2917: How Strong Should You Actually Be? The Numbers Finally Explained

14:20Adam Schafer:And so for people who don't understand this, workout program, it's like a computer program. Think of it that way. The right computer program produces the right result. The right workout program produces the right result. And you can't judge a workout program by how sweaty it makes you and how sore it makes you. There's actually a science that goes to it. It includes things like sets and reps and tempo. and how the workout's designed. Now, how do you know if it's working? You get stronger, period, end of story. You get stronger on a very consistent basis. And that's what good programming could do.

14:52Sal Di Stefano:I feel like we've, not we, but people have oversimplified this so much. And I think the thing that I think you communicate so well that's so important in this topic is that we literally, when we look at these workouts, and it's like what we can tolerate is what we think is appropriate for us. Like the most we can do. I feel like when we talk about this on the podcast, there's always someone who's listening who's like, oh, they're talking about like really beginners or people that don't know. And like, because I can handle it, this is for me. They must be talking about people that are doing things they can't handle or they can't.

15:26Sal Di Stefano:And I think that's the miss here is that so many people that are listening right now don't think it's them who we are communicating to. And it is them. It was me. Lean in real quick. It's you. Yeah, it's you. It is you. You're the one. It is not what you can tolerate. There is an optimal amount of volume and intensity in relation to your stress, your sleep, your nutrition that each individual should be taking into consideration to get stronger. And the best metric is, am I getting stronger? And we tend to ignore that. We do. How sore was I? And did I do the thing? How hard did I go? How many calories did I burn?

16:03Sal Di Stefano:And that's what we tend to focus on. And it's like, man, if you're looking back and it's been three months of you training and you're doing these lifts and you're doing the same weights as you were doing three months ago, you're probably not following a good program or the appropriate balance for yourself. And there's something missing there. And it's normally those things. It's this balance of stress, the nutrition, and or the programming volume intensity.

16:29Justin Andrews:We're so passionate about this because this was never explained to us. Right. In our process, going through and trying to get stronger. And, you know, there's just so much to dissect and reprogram out there in terms of how people view and perceive how to get strong. And there's such a more effective way. And the irony is the less is more approach actually gets you further along. I'll put it this way.

16:54Adam Schafer:Almost never does this happen. when somebody starts strength training, if they do it properly with good workout programming, almost never, in fact, I'm thinking if I ever experienced this ever happening, and I can't even think of it, I'm sure it has because it's never 100%, but I can't even recall one time. Every single person, when they start strength training and do it right, gets relatively consistent strength gains for a while, for a while, for like the first year. Like when I would get a new client, I would expect relatively consistent. It's first off in the beginning, it's very consistent.

17:31Adam Schafer:It's like every time we work out, we're stronger. Then it starts to become a little bit more difficult. But for the first year, we're getting stronger. It's just what's happening. And these are everyday regular people. The first time I really learned that this was a science was when I studied how the Soviets kicked the crap out of the rest of the world when it came to weightlifting. That was really when the science of strength training programming became apparent. Yeah.

17:56Justin Andrews:First time the government really put all the money into the science of it.

18:00Adam Schafer:Well, at the time you had the US who our athletes were training based off of how they felt and they would approach their workouts with always trying to beat their previous workout. So it was always intensity, always pushing. And we had some incredible athletes, don't get me wrong. But the Soviet Union used scientific programming and they programmed in things like deloads and stress reduction and we're going to, you know, even though you can do more, we're going to do the same way. And they just crushed everybody because there is a formula to what actually works. And you know when you see a program that'll make you stronger because it has a few things that are apparent.

18:37Adam Schafer:Like one of them, for example, is strength programs that build strength have less exercises in them. They just do. Now you've practiced the exercises that are in there more often, but they don't have 10 different exercises for back and 10 different leg exercises.

18:53Justin Andrews:It's like a few. You're not worried about a bunch of ankles.

18:55Adam Schafer:No, you're training a few exercises quite often. Why? Because a lot of strength is a skill. Your ability to generate force in a particular way is also a skill. And so if you want to get really strong at squatting, practicing squatting more often is better than squatting, lunging, leg extension, leg curls, doing a bunch of different exercises. Better to do that one exercise or maybe another one more often.

19:20Sal Di Stefano:If you were to go back and have a conversation with 15, 16-year-old Sal who's getting ready to get into weightlifting and what you're talking about, like sticking to these four or five lifts, how many years or how many months or how long would you say, like don't waste any time doing any bullshit lateral raises or doing any sideway chest presses or doing any, you know, this, like how long would you say just practice these four or five movements?

19:49Adam Schafer:I did have that experience. So you just, I was 15 going to 16. I started lifting weights at 14, did everything crazy, did every exercise I could think of. Right before I turned 16, this is when I met those power lifters in the gym that I tell you guys about. And they taught me how to deadlift squat. They taught me how to bench press. They taught me how to practice those exercises. Don't do a lot of extra lifts. That summer, that summer from 15 to 16, when I went, I think I went into my sophomore, junior year, I gained over that summer almost 17 pounds. and most of it was lean, but it's a crazy amount of muscle to gain.

20:23Adam Schafer:And I got strong. Like I was squatting. I don't remember what I started with. It was probably, it was less than 135. And I got up to almost 300 pounds over that summer from doing that. Now the problem was I was so influenced by, back then it was muscle building magazines. Right, right. And so I went wrong in so many different directions.

20:40Sal Di Stefano:I know this part of your story. And so you didn't. I just wish I just stuck there. Right, right. So like that's this, my point is like, you know, we're talking to someone who's like you're just getting into it and so whether they're 17 15 or they're 35 and they're just getting into it i i know the answer for me like if i could go back and tell me because i didn't even get the experience of getting that i like i was following the single body part bodybuilder split and then creative exercise guy for years right if i could go back and shake young me it'd be like these five lifts don't do anything else for five years you know three to five years like so much at least three years right three years maybe you start introducing other stuff but like first three years just get good at these lifts and i i mean i can't imagine if i trained like that um which would be hard for young me to listen to because i like you i didn't look at bodybuilding because i was interested in the sport of the bodies i thought i wanted to build a body like that right and so and what were they all doing they were all doing these body part splits and creative exercises and all the accessory work not realizing that even that look that I wanted, and I think that's the part that people may not understand, that I didn't understand either, was that just sticking to those four or five lifts for at least the first three years of your lifting.

21:58Sal Di Stefano:Better results. Will give you that look you even want. Yes, faster. It lays the foundation to do the sculpting and all this stuff.

22:05Adam Schafer:The sculpting and stuff makes sense, like we said earlier in the episode. Like, you know, when you're just getting started, get strong. At some point you do get strong. Then the risk versus reward is not so great. Now you can back off and try different things. But for the first few years, you want to get strong. The other one is train to failure. I thought you had to train to failure all the time. I thought that's how you got strong when you built muscle. You know who almost never trains to failure? Strength athletes. Almost never. Power lifters, Olympic lifters. They set them back. They don't because failure training, it produces worse results.

22:37Adam Schafer:It only fries your body. Really what it does is it results in more difficulty with adaptation because of the recovery. Strength athletes are very consistent with not training to failure. They train to failure when they compete. That's when they're maxing themselves out. And so good strength training program won't tell you to lift to failure. It doesn't. It tells you to train with intensity but not to failure. And then, of course, we mentioned some of the exercises, but you want to do the right exercises. getting really strong at some exercises uh doesn't give you nearly as much bang for your buck as getting strong at other exercises so a good example is i could quadruple my strength in a leg extension and a leg curl that's great i'm a lot stronger that's great there's nothing wrong with that but if i cut quadruple my strength in a barbell squat i have just blown away what the leg extension leg curl did for my hamstrings and my my potential on the leg extension is very slim

23:33Justin Andrews:in comparison.

23:34Adam Schafer:I'm going to build more muscle. I'm going to have way more carryover strength, way more positive effects on my hormones. It's just way better. This is true for things like the deadlift and the bench press and the overhead press and rows. If you get really strong, do it with the lifts that give you the most bang for your buck. It makes a huge difference. And then here's another one, scheduled deloads. So deloads are weeks where you're training at a lower intensity. Um, now you have to schedule them because you won't allow yourself to do it

24:07Justin Andrews:when you need to. You'll get too hyped because you'll be hitting new numbers and then trying to run it back. And you know, if you can discipline yourself to do that and allow your body that time to recover, you're going to set yourself up for not hitting that plateau.

24:21Sal Di Stefano:This is one of the hardest things to do even later on in my career. Cause it's so hard. It's so hard after you just hit like a new PR and a lift. It's exciting, you know? And there's a party that goes, and it's so funny too because it's because you're doing all the right things, right? You're eating properly, you're sleeping, you're doing all the things, you've got good programming, the PR comes on, and then you can't help yourself but go, I wonder what next week would look like.

24:42Adam Schafer:But that's when you need to do just five more pounds. That's when that D-low week needs to get hit.

24:46Sal Di Stefano:You just hit it, you just saw a new number, but it's so damn tempting and it takes so much discipline to back it off. This is where like having a code or having a program that tells you what to do and you trust the process comes in really handy. Because I know the science. I know what I'm supposed to do. And I still have a hard time with it. It helps to have something that says, OK, this is what I'm supposed to do.

25:10Adam Schafer:The studies on deloads are fascinating. They'll take groups of athletes and they'll train them. And one, they'll inject deloads every six weeks or whatever. The other group keeps training. The deload week athletes are stronger by the end of it.

25:23Sal Di Stefano:Well, I mean, that study that we talked about, that's relatively new was one of the most fascinating studies we've ever shared, which was the one where they compared the three groups or whatever. The group that nobody took no days off. No weeks off. No weeks off. Then the group that took every fourth week completely off, which means like in three months time, you took almost a month off. You took three weeks off. Three weeks off, which is crazy. That's a lot of time off in a short study. Yeah.

25:50Adam Schafer:And they were equal at the end. And they took a whole week off. They didn't do a deload. A deload is like I go in the gym, I practice the lifts at much lower weight. Yeah, low intensity. They literally did nothing for a week, and they came out the same.

26:01Sal Di Stefano:That blew me away. That study was fascinating and such a reminder of like we don't have to do as crazy amount as we think we have to do and still get – in fact, you arguably get better results. That's right.

26:12Adam Schafer:All right, let's talk about some of these metrics. What are the metrics? What's considered decent, good, great, and advanced? Okay. And for people listening right now, if you get between, if you get between decent and good, you're doing great. You're doing really good when it comes to like life quality, mobility, not being frail, like you're there. Great, advanced, that's when you're like pushing it and you're really a fanatic. Okay. But for everybody listening, you between decent and good, you don't have to worry about frailty. You've got the strength, you're good, everything's going great. So these are nice targets.

26:44Adam Schafer:They're realistic for most people, so long as you don't have any injuries or anything like that. So let's talk about those for a second. So for men, we're going to use bench press, squat, and deadlift. Those are the three power lifts and they do kind of cover the whole body. And it's not perfect. There's not much laterally going on. We're not jumping or running, but what we're looking at is posterior chain. We're looking at squatting. We're looking at, you know, pressing. So you're getting the anterior chain. So you're getting kind of the whole body with all three lifts. So for men, decent with the bench press is between 0.75 and and one times your body weight.

27:19Adam Schafer:So if you could bench press your body weight, you're doing pretty good. You're doing decent. Good. Now you're about 1.25 times your body weight. Great. One and a half times your body weight. Advanced. Now you're two times your body weight. So you could bench press twice your body weight. You're really strong. Okay. That's really strong. That's advanced. That's like really, really advanced. I don't think I've ever done that. I think Justin's the only one. Yeah, I might have done that once. That's done that before. I've never done that once. I'm sure he weighs a lot. Now it's tough. You bench press spring.

27:44Adam Schafer:When I was 240, I would have been crazy. He's a bunch of 600 pounds. Shut up.

27:50Justin Andrews:I'm not a fact.

27:52Adam Schafer:Squat, 1.25 times your body weight is decent. Good is 1.5 times your body weight. Great, about two times your body weight. Advanced, 2.5 times your body weight. Deadlift, 1.5 times your body weight is decent. Two times your body weight is good. Great, 2.5 times your body weight. Advanced, three times your body weight. Again, advanced is like you're competitive, everybody. So when you hear that, just know that's like competitive level. It's your top tier. For women, bench press decent is about half your body weight. Good is about 0.75 times body weight. Great. One times your body weight. Advanced 1.25 or one and a half times body weight.

28:30Adam Schafer:Squat about 0.75 to one times your body weight. Good 1.25 times your body weight. Great. One and a half times your body weight. Advanced 1.75 to two times your body weight. Deadlift, very similar. one time to 1.25 times your body weight. Good is 1.5. Great, 1.75 to two times your body weight. Advanced, about 2.25 to two and a half times your body weight. So now you have the numbers.

28:54Justin Andrews:A little higher here.

28:55Adam Schafer:And like I said, if you're listening right now, aim for decent to good. I was going to say, that's, I mean. You're good.

29:01Sal Di Stefano:Good is a good goal. You're great. I mean, those most.

29:03Adam Schafer:And they're achievable for most people.

29:04Sal Di Stefano:I'm good on most of that stuff. Those are like, I mean, that's years of lifting just to be a good. That's a good target.

29:09Adam Schafer:My point is, if you get to good, you probably don't need to worry so much about chasing strength anymore unless you want to get really like like advanced or you want to that's my that was my point of that video that i made is

29:19Sal Di Stefano:that like i've reached good in those lifts and so at that point you like reaching advanced at the

29:26Adam Schafer:post 40 years old in those lifts no now you're talking about high risk of of injury and yeah

29:31Sal Di Stefano:i'm reaping the the real major benefits that all the studies point to when it comes to bone density and muscle loss or muscle preservation and longevity, like you're checking that box.

29:41Adam Schafer:Totally.

29:42Sal Di Stefano:If you're maintaining or near the good and you're post 40, like, yeah, you're kicking. That's a good goal, I would say, for clients is to train towards that.

29:51Adam Schafer:Now, we have a lot of strength training programs, but two of the best ones we have for strength are MAPS Anabolic and MAPS Power Lift. MAPS Anabolic is where you would start. you would start there and then after completing that you go to maps power lift maps power lift is much more specific with the programming but both of those you're going to get strong the whole time you're looking at six months of strength gains six months of hitting prs especially in things like the bench press uh the squat and the deadlift these two complement each other so well

30:24Sal Di Stefano:and when we have people that run these back to back like this it's like the pr city numbers we

30:29Justin Andrews:we see are crazy. It's awesome.

30:32Adam Schafer:And what we're doing right now is you buy one, get one free. So if you bought Maps Anabolic, you get Maps Powerlift for free or vice versa. We have other Maps programs in this promotion, by the way. So if you're listening and you want to look at some other ones, if you go to mapsbogo.com, on that, you have all the, we have our top 10 most popular Maps program. Buy any one of those, get any other one for free. But if you're looking for maximal strength gains in a six-month period of time, the combo and the order is Maps Anabolic to MAPS Powerlift. And again, the place you get that is mapsbogo.com.

31:03Adam Schafer:You can also find us on Instagram. It's mindpumpmedia. We'll see you there.

31:07Justin Andrews:Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic, Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

31:48Justin Andrews:The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.