Bonus Q&A Setup

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Hey everyone, Philip here with a quick bonus episode from our Ask Philip monthly QA in the Wits and Weights Facebook community. Today I'm answering Mike's question about whether you can train for both size and strength at the same time. And this is something I get asked constantly. So if you've been wondering whether you need to choose between getting bigger or getting stronger, this one's for you. And if you want to hear the other three questions that we answered this week about balancing, running, lifting, and plyos, the creatine coffee debate, and de-bloating after you indulge in some fun foods. Join our free Facebook group. Use the link in the show notes.

Mike’s Background and Goals

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Let's dive in. Mike asks, and Mike just joined the group, so welcome, Mike. Thank you for jumping in and taking advantage of this. Is it possible to live for size and strength? Most plans emphasize one over the other with moderate versus heavy weights and higher versus lower reps, respectively. So this is an age-old question. I've probably answered it 80 times on the podcast. I'm not saying, hey, Mike, I've answered 80 times on the podcast. I don't mean it like that. I mean it as it is a question and people want to know. I have addressed it many times. So the one episode I threw into you as a comment is strength versus hypertrophy, episode 297, only because that gives you the whole walkthrough of this spectrum and how there is actually a lot of overlap. Okay. And then I and then I also said, hey, by the way, give me more specifics with your question because the point of Ask Philip is not just a general podcast QA. It's you, Mike. How can I help you? So you then you said, hmm, okay, I guess my question is truly generic, but FYI. I've been lifting and tracking my progress for five years using the strong app. My goal has always been to get 1% better by volume. Cool. Love it. Love metrics, love pushing yourself to get better. I haven't really followed a strict routine for the last few years. Just try to manage to get all the muscle groups in each week. Uh-oh. Okay, little red flag for me, Mike. Maybe that's that's an area of opportunity for you, and you probably recognize that, right? We want a structured routine, in fact. I typically always do a warm-up, low eight, rep set, form fit function, then two working sets, like 10 reps within one to three reps in reserve, a failure set, sometimes a drop set, and now sometimes what I call an LSD, low weight, slow movement, deep, full range of motion. I know it's probably a lot of quote unquote junk volume. I don't know if it's a lot of junk volume. I mean, look, getting into the gym consistently, training hard close to failure within one to three reps, and covering all your muscle groups every week, believe it or not, even though it isn't like you said a strict routine, it's it's a set of principles you're following consistently and multiple times a day. It probably is equivalent to a good routine, to be honest. I'm just gonna be honest. Like junk volume is kind of an old concept. I think there's an optimal amount of volume for you every week. And beyond that, it's not junk so much as gonna affect your recovery and your fatigue, right? That's really the concern. You said I'm interested in getting back to basics, reducing my workout times. Also concern about injury.

Smith Machine vs. Free Weights

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I've been using the Smith machine for squat bench dead, but my planet fitness just got free weights and squat racks, so I may transition over. Okay, we're gonna change that too. You will transition over, my friend. Stop using the Smith machine for the main lifts, please. They they are far more rife to injure you than to help you. And people are like, what? Because you know, you're you know, the bar is fixed, and so doesn't that make it safer? No, because it puts you in a rigid plane of motion that may not be the right plane that your body is naturally going to follow, given the bar path and the mechanics of the movement. And it's it's it's really not great. The caveat is Smith Machine can be awesome if that's what you're trying to do. If you're trying to get rid of the stabilizers, the balance, and you're trying to isolate a movement, you know, isolate a muscle, like your quads. You're gonna isolate those quads and you're gonna do it in the right way with the right kind of movement, like I don't know, a Smith Machine, you know, front squat, right? Or but even then, no, you know, even then, I don't like those. I don't like those because I've seen videos where people load them up too heavy and you kind of have the illusion of safety. So, you know, if you could be using spotter arms and things like that, great. I would stay away from the Smith machine altogether until later on as an accessory for light work, to be honest. So you will transition over to barbell if they've got it, just do it, man. You're gonna pay, it'll pay off big time. You have a continue with your question. I have one vain goal to get to a thousand-pound club squat bench dead, and also to continue to improve my lean muscle mass. I'm an engineer too, so I like numbers, data, and analysis. All right. So going back to your original question, can you build strength and size at the same

Can You Gain Size and Strength Together

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time? Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, my argument in that episode is that you're doing both almost all the time, anyway, right? Like building strength as a newbie, by definition, will have to build size once you get past the initial neuromuscular adaptation. And then from then on, you're basically complementing one with the other. It's just, are we trying to push strength in terms of max force production, or are we trying to push maximum muscle size in specific muscles? That's where you get into the subtleties of I need to do more hypertrophy or I need to do more low rep powerlifting style strength. And I'm a fan of doing all of it, not necessarily power building all the same time, which is doing both, but cycling through over time to kind of build the base, peek up, you know, work on weak spots, work on your symmetry, whatever the goal is. So I would say like six sets per exercise, is what I think it comes out to be. Most people, if they're doing like a power building program, you might have you know four to six movements in a training session, each being two to four sets. So like six sets of a bunch of exercises probably is too much. But again, it depends on how many days per week you're going in, right? If you're going in three versus six, that

Programming, Volume, and Progression

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makes a difference. The research is hey, if you're getting 10 to 15 hard sets per muscle group per week, including indirect work, that's usually the sweet spot for a lot of people to balance practicality, time with results. All right, so that's one thought. So if you were to follow a program, there's so many. I mean, we have I already mentioned we have some in physique university that can do this exact thing. I have one that you would really love called Ironclad. It's a set-based progression. I really think you'd love that. It's built on concepts that I learned from Alex Bromley. But we also have a power building template that is more of, hey, here's your main compound lift, here's a developmental lift, and here's some accessory work in a higher rep range. So the main compounds are down in anywhere from like three to eight reps. My particular power building program cycles every three weeks. Again, that's a philosophy or a principle that I learned from some other coaches. So it goes, you know, one rep range and then a heavier rep range and then the heaviest rep range and then repeat. So main compound, developmental compound, two or three accessories, going to one to three reps in reserve for most things is perfectly fine approach. Big compound lifts, you can go as light as as far as four reps in reserve, you know, accessory work, you go all the way to complete utter failure because you know it's safe to do so, and everything in between. All right. So, how's your recovery, man? How's your fatigue? How are you actually making progress? Are you measuring your measurements? Are you are your PRs going up? Like that's what I would say to you here is what's your baseline now for data? How have you been progressing? Don't fix what's already working, but definitely try some of the things I'm talking about right now. Get rid of the Smith machine. Ironically, it's going to be safer for your back. Okay, because your body's gonna move more naturally versus a fixed bar path. I've got a guy coming on the show we recorded, and his name is Dr. John Russin. You might have heard of him. He's a pretty big name in the PT kind of space, but he's also big into lifting. And he talks about the central line of safety, which is basically from your hips

Recovery, Safety, and Next Steps

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to your shoulder, having that strong neutral back. Sometimes you can't have that with a Smith machine, right? And so, again, free weights. So pick a proven program that is structured, follow it for 12 weeks, track everything and see how they progress. Eat right, sleep right, depending on what your goal is. I mean, are you if you're if your numbers are trying to go up, you're gonna want to, you know, something like Ironclad that I mentioned will help you peak for that at some point. There are other programs I can recommend. Do that, be in a slight calorie surplus, and you're good to go. So let me know how that hits you, man. If there's any follow-up, anything I didn't answer below the in this video, and I'll answer it. All right, that's it for this bonus episode.

Community and Program Resources

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If you want your specific question answered in our next Ask Philip monthly QA, join our free Wits and Weights Facebook community on Facebook. Just search for Wits and Weights or click the link in the show notes. And if you want the structured programs, the templates I mentioned in the episode, like Ironclad or Resolute for power building, check out Physique University. Go to wits and weights.comslash physique. And that is it for today. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.