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Today a member of Fort Worth Strength & Conditioning joins the show to discuss his journey going from overweight and diabetic to fit and strong with well-managed blood sugar.

Clif Hadley is a 61-year old IT professional with no prior athletic background (well, not since high school at least!) and no background with lifting weights. He found himself in his late 50's overweight with midline obesity, high A1C levels, and poor control over his blood sugar throughout the day. Making some basic dietary changes such as cutting out processed carbs (especially breads) and doing cardiovascular exercise on the recumbent bike helped him lose some weight in the short run, but he still had too much body fat, lacked muscle mass, and, most importantly, had high blood glucose levels.

At Fort Worth Strength he began the novice linear progression, squatting, pressing, benching, and deadlifting three times per week, starting a low, manageable weight and adding 5lbs per workout. After several months he climbed to a 250lbs squat for a double, 260lbs deadlift for three, 100lbs press, and 125lbs bench.

After approximately 6 months of training he developed persistent back pain in his lower back, which did not resolve with training modifications. An MRI revealed he had a cyst in one of his lumbar discs, which his surgeon was able to clear with a cortisone injection. This setback caused him to lose a couple months of training, but as soon as he was cleared by the physicians he returned to training, using partial ROM lift variants to regain strength and mobility in his spine.

Soon he was back to performing the big lifts with full ROM and within striking of his old numbers, when the COVID pandemic forced the gym to close. Undaunted, Clif resumed training when the gym reopened and is currently lifting heavier than ever. To keep his recovery high and his back feeling good, he lifts heavy twice per week, alternating intensity and volume days. In the middle of the week, he performs squat variants that are less taxing on the lumbar spine and spinal erectors such as the leg press. He also uses the mid-week workout for conditioning, during which he alternates between short, intense HIIT sessions on the echo bike or rower and longer duration, medium intensity rows.

Clif is a great example for masters lifters, who may feel that they are too old or too long past their prime to feel strong, healthy and athletic again. By trusting the program, showing up consistently, and working hard, Clif has been able to get strong, lose body fat (he donated 27 pairs of slacks to Goodwill because he kept losing inches off his waist), and manage his diabetes, even with some unfortunate setbacks in the process. His A1c levels have decreased from the high 7's to 6.1, and continue to fall. His lifts are strong for his age group, his back feels great, and he has managed to maintain his waistline for several months.

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Back pain may be the most common type of pain humans experience, but knee pain is a close second. What do you do if you have painful knees, but still need to train? Coach D and Trent discuss the anatomy of the knee, the various causes of knee pain, and tips for training through knee pain.

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Back pain is ubiquitous, and an unfortunate reality of being human. As Darin and Trent described in their four-part series of back pain (see episodes 28, 29, 31, and 33), it is a complex problem with many facets, including structural, psychological, and even social causes. That said, many trainees will encounter back pain during their training, so in this episode Darin and Trent lay out some practical tips for modifying training to accommodate back pain.

As always, we suggest actually doing the program first. Follow the principles of strength training, laid out in Starting Strength, and train the big barbell lifts to built strength in your whole body, especially in the trunk musculature which stabilizes the spine. Often just training your body in a systematic, progressive way -- with good technique, that is critical -- can reduce your pain symptoms by strengthening your tissues, bringing more stability and mobility to those tissues, and training your mind to de-catastrophize the experience of pain while moving.

For athletes that do strength train but still experience back pain that hampers your progress, we have some recommendations for modifying the main barbell lifts, incorporating assistance and/or supplemental lifts, and managing volume and intensity in programming.

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Coach D and Trent are back after a short break to talk about some trainee's reluctance to increase their calories while barbell training and conditioning. Perhaps driven by a fear of "getting fat," some trainees try to restrict their calories, particularly their carbohydrate intake, during the novice linear progression, frequently causing them to stall early on the program and fail to make body composition changes.

While Darin and Trent have covered the science before in the episodes with Robert Santana, the psychological barrier to eating more calories remains. As Trent points out, once you decide to begin training with barbells, you are no longer a normal person -- you are an athlete. So, you need to eat like an athlete! You can't expect to eat like the people around you who may be sedentary and don't train.

Lift heavy, build strength and muscle, and the body composition will come. But along the way you must eat to fuel the process!

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Coach D and Coach Trent discuss how they modify the barbell lifts and the novice linear progression for trainees with weak, injured, or tight shoulders. As always, they stick by the basic principle of making the lifter adapt to the model and the process, not adapting the process to fit the lifter. Often, simply following the process with attention to executing good technique will solve movement problems related to weakness or range of motion within a few weeks of starting the novice LP.

However, some lifters continue to struggle after following the process, at which point it may be time to modify the movement, the load progression, or change exercises altogether.

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Professional hunter, videographer, and host of the show Blue Collar Adventures, Jay Presti, returns to the show to share the progress he's made barbell training during his novice linear progression. After just 12 weeks of training, Jay has increased each of his lifts by more than double, he's dropped his body fat percentage by 6.5 points, improved his focus, and is feeling stronger and healthier than ever.

Jay began the novice linear progression in early March with starting lifts of:

Squat - 95x5x3

Press - 65x5x3

Deadlift - 205x5x1

His starting weights on the press and bench were limited by a shoulder injury he incurred in competition as a professional calf roper. Jay has a severely torn labrum, meaning he lacked both strength and flexibility in the joint. He also found the low bar position in the squat rather challenging, so we kept his starting weight artificially low, to allow more time for his shoulder to adapt to loading.

With careful attention to technique and gradual loading (just 5lbs at a time), over 8 weeks Jay increased his numbers to:

Squat - 210x5x3

Press - 115x3x5 (we inverted the rep scheme to keep his progress going)

Deadlift - 280x5x1

As of the podcast recording, which is approximately 12 weeks into the program, Jay squatted 232.5x5x3, pressed 127.5x3x5, and deadlifted 320x5x1. At this point he is squatting in a heavy/light/medium (HLM) schedule, and pressing five sets of three.

His body composition has also improved notably. Jay had a DEXA scan one week prior to starting LP and measured at 26.5% body fat. At approximately the 10-week mark, he had a second DEXA scan which measured his body fat at 20.0%, a decrease of 6.5%! Here's the interesting part -- during that time period his bodyweight hardly changed, starting at 202lbs and ending at 198lbs. In the process of training, however, he managed to gain 9lbs of lean mass, which accounts for the drop in body fat percentage.

Jay is a walking example of what barbell training in the simple novice linear progression model can do for strength, joint health, and body composition. He did the work, missing only a single workout (he was on vacation, we'll forgive him), ate lots of protein and moderated his alcohol and process food intake, and got plenty of sleep. Jay is a perfect example of what happens when you let the simple process of barbell training do its work!

You can follow Jay at:

• Blue Collar Adventures
• Blue Collar Adventures on Instagram
• Best of the West -- the Long Range Hunting Authority

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Coach D and Trent reflect on the recent quarantine and how it has impacted their thinking about health and fitness.

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Following Ep. 94's discussion on sets and reps, Coach D and Coach Trent discuss some of the programming changes they make for female trainees during the novice progression and throughout the advanced novice phase.

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Coach D and Trent discuss the rationale behind the novice linear progression's use of 3 sets of 5 for the squat, press, and bench, and 1 set of 5 for the deadlift. They also discuss how and why these rep ranges can be altered as a trainee reaches the end of the novice phase and transitions through the advanced novice phase into intermediate training.

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Where do you draw the line between safety and logic? In today's episode we discuss the three great "untruths" that pervade American culture.

The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt:

https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Generation-ebook/dp/B076NVFT5P/ref=sr_1_1?crid=556Q9COY5VG2&dchild=1&keywords=coddling+of+the+american+mind&qid=1589741849&sprefix=coddling+of+the+a%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1

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