In today's episode, my recent favourite YouTuber, Natural Hypertrophy is visiting the SSD headquarters! It was an absolute blast...khmm...maybe let's use a different word there, it was a ton of fun talking to him!

0:00 - Elojutub!

0:09 - NH's success on YouTube

5:00 - Making YouTube videos - challenges, style, etc.

10:00 - why NH remains anonymous

13:28 - Fanboyism and how your style dictates whether you'll have fanboys

20:55 - Being natural and why this is so important to NH

38:10 - What is the black-pill and why NH talks about it so much?

50:57 - Where did you learn about lifting methods?

57:36 - evolving rep ranges and evolving sets

1:04:55 - progressive overload talk - how frequently do we look at progression

1:07:08 - periodization and progressive overload talk

1:13:36 - how to arrange supersets

1:18:08 - training frequency per muscle group

1:26:25 - autoregulation

1:33:50 - how frequently you should do exercises?

1:34:33 - NH meets Lizzy

1:37:00 - talking about chin ups a bit

1:47:50 - Nucleus overload teaser

1:49:30 - where can we find you?

coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

NH's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG-3rEW4IrDNa7-9iGByc2A

How did our attempt to challenge Kassem go? Were we going hard at him or did we wuss out? You can find out in this episode!

0:00 - Are "optimized movements" overrated?

4:53 - what works for the freaks and what works for average genetics

11:10 - fully shortening the muscle and its relevance

19:37 - cheat reps and their validity

Coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

Insta:

@abelfitstuff

Kas:

Kassem's IG: https://www.instagram.com/coach_kassem/

Kassem's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/N1education

Kassem's website: https://n1.education/

In this podcast episode we talk mainly training, but we sneak in some diet talk as well with Dave Maconi and Bryan Boorstein.

Time-stamps:

0:00 - intro and Abel’s Omar Isuf impression

2:30 - Dave’s coaching experience with Steve Hall

5:30 - Stubborn muscle groups

12:44 - not growing in size but in vascularity

18:40 - finding “small wins” in the gym at the highly advanced level

20:04 - Abel’s muscle growth spurts

22:04 - Dave continues to talk about finding small wins in the gym

25:40 - Dave’s muscle growth spurts

27:26 - Bryan’s muscle growth spurts

30:25 - Why is progressive overload needed?

41:30 - Structured program hopping to measure progress

53:30 - Lengthed partials and standardizing them

1:01:40 - Steve Hall feels nauseous from bulking on 4000 kcals

Coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

Insta:

@abeltolift

Dave's website:

https://drdavemaconi.com/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW-PI9YMJ6SXPiqXy2FYfLg

Dave's insta:

@dave_maconi

Find Bryan:

https://evolvedtrainingsystems.com/blog/

insta: @bryanboorstein

Time-stamps are coming soon!

Thomas came to me for coaching, because he felt like he arrived at a crossroad with his health and fitness - he tried many times before, and he was ready to give it one more shot - and boy, did he give it one final shot! I can't take credit for his transformation, afterall I was only his advisor/cornerman during this fight - he was the one doing the work. You can have the best advice in the world, if you're not following it, it won't be good for much. Knowing this, he grit his teeth, and the results speak for themselves. So we decided to talk this over in over 2 hours.

0:00 - intro

1:20 - Thomas's background before our coaching time

19:20 - How to choose a coach that's right for you

29:19 - Dieting on low calories and finding the motivation to do a tough diet

39:00 - talking about the surprising benefits of low calories

54:10 - when did you get into a flow with the dieting process?

1:05:00 - how was the training process?

1:15:00 - low volume AND low intensity work can produce amazing gains if you're coming back from a layoff

1:19:50 - Loose skin after losing a lot of weight

1:34:08 - transitioning to maintenance from cutting and what elements of the diet to shift

1:47:05 - being purposeful with experimenting when you're maintaining

1:56:10 - our plan going forward

Coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

Insta:

@abelfitstuff

Studies won't tell us how to train, but what will? Maybe not the sexiest topic

0:00 - how valuable are studies for telling us how to train

1:30 - where exercise science is today

15:00 - the problem of averages

coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

0:00 - talking about arm training

6:30 - low volume being as good as higher volumes

11:07 - specialization phases and whether they work

14:07 - why studies suck and lower volume training

23:00 - more specialization talk

26:20 - Natural Hypertrophy bulking transformation

28:30 - some positive messages in the fitness world and how redundant they are

Coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

Insta:

@abelfitstuff

What's the best workout split - Upper-lower vs Push-pull legs vs Full body by Abel Csabai

Gravitate to your ideal body-fat% - this is my comprehensive blueprint by Abel Csabai

Monster podcast episode with Zac Robinson and Josh Pelland from data driven strength on failure training, reps in reserve, and the importance of training "intensely". Can we leave 5 reps in the tank and get as good of results as if we trained to failure?

We investigate this question from a scientific, anecdotal and logical standpoint.

0:00 - intro

0:37 - how Zac and Josh got into the research over RIR and failure training

10:42 - What training to failure actually means - is there a scientific consensus?

14:25 - Is actual failure (missing reps) significantly different from just going to 0 RIR (0 reps in reserve)

20:54 - autoregulating volume when training close to failure

29:57 - so, what do you (Zac and Josh) think of the importance of going close to failure at this point? (we should have started with this)

42:45 - at 80% of 1RM proximity to failure is not important anymore only repetition count?

45:20 - beyond 5RIR, diminishing returns or no returns to train more "intensely"?

50:12 - swinging in the other direction and advocating training super far from failure

55:54 - is failure training never WORSE in research?

58:40 - practical issues with very submaximal training

1:10:55 - why do so many people spin their wheels and not get anywhere with their training if training close to failure is not that important?

1:19:20 - progressive overload mysteries

1:22:19 - training at long muscle lengths, how important is it?

1:33:40 - prior "models" we had for muscle growth (which were more like FADs)

1:40:11 - practical recommendations for failure proximity and RIR

1:50:10 - where can we find you and your work?

Coaching and consultations with Abel:

https://ssdabel.com/

Zac:

https://www.instagram.com/zac.datadrivenstrength/?hl=en

Josh:

https://www.instagram.com/josh.datadrivenstrength/?hl=en

Data driven strength:

https://www.data-drivenstrength.com/

What are the things that really matter, what things matter less, and what are the really overrated things for building muscle?

More detailed timestamps coming soon!

Time-stamps:

0:00 - intro

The Categories:

Overrated category

2:12 - Periodization

3:26 - Different Training Phases

4:26 - Variation

Overrated, some good stuff though

Subjective feelings in training - 6:07

Mind muscle connection - 9:32

Tempo/Time under tension - 11:48

Warming up - 11:36

Special Prehab and corrective exercises - 15:24

Advanced training techniques (Drop sets, rest pause, etc) 17:20

Death Zone Training - 18:48

The perfect exercises 20:56

Relevant, these things matter (though often not as much as you think)

Rest periods - 22:55

The training split you're doing - 24:01

Training frequency - 26:39

Rep-ranges - 27:59

Important - 29:02

29:42 - Training volume

Technical execution - 31:55

Injury management 32:29

33:51 - Exercise selection

Essential! - 35:17

33:54 - Intensity of effort

38:08 - Progressiveness

39:35 - Conclusion

Coaching and consultations:

https://ssdabel.com/

My patreon with exclusive content:

https://www.patreon.com/ssdabel

insta: @abeltolift