competition, you see people that clearly do not need like intra-workout or intra-competition, um, Haribo and burgers and stuff, and then they go, go out for McDonald's at the end of the... having done nine reps that day-

Chris Williamson 8:34 (laughs)

Jonny 8:34 ... for the competition.

Chris Williamson 8:35 (laughs)

Jonny 8:36 So I'm going to be... I am going to defend powerlifting here. I feel like-

Chris Williamson 8:39 Of course you are.

Jonny 8:39 ... people will be expecting me to.

Chris Williamson 8:41 Yeah.

Jonny 8:41 I completely agree with that until you reach like national level, especially like national level in the US and then international level.

Yusef 8:49 100%.

Jonny 8:50 Like when you, when you bump into a Polish bloke who's pulling like 410 with like neck striations, and you're like, that guy is-

Yusef 8:57 What, what's happened there is that you, you've got someone who actually-

Jonny 8:59 ... you're quite athletic.

Yusef 9:00 Yeah, that's someone who is an athlete and is, you've put them into a sport which-

Jonny 9:04 Well, often when you look at it, like when you look at their background, it's like, so like Tom Martin, you look at his background and you're like, "Ah, yeah, 100 meter sprinter. Yeah, of cour- of, of course." But like people who like fell out of... It's, uh, I think the people who, who tend to like get like it, like were doing rugby at a really high level, stop playing rugby, and then they're like, "Oh well, I, I lift weights, I might as well just do that." And then before they know it, they're like podiuming-

Chris Williamson 9:26 Yeah.

Jonny 9:26 ... at a national level, and they can't really figure out why.

Chris Williamson 9:28 The, uh-

Jonny 9:29 It's like where, where has the competition gone? Um... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:30 This, this, and it's a good, it's a good point about the low end level on powerlifting, but being honest, like watch a shite Sunday league football team play. You know, you're not, you're not exactly going to be watching fucking Cristiano Ronaldo go at it. So you're right, at the bottom end of that. But at least those football players aren't just picking the ball up and running with it and saying, "Oh well, mate, this is actually a little bit better for my pec development, so, um, it doesn't really matter."

Jonny 9:54 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:54 So yeah, I think that's why the, the two main reasons are, uh, path of least resistance, that it's kind of quite well known and easy to do and easily accessible, and you can get a membership at some big corporate gym for like 15 pounds a month, which i- which is phenomenal, right? Like you know, the fact that you can get 24-hour gym memberships in a city for 15 quid a month is just insane.

Jonny 10:17 Insane, yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:17 Um, but they're going in there to do, you know, what do you think a typical bodybuilding program consists of? Maybe 25 movements? Like 25 main movements?

Jonny 10:31 Yeah. Five days a week.

Chris Williamson 10:33 Five exercises a day.

Jonny 10:34 Five exercises each. Yeah. Something like that.

Chris Williamson 10:37 Yeah.

Jonny 10:37 I mean, yeah. It's, I, I, I just think that like people who are starting the fitness journey now, it's just shit for them. Like it was way better back when no one really knew what the crack was-

Chris Williamson 10:48 (laughs)

Jonny 10:48 ... and there was, there was like-

Chris Williamson 10:49 When you could go years without making any progress.

Jonny 10:52 But like in the back of your mind, like I remember spending 40 quid on Surge workout fuel from TN Nation pretty, pretty confident that it was bullshit. But there's that thing in the back of your mind of like, "Yeah, but what if it is the type of carbohydrate in there?"

Chris Williamson 11:06 (laughs)

Jonny 11:06 Like what if it is the fact that it is leucine-

Chris Williamson 11:08 It's the new frontier.

Jonny 11:08 ... it is leucine rich, and this is going to be the thing for me. This is going to be like when everyone's looking at me going, "Fuck, have you seen the progress Jonny's made?" It'll be 'cause of Surge workout fuel.

Yusef 11:18 Remember thinking like, "Oh, it's got cyclic dextrins and maybe that's exactly what..." And then you look it up and it's like it's the main component in Febreze spray.

Chris Williamson 11:29 (laughs)

Jonny 11:31 (laughs) Yeah.

Yusef 11:32 And you're like, "Is this the anabolic secret that I need?"

Jonny 11:33 I remember reading, I remember figuring out like, uh, is it anthocyanin? The ingredient in EGO3G. When you look at some blueberry yogurts and they've got anthocyanin in it and you're like, "Mm, okay, may- like maybe it's not that..." When like my-

Chris Williamson 11:46 Right.

Jonny 11:46 ... Onken yogurt also has a bit of it in, like it's probably not that special.

Yusef 11:51 But, but then you look over and your mum's eating some and she's just got like striations in her bicep and you're like-

Jonny 11:55 Like sh- separation between a bicep and tricep. You're like, "Hold on."

Yusef 11:57 ... "Can I have some of that?"

Chris Williamson 11:59 (laughs) "Mum, how long have you been eating that blueberry yogurt from Uncle?"

Yusef 12:02 (laughs) "Uh, I don't know."

Chris Williamson 12:03 "Uh, f- fucking massive. Uh, well, you better go clean your room." Um, yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 12:08 Okay, Mum. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:09 So, so, okay, so that's, that's why I think people fall into kind of, like I say, this path of least resistance. And here's the question that I want most people that are listening to try and answer, and it is, if you're doing a bodybuilding program or if most of your training f- uh, career has been spent doing bodybuilding, typical bro-style training as a guy or a girl, do you like bodybuilding or do you like exercising? Because those are not the same thing.

Yusef 12:40 Yeah, so I've, I've got quite strong views on this, um, which is that everybody wants to be a bodybuilder- ... but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weight. No, my m- my, my thought is that everyone has-

Chris Williamson 12:54 (laughs) Jonny's lost it. (laughs)

Jonny 12:58 It's true. It's one of the, the ancient axioms, isn't it, of like-

Chris Williamson 13:01 Yeah. (laughs)

Jonny 13:02 ... written in stone by Ron Coleman, PhD.

Yusef 13:05 Ronald. (laughs)

Jonny 13:06 Ron, Ron Coleman-

Chris Williamson 13:06 Coleman.

Jonny 13:07 ... et al.

Chris Williamson 13:07 Ah.

Yusef 13:08 So the reality is that everyone has bodybuilding goals. There is such a small percentage of the world, and th- they're, they're like a weird kind of like fetish group, aren't they, like feeders and that kind of thing, that don't want-

Chris Williamson 13:22 What are bodybuilders?

Yusef 13:23 Less fat and more muscle. So they, yeah, they're like 0.01% of people that have this weird fetish or what have like an inverse bodybuilding goal, but-

Jonny 13:32 It's still a bodybuilding goal.

Yusef 13:33 ... it's still (laughs) -

Chris Williamson 13:34 Okay, I'm gonna... Let me rephrase, let me rephrase the way that I put it. Do you like bodybuilding training or do you like-

Jonny 13:42 I see.

Chris Williamson 13:42 ... exercise?

Jonny 13:43 So I, I think that probably most people, I think the number of people who like exercise probably don't like it because it's exercise, if you see what I mean. Like they don't... No one likes bodybuilding necessarily, no one really likes even like the more modern stuff. Like I know people get really obsessed with certain aspects of powerlifting, certain aspects of CrossFit. They just like what they think it's going to do for them or what they kind of get out of it. So they get a little bit of props on social media, people share their new lift, they hit a new Fran time. Um, and I, my experience has been throughout fitness, like I desperately wanted abs because I was convinced that that was gonna improve my life. Got it, and I was like, "Mm, no." And then I desperately wanted a 300 kilo deadlift because I was like, "Well, that means I win if I got a 300 kilo deadlift." Got it and was like, "Mm, okay." And then like the goals just kind of drift past and you're like, "Well, I could get lean again, but doesn't really do much for me. Like I could add 10 kilos to my deadlift, but like that'd be a proper faff."

Yusef 14:44 That's maybe what fueled the fitness menopause for you, is that you have to, uh, you have to hit all these big achievements and then-

Jonny 14:50 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 14:50 ... you're like, "Mm, didn't rea-" Yeah, this is exactly the same.

Jonny 14:52 Well, so I, I think that people go, people attach onto a mode of exercise because they, they believe that the outcome of it will be a huge deal for them. And it, to be honest, it is. Like I, I think that probably what, what I've gained from fitness is, is a big deal. But you kind of hit these milestones and then you think, "All right, well, I'm kind of done with bodybuilding now. Like I've, I've done it, I've taken a progress photo, I'm really happy. Maybe I should start doing something that's competitive. Maybe I'll get into triathlons or..."

Chris Williamson 15:18 I think, I think there's a good point to be made there about the fact that you kind of do need to pay your dues. If you've got this unticked box with regards to physical development in some other area, it is a good idea to tick that first. It's that Naval Ravikant-ism where he says, "It is far easier to achieve your material desires than to recount them." And it's like-

Yusef 15:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:40 ... I would much sooner not w- not be bothered about being lean because I've been lean than not-

Yusef 15:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:46 ... bothered about being lean just because I gave up, you know?

Jonny 15:49 (clears throat)

Yusef 15:50 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:50 Yeah.

Yusef 15:50 'Cause y- you'll always have that like sense in the back of your head.

Chris Williamson 15:52 "I wonder, wonder what it's like if I'm s- single digit body fat." Um, s- but, uh-

Yusef 15:56 Yeah, so, uh, I... Like, like Jonny definitely ticks that box hard in that like, you know, you, you went to, you competed at Worlds and then, you know, then realized that actually like placing at Worlds and winning Worlds is so much more effort compared to getting there.

Chris Williamson 16:13 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 16:13 The, like... 'Cause the, the curve of like, um, return on investment suddenly, like, flatters so much.

Chris Williamson 16:19 For the people that don't know, what is Worlds?

Yusef 16:21 World champion.

Jonny 16:23 It's, it's just the top, it's just the mo- the, like the highest level in IPF. But like honestly, like-

Chris Williamson 16:29 Which is?

Jonny 16:29 Which is what?

Chris Williamson 16:30 What's IPF?

Jonny 16:31 Oh, um, so there's the International Powerlifting Federation, which is often seen as being like the, like the, the best one to be in 'cause it, the r- the rules are the most strict. They've got stringent drug testing and all that sort of stuff. Um, I think they're technically like the most strict on depth and like what you can and can't do in the bench press and all that sort of stuff. Then there's the GBPF and there's the EPF, which is the European Powerlifting Federation. So if you place at Nationals, you go to Europeans. If you do all right at Europeans, you can sometimes be selected for Worlds. So that happened to me.

Chris Williamson 16:59 And you made it to Worlds and you've got GB, uh, singular T-shirts-

Jonny 17:03 I do.

Chris Williamson 17:04 ... all that stuff.

Jonny 17:04 The, the whole thing. To be honest, I think it's because Tom Martin couldn't do it that year.

Chris Williamson 17:08 (laughs)

Jonny 17:09 Like seriously. Um, but-

Chris Williamson 17:11 Thanks, Tom.

Jonny 17:11 ... you know, at least I, at least I'm honest about that. I think I, I get really riled up by people who, I'm gonna offend some people here, I get really riled up by p- You've got like people who are legit, like really strong, been training a long time, r- that should be at Worlds, and then you've got people who get to Worlds because a, a, a sort of an administrative process that where a box needed to be, like a form, someone needed to fill a form in, so you've gone to Worlds. And like I just don't think they're the same thing personally. But y- anyway, um, (laughs) so like that's-

Chris Williamson 17:41 I can hear you.

Jonny 17:42 ... that's me.

Chris Williamson 17:42 I can hear your tiptoeing around the issue that you're trying to get to. (laughs)

Jonny 17:48 So the reason is, the reason is I watched Tony Cliffe in the GBPF Facebook group say something like, I can't remember exactly what he did, but it was something like, um, "Everyone's like, everyone's a paper champion these days." Or everyone's got like a-... everyone's got a medal and everyone's been to Europeans because of, like, they competed where there was only two people in the weight class. And he, he really, really s- like people got really offended. And I can see why they got offended, 'cause he's, he is like discrediting a lot of people.

Chris Williamson 18:15 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 18:16 But the reason why I don't really like sort of saying like, "Oh, in the worlds," because I, I, honestly I don't really feel like I deserve to be there, because I think I went there because Tom Martin did. Like if Tom Martin had gone, he'd have probably medaled, whereas I didn't.

Chris Williamson 18:29 Well I mean-

Jonny 18:30 So like-

Chris Williamson 18:30 ... you have the singlet from that year and not Tom Martin.

Jonny 18:33 That's (laughs) that's true. That's true.

Chris Williamson 18:34 So, you know, say it, say it however you want.

Jonny 18:35 I don't think Tom Martin actually has that singlet at all.

Chris Williamson 18:38 Motherfuck-

Yusef 18:39 He left.

Chris Williamson 18:39 Have you considered getting it framed? Or is it framed?

Jonny 18:42 Yeah, you told me. No, I, I, I, I have it. Like so I have my European one.

Chris Williamson 18:46 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 18:46 And then I have when SBD w- realized like, "Oh, we should really put some money into this." And it stopped just being like a Union Jack like ironed onto a singlet, and it started being like a full, that you couldn't buy. Um, it's just in my drawer.

Chris Williamson 18:59 Dude, you should do it. So I told you this story, Sonny Webster had his from, I think, the Commonwealth and, uh-

Jonny 19:05 And the Olympics.

Chris Williamson 19:06 ... from the Olympics-

Jonny 19:07 So fair enough.

Chris Williamson 19:08 ... framed with da- with like a special bracketed light down-lighting it. And, um, like fuck it man, I think, you know-

Jonny 19:15 I think if I'd been to the Olympics I'd do that too. I just don't see it as the same thing.

Chris Williamson 19:17 Bro, you've been to the highest, you have, you have made it to the peak of the sport-

Jonny 19:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:21 ... that you chose to put most of your fitness career into. I think that you deserve it.

Jonny 19:25 Yeah. Okay. Well thank you. I, I, I, I see why you think that. That's, that's nice.

Chris Williamson 19:29 (laughs) I didn't even like it. (laughs)

Yusef 19:30 Can we just do a little aside, just about Tom Martin? Just because he-

Chris Williamson 19:35 Can we explain who he is? Briefly please.

Yusef 19:37 Yeah. So, so, he-

Chris Williamson 19:37 Because you've dropped his name about 20 times.

Yusef 19:39 He, he, he's a guy who, he went a bit viral like a, a good few years ago now, probably six, seven years ago? Because at 83 kilos he dead lifted 340. And, um-

Chris Williamson 19:50 Is that-

Yusef 19:50 Everyone was-

Chris Williamson 19:51 Yeah.

Yusef 19:51 340 kilograms.

Jonny 19:53 Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 19:54 So, things like-

Jonny 19:55 Think of, think of the heaviest thing you've ever moved in your life. Ever.

Yusef 19:58 (Gasps) Double it. (laughs)

Jonny 19:58 Probably even the heaviest like single object that isn't like a car that you've ever seen in your life, heavier than that. Think like small cow.

Chris Williamson 20:04 (laughs)

Yusef 20:06 (laughs) And so, and, and he, he didn't look like a lifter. He was, he was like came straight out sprinting and just happened to have a freak dead lift. Like obviously a lot of training as well. And then people were commenting being like, "This isn't real," or, "He's on drugs," or whatever. And, and then he started to go up a weight class, competed against Johnny. There's a great video on Instagram of him on the podium doing a, like a juttery dead lift, and then puts it down and the camera just pans to Johnny and he's just going... (laughs)

Jonny 20:35 (laughs)

Yusef 20:36 Um-

Jonny 20:37 'Cause I'd just come off, so I'd just come off the platform after having tried to pull 300 kilos and farted-

Chris Williamson 20:42 (laughs)

Jonny 20:42 ... at Nationals. So like it didn't budge. It didn't even budge because he like (inhales slowly) and then (farts)

Chris Williamson 20:50 (laughs)

Jonny 20:51 I think Youssef heard it 'cause he was standing behind me, but no one else heard it thankfully.

Chris Williamson 20:54 Okay. (laughs) Why did, I mean, what happened there? Did that mean that you lost your bracing tension, or what?

Jonny 20:58 Yeah. You put all this effort-

Chris Williamson 21:00 What because a little bit of fart came out?

Jonny 21:01 No you put, you put a belt on and you cre- trying to create all this like intra-abdominal pressure-

Chris Williamson 21:05 Like how much fart was there?

Yusef 21:07 Bracing.

Jonny 21:07 Just enough to just, just take the edge off.

Yusef 21:09 And you're like, "Ah." 'Cause, 'cause you don't want to-

Jonny 21:11 You need everything, everything to do a max dead lift.

Yusef 21:12 ... what, what's it called? Um, turtle head. Like you, you don't want that, right?

Jonny 21:15 No.

Chris Williamson 21:15 Prairie dogging. You don't want it to be prairie dogging, yeah.

Jonny 21:18 I just missed 300 and then T- Tom comes and has his go, his turn. And-

Yusef 21:23 So this guy, like he, he hit his kind of sprinting menopause, probably, probably at the top of his game regionally with that. Found that he had a, uh, a, what do they call it? A penchant? Pan-

Chris Williamson 21:37 Panchon?

Yusef 21:37 ... for, for deadlifting. Went up a weight class, hit very good levels in the, in the IPF, got sick of all of the, the bollocks around that, got loads of drug accusations, left the IPF, went up like two more weight (laughs) classes and just got absolutely huge and increased his dead lift by like 100 kilos, and-

Chris Williamson 22:00 And then started competing in a non-tested federation.

Jonny 22:02 Yeah.

Yusef 22:03 And I'm guil- I don't think he's ever-

Jonny 22:05 He's never come out and said like, "I've started taking drugs now." But it's quite clear when you leave a tested federation and go and compete in a non-tested federation.

Chris Williamson 22:13 And all your lifts go up. It's fairly clear.

Jonny 22:15 Hugely as well.

Chris Williamson 22:16 Yeah.

Jonny 22:16 It's insa- he's squatting I think over 400 now, be- he's pulled 420.

Chris Williamson 22:21 Tom, shout out man.

Jonny 22:22 The, the two most impressive things he's, I've ever seen him do, one was at that competition where he comes out no hype at all, not e- barely even a facial expression. Misses like a 270 squat in the bottom, so like goes all the way down, tries to drive up, c- can't even budge he like, "Oh hard lines Tom, good try." Third attempt comes out exactly the same weight and smokes it.

Chris Williamson 22:42 (laughs) .

Yusef 22:43 So impressive.

Jonny 22:44 I'm just like, "Oh is this man-"

Chris Williamson 22:45 That was a lot of caffeine that he's had in the, in between the lifts.

Jonny 22:47 And then on, there's a, there's a video on Instagram of him passing out mid-squat. And he, like mid, mid-rep and he still nearly locks it out. Like that's, that's why when people say, or when you also said, "Power lifting's sort of full of people who aren't very athletic." Like there's a video of Tom cleaning 180 like it's nothing.

Yusef 23:03 Oh yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:04 Jesus fucking Christ.

Yusef 23:05 So, so what-

Jonny 23:05 (laughs)

Yusef 23:05 ... yeah what, what I'm saying is like at the beginner and intermediate level, like the, the barriers to entry are very low.

Jonny 23:11 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 23:11 And then as you approach the top-

Jonny 23:13 Yeah.

Yusef 23:13 ... the, the curve flattens so quickly.

Chris Williamson 23:15 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 23:16 And to then go from even at like World's level as you said, to go from at- attending World's, to placing at World's-

Jonny 23:22 Oh.

Yusef 23:22 ... becomes like-

Jonny 23:23 It's an elite, it's a 5-year difference. It's-

Chris Williamson 23:24 An insurmountable task.

Jonny 23:25 Yeah.

Yusef 23:26 Yeah.

Jonny 23:26 You know.

Chris Williamson 23:27 Okay, so that's th- that's I think a nice little bit of framing. So I think again, for the people that are listening, my m- main question is do you enjoy a body building style of training? Do you enjoy chest on a Monday, and legs on a Tuesday, and shoulders on a Wednesday, and blah, blah, blah? Five sets of fucking ten to 14 or whatever it might be, and I'll do me warm ups, and I'll do me external rotations, and all that stuff.

Jonny 23:47 Sevens.

Chris Williamson 23:47 Sevens.

Yusef 23:48 Everyone loves that one.

Jonny 23:48 Partials.

Chris Williamson 23:49 One, two kilo plates on. (laughs)

Jonny 23:50 Do me partials. Um, like is that what you enjoy or do you enjoy exercise? Because especially for a lot of guys that are listening but s- some girls as well, you'll have done a bunch of sports at school, probably after school clubs, something like that. Maybe you played football or rugby or cricket or, you know, America baseball, American football, whatever it might be. And then you get to college or uni...

Chris Williamson 24:13 ... and realize that there's distractions of drinking and partying and getting in relationships and stuff like that. And then you think, "Well, I need something which is flexible in terms of time, doesn't have very many barriers to entry, and bolsters my confidence in a very socialized way rather than in a, an achievement, uh, s- sized way." And, um, I, I just think what it leads a lot of people to do is get to their mid-to-late 20s and think, "Fucking hell, I haven't really actually indulged my desires in terms of a physical output for a very, very long time. The type, the domain that I've been operating within hasn't actually made me feel that much better at all. I'm, look jacked, do whatever, but, um, (clears throat) now I'm gonna try, I wonder what yoga's like? I wonder what fighting's like? I wonder what Brazilian jujitsu's like? I wonder what CrossFit's like?" And then inevitably, what you see when people pivot and make that transition is that because it's ... firstly, because there's a novelty effect, but secondly because they perhaps genuinely have found something that they enjoy as a sport or as an athletic pursuit, their compliance goes up. And when their compliance goes up, their training volume goes up. And when their training volume goes up, their condition and their progress, uh, i- increases. So you actually realize that (clears throat) perhaps stopping to a g- doing a bodybuilding program which you low-key hate might be one of the best things you could do for your bodybuilding goals by s- switching to something else. Now, there's a s- couple of caveats. If you want to keep on making growth and gains, you need to make sure that whatever you're choosing to do has some form of, of loading. It also needs to have some form of progressive overload in there. It also needs to have some form of intensity. You know, like, no one's getting jacked doing yoga unless it's a very specific type of yoga which is like a lot of power yoga with, um, you know, uh, y- yin yoga isn't getting anyone jacked. Um, but yeah, m- my point is I, I just think a lot more people than n- realize it would be significantly happier doing a different type of sport.

Jonny 26:19 Mm. I think it kind of depends on-

Yusef 26:21 Only if they've been through the initial phase.

Jonny 26:23 Yeah. Yeah. They need to think-

Chris Williamson 26:25 Why do they need, why do they need to do that? Why do they need to go through the initial phase?

Yusef 26:27 E- everyone has to gain a, a basic level of muscle mass and strength, and there's so, like, 99% of people who I see who are untrained, like, most of their problems could be fixed by just getting a body weight squat and a body weight be- you know, like, just hitting basic targets with e- even, like, rehab injury type stuff. You, you know when you see ... we've talked about this on other podcasts (laughs) , I think, when you see, um, girls wearing UGG boots and they're like, they've got like valgus knee and their hips just, ugh, and, and they just look really, like, floppy and-

Chris Williamson 27:00 Floppy, yeah.

Yusef 27:00 ... and, and they're always complaining of hip issues. And, and you're like, "If you just could squat 60 kilos, so much of your life would be sorted out."

Jonny 27:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:10 Clamshells twice a week.

Yusef 27:11 (laughs)

Jonny 27:12 (laughs)

Yusef 27:13 Th- those things with the bands and ...

Chris Williamson 27:15 Yeah.

Jonny 27:15 I think it's like, it's just, it's just general, gaining general body awareness and what it feels like to, to push yourself physically. I think it's really easy to gain experience with that with, like, a barbell or machine-based resistance training. So something that I saw when, um, I did CrossFit for, I dunno, like six months, was there's people in there who clearly, like, found CrossFit off the, like, like you Chris, like, found it off the back of having spent a lot of time doing, like, bodybuilding-based training. And a lot of it, like, someone gives you a dumbbell, you're like, "No problem."

Chris Williamson 27:51 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 27:52 "I've seen a dumbbell before. Done a lot of shit with a dumbbell. Dumbbell's fine." Like, the, the more sort of and kind of the, the base layer, like, of, of Maslow's hierarchy in CrossFit is, is sorted, like, they can give you a barbell. They can give y- they can say, "Chris, jump onto that-"

Chris Williamson 28:05 Mm.

Jonny 28:05 "... and you're fine." But if you, if it ... (laughs) what are you laughing about?

Yusef 28:08 I just, just love, like, the concept of being given a dumbbell and being like, "I'm familiar with one of these."

Jonny 28:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:13 I know, I know, I know how this works.

Jonny 28:14 Well, that's, that's just how I felt about, like, if s- if there was a CrossFit workout where, like, Tim stands up and goes, "Barbell here, dumbbell there," and I'm like, "I can do those."

Chris Williamson 28:24 Got it.

Jonny 28:24 But if it's like, "Run," like, "Whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa."

Chris Williamson 28:27 "Uh, yeah, I didn't fucking s-"

Jonny 28:29 "Here, come on. Come on, mate."

Chris Williamson 28:29 "... I didn't fucking sign up for this."

Jonny 28:30 "Woah. Whoa. Hold on."

Chris Williamson 28:31 "I didn't fucking sign up for this."

Jonny 28:31 "Hold on. Rub that out, mate. Just rub that line out."

Yusef 28:35 Yeah. Yeah.

Jonny 28:36 Um, but yeah, so like, I think when people ... y- you also see the person who's like, it's their first CrossFit session and they've never, maybe never trained before. And the idea of doing like a push press, if I said to either of you, "Do a push press," you're like, "Yeah, fine."

Chris Williamson 28:47 Mm.

Jonny 28:47 Like, "Mate, I've done push pr- ... Like, Yousef's done the iBodybuilder shoulder spec six."

Yusef 28:52 (laughs) Oh God, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:53 (laughs)

Jonny 28:53 Like, we've all done a push press.

Chris Williamson 28:55 Yeah.

Jonny 28:55 So like, you put, you put that ... and we've also all, like, taken a set to failure-

Chris Williamson 28:59 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 28:59 ... done, like, pushed ourself physically beyond where we thought. And I think you do-

Yusef 29:03 I think I've push pressed 110. That's my (laughs) that's my PB.

Jonny 29:06 That's a lot of-

Chris Williamson 29:07 That's a lot of people.

Jonny 29:07 There we go. So someone gives you a barbell with 110 on and you're like-

Yusef 29:11 No.

Jonny 29:12 ... I, I, I ... firstly, I kinda know what I'm capable of here. Secondly, I know what it feels like to miss. Thirdly, I, I know sort of, I have a few technique cues in my mind.

Chris Williamson 29:20 Mm.

Jonny 29:20 Give someone who's never touched a bar- barbell before and say, "Push press that," they're like ...

Chris Williamson 29:25 What's a push press? What's a barbell? How do I pick it up?

Jonny 29:27 And you see them kind of go like ...

Chris Williamson 29:29 Can I do it with a mixed grip?

Jonny 29:30 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 29:32 Yeah.

Jonny 29:32 Do you know, yeah. There's, there's something about watching someone who's moved a b- a lot of barbells around. There's a certain kind of ...

Chris Williamson 29:38 Grace.

Jonny 29:39 Yeah. Like, that you never see this.

Chris Williamson 29:43 Yeah.

Jonny 29:44 Do you know what I mean?

Chris Williamson 29:44 I think that big-

Jonny 29:45 Th- th- there's a, there's-

Chris Williamson 29:46 Honestly man, like, a big, a big part of that just comes from doing athletics as a kid. But again, with that, like, if there's people listening who did some form ... you know, especially with girls, fucking tons of girls at my school were doing like dance or other kind of, like, d- dance-associated outputs.

Jonny 30:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:02 And you think, like, your, your proprioception, your ability to understand where your body is in space and how to move it from A to B, is so much more advanced than a fucking donkey kickback.

Jonny 30:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:14 Like, why, why are you doing ... like-... three kilo tricep extensions like this. When-

Yusef 30:21 I- it's- it's a real regression, isn't it? Like-

Chris Williamson 30:22 Yeah, when you've got tons and tons of biomechanical, uh, biomechanical control just sat latent in your brain, that you-

Yusef 30:30 So, is that ... I, I wonder if that's just people, like, compartmentalizing their, their ... 'cause yeah, like, to have a background in dance, like the amount of proprioception you need. Like I'm, you know, I, I've done gymnastics for years and I still look at the dancers and think, "Bloody hell, that's, that's a whole nother another level."

Jonny 30:44 Yeah.

Yusef 30:44 So yeah, it ... like, if you can cross over those skills, and I ... like, I'm so grateful that I had a background in gymnastics 'cause I see so many people at my age or even five, 10 years younger that are like, "Oh, I wish I did a bit more of that stuff when I was younger and it's really hard now," and, and they feel really creaky. And to have just had some lower level gymnastic skill when you're younger, just means that, yeah, like, you pick up any new skill so easily, except anything with a ball. I'm terrible with anything with a ball, really.

Chris Williamson 31:13 (laughs) Yeah, you are bad with everything with a ball. But I mean there was a-

Jonny 31:15 Oh, with the Frisbee.

Yusef 31:17 Oh, just anything like that.

Chris Williamson 31:19 Also bad with, bad with a Frisbee, yeah. Throw ... Uh, eh!

Yusef 31:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:22 Um, yet that's, again, that's ano- that's another really good point though. Like, think about what your athletic base is, especially that go back to guys. A lot of guys might have done like you say football or rugby or something as a kid. Like, you have a really solid aerobic base. Really solid. You'll understand how to run, you'll understand how to cut and change direction, and like, you know, even just going from that to just doing 5Ks is probably not maximizing what you're, what you're capable of doing. You know, obstacle racing or something like that would actually be maximizing your, uh, fitness inheritance, I suppose, a little bit better.

Yusef 31:57 Mm-hmm. I think, yeah. I- I-

Chris Williamson 32:00 Uh, no, I, I ... like I say, I just think, w- why don't you, um, why don't you both give us a 30,000-foot view of your fitness careers and how the, how the menopause hit? I think that will be interesting.

Jonny 32:11 (sighs) Okay.

Yusef 32:13 Go for it, Jonny. (laughs)

Jonny 32:14 All right. Uh, 15, 16, fat kid, started getting bullied. I was like, "Right, well, I'm not having that." So started, started ... watched a Rocky film, started running. Realized running wasn't the answer, read a couple of copies of Men's Health, Men's Fitness, started doing loads of curls, like loads of curls and like press-ups and all that sort of stuff. Then gym sort of progressively worked its way through. Like, that's when I met Yusuf for the first time, when he was doing like squats three times a week and drinking a gallon of milk a day.

Chris Williamson 32:43 Yeah.

Jonny 32:43 I think-

Yusef 32:44 Just, yeah. Oh. (laughs)

Jonny 32:45 lots of that stuff. So like lots of like, lots of ... I remember like the first time t- trying creatine and all that sort of stuff just in this desperate attempt to get lean for the first time. Got lean for the first time, then realized actually, like, being strong and training f- ... so then, like, did my first bulk ever, and realized that gaining we- gaining weight and gaining strength was actually more exciting than losing weight and losing strength. (laughs) And so did like 13 ra- 13 blocks of five-three-one, hit my first ever like 500-pound deadlift, squatted 200 kilos for the first time with Yusuf in ... where were we?

Yusef 33:19 Washington? Was it not?

Jonny 33:20 No.

Yusef 33:20 Oh, Kenton.

Jonny 33:21 Kenton, Kenton gym. Um, and then like that-

Chris Williamson 33:25 There's a gym in Kenton?

Yusef 33:25 With, with security cameras and cages around the security cameras.

Jonny 33:27 Yeah. I squatted 200 kilos in the corner of that gym, um, and that k- kind of became an addiction. So then got into ... did my first powerlifting competition 'cause Yusuf suggested I did. Um, and it literally went like, first competition, first squat I ever did, set a regional record. (laughs)

Yusef 33:44 (laughs)

Jonny 33:45 Second squat I did, broke my own regional record, won that competition, went to nationals, came third. Went Europeans, went to worlds. They were like my first o-

Chris Williamson 33:54 So, might be something to this.

Jonny 33:55 (laughs) There might be, yeah. So like, th- that was like my first six powerlifting competitions. So I was like, "This is quite fun, this."

Chris Williamson 34:00 (laughs)

Jonny 34:00 Like, I get like the GB kit and all. This is mint. Um, but then, years of that-

Chris Williamson 34:05 And what age are you here, 25, 24?

Jonny 34:07 Probably, yeah. 20, yeah. 2015 I went to worlds, so 25.

Chris Williamson 34:12 Yep.

Jonny 34:13 Um, and then kind of after that, um, trying to juggle it around, like, Propane taking off and, and like doing more work in the business, um, and you've kind of scratched that itch, so it starts to become less and less interesting. And probably go back a year, was when that came to a, a head and I was just like, "Man, like, I just cannot motivate myself to ..." So I moved up a weight class as well. So for the first time in my life, about two years ago, stopped being lean all the time. And I was like, I'd gained quite a lot of weight, and I was dealing with this-

Chris Williamson 34:42 Tactically.

Jonny 34:42 ... other like side- What?

Chris Williamson 34:44 You tactically gained weight.

Jonny 34:45 Tact ... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:45 It wasn't like-

Jonny 34:46 Yeah. I did.

Yusef 34:46 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 34:46 ... you liked yourself. It wasn't like you'd gone to seed or something, it's that you'd decided-

Jonny 34:49 No, no.

Chris Williamson 34:49 ... that you wanted to move up a weight class.

Jonny 34:51 So I'd, I'd had four or five consecutive competitions in the 93s where my total hadn't moved, um, and I h- was having to like aggressively weight cut for the competitions and all that sort of stuff. So, moved up a weight class, hit bigger numbers. So hit like a 250 squat, 312 deadlift, 160 bench. Ripped my adductor in the bottom of the squat. And when that happened, I was like, "Fuck me, man. Like, all this work for-"

Yusef 35:14 Got a video of that, haven't we?

Jonny 35:16 Yeah, of my adductor, actually.

Chris Williamson 35:18 Ding!

Jonny 35:18 Yeah. Awful. Um, I then had to chase Dexter, who was a puppy at the time, round a roundabout with a torn hamstring an hour later.

Chris Williamson 35:26 (laughs)

Jonny 35:26 Which I'm convinced was like the ... that was it. (laughs) When, when-

Chris Williamson 35:30 The universe just reminding you.

Jonny 35:31 I still remember though, I remember limping out the house, Dexter slipping out his harness and then just like, bang! And you, and like before you know it, you've like got him in your arms, and you're like, "I just ripped my adductor a minute ago but it was fine there."

Chris Williamson 35:44 Wow. Yeah.

Jonny 35:44 Weird. But yeah, so that led to ... I remember sat watching a CrossFit documentary, like the latest one that had just come out at the time. Don't know what it would be.

Chris Williamson 35:54 Redeemed in the dominant maybe, or Road to the-

Jonny 35:56 Maybe.

Chris Williamson 35:56 ... Road to the Fittest. Yeah.

Jonny 35:58 Yeah, and I was like, "Man, like ..." 'Cause you were at the time where, uh, you'd been doing CrossFit for maybe two years or something at that point. Um, so I did ... what's the CrossFit workout that's like ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, squat, bench, deadlift, bench, clean and jerk?

Chris Williamson 36:13 Yeah, it was at regionals that year. I can't remember, but I, I, I know the one that it was that-

Jonny 36:16 It's like Cindy or no, Margaret.

Chris Williamson 36:20 Whatever, yeah.

Jonny 36:20 Something like that.

Chris Williamson 36:21 Joanne.

Jonny 36:21 I did that and I was like, "Man, that w-" like, that was actually really good fun. Then did six months of CrossFit.... then I injured myself again, twice, (laughs) in, uh, the open. So I was doing 2159, 2159 with the deadlifts and hand stand walks, um, and I just approached 140 like it's just 140, "How bad can this be?" You get like seven reps in and you're like, "Yeah-"

Chris Williamson 36:47 Quite bad.

Jonny 36:47 ... quite, quite bad, yeah. (laughs) Um, and I think I, like, dinged my hamstring a little bit, did my wrist doing clean and jerk. And now I'm ki- like, honestly at the moment, I'm kind of just, fitness is just like des- totally deprioritized for me.

Chris Williamson 36:59 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 36:59 It's a bit of a shame, but it does feel like what, where I am at now is the thing that I'm aggressively chasing. So if I go back to like 19-year-old me, I was aggressively chasing fitness, I was aggressively chasing being leaner, getting stronger, um, because of what I thought I'd get from it. Um, and now I think probably the same thing for me is business, and like per- and other areas of personal development and all that sort of stuff. Um, just because I think I know that if I put more effort into my fitness, what I'd get out of it is probably not what I maybe once expected. So that's kind of my journey.

Chris Williamson 37:34 I like it. You-

Jonny 37:35 A bit of a sad, sad thing, I guess.

Chris Williamson 37:36 N- No, I, I think it's cool. Seth, why don't you give us yours?

Yusef 37:39 So yeah (clears throat) , um, met, I think met Johnny in like the school gym at age of 16. Um, I was doing all sorts of stupid stuff, like, all the, like, Pavel Tsatsouline and... I can't really remember the name of the guy who was making you do like a thousand Hindu squats and Hindu press-ups every day.

Jonny 37:57 Yeah.

Yusef 37:57 It was called like com- Combat Core Conditioning or some- something like that. Um, I, I've got an image of Johnny trying a pre-workout for the first time, like, it, it came as like a free sample in like a magazine.

Chris Williamson 38:08 (laughs)

Yusef 38:08 And then had like-

Jonny 38:10 Magrex.

Yusef 38:11 ... ma- yeah, it had like-

Jonny 38:12 Yeah.

Yusef 38:12 ... two cables behind him. Um, so holding onto the cables and doing like a loaded sprint and then stepping back and doing that again.

Jonny 38:19 (laughs)

Yusef 38:20 Um, then I discovered the Strong Lifts Five By Five program.

Jonny 38:23 Didn't you do... Sorry to interrupt. Didn't you do like an arm program that was like Arms MX 5000 or something? Didn't you-

Yusef 38:28 Oh, probably, yeah, like all kinds of-

Jonny 38:30 Sure there's a... 'Cause your original, like, transformation article, you were talking about doing like really high volume arm work.

Yusef 38:38 Oh, yeah. I've, I, I basically done every like free e-book-

Jonny 38:42 (laughs)

Yusef 38:43 ... and, and like ridiculous program that... And like surprisingly none of it worked. One, because I ate like an absolute pigeon. Um, then I, I bought some whey and had like one scoop of it or like almost a scoop of it once, once every day that I was training, and I was thinking like, "Oh, that'll, that'll be it." Like, despite eating maybe 800 calories a day. Started the Strong Lift Five By Five program, which, that's when progress started to move up, just 'cause I was using a barbell, doing some kind of progressive overload. Did the squats and milk program, which is where you take... So three times a week, you take your 10 rep max with a squat, which, there was no squat rack so I had to just set up the bar onto like, um-

Jonny 39:24 Gymnastic horses, wasn't it?

Yusef 39:25 ... trapeze. School hor- yeah, school gymnastic horses.

Jonny 39:27 Yeah.

Yusef 39:27 Like get underneath it, like squeeze underneath, and then start my set. You do a set of 10, which is your 10 rep marks, and then you keep the bar on your back and you take five to 10 deep breaths and you do another rep, and then you keep doing that until you hit 20. And then you have a gallon of milk a day. So I was having a gallon of whole milk, 4.7 liters of whole milk every day, just sat in class. Um, and I remember doing this and like throwing up raspberry whey down my top while I had the bar on my back-

Chris Williamson 39:57 (laughs)

Yusef 39:58 ... um, doing these like squats and milk, being so out of breath and just like... (laughs) And like this was in a, a, this was in like a, a gym where you, again, no squat rack, you just have to like fashion together a bunch of kit. So I must have just looked a bit mental. Um, then went to uni, got, uh, got a coach based on Johnny's... No, no, in fact this was... Sorry. Th- before this. So I was 59 kilos, stayed around that weight. Went to uni, gained 31 kilos over three months.

Jonny 40:29 (laughs)

Yusef 40:30 So that is half my body weight. (laughs) Um, by basically drinking a pint of cream, a pint of double cream every night before bed, glasses of olive oil between meals, uh, cheesecake in the blender, just like-

Chris Williamson 40:45 Quality weight then. Real quality weight.

Yusef 40:46 ... quality th- Oh, real quality weight. My lifts didn't go up at all during that period.

Chris Williamson 40:50 (laughs)

Yusef 40:50 Oh, yeah. It's all muscle 'cause I- my T-shirts were fitting tighter. Um, so did that, had, uh, Mutant Mass as well.

Chris Williamson 41:01 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 41:01 Like a weight gain and it's like 2,000 calories per serving. Lots of vomiting throughout this period just from like, not from like, uh, purging, but just from like being so full mechanically that if you make any sudden movements-

Chris Williamson 41:13 (laughs)

Yusef 41:13 ... it all just comes out.

Jonny 41:14 Each bit comes up. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 41:15 Well, I mean, if you, if you're carrying a really full pint across a, a busy bar and someone knocks into you, right, it goes, it goes all over the floor, yeah.

Jonny 41:23 Whoop.

Yusef 41:24 (laughs) And so after that, got lean. Um, later on, started to gain more weight again. (overlapping dialogue) Do you remember why you got lean? Uh, just because this is when we were setting up Propain. We were like, "Oh, we, we need a, uh, we need a transformation." And then I was like, "I'll, I'll give it a go." I'm probably like two weeks off being lean. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 41:44 (laughs)

Jonny 41:45 You were at 90 kilos at the time.

Yusef 41:47 90 kilos. And it turned out-

Jonny 41:48 I remember sitting in the kitchen of my like uni accommodation with the two of us and Dan, and we were like, "Yeah, we'll start a fitness website." And then we all looked at each other like, "Oh, one of us is gonna have to get in shape for this."

Chris Williamson 42:00 (laughs)

Jonny 42:00 And you were like, "I'll do it." And then you, I remember you did a rapid fat loss program.

Yusef 42:05 Oh, yeah.

Jonny 42:05 You were eating peppers and doing like high intensity interval training and-

Yusef 42:08 Presumably it was protein-sparing modified fast, yeah, like 700 calories a day of just protein.

Chris Williamson 42:13 (laughs)

Jonny 42:15 (laughs)

Yusef 42:16 Um, and yeah, it, it... I, I think I was just so deeply experimental and just wanting to just try anything for, for giggles.

Chris Williamson 42:23 Oh, man.

Yusef 42:24 Um, later on, started, did a power lifting competition. Johnny and I started d- going to different competitions, um-... then hired a coach on Johnny's recommendation. It was Eric Helms, we've had him on the podcast multiple times now.

Chris Williamson 42:37 Big name.

Yusef 42:38 Um, got very lean, like silly lean by this point, like could see pancreas secreting insulin.

Chris Williamson 42:47 (laughs)

Yusef 42:47 Um, like would walk past the window and just see like s-, like st- striations and fasciculations in like the top of your chest and stuff and, like, you know when you start to see like in- in your jaw as well?

Chris Williamson 42:56 Yeah.

Yusef 42:57 Had that. Um, got pretty unwell with how lean I was, like just always run down, like super food anxious, super, like just dysfunctional.

Chris Williamson 43:07 Susceptible of being ill, erectile dysfunction-

Yusef 43:09 Ugh.

Chris Williamson 43:09 ... all the stuff that we-

Yusef 43:10 All of that, yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:11 ... talk about in one house on give or go. Yeah.

Yusef 43:12 Like really wired all the time as well. Did an Olympic lifting competition, did multiple powerlifting competi- like, smashed the powerlifting competitions in that weight class because I was just, I just wasn't a 74 kilo lifter. I was an 83 kilo lifter hiding-

Chris Williamson 43:25 (laughs)

Yusef 43:25 ... in, in the weight class below 'cause I'd managed to like eliminate all body fat.

Jonny 43:29 You got, you got drug tested 'cause you just had such tight delt separation.

Chris Williamson 43:33 (laughs)

Jonny 43:33 When it's like ev- everyone else comes off the platform like a bit out of shape and then there's Yusuf when he like, as soon as he tensions to pull the bar off the ground, there's like (explosion sound) my chest just like fans out.

Chris Williamson 43:43 All striations, yeah.

Jonny 43:44 Full, full (laughs) full tri, full tri.

Chris Williamson 43:45 Like a fucking peacock, yeah.

Jonny 43:48 (laughs)

Yusef 43:48 (laughs) It- it's- it's quite funny in that situation 'cause in clothes you don't look like you lift. Out of clothes people are like, "No way are you 74 kilos."

Chris Williamson 43:56 Yeah.

Jonny 43:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:57 Well it's a big dichotomy, right?

Jonny 43:59 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 43:59 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:00 Yeah.

Yusef 44:01 So then did, uh, was continuing to doing gy- doing gymnastics like throughout that, and that was kind of what initially got me into weight lifting in the first place, like to condition for gymnastics. Then I had an ongoing disc issue which, um, I remember Chris came to my house and, um, brought like a gift package which was like an Innocent Smoothie-

Chris Williamson 44:20 Oh, yeah, that's probably-

Yusef 44:20 ... soren-

Chris Williamson 44:20 I believe, soren, like a bunch of drugs.

Yusef 44:23 Voltarol.

Chris Williamson 44:24 Yeah, vol- voltarol.

Yusef 44:25 Uh, like that, that was lovely 'cause I-

Jonny 44:27 Oh, it was bad. That was, I remember the, the pain was so bad, you like couldn't walk.

Yusef 44:30 Oh, God. Just lying on-

Jonny 44:31 You were, you were like tearing up 'cause you were moving and it was hurting so much, yeah.

Yusef 44:34 Constantly, yeah. Like just li- spent a few days just lying on the floor and, like, if you have to go to the bathroom you're like, "Oh, no." It- it felt like such a journey 'cause it would take like an hour to support yourself over. Um, that culminated in getting ill in hospital with an infection, but then got kind of I think a discitis or a just worsening of that-

Chris Williamson 44:53 Discitis.

Yusef 44:54 ... ligitis. Lost function of my left leg for a bit.

Jonny 44:56 (laughs) .

Yusef 44:56 So for about six months, um, lost sensory motor function of the-

Chris Williamson 45:00 (laughs)

Yusef 45:01 ... the S1 dermatome of my left leg. Um-

Jonny 45:04 Yeah, yeah, me too, mate (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 45:06 That was a long time.

Yusef 45:06 (laughs) So it was like sort of like shuffling around for a few months, like I couldn't, couldn't extend my left foot. Thinking like, "Well, that's it. I've finally done it." Like I've ignored all the pain signals-

Chris Williamson 45:16 (laughs)

Yusef 45:16 ... dead lifting and, you know-

Chris Williamson 45:19 Crippled muscle.

Yusef 45:19 And it's because... Well, it, and it's actually be- totally because of this, this like bravado attitude you see online of like, "If you don't squat every day to a max you're a pussy. And if, if you're in pain it's, it, you know, you just gotta train through it," and all this stuff. And I just, like there, there was literally, I- I've got a screenshot of like some marketing thing from T Nation of a guy saying, "I was taking this micro PA supplement and I gained 15 pounds of muscle even while I was so ill that I had to drag an oxygen canister around the gym with me." And, I mean, you're like-

Chris Williamson 45:50 If that's not irresponsible marketing...

Jonny 45:52 (laughs)

Yusef 45:54 Hmm.

Jonny 45:54 Do you remember the vi- the video that was like, "Sebastian Coiset gained 400 pounds on his leg press and dropped 25% body fat," and you're like, "Oh my God." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:03 Yeah. That's what I need.

Jonny 46:05 Such good marketing.

Chris Williamson 46:06 Yeah.

Yusef 46:07 Yeah, so did, did that program. Body Building... Well, i- iBodyBuilder.

Jonny 46:11 iBodyBuilder.

Yusef 46:13 God, that was so-

Jonny 46:14 That was developed out of a black ops bodybuilding project, do you remember?

Chris Williamson 46:16 (laughs)

Yusef 46:19 Really well produced.

Chris Williamson 46:20 Fucking hell.

Yusef 46:21 Um, so-

Chris Williamson 46:21 You couldn't get away with that now. I mean in the, in the-

Jonny 46:24 No.

Chris Williamson 46:24 ... in the era of GDPR there's no way you could've gotten away with, with a-

Jonny 46:28 (laughs) Excuse me! Have you got my leg press data?

Chris Williamson 46:32 (laughs)

Yusef 46:33 The er- eras, yeah, GDPR and COVID and complaints and like-

Chris Williamson 46:39 Wow.

Yusef 46:39 ... post- postmodernism.

Jonny 46:40 But, you know what? at the time.

Chris Williamson 46:41 Kids, kids today will never know.

Jonny 46:44 When, when you could watch a video like that and actually be legit convinced that like this is all, all you needed was the iBodyBuilder program, like how nice life was.

Chris Williamson 46:53 When, when the Jack, Jack 3D pre-workout had illegal compounds in it, like literally had an amphetamine-

Yusef 47:01 It's powerful stuff.

Chris Williamson 47:01 What, uh...

Jonny 47:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:02 I think it was.

Jonny 47:03 1,3-dimethylamyline, I believe it's called.

Chris Williamson 47:05 Is that the derivative of amphetamine or something?

Yusef 47:08 Yeah, it-

Jonny 47:09 Powerful stuff.

Yusef 47:11 Do you remember the first time you took that?

Chris Williamson 47:12 Yeah.

Yusef 47:13 What happened?

Chris Williamson 47:15 Very itchy face. I also was, uh, 'cause I was taking a lot of No Xpl- NO Xplode at the time. That was my-

Jonny 47:21 (laughs) NO Xplode.

Chris Williamson 47:23 NO Xplode was my, was my boy 'cause I just thought that the more nitric oxide that I had in my body, the- the- the- the bigger I was. So I was just taking that, and I'm like, "I'm a fucking artist. Fuck me, fuck off." Um, so I put two of it in (laughs) and it was actually, it was like the taste is not too bad. It's like lemon and lime sort of-

Yusef 47:39 Lovely.

Chris Williamson 47:39 ... flavor. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty easy-

Yusef 47:41 Delicious.

Chris Williamson 47:41 ... to get down. Definitely over measured it and, um, I remember spending most of that training session just desperately scratching my face. Like 'cause you get the, the, um, blood capillaries dilate, right? Is that correct, Scone? Is that why?

Yusef 47:56 You, I- I mean like all, all of the effects of an amphetamine, like there's, there's always people talking about Pill Willy from, from Jack, Jack, Jack 3D. I think I got a, I got a seven rep PB, so I hit my three rep max for squats for 10.

Chris Williamson 48:12 (laughs)

Jonny 48:12 (laughs)

Yusef 48:13 And, and then I was really unwell for a week afterwards (laughs) . Like I- I kind of stumbled home from the gym like, you know when you start to see the, the tunnel vision start to kick in-

Chris Williamson 48:22 It closes in, yeah.

Yusef 48:22 ... your peripheral, and, and then I was like, "Oh," and I just went to bed just ill for a few days.

Chris Williamson 48:26 For a long time, yeah.

Jonny 48:27 I remember looking at the, 'cause I think I'd gone by this point, I'd been take- I'd been, we'd been trying like NO Xplode and all these different pre-workouts and I'd even gone like-... off-piste. 'Cause this is back when, in the good old days, when MyProtein, th- the way they worked was you could just buy bags of individual supplements and sort of make-

Chris Williamson 48:44 Blend them together, yeah.

Jonny 48:44 ... your own thing. So like-

Chris Williamson 48:45 M- MyProtein, yeah.

Jonny 48:46 Exact- Yeah. Like, ba- like, before they were releasing, like, the MyVegan bars, you know, when it w- when it was done properly. So I was, I was already, like, mixing, like, arginine and caffeine and, like, stirring it all up and, like, necking it before the gym. So-

Chris Williamson 48:58 Horny gilf wien.

Jonny 48:58 ... I'm there looking at the ex- yeah, tr- like, tribulus, all the stuff you could possibly get in your pre-workout. Looked at the tub. It was, it s- I'm sure it said, like, no more than three scoops, I was like, "Bollocks."

Chris Williamson 49:07 (laughs)

Jonny 49:08 Like, I, I have a lot of coffee, I have a lot of stuff. I'll just, I'll try four. There's no way it's more caffeine than a normal pre-workout. Hit a-

Chris Williamson 49:16 (laughs)

Jonny 49:16 ... I think I got, like, two-

Chris Williamson 49:17 Pupils just- (laughs)

Jonny 49:18 ... 230 for six deadlift, which at the time was mental, like way over, similar to Yusuf. Then went to the cinema and it was also my high carb day. Went to the cinema, had two bags of wine gums, and then just got debilitating cramp in the cinema.

Chris Williamson 49:33 (laughs)

Jonny 49:34 So I remember, like, I remember standing outside.

Chris Williamson 49:35 (laughs)

Jonny 49:35 I had to leave the cinema, standing outside the showing with my leg on a bin-

Chris Williamson 49:40 (laughs)

Jonny 49:40 ... trying to stretch out my hamstring. Like, in, like, seething pa- like, really bad pain and everyone's walking past going like... I'm just like-

Chris Williamson 49:49 You see how long his legs are?

Jonny 49:51 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:51 Ooh, ooh, for you. So here's-

Jonny 49:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:54 ... here's something that I can see that's a universal across both of yours, which is that, um, part of the inflection point where you changed your training methodology occurred due to injuries of one kind or another.

Jonny 50:08 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:09 Um, a, a disenchantment with training, um, a lack of novelty in the training that you were doing because you'd done a lot of it already.

Jonny 50:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:17 And then, um, yeah. I think realizing that, like, all that we've been doing was aggravating the injury and just continuing to ignore the fact that it was just making it worse. And being like, "Why am I just pursuing loading my body with more and more weight with no particular end point?"

Jonny 50:34 'Cause y- you can get away with it when you're 18 and you're just basically made of, like, you're just like-

Chris Williamson 50:38 Remember when you were magic? (laughs)

Jonny 50:38 ... one of those packs of jelly, yeah, jelly that you drop in the water. You're just like, "Oh."

Chris Williamson 50:42 It is incredible. I remember being able to do, like, heavy, like, a snatch and then deadlift to a max and then go to gymnastics that evening and then wake up the next day feeling absolutely fine.

Jonny 50:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:52 Like, just normal. No DOMS or anything. Now, like, I feel like I've been hit by a bus. (laughs) Well, let's remember, remember what I said to you in my definition, this is, this is why the fitness menopause is such a robust concept, because it is as you become chronically aware of your own mortality. Maybe you get injured-

Jonny 51:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:08 ... once or twice, maybe your bounce back from the injury doesn't quite happen as quickly, maybe you realize that, um, your fitness, like actual, genuine cardiovascular fitness hasn't been cared for apart from only in service of a cut, um, (laughs) for like a long time-

Jonny 51:24 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:24 ... like, the only time that you ever get your heart rate up is in the months of May, June and bit of July before the lads' holiday or, like, the girls', the girls' trip away and stuff. And, um, yeah, the, I, I think there's... And the same for me, right, the, all of the different categories that you guys identified there from training to just have externalized socialized rewards to then getting a little bit bored with it to then getting a little bit injured to then trying a few things to then finding something that I'm happy with and then dialing my training back and then actually finding, um, a sense of fulfillment and pleasure, uh, where training becomes integrated into my life as opposed to being my life, which it was for quite a long time.

Jonny 52:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 52:09 And, um, I think that it's actually part of a broader menopause which occurs where if... I need to... If saying menopause so much is triggering, I don't know whether menopause is like a, a word that we really shouldn't be using, but it's the one that we've chosen. We are gonna be in a bit of trouble. People know, I think people know what we mean- Good. ... don't they? Yeah. Good. Thank you. Um, voice of reason there.

Jonny 52:30 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:30 Yeah. Um, I think it's part of a broader menopause that you go through again, you know, especially, I think particularly for guys because we mature so much- (laughs) , so much more slowly. Like, there's so much latent maturity that should have occurred in men under the age of 25 and then it kind of like, it's-

Jonny 52:50 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:50 ... you know when you pull a spring and it's starting to load up and load up and load up and then the thing holding the spring at the back lets go and it goes (imitates spring releasing)

Jonny 52:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 52:59 Well, ex- except for the fact that you can, I think you can make a fart joke to a man of any age- Yeah.

Jonny 53:05 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:05 ... and it's still funny.

Jonny 53:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:06 Yeah. You've got, you've got latent-

Jonny 53:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:08 ... like, old school grandfathered in jokes-

Jonny 53:11 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:11 ... like that, haven't you?

Jonny 53:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:12 So, um, but yeah, like, I think it's a part of that as well 'cause it was at the same time that I made that switch to CrossFit that I was like, "Well, I'm gonna play around with a little bit more self-development. And oh, maybe I'm gonna question whether I should deprogram the way that I use alcohol. And oh, maybe I should see if I can start working on my sleep routine. Oh, maybe I should do this podcast and start reading and do, you know, a bunch of other things." So I think it, it all is part of a, uh, a wider change that people go through in their lives. But I genuinely believe that,

Chris Williamson 53:42 um, by looking at different ways to integrate fitness into your life, you can potentially service some of those other changes, you know? If you start to now train for something which is genuinely internally enjoyable to you, which has objective measures of performance, which I think's a really big thing. Like, if all that you're doing is subjective measures of, of progress-

Jonny 54:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:06 ... i.e. aesthetics and bodybuilding, you're never ever going to actually know if you're making progress. And that's one of the reasons that I think people have anxiety about their training, that they never actually know if they're better. You know, it's like, "Am I, am I actually like... Well, I mean, do my delts look ... My delts look a bit better than last year, but, like, maybe my glutes are a bit more down and blah, blah." Like- Uh, so it, th- it's one of the most depressing things about bodybuilding as a sport that, like, even if you're a professional bodybuilder, yeah, you can go by measurements, but really, like, the way that it's ultimately judged is by a subjective panel-

Jonny 54:40 Preferences.

Chris Williamson 54:41 ... of judges.... preference.

Jonny 54:43 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 54:43 And, and th- there are, uh, Mr. Olympias that have been busting themselves for ages to try it, and they'll just never win, because the judges don't happen to like their physique. And you're like-

Chris Williamson 54:53 Mm-hmm. Well, I prefer a physique that's got a little bit more traps.

Yusef 54:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:56 And you're like, "Well, what the fuck does that mean?"

Yusef 54:58 Yeah, I know.

Chris Williamson 54:58 Like, what do you mean by that? Whereas, again, if you've got CrossFit, this is one of the, uh, definitely one of the things that you can say about CrossFit, powerlifting, weightlifting, 100 kilos is 100 kilos. Like, it's always gonna be 100 kilos. And if you lift it 10 times last week and then 11 times this week, you have made, definitively, by definition, you have made progress.

Jonny 55:20 Yeah. Yeah. The thing, the thing that is good about... So, the thing that's a challenge about most strength sports, most barbell-based sports, probably not including Strongman, is you are trying to improve such a narrow range of things, that it's quite easy to have, like especially once you've been training for three, four years, it's quite easy to have, like, six months, years where you may not, maybe don't make any progress at all. Like, I think my bench stalled for, like, four years. Like, add up the reps done to achieve nothing.

Yusef 55:51 Oh.

Jonny 55:51 Like, objectively nothing. And you think, "Well, what's the point?" Whereas something like CrossFit, because the, the, it's just this broad plane of things you could improve on-

Chris Williamson 56:02 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 56:03 ... um, it's, uh, I think mentally it's easier.

Chris Williamson 56:05 What it also -

Yusef 56:06 Well, it's, it, it's why you started slacklining, Chris, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 56:09 Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's a perfect example of something that is for no gain other than I think it's quite fun. And so if you got, you got to do it with me, and um-

Yusef 56:19 It's hard. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:20 It's real challenging, but-

Yusef 56:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:22 ... like, I'm not doing it because I think it's gonna improve my glute gains. I'm not gonna lie and say that, um, it is... there's not a little bit of me that wants to be good at it so that I can show off.

Yusef 56:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:34 Like, I'm aware, I'm aware that that's probably in there deep down.

Yusef 56:35 That's why we do anything.

Chris Williamson 56:36 Yeah. But I, I, I genuinely, like that, slacklining, for people that don't know, slacklining, it's kind of like less weird, um, uh, what's that thing they used to do in the circus?

Jonny 56:49 Tightrope?

Chris Williamson 56:49 Tightrope. It's like less weird tightrope, isn't it? Um, uh, but you could, it's a slightly, like flat piece of material that you can stand on and walk along and, and kind of... The real good people can do tricks.

Jonny 56:59 You go like this.

Chris Williamson 56:59 Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, wiggle from side to side. Um, but that with a podcast on, in the sunshine for an hour, is-

Jonny 57:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:07 ... for me, what, like beautiful way to spend an afternoon, especially if it's a rest day from more heavy, heavily loaded training.

Jonny 57:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:14 But if you told 21-year-old Chris that my idea of a good Sunday afternoon would be to go and listen to a couple of fellas talk in a room in a pair of wireless headphones and stand on a flat piece of material in between two trees in the park next to my house, I, I'd have been very, very disappointed. That show- I guess that shows how our preferences in, in stuff change.

Jonny 57:37 I, I think most people get into it to begin with because they just wanna be more attractive and, like, more impressive. Like, they wanna impress their mates or impress-

Chris Williamson 57:44 Get into bodybuilding, you mean, or?

Jonny 57:45 Yeah, or like just fitness in general, like most people. It's 'cause they wanna improve how they look, and they wanna improve how they look to be more impressive.

Chris Williamson 57:51 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 57:51 But I think once you've, like, that y- we've all entered the phase at which, like, it actually stops being impressive and starts being a bit weird. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:00 So like when-

Yusef 58:01 How, how much do you lift, mate? 300?

Jonny 58:04 Well, even for someone slightly younger and too lean-

Chris Williamson 58:06 Uh, how much have you had to sacrifice to get there? Yeah.

Yusef 58:07 (laughs)

Jonny 58:08 How much what?

Chris Williamson 58:09 How much have you had to sacrifice to get there? When you see someone that is that lean, you know-

Jonny 58:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:13 ... that they can't have that much else going on in their life.

Jonny 58:16 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:16 So this is the bizarre thing about what signaling does. Signaling in any form tells you a lot more than just that one signal is. So, okay, what are the second, third, fourth order effects back upstream from whatever I'm seeing in front of me?

Yusef 58:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:29 Like, this particular person who's unbelievably lean, strong, big, whatever it might be, they have to have some deficiencies elsewhere, or they have to have some side effects, should I say, not necessarily deficiencies, because there's been some sacrifices that have had to be made for that. Um, and yeah, as, as your preferences change across time, I think it, um... It, and I do the other thing as well is gym bros especially, they select or they identify a very particular type of caricaturistic, a caricature, that girls don't actually find all that attractive.

Yusef 59:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:10 Like, if you gave a lad that was just a normal fella who was confident because he'd worked on being socially capable and a guy who was much more reserved, didn't have any of the social capabilities, but did five three one for a couple of years, the guy that is able to laugh and joke and, and go on with people in a group is gonna be significantly more popular socially and also significantly better with the opposite sex. And the same, I think, goes for girls as well.

Yusef 59:42 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 59:42 That, yeah, that, that's a good point. Like, in terms of attractiveness, like, from selecting for the things that you're training for, but even within that as well. So we've just posted an Instagram post of, uh, the, the attributes that people typically train for in terms, so, so that men typically train for when they're, when they're wanting to, to look better is biceps, abs, shoulders, triceps, like... Whereas the attributes that women on average prefer physically in men are glutes, back, um, and legs. So it's-

Chris Williamson 1:00:17 Is that a study somewhere?

Jonny 1:00:19 Yeah, I'll, I'll try and find the citation. But it's, it, it basically says that, like, we, we are optimizing for the wrong thing.

Chris Williamson 1:00:25 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:00:25 If you're, if you're training to, to look better for the opposite sex, like, the things that you think are important are not the things that people find attractive in you.

Chris Williamson 1:00:32 The opposite. Do the opposite.

Yusef 1:00:34 Yeah. I was saying this to Becca the other day. We were just walking Dexter, and I just had this realization of like, you can tell a lot about someone by how much they barbell row.

Chris Williamson 1:00:45 ... yeah.

Jonny 1:00:46 Like, you can't- y- meet someone with a huge barbell row and like, that person, very patient-

Chris Williamson 1:00:52 Wasn't an accident.

Jonny 1:00:54 Wa- definitely wasn't an accident. Wa- isn't doing it really for any kind of approval because like, who brags about their barbell row? You can't see the effect of a barbell row in the mirror. It is pure, just like I am in the pursuit of self-improvement here.

Chris Williamson 1:01:07 (laughs)

Jonny 1:01:08 And that's all I'm after. I just wanna slightly improve my barbell row over time.

Chris Williamson 1:01:14 (laughs) And the- the data suggests it makes you more attractive as well.

Jonny 1:01:15 So, and I- I don't think there are very many other... Well, exactly, yeah. I just don't think there are very many other exercises you can say that of. Maybe a dumb- so any rowing movement. Chin up probably as well. But even that's a bit- it feels a bit more bicep-y.

Chris Williamson 1:01:28 A bit showy.

Jonny 1:01:28 Yeah, a bit more showy.

Chris Williamson 1:01:28 Well, and deadlifts. Deadlifts-

Jonny 1:01:31 I don't know. I think like, that's the most weight you can move, isn't it, on an exercise pretty much?

Chris Williamson 1:01:35 Mm, yeah.

Jonny 1:01:36 Some people are doing ri- like, three-inch rack pulls. You're like, "Come on, mate."

Chris Williamson 1:01:39 Yeah, "What's going on here?"

Jonny 1:01:40 "Stop this."

Chris Williamson 1:01:41 "Look at that, look at that." Uh, so yeah, I think, like I say, part of a broader change that people have where they start to remember that they used to do art as a kid, "Oh, maybe I'm gonna need to go and take an art class, or maybe I'm gonna start doing another language. Oh, I'll re-pick up the guitar. I haven't played that in however many years." Or you know, and this is- I- to some of the listeners who are older than we are, this might just sound like we're going, "Yes, mate, that's what getting fucking older is."

Jonny 1:02:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:02:09 Whereas to us we're like, "Oh, look, my body- my body's changing and my injuries aren't going away as quickly." And it's like, "Yeah, welcome to aging, motherfucker."

Jonny 1:02:17 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:17 Well, I- I would quite like if- if there's anyone listening who is over the age of 35, 40 and thinks that we're just spouting absolute obvious truisms, then please comment and let us know.

Jonny 1:02:28 (laughs) Yeah, but everything's- everything's obvious to someone, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:02:30 Yeah.

Jonny 1:02:31 Like if we were- if we were genuinely putting out, like, groundbreaking information here, then that's quite something.

Chris Williamson 1:02:38 Mm, I think fitness menopause, I think fitness menopause is fairly groundbreaking.

Jonny 1:02:41 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:02:41 I think- I think when you map, I think when you start to map... And man, I hope that we've red-pilled the shit out of some people today. I hope that there's some listeners who will go away and think, "I'm actually gonna try a different form of training because I don't feel that engaged with my bro-style split anymore. I don't really feel like it's benefiting me across the board. I'm sick of having my, um, progress judged purely subjectively by myself, like, not even by other people."

Chris Williamson 1:03:11 Yeah. Th- there is something a bit like that. So, that's very important for people that are at the, the fall side of the curve, the end of the curve.

Jonny 1:03:18 Apex.

Chris Williamson 1:03:18 There are also people who are pre-this curve and should not assume that they've hit the fitness menopause. If you've been training less than two, three years, you are nowhere near the fitness menopause. And if anything, if you don't lift weights and you- and you're doing other stuff, you will always benefit from getting... You'll still get a lot of the- the, like the low-hanging fruit from lifting weights, just for a bit, just getting basic level of competence.

Jonny 1:03:43 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:43 And then you can do whatever you-

Jonny 1:03:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:46 ... whatever you like. Well, it's... I mean, that's coming from a proper, proper doctor. I mean, not- Proper doctor. (laughs)

Jonny 1:03:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:51 Not your doctor. We are not- we are not your doctor.

Jonny 1:03:54 Just a doctor. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:55 But he is a doctor. And, um, yeah, what- what was it that you said before, that, um, a lot of the biomechanical problems and health problems that you get would be fixed if someone could do a body weight squat and a pushup? Oh, for- in terms of soft tissue, niggly injuries, and like, all- all that kind of stuff, absolutely. But there- there is also just a pure, uh, mortality improvement, like all-caused mortality. It... One- one of the biggest factors is grip strength. And yes, that's correlation, and it might be the people who are dying have weaker grip and so on. But if you improve your grip strength, if you improve your total muscle mass, there are so many metabolic, cardiovascular, um, and just overall mortality, um, improvements and reduction in risk that you can get from that. Plus, you look better, you feel better. Like, it's a no-brainer to lift weights for a bit and just get basic levels of strength.

Jonny 1:04:45 I bought a rolling thunder. Have I told you about this? Do you know what rolling thunder is?

Chris Williamson 1:04:50 No.

Jonny 1:04:51 No. So, it's a spinning handle. It's a big spinning... Think of fat grips.

Chris Williamson 1:04:55 Yeah.

Jonny 1:04:56 Everyone who's going through fitness menopause knows what a fat grip is. That's another thing.

Chris Williamson 1:04:59 Yeah.

Jonny 1:04:59 So, think of a fat grip. So, it's a handle that- that comes down and clips onto a lifting pin that you plate load, and then you... So, that you've got, you've got plates, a pin-

Chris Williamson 1:05:10 Yeah.

Jonny 1:05:10 ... and a handle that spins-

Chris Williamson 1:05:11 Yeah.

Jonny 1:05:11 ... but it's, it's wide.

Chris Williamson 1:05:12 Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the grip.

Jonny 1:05:12 And you have to pick that up, pick that up and get it up to a certain height. Now, that is one of the most... It- it's got the weirdest, like, strength curve. So, I can do like, sets of five, sets of 10 with 50 kilos, but I cannot make 60 kilos leave the floor at all.

Chris Williamson 1:05:29 (laughs)

Jonny 1:05:29 And it's just grip. It's like pinch and support grip.

Chris Williamson 1:05:33 Why, um, why are you trying to improve your grip?

Jonny 1:05:36 Banter.

Chris Williamson 1:05:36 Because why not? (laughs) Banter.

Jonny 1:05:38 Well, isn't that- Well, just- it's just something I've not tried, so I was like, "I saw that." I was like, "Oh, that's pretty good. I wonder- I wonder what I could do on that." And then lo and behold, a lot harder than you think.

Chris Williamson 1:05:45 Did you get re-targeted with the discount at some point on a Pixel, that you do-

Jonny 1:05:48 It was actually, it was actually Martin Berkhan.

Chris Williamson 1:05:51 Cool.

Jonny 1:05:51 So, he's someone who's just al- been right the whole time-

Chris Williamson 1:05:54 (laughs)

Jonny 1:05:54 ... um, and still is right. Um, but he started working on his grip because he... I think he couldn't deadlift or something, or he had, maybe had golfer's elbow or some- like, something happened, so he's like, "I'm gonna work on my grip."

Chris Williamson 1:06:05 Oh, yeah, worked on his grip.

Jonny 1:06:06 And he's gone full deep end with it, like he's... I think he's competing in IronMind competitions and things with it. So, IronMind are the people who make the- the proper lifting straps. Like, if anyone's seen a set of blue lifting straps. Does anyone know what I mean?

Chris Williamson 1:06:20 Yeah, they're great. They're very good. I've got some.

Jonny 1:06:23 They're like, rated R. Like they, you know, they, you- they'd never snap.

Chris Williamson 1:06:25 Big dick.

Jonny 1:06:26 Put it that way, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:27 Have any- have- have you all got a captain of C.R.U.S.H as well, a Cock?

Jonny 1:06:30 No.

Chris Williamson 1:06:30 Have you used one? Have you used one, Chris? No, I don't- I do not need to do more forearm work. Ph- (laughs) Yeah, that's true.

Jonny 1:06:38 I think your grip's really impressive actually, Chris.

Chris Williamson 1:06:40 Yeah, it'd be ridiculous.

Jonny 1:06:40 We should test your grip.

Chris Williamson 1:06:42 (laughs) But yeah-

Jonny 1:06:43 Because there's like, there's- there's C.R.U.S.H, there's pinch, and there's support. Three aspects of grip.

Narrator 1:06:48 And I just got-

Chris Williamson 1:06:49 You've really gone deep on grip, haven't you?

Jonny 1:06:50 (laughs) Yeah, by accident though. It was by accident.

Yusef 1:06:53 Chris has got turgid, turgid, and turgid, hasn't he? For-

Jonny 1:06:57 Full-

Chris Williamson 1:06:57 Full, lean, and striated.

Jonny 1:06:59 ... heavily built.

Yusef 1:06:59 (laughs) So a- a Captain of Crush is like a, one of those old school grip trainers. It's like, looks like that and you-

Jonny 1:07:05 (clears throat)

Yusef 1:07:05 ... y- you squeeze it together. And-

Jonny 1:07:07 Kind of like a chicken in a egg.

Yusef 1:07:08 ... th- there's five different difficulties. I, I was like, "I'll go for a three," like that would be, I can barely move it, like it's so-

Chris Williamson 1:07:18 Yeah.

Yusef 1:07:18 They're, they're clearly not just made for like one to five difficulty-

Chris Williamson 1:07:22 Yeah.

Yusef 1:07:22 ... for general population. It's like-

Chris Williamson 1:07:24 No.

Yusef 1:07:24 I think number five, like two people in the world have ever closed it or something.

Chris Williamson 1:07:27 Well number five's just a solid object, isn't it?

Yusef 1:07:30 (laughs)

Jonny 1:07:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:07:32 (laughs)

Yusef 1:07:32 Just a bit of metal.

Jonny 1:07:32 Just a box.

Chris Williamson 1:07:32 (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Jonny 1:07:32 Just a metal box.

Chris Williamson 1:07:33 What's this for?

Jonny 1:07:35 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:07:35 So.

Jonny 1:07:35 Also, like the, I think the world record rolling thunder lift is like 120, 130 kilos.

Chris Williamson 1:07:41 Oh, fucking hell.

Jonny 1:07:41 And you hear that and you think, "Doesn't sound that bad." That was literally what I thought as I was like, "I wonder what, I wonder what I, could I do 100 kilos?" Not even close. Not even half of that l- lift I can even budge off the ground. And you're like-

Yusef 1:07:55 And you're like you can, you can deadlift.

Jonny 1:07:56 ... yeah like, well you're like, "What can I improve here?"

Yusef 1:07:58 20.

Jonny 1:07:58 Like am I honestly going to try and hypertrophy my forearm?

Chris Williamson 1:08:01 (laughs)

Jonny 1:08:01 Like probably not.

Yusef 1:08:02 But, but who, who's that made for? Like if, if, if you are a, you've been to Worlds Powerlifting, like and you've got, and your deadlift is your strongest movement-

Jonny 1:08:12 You know-

Yusef 1:08:12 ... and you still can't like-

Chris Williamson 1:08:13 You're the guy that can't get half of the world record in that thing.

Jonny 1:08:15 It's people who are doing like five by five with 300 isn't it? It's peop- it's the, it's when you think-

Yusef 1:08:20 Not a chance.

Jonny 1:08:21 ... when you think you're strong, and like y- you're strongest out your mates, you go to a powerlifting competition, you're like, "Hmm, not that strong." And then you win a powerlifting competition, you're like, "I'm pretty strong." And then you go to Worlds and you just stand at the entrance and you just go-

Chris Williamson 1:08:34 Nah.

Jonny 1:08:34 ... "Well." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:08:35 And you, you see there's a fellow with a checkered shirt who walks in in, in cut off, cut off jean shorts and high military boots on.

Jonny 1:08:41 (laughs) But, no but, but that's the thing. That's what you expect, but none of them are like that. That's the thing that's so-

Yusef 1:08:45 Just to finish things off, Johnny, can you talk to us about the, um-

Jonny 1:08:48 (laughs)

Yusef 1:08:48 ... the Chinese lady out of Finland.

Jonny 1:08:50 Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Okay, so warmup room. World, so like there's like Layne Norton, Krzysztof Woznicki, like Ray Williams, m- all these like people you've seen in, on Instagram warming up in this room. And in the corner is a, is an old Chinese lady wearing like bandages, like medical bandages around her knees, doing tempo squats with 170. And she must have been like, she must have been 60 odd kilos, but it was just like straight line, straight line.

Yusef 1:09:20 Just grooving, just-

Jonny 1:09:21 Just control.

Yusef 1:09:21 ... high bar.

Jonny 1:09:23 Yeah.

Yusef 1:09:23 Like (laughs) -

Jonny 1:09:24 And like when you've got like Polish world champions, like, "What's that?" You know (laughs) like you're like, "Who are you?" And no one really, she wasn't competing. She was just-

Chris Williamson 1:09:34 Just training.

Jonny 1:09:35 She was just in-

Chris Williamson 1:09:35 Just getting her session.

Jonny 1:09:35 She was just in the warmup room getting a session in.

Chris Williamson 1:09:38 Jesus Christ.

Jonny 1:09:39 Yeah. But yeah, none of them are, none of them are that like, they're all just like totally unassuming. Like you, you see them afterwards sort of in the Finnish supermarket buying some like weird cheese and a sausage or something. And like they all just look like completely normal people. But on a platform, monsters.

Chris Williamson 1:09:56 Would you not think that-

Jonny 1:09:57 Absolute monsters.

Chris Williamson 1:09:57 ... that's the most interesting thing about people that do these physical pursuits? It's that you could see them out at the supermarket-

Jonny 1:10:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:10:06 ... and just think, "Oh, he's a normal, he's just a nor-

Yusef 1:10:07 Uh-huh. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:08 He's just a normal fella." Yeah, it's like, you know, the people who have done MMA but don't have cauliflower ear.

Jonny 1:10:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:16 You're like, "You're the really dangerous bastards."

Jonny 1:10:17 You're the one to keep away from. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:18 'Cause I can identify someone who's done BJJ for 10 years because they've got the, they've got the ears.

Jonny 1:10:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:10:23 But like if you're one of the people who's managed to protect his ears, you're just a, a nuclear warhead, a complete lethal weapon just walking around.

Yusef 1:10:32 It's very Fight Club.

Jonny 1:10:34 Very Fight Club.

Chris Williamson 1:10:35 It is, it is very Fight Club. Uh, look, we've done it. Fitness Menopause. We'll see, uh, if anyone's been red-pilled by that. Let us know if, uh, any of those points resonate with... I know that they do. They either do resonate with you or you're lying to yourself about the fact that you don't think they resonate with you. Or you're, you're-

Yusef 1:10:50 Stop lying.

Jonny 1:10:50 It's because you've not trained long enough.

Chris Williamson 1:10:51 Yeah, just-

Jonny 1:10:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:52 What's the... Okay, so final thing. How long does someone need to do a push-pull leg split before they're allowed to enter the Fitness Menopause Club?

Yusef 1:11:00 Three, three to five years of pec deck and leg press with no direction.

Jonny 1:11:04 Or do, or do something like 5-3-1 where like you, you wanna be regularly thinking Monday you wanna be worried about your