Ten years ago we got an awesome study on powerlifters and weightlifters maxing out in the squat daily. Now, a group of physical therapy students have replicated that study, but in the bench press instead.

You read that right. Bench press. Maxing out. Every day for more than a month. Plus back-off sets.

That’s a lot of bench pressing. But did they die?

Super fun study and lots to talk about. Afterwards, around 25 minutes in, we discuss Daniel’s results from a 6-week cycle of our training program Squat Samba.

Did he set a new lifetime PR?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

Which type of bicep curl is best if you want to grow your biceps?

How do you know if you are applying progressive overload and pushing yourself, or just ego lifting? And what’s the point of accessory exercises?

We collected ten questions from our Instagram account and the StrengthLog Subreddit, to create a really interesting and fun episode for you today.

See the timestamps below for all questions.

Timestamps:

• 02:30 - Question 1: What old-school strength training practice has been discredited by research, but you still sort of believe and/or practice? Even though you know it’s not evidence-based?
• 05:50 - Question 2: What exercises do you feel guilty about not doing because you never really want to?
• 12:55 - Question 3: If you could go down a weight class in powerlifting but don't want to lose too much strength, how would you plan to lose around 5 kg from now until a competition in September?
• 15:30 - Question 4: Are there any disadvantages to using a belt when deadlifting with lighter weights?
• 19:00 - Question 5: What is the best way to maintain a diet that provides a caloric deficit and, at the same time, helps me avoid being hungry? And how should I think about calories from fruits?
• 23:30 - Question 6: I've started to feel a slight pain in the front of my shoulder after doing dumbbell presses, rows, and military presses. Any tips on how I can adjust my technique or training to prevent this?
• 27:20 - Question 7: We know sleep is great for recovery, but do you have any tips and tricks for someone who has trouble falling asleep?
• 31:10 - Question 8: Is there any risk of wearing down or damaging your teeth while doing heavy lifts repeatedly week after week and year after year, often biting down hard?
• 34:25 - Question 9: How do you know if you are truly applying progressive overload and pushing yourself, or just ego lifting?
• 38:00 - Question 10: How important are accessory lifts really? If the goal is strength, what is the benefit of putting together a workout with both bench press and dumbbell press, plus isolation exercises for the arms and shoulders, for example?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

Which type of bicep curl is best if you want to grow your biceps?

A new, impressive bicep study adds to the evidence that just doing regular curls might not be optimal, comparing bicep growth between two exercises where one was performed with a shortened bicep position and one with a lengthened bicep position.

After discussing optimizing your bicep growth, we move on to two listener questions. See the timestamps below!

Timestamps:

• 03:20 - Main subject
• 15:20 - Question 1: If I want to increase my strength in squats, do you recommend Squat Samba or RSR in your app?
• 21:10 - Question 2: Do I have to drink my creatine supplement, or can I mix it into food?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

If you want to build more muscle mass, is it a good strategy to bulk up first before cutting down to the same weight again, hopefully with more quality mass on your body than you started out with?

Bodybuilders do this all the time, but do you really need to if you don’t plan to compete? Another strategy is to stay at the same weight, slowly losing fat while adding muscle mass.

That’s what we’re discussing today. Using a new case study in which beginners did a 24-week bulk and cut cycle, we examine their results and talk about ways they could have been improved, and the practical takeaways for you, the listener. 

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

If you lower the weights slowly when training, will that boost your muscle growth and strength gains?

In today’s episode, we’re discussing a new meta-analysis (still in preprint) that pooled the results from eight studies on this topic, to see if an intentionally slow eccentric tempo when strength training produces better results.

The results gave us a lot to debate, so let’s dive in!

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

If you eat carbs before bedtime, you’ll become fat. At least, that’s what people have been claiming for decades—but is it true or just another fitness myth?

Today, we have a new study looking into whether carbohydrates eaten in the evening are more prone to becoming body fat, and whether it matters if the carbs are of the fast (tasty) or slow (boring) kind.

We round off the episode with a listener question about 1RM-based training programs in the StrengthLog Workout Tracker App.

Timestamps:

• 03:15 - Main subject: Will late-night carbs make you fat?
• 22:00 - Listener question: I’m about to finish my first cycle of a 1RM-based training program that’s given me great results. Should I run another cycle, and if so, how should I adjust my 1RMs?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

Which type of training is better for fat loss and reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease: cardio or strength training?

Today’s topic is a new, impressive study looking into this question, and we break it down for you!

If you exercise at least partly for your health, this is the episode for you!

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

How can you measure progress without testing your 1RMs? How do you best deal with plateaus in your training? And what do we think about low-volume, high-intensity training for muscle hypertrophy?

The first mailbag of the year is here, and it’s a good one!

Read the timestamps below for every listener question we answered.

Timestamps:

• 01:45 - What’s your best tip to mentally handle periods without progress (in both strength and physique) for intermediate lifters?
• 08:00 - What are the most overlooked features in the StrengthLog app that you would like more people to know about?
• 14:10 - My current bench press PR is 135kg, but last week I had a great workout and did 10x10 with 100 kg in under 45 minutes. How much do you think I can bench press now if I shoot for a new PR?
• 19:45 - How would your training be different if you got paid for being in the gym?
• 23:40 - How can I measure progress without testing my one rep max?
• 27:15 - Is cuing straight wrists during the bench press misunderstood, over-, or underrated? Personally, I’ve recently had much greater success with a slight bend in my wrists.
• 31:25 - If you could choose one (and only one) behavior that would immediately be eliminated from public gyms, what would that be?
• 34:40 - The 80/20 rule! What are the major things to focus on when it comes to exercise frequency, volume, intensity, recovery, and diet that you should think of, and what are the things that people focus on that only have a small effect in relation to the effort?
• 41:10 - If you could remove one rule or thing from powerlifting, what would it be? I personally would remove the "press" signal. Or deadlifts.
• 47:10 - Thoughts on low-volume, high-intensity training for muscle hypertrophy?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

How important are carbohydrates for your strength training results? And if you’re planning for a long, grueling workout—should you even bring carbs with you to the gym, to eat or drink during the workout?

That’s the main subject for today, aided by a new, randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial on intra-training carbohydrate ingestion in CrossFit-trained adults.

In the second half of the episode, we move on to more personal matters:

How did Daniel’s bench press competition go? And is Philip still doing his cardio quarters at the gym?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

How can you save time in the gym while still building muscle and getting stronger?

Today, we’re discussing time-saving training techniques like drop-sets, rest-pause training, myo-reps, and supersets.

A follow-up question for people short on time in the gym is:

If you only have time to focus on one muscle group or lift, how little can you train the rest of your body without losing strength and muscle mass?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our Reddit community here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.