Ep. #390: Christian Finn on Safe, Healthy, and Effective Training in Your 40s and Beyond

Christian: There were times when I couldn’t use a certain range of motion on an exercise, but I thought all right, let’s work in a pain free way. So maybe I was only doing half reps or three quarter reps. And that’s the great thing about using a dumbbell, particularly if you’re just doing on one side of the body.

Mike: Hey, Mike Matthews here and welcome to another episode of the muscle for life podcast. So every day I hear from people who are in their 40s and even in their 30s who are worried that it is just too late to get into great shape. They think that their metabolism is shot, their hormones are shot, and they are doomed to just lose muscle and strength the rest of their lives until finally they fall down and break their hip and expire and if you spent any time around these parts you know that is not true.

So long as you know what you are doing with your diet and training you do not have to be in your 20s to build a body you can be proud of. The window Is much larger than that. You can do it at just about any age, really. However, there are a few things you have to be aware of, and in some cases do a bit differently as you get older.

Now, the main thing that changes. in your body is its ability to recover from your workouts declines and this often manifests in more muscle joint and tendon soreness after training and a higher risk of injury and particularly if you are working very hard in the gym. Now many middle aged people don’t know this, they aren’t prepared for this and they think they can just Keep on grinding.

They can just push through the pain like they did in college, but as you get older this often just leads to further injury, further symptoms related to overtraining, and eventually just burnout, and then they quit. My buddy and fellow researcher and writer, Christian Finn from Muscle Evo, knows a thing or two about this himself.

He’s over 40. He is in great shape. He’s been working out for a long time. He has worked with thousands of people as a trainer and a trainer. I don’t believe he does online coaching, but he has a lot of experience as a trainer and also as an educator. And he recently had to slog through a rather nasty bout of joint problems that started because he was doing too much.

He was playing a bunch of tennis and doing a lot of heavy compound weightlifting and it caught up with him and he ignored signs along the way and kept going, yadda, the uge. And in this interview, I pick Christian’s brain on what happened and why, what he did about it, and what we can do to give our joints a break without sacrificing our hard earned muscle.

So in this episode, you’re going to learn a number of things, including what causes most joint injuries in older lifters, the right and wrong ways of dealing with joint injuries, Christian’s favorite exercises for training around Joint problems, how to program your workouts to prevent and fix joint issues and more.

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Christian, thanks for taking the time to come on the show. This is your first, I think this is your first rodeo here at the muscle for life podcast. This is 

Christian: my first time on the muscle for life podcast. 

Mike: Cool. Cool. Just to let everybody know, I came across Christian’s work years ago early on when I started when I first just jumped into the space and started writing content and seeing who was out there ranking for what.

And have followed him in his work ever since because he’s one of the good guys. Not only does he tell it like it is and stick to the science, but he’s also a good writer. He does a good job taking complex topics and breaking them down into simple, easy to understand recommendations. Very practical as well, which I appreciate.

He’s done a little bit of writing, actually, even for most of her life, but. I thought of you randomly, Christian. I was like, I’ve never had Christian on the podcast. It’s 

Christian: time. So it’s time for me to come on. And here I am. 

Mike: Yeah. That’s my little informal intro. And what we’re going to be talking about is, I guess it’s going to be two things that blend together, right?

So it’s training in, let’s say in your forties and beyond, or how things change as you get a bit older and then specifically how to work around. joint issues, aches and pains, things that you just didn’t have to deal with when you were younger. And I think you’re the perfect guy to have on the show.

And I’ve written a little bit about this and spoken a little bit about it and even have experienced it a little bit myself, but I can’t speak too much from experience because I’m 34. And yes, there is a difference. I do notice some differences. Between when I was like 25, 26 and now I haven’t had any major acute injuries, but a couple of had some biceps tendonitis.

I’ve I have a bit of hypermobility and my SI joint. And so that has led to some back pains here and there. So I do notice a difference. My recovery doesn’t seem to be exactly what it is. I also have two kids now. I’m not quite sleeping the way that I was back then, but I thought it’d be good to get somebody On who not only knows the science and who’s not only smart, but is really in the, you’re just going to talk about this new program that you put together was for you.

And so you can really speak firsthand about how things change, what issues that. You’ve run into personally and how you’ve worked around them and how that kind of led to this new training program that you recently released. 

Christian: That’s right. What got me started with the program was actually, it was way back in 20 start of 2018, the end of 2017.

And I taken up tennis. It wasn’t something I’d played before. I just thought. I just like to get good at tennis. So I started playing tennis and I played a lot of tennis. I had a coach. I was doing video analysis. I was taking it, as serious as I could given the time that I had available to play.

But the problem with tennis is that it is very hard on your joints. I don’t know if you follow tennis at all, but one of the British tennis players, Andy Murray, I think he’s had his second hip surgery at the age of 31. So it is a pretty brutal sport. And I found that out for myself because I think pretty much every joint that can go wrong happened to me.

So I had at the start of 2018, I had a problem with my knee, so I couldn’t really, I couldn’t squat, I couldn’t leg press, I couldn’t do anything. I had a funny shoulder. So my shoulder was causing me pain. And I had golfer’s elbow, which is essentially pain on the inside of your elbow and tennis.

Mike: I’ve had that from golfing and I can attest it sucks. 

Christian: Yeah, it did. That’s a, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s not just the obvious things, even if you’re just trying to deadlift a barbell off the floor, just gripping the bar. Hurts. Curls hurt. Pulldowns hurt. Chin ups hurt. It puts so many limits on what you can do.

Mike: When it’s bad, just trying to pick up a gallon of milk hurts. 

Christian: Yeah. It’s every time you do something, that seems like an everyday normal thing. It hurts. And that was the problem that I had. I was so frustrated because I wanted to get back to my old self, being able to go to the gym to be able to push myself hard.

And I tried and I tried and I couldn’t do it. And I thought basically that I’d had it. I thought this is it. You’ve had a good run of it, but this is the end. You’re going to have to accept that it’s just going to be, yoga or Tai Chi or some other sort of exercise that’s very low intensity, very low impact.

I don’t want to do those sorts of exercises. 

Mike: And just for context, how old are you? 

Christian: I’m 46. Oh I say tell a lie 45 but I’m 46 this year. That was the point where I was at the start of 2018. And I I got annoyed and frustrated for a week or two. And then I thought, okay, let’s see if I can find a way of working around this.

So I hit the reset button. I said to myself, all right, forget about what you did last year. Forget about what you did five years ago or 10 years ago. You’re now starting with a clean slate. Let’s go to the gym. Let’s see what you can and can’t do. And anything that hurts, anything that causes you pain, you’re not going to do it and anything that you can do, you’re going to build on it and try and get better.

That was essentially what I did. And it took me, about six months of just playing around with this tweak in this tinkering with that. And eventually I was able to come up with a way of training that allowed me to feel like I was going into the gym and training hard and pushing myself. But I wasn’t given my joints any grief.

They weren’t hurting. They weren’t flaring up in the same way that they used to. 

Mike: And how did tennis pan out? I’m curious, did you have to stop or did you just play less or? 

Christian: I completely stopped. The problem with the tennis is that obviously I’m trying to run around a court and I couldn’t really do that with my knee being the way it was.

And I didn’t want to be one of those people that. Just kept on going and kept on going with injuries until they force you to stop 

Mike: or until your body forces you until there’s this one day that, you just fall down. You can’t get up 

Christian: exactly. And that’s the thing. I had one of my friends, he’s, he was in the Royal Marines.

He was a Royal Marine commando. He used to do a lot of running and he was in his I think late forties, early fifties. And he had a problem with his Achilles and he used to get pain when he ran, but he just kept pushing and pushing. And eventually it snapped. It just went and because he’d ignored the pain, he’d set himself up for bigger problems further down the line.

So that was, I suppose that was the thing that I wanted to avoid, I enjoyed tennis. I like playing tennis, but I didn’t want to do it at the expense of being able to do other things that I enjoy. I enjoy cycling, I enjoy a little bit of running, I enjoy going to the gym and I still wanted to be able to do those things.

And so it was a case of. All right, I think you’re going to have to knock the tennis on the head for the time being and focus on getting your joints better again. 

Mike: And out of curiosity, you think it was just too much volume? Basically, you think you push it too hard too fast? Or is it just the nature of the sport?

I know this is a bit tangential. I’m just actually curious. 

Christian: I think it was I think it was the nature of the sport. I think it was the nature of the sport. The nature of, cause I was playing on hard court, so you can play tennis on clay, you can play it on grass, I was playing on hard courts 90, 95 percent of the time.

I think it was that combined with my age, I think it was combined with the fact that I was also going to the gym as well, and not just, it wasn’t just the tennis that I was doing. Part of it as well was the strings that I got for my tennis racket. I got these strings that were, that I found out later were notorious for causing elbow problems.

And I think that was also something that contributed. 

Mike: That’s interesting. Was it, is it the tightness 

Christian: or something? It’s the, it’s what they’re made out of. I think that in, in order to get more with tennis, there’s a whole science behind strings that go on tennis rackets, but this one was essentially designed to give you a bit more, as you hit the ball, it gives it more spin.

And the downside of that is because they’re firmer and a bit more rigid, that all of the force. When you hit the racket, when the ball hits the racket, all of the force is transmitted down the racket and up your arm, the firmer the strings are, the more forces get pushed up your arm. And so I think that was certainly one of the things that contributed to it.

Mike: Is that because the ball spends more time on the, cause that’s how you’d produce more spin spends more time on the surface. Cause I used to play a lot of table tennis. So I remember it’s similar. You have a, the amount of grip basically of grip and I don’t know, but Actually, official terms, you have grip and bounce.

And obviously, the more time the ball spends on the surface, the more spin you’re able to impart. 

Christian: I’m not sure exactly what it was that what characteristics of the string that made it less elbow friendly, if you like, you can get natural gut. That is supposed to be very elbow friendly on the other end of the spectrum.

You’ve got these very hard strings that generate a lot of spin. So say Rafa Nadal would use that type of string and some guys will use a combination of the two, but I thought I’ll experiment with this string that was supposed to generate a lot of spin. And it was an experiment that didn’t end very well.

Mike: Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. All right. Let’s get back to the workouts though. Shall we?

Okay. So that’s the background and you’re now in the gym. Let’s start with what specifically was going on with your joints. And how did that impact your training? You’ve mentioned a little bit, but I think we should just paint the before picture, right? And then maybe you can walk us through some of the process that you went through and maybe some of the key lessons that you learned that have allowed you to get to this after where now I’m assuming that you are able to do a lot of the things in the gym That you weren’t able to do back in the beginning of last year.

Christian: That’s right. Let’s take, for example, pull ups. I couldn’t do pull ups from a fixed bar without it causing pain in my elbows. And I tried various types of grips, neutral grips, palms facing forward, palms facing me. And all of them caused It was a similar story with the bench press of my and my shoulders.

Invariably when I was on the bench press, my shoulders would hurt. They wouldn’t necessarily hurt while I was on it, and maybe a few hours later, maybe the next day, it would cause me a lot of grief. Squats were a similar issue. I’d be squatting and my knee would just be crying out in pain. 

Mike: Out of curiosity, was that above the kneecap or below?

Christian: It was right on the kneecap. So it was primarily a, I think, a tendon issue. Cause I went to see a physio actually, because I tried to diagnose a problem myself and figure out a way of working around it. Normally when I get injured, I always go and see a physio because I want a second opinion, and I also want someone who’s got experience of having their hands on the problem.

Mike: I think that’s a good tip just to punch up because I’m the same way when I had the biceps tendonitis issue. I went and saw a PT sports doc who had worked with a lot of athletes just so I can understand exactly what’s going on. Same thing with my SI joint thing. I think it’s smart to do that.

Fortunately, the solutions were pretty simple. They just took a little bit of time. So it’s not like I had to keep on going back over and spend tons of money, but at least the effort that I put in was effective as opposed to maybe trying to dive into a textbook or, Kelly Starrett stuff and just muddle my way through.

You could spend months trying to Just self diagnose what’s going on before you even come close to the actual problem, 

Christian: exactly. And I think that was, that’s the problem, isn’t it? When you know about the human body, you think, oh I can figure this out for myself. And then you dive in and you realize actually, it’s not quite that straightforward.

And so I would always go to a physio. And I think one of the things that you Mentioned earlier is that you went to a physio who had experience of working with athletes, and I think that’s important because obviously you’ve got some physios who are just working with sedentary individuals who’ve injured themselves.

And then you’ve got a set of experts who are used to working with athletes who know what it takes to get them back in action again as soon as possible, because that’s really what, that’s what I wanted. I’m sure that’s what you wanted as well. You didn’t want to waste any time. Before you could get back in the gym and doing the things that you wanted to do.

So that was the position that I was in. And I think it was mainly tendon issues. That was what the physio came back with. It was all problems with the tendons. I didn’t have any scans or anything like that, but it was pretty much all of the symptoms were consistent with some kind of a tendon problem.

Be it tendinitis, tendinosis, and there is a difference between the two of them. Essentially, it was just painful tendons. 

Mike: So it was probably a tendonitis, right? Cause tendinosis is tendonitis over a long period of time, right? Where the tendon itself actually starts to degrade as opposed to just being inflamed.

Christian: I think when the physio looked at it, he wasn’t sure he thought there might be some sort of issue with the back of the kneecap, chondromalacia, something along those lines, but he thought there might be a bit of that involved. I think that with tendinosis, that’s essentially long term damage to the tendon.

And it wasn’t something that he couldn’t say that it was, or it wasn’t, it was just mainly guesswork and then essentially treating the symptoms. Which is what I did. 

Mike: Yeah. I think though, the fact that you are back to battery means it was probably just a matter of temporary inflammation and not.

Long term damage, or if there is long term damage, it sounds like it’s not getting in the way anymore 

Christian: with the elbows and the shoulder. Certainly that was probably tendon tendonitis, but I think with the knee, the knee is still, it’s probably 80 percent of the way back to what it was. So there might’ve been some tendinosis, but the problem with the knee is I, it got worse.

It was painful. It would swell up after a game and I just ignored it because I wanted to keep on playing. I was playing in this league. Which I wanted to win. And I just thought to hell with it, I’m just going to keep on going. And obviously that it didn’t end well. 

Mike: So you get in that place. I understand where you feel like you are intending to do what you want to do and your body is just getting in the way and you’re like, nah, you’re not going to stop me.

Christian: Yeah, exactly. And that’s the frustration. And actually I was listening to there was an audio book by, I think you’ve probably read it, David Goggins. And he just pushes himself, he pushed himself to the point where his body just completely. Broke down. I haven’t got past that point in the book yet, but he, I think he’s in hospital lying on some bed, just completely broken almost.

And I think, your body will only take so much before it just says, look, that’s it. I’ve had enough. 

Mike: Yeah, I haven’t read the book yet. I wanted to, I actually, I had an interview scheduled with him before his. Media tour really kicked off and I had to reschedule because I was, I had a business thing come up that was urgent.

I had no choice. And then he got booked on everything. And now I’ve been trying to get with his people to get him back. I understand. He’s on, he only has so much time. And if he can go on Joe Rogan’s podcast versus mine, yes, go to Joe Rogan’s. I get it, but I may be able to interview him at some point.

Christian: Yeah, he is. He is a very interesting guy. 

Mike: Yeah, so I’ve seen some obviously some stuff and it’s funny that I’m actually a little bit surprised that just given how vulgar and unapologetic he is that he can get away with saying some of the stuff that he says, I love it. I cannot be offended. I grew up on the internet.

So I would be a complete hypocrite if I pretended like literally anything offended me. But it’s refreshing to me like, wow, this dude is actually saying this kind of stuff in today’s hypersensitive, hyper PC 

Christian: Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it? It’s nice to hear it. And it is, it’s very refreshing. And I think that’s part of the reason why he’s so popular.

He’s almost going against the grain and saying the opposite of what other people are talking about. And it’s I’ve enjoyed it. 

Mike: And he has the bonus to back it up too. You know what I mean? The fact that he, his military background automatically people are less likely to just attack him, just throw around ad hominem, just the slanderous stuff that gets tossed around online all the time.

And then probably also the fact that he’s black works in his favor too. So he he has some armor where he can be like, man, this is what I think. And I’m going to say it. Yeah. Whatever people want to say back, I don’t care. 

Christian: Yeah. He had a very, Very tough upbringing.

So I imagine that there is nothing that anyone can say or do that, that will pierce that armor is a very impressive guy, actually. 

Mike: I like it. Anyways, I sidetracked us a little bit, but getting back to where you were at. Okay. So you had the elbow issue, you had the shoulder issue, you had the knee issue.

So that meant no benching. That meant no squatting. You had mentioned the deadlift was a no as well because of the elbow. 

Christian: Yeah. Essentially what I did was I just hit the reset button and I said, All right, forget all of those compound lifts. All of the things that I believed were very important because they’d always formed a central part of my training up to that point.

I just thought, all right, let’s just forget it. You’re going to start with a blank slate and just go to the gym and see what you can do. And so that’s what I did. It was just playing around with different exercises, different grips. different machines. And eventually I got to the point where I was able to train my whole body without it causing me any pain.

And I was able to rehab my knee as well. It took a while. I’m not saying that it happened, in, in weeks or even months, it probably took me the best part of a year to get to the point where I am now. It was beneficial to me because Obviously it means that I’m back in the gym doing the things that I enjoy, and hopefully there will be other people that will be able to benefit from it as well.

So it was one of those situations where something bad had happened, but I tried to turn it around and actually turn it into something useful. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s great. And that’s, that’s how I, at least I try to view any sort of setbacks or negative situations that I have to deal with, whether it’s training or business or relationships or whatever is, I think.

That it is supremely naive to expect the best always and expect that things are never going to be rough and Rocky. And that would be boring. Any Oak, what kind of game would that be if things never went wrong? There’s always. A lesson that I think you can learn and there’s always a way, I think, to take a negative situation and come out stronger, right?

It’s that concept of anti fragile where you don’t just bounce back to where you were before, you come back better than you were before. And it sounds like that’s what you’ve achieved here, which is pretty cool. 

Christian: Yeah, exactly. I certainly think that what I found gave me a lot more flexibility in the way that I trained, certainly in terms of exercise selection.

For example. Push ups was an exercise that, I sometimes would use them to warm up for the bench press, but it wasn’t something that I thought I don’t want to really do this because this is, it’s a basic exercise. It’s not really providing any sort of overload for me.

I want to be on the bench press pushing heavy weights. But what I found was that the push up was the only exercise that I could do for the chest that didn’t cause problems with my shoulder. And so that was what I did. I didn’t try to load the exercise at all. I didn’t get a weighted vest or a band or anything.

I just did lots and lots of reps. So I was on a slight incline. So I had my feet up on an incline. I slowed the reps down. I just did lots of reps. And I found that was another way for me to train my chest, but 8 Given my joints, any grief, they didn’t flare up, they didn’t cause me pain. So I thought I’ll stick with that.

Now, obviously you can argue and say maybe if I’d have been on the, heavier weights and lower reps would work better for me. It wasn’t necessarily about what is going to work best? It was just about let’s just pick something that you can do. That’s going to train the chest, the shoulders and the triceps, but that isn’t going to cause you pain.

Mike: And that. I’m assuming that was probably one of your first kind of guiding principles. One of the rules was you need to find things that don’t hurt, right? 

Christian: It was sometimes a case of just walking around the gym, trying different exercises. 

Mike: And sorry to interject. I guess there should be a cap. It’s fine.

Things that don’t make the pain worse because it’s, you already had pain. I’m assuming. That when you were doing pushups, it didn’t magically make your shoulder pain go away, but it didn’t make it any worse. Am I correct there? 

Christian: It was a case where it didn’t hurt while I was doing the exercise and it didn’t hurt afterwards.

So that was the main issue that I had with the bench presses. It wouldn’t necessarily hurt while I was doing it, but then it would, I’d move my arm in a certain way and it would twinge. And I knew that it wasn’t what I was doing wasn’t right. And that was the great thing about the pushup is that. It gives your shoulder blade a bit more freedom to move if you like.

And so it didn’t seem to cause as much of a problem as the bench press. It was a similar story with the overhead press. So for example, pushing a barbell over my head again, that was an exercise I’d done for years. I used to love it, but I couldn’t do it anymore. So I thought, all right let’s try dumbbells.

And the great thing with dumbbells, obviously, is you can have a neutral grip. You can have a slightly less neutral grip. You can essentially tweak your hand position in such a way that you can do the exercise without causing yourself any pain or discomfort. And so that was what I did. There were times when I couldn’t use a certain range of motion on an exercise, but I thought all right, let’s work in a pain free range.

So maybe I was only doing half reps or three quarter reps. And that’s the great thing about. Using a dumbbell, particularly if you’re just doing on one side of the body, one side of my body was fine and I could use a reasonably heavy weight on that side. But on the other side, I lightened the way I shortened the range of motion and just worked in that pain free range.

So again, it was a case of. Finding an exercise that was similar to the overhead press wasn’t exactly identical, but it was still an overhead pressing movement that allowed me to train, but without causing pain. 

Mike: That’s good. I like that. I’m assuming you did something similar with your lower body.

Did you split squats and the, on the side that you were, your knee was fine. You were able to use a bit more weight. And on the other side, you were not. 

Christian: On the split squats, it was a little different. And actually what I tried with my knee. I tried for the first six months. I’d come across a lot of research on the subject of dealing with a teletendinopathy, which is just essentially pain on the front of the knee.

And what they use, there were some studies that used eccentric only training. So single leg eccentric squats. But there was also some interesting research Just on heavy, slow resistance training. So I think it was one study I came across where guys were doing, I think it was a pretty high volume program.

I think they were doing, it was about 12 sets for their quads, three times a week. It was low reps, but they were just doing them really relatively slowly, say four to six seconds per rep. And that particular program worked as well as steroid injections. If we’re reducing pain in the knee, it also, the benefits lasted longer.

And so what I did was I launched straight into this sort of heavy strength training program for my legs, for my knees to try and make it better. And the problem was that I didn’t, what I should have done was what physio told me that I should have done was just to rest it. And to actually be really diligent about resting, not, and to actually treat it as a, almost like a mission, put as little stress on your knees you can, just to give it a bit of time to heal and recover.

I’d spent six months just, Trying to blitz the hell out of it to try and get the the knee back to normal and it hadn’t worked. And that was when I went to see the physio and he said, look, you just need to take a month off. Don’t do anything for the knee. And that was actually quite difficult. It was actually quite difficult to just do nothing, to do nothing for my legs.

Mike: When I had the biceps tendonitis, I had to I guess maybe I didn’t have to fully, but I had to really like, I couldn’t Dumbbell press really had, I could dumbbell press lighter weights. Really the only chest exercise I could do that didn’t hurt was like a low cable fly and push ups were okay.

Even that kind of hurt. So I understand I had to, I was just doing a lot of, I could do dips as well. Dips and cable flies, and I think I couldn’t do dumbbell curls. So I understand it’s just, that is harder to not just not go and train is harder than going and training. 

Christian: Yeah. Yeah.

Especially when it’s a habit that you’ve got into for years. I’ve been training since, since my teams and it was difficult to just not do anything. 

Mike: It’s deeper than a habit, right? At this point, it’s part of who we are. It’s part of our identities. 

Christian: Yeah, exactly. You feel like you’re not going to the gym.

It is almost for having that part of you ripped out because all of the benefits that almost that you take for granted because you go to the gym and you come out. And I certainly, for me anyway, I always feel better. I just feel more energetic. I feel happier. My mood is brighter. So I essentially, I gain my legs.

About a month off. And then I started going back and I started using blood flow restriction training. Which I’m sure you’ve seen before, essentially it was a case of wrapping these tourniquets around the top of my thighs and then on the leg extension machine and just doing, 30, 35, 40 reps in some cases, it was so painful in, not in terms of the joint, because it didn’t hurt my knee at all because the weight was so light.

It was, I was using this, Embarrassingly lightweight when I was in the gym and I had these, the occlusion straps on and by the end of 35, 40 reps, my legs were just on fire. It was a, it was actually a very good training stimulus and I, it was, I’ve never done anything like that.

High reps like that before it was certainly hard, but it was hard in a different type of way. In fact, I actually preferred doing the lower reps. I would much rather be squatting for five to eight reps than doing 35 to 40. 

Mike: Just by how it feels alone. Anybody, that’s what I joke with people and they ask, Oh, what’s the best rep?

range for building muscle. I’m like you can build muscle, a lot of rep ranges, but I can tell you that you are probably going to enjoy your workouts a bit more in lower rep ranges, especially for men. And if you don’t believe me, why don’t you go do a set of 20 reps on the squat, with an RP of eight or nine and just see how you feel.

And then. Do it a few more times and then come back and do it a few days later and see after a week or two, how much you want to continue working out. 

Christian: Yeah, exactly. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? With, there are lots of studies out there showing that you can get similar benefits with higher reps and lighter weights, but it’s a lot harder.

It is extremely challenging, physically painful, 

Mike: like literally painful. It’s just it is not fun 

Christian: mentally as well. I think that was one of the things that I noticed about it is mentally you’re starting to feel the pain around rep 25 reps 30, but you still know there’s another 10 or 15 to go.

And again, I think that was a, in some ways that was a benefit because I’ve been so used to lifting heavy weights and lower reps for years and actually then Almost training my mind to get used to the pain and to just keep on going to keep on pushing, even though it hurt. And even though it felt sometimes like I couldn’t do anymore.

Mike: Sure. Absolutely. And just to chime in on BFR and blood flow restriction. Yeah. I’ve written, I think that I have an article up on Legion on it. I’m not sure if I’ve recorded a podcast on it, but just letting everybody that’s who is listening know that is a great way To maintain muscle and to some degree strength when you are injured.

So it makes sense. That’s what you did, Christian. And that’s like the perfect way to do it is, on a leg extension, then you probably did a hamstring curl and you just break your training down into, I think I actually had My brain is telling me that Greg Knuckles was on my show talking about this at some point, where you breaking down the bigger lifts into their components and using BFR.

You don’t have, it has uses outside of being injured, but it’s particularly useful if you are dealing with an injury or just dealing with too much joint pain, where you can, again, maintain, I’m sure you maintained a fair amount of, Your muscle, obviously, I’m sure when you got back to the heavier weights, you have to readjust, but you probably didn’t lose much in the way of size, I would assume, right?

Christian: Yeah, that was a good thing is that I think I actually started to see some new muscle growth because I did in the past, I hadn’t done a lot of leg extensions. I’d when I first started working out, I’d done a lot of leg extensions and then I I suppose I stopped doing them because I didn’t think that they were particularly effective use of my time.

And I started. Noticing some new muscle growth again, which is always nice after you’ve been training for some time, you think, Oh, I that’s, I haven’t seen that, that muscle before. And you could see it building up in the mirror. And that was another of the benefits that would, there were muscles that I think because I’d been used to using heavier weights and lower reps for some time, I was actually perhaps stimulating some extra muscle growth, maybe in the I know that’s a controversial area.

I certainly noticed the difference, it was informative for me to see how my body was responding to, to, to very different rep ranges. I think it’s one thing training with reps of five or 10 or 15, but then when you start going really high into the kind of 30, 40, 40 reps, that’s another story entirely.

Mike: Yeah. It could be. Simply a matter of volume. Cause if previously, if you’re doing a lot of compound stuff, the volume is distributed more across, multiple major muscle groups, whereas you’re just heavily targeting your quads or you’re heavily targeting just in isolating just your hamstrings.

And, it could also just be more sarcoplasmic expansion, which You know, maybe it’s temporary and obviously that’s a controversial thing as well, but it’s not entirely surprising that you saw some noticeable changes with that kind of change in your training. 

Christian: Yeah, absolutely. Going back to the, you mentioned volume as well, and that was one of the ways I was able to achieve progressive overload, because obviously if you’re in a position where you can’t add weight and you’ve got the option of adding reps, but you’ve also got the option of adding sets as well.

That was another road that I went down is if I was able to do a certain number of reps with a particular weight, rather than necessarily increasing the weight, I’d say, all right, I’m just going to do a couple more sets, or I’m going to do another exercise for that particular muscle. So I started ramping up the amount of volume that I did, which again, wasn’t something I’d done a lot.

Up until that point, and again, that was something that I benefited from. I think it was, I think it was some interesting research out last year from Brad Schoenfeld, where he showed that very high training volumes led to additional muscle growth in certain subjects. At least I know that was a very controversial study at the time, but I think it’s certainly worth experimenting with volume because there is this large individual response.

Some folks will do very well. with low training volumes and some folks will need higher training volumes to get the same sort of results. 

Mike: Yeah, actually some research and just a topic I’m diving into because I’m writing a new second edition of my book beyond bigger, leaner, stronger, which is intended more for intermediates and advanced weightlifters.

I like what’s there. I think it has a good core, but I’ve learned a lot since I’ve. Written the first edition and I’ve taken, I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from readers and made my own list of things I’d like to tweak. And that point of increasing volume is, I think, particularly applicable to intermediates and advanced because, or advanced plural, because in the beginning when you’re new.

For the first year or two, maybe three, it’s pretty straightforward, right? You can really just follow a, I think a double progression, focus on your compound lifts, make good progress there, have some isolation stuff to add a bit of volume to the muscle groups that tend to lag behind if you only do the big barbell movements.

But there’s a point where adding weight, yes, you still can, but it becomes much, much harder. And you do have to make your harder and harder over time. The name of The chapter where I’m going to be breaking all this down is the more for less method. I think that kind of summarizes an intermediate or advanced weightlifter in that point of being able to increase your volume in waves is at this point, I think, because there’s been a few studies that have come out right now in the last couple of years and Eric Helms and Greg Knuckles and Mike Zortos have written about them.

Extensively in their mass research review. And that is a very useful method of progressing is what you just said when you, okay. So if you hit your reps target, instead of adding weight, you’re adding volume and you can kind of program that out over time. So your volume can ramp up over time and the other ways of doing it, obviously, but yeah, that’s just a good.

I think principle, especially for intermediates and advanced people, because I hear from them saying, Hey, I’m not going to be able to add weight forever. Or especially on some exercises, it gets so hard to progress on some exercises, like a side race. There’s a point where you just basically don’t progress on a side race anymore.

What do you do? 

Christian: No, nobody’s doing lateral raises or side raises with 300 pounds, are they? It’s just, you don’t get to the point where you’re able to keep on adding weight. So as you say, you, you said all right, what can I do 

Mike: harder? 

Christian: Yeah. And adding volume in some cases, that’s the only thing that you can do.

Obviously you can you can add reps, but you don’t want to keep adding reps indefinitely. And so adding volume for other people is a very effective way to stimulate additional gains in size. And I think the interesting thing. That I’ve noticed a lot of these studies now are reporting individual differences.

So you see these charts and they’ll plot, you’ll see, okay, one guy got a 5 percent increase, another guy. So it got a 10 percent increase. And what’s interesting is sometimes you see. There are guys who did a relatively low volume of training, equal results to the people that were doing two or three times the volume.

And it’s this, it’s trying to tease out this individual response and almost optimize the training based on your response to it. And that was something That I went into detail on MX for as well was finding a way of customizing almost your training volume. So if you’re someone that benefits from a high training volume, then obviously you’re going to need to ramp up the amount of work you do.

But some folks may be able to do just as well with less. And I wanted to be able to cater to those people as well, because ultimately it’s about. Saving time. You don’t want to go into the gym and train and do extra volume. If you don’t need to, if you’re one of those folks who can gain off a relatively low volume, then stick with it.

Mike: Yeah. And that’s, that also becomes a limiting factor. It really does. You only can do two and a half hours a day just to get in your volume. And I think also we’re thinking about volume probably in the same way, just number of hard sets, which I like try, I like thinking of it that way.

It simplifies it and it’s works. So why? Get fancier question with what you’ve put together because I haven’t seen it with MX for what are the criteria for determining whether you are progressing or not 

Christian: repetition strength. So it’s very difficult to actually measure changes in muscle mass over time.

You can use cat scans, MRI scans, Dexter, but they’ve all got weaknesses and they all, they’re not particularly accurate when it comes to tracking changes over time. And so what I looked at instead was using repetition strength, the number of reps that you’re able to do with a certain weight.

And if that number is going up, then you’re on the right track. Keep going. If you find that it starts to plateau out. then you might find that increasing volume is the way to go. If repetition strength starts going down, then volume is probably too high and you’re going to need to cut back. So it was almost like this decision tree.

If this Then that, so you’re making changes to your training based on how well you respond to it. 

Mike: Will that be boiled down to one rep max, right? That’s really what it’s based on. 

It wasn’t a one rep max. It was. Calculated, calculated not an actual, if you go, Oh, I could do 225 for 10.

Yeah. I see what you mean. I’m assuming you don’t want them to go to try to where they go. I can do 225 for 17 now, but I’m not trying to train in that rep range. You know what I’m saying? 

Christian: What the program involves is working with us in a specific rep range. So whether it’s 10 to 15, 15 to 20, 25 to 30 or whatever it is, and there are equations that you can use to calculate your one RM based off those sorts of numbers, but I think the further away you get from your one RM, the less accurate they become.

So I was purely going by a repetition strength. And if your repetition strength is going up. Great. Keep doing what you’re doing. If it’s plateaued, then look to increase the volume. If your repetition strength is going down over a period of time, then it’s time to start looking at ways of potentially decreasing the volume, or at least taking some kind of break from training or potentially looking at what else is going on in your life, be it your nutrition, stress levels, sleep, whatever it is that might be, Causing you to regress, 

Mike: right?

So it had a bit of double progress. It has double progression in it then. Exactly. It’s got 

Christian: double progression. That makes, that’s right. 

Mike: It makes perfect sense. Yeah, that sounds that’s interesting. I want to check it out myself, actually. It sounds very interesting and it makes a lot of sense to me on the topic of your recovery.

So we’ve, we have covered the lower body. We have covered. You’re pressing. We’ve covered both your bench and overhead and your elbow on the pulling. What worked? I don’t think we actually touched on that. So you weren’t able to. How did that work? How did you make that transition? 

Christian: What I found was very useful on the pulling side of things was number one, switching to higher reps.

So in the past, I’d always done a lot of pull ups and I’d always, I’d like to use in them. Relatively heavy weights on pull up side. I’d put a dumbbell around. I think I got up to lifting, must’ve been, what is it in pounds? 70, 75 pound dumbbells wrapped around my waist and just doing heavy sets of pull ups.

But I got to the point where I couldn’t do that anymore. Number one was just pull downs, but with a higher, heavier weight. So I would pull down to the front and I would change grips as well. Different grips. What I found was quite useful was the rotating handles, because you can get different pull down bars that some of the handles rotate and some of them don’t.

What I found was that the rotating handles actually seemed to be a little easier on my body. So I, Shifted to using those. So 

Mike: You were turning your palms inward as you would pull down. 

Christian: I was, when I was using the handles, there was some rotating handles as well. I use probably more on, on the rowing type movements, but I’m not sure if you’ve used the lap pulldowns machines, these handles, I suppose it’s difficult to explain, but they, 

Mike: Oh yeah.

I know it’s a bar with handles. Then they rotate. Yeah, exactly. I go to, doesn’t have that, but I’ve used that before in the past. 

Christian: Yeah. And I found those. I don’t know why. Yeah. I didn’t know why they seem to be easier on the joints, but they were. And that was the approach that I took. I thought I don’t necessarily understand why it works better, but it just does.

So I’m going to do that. And then going back to the point you mentioned earlier about the rotating handles, it was, I did a lot of cable work. And sometimes when you start with your hand in one position. So with a row, for example, you’d start with your hand in one position and then pull the bar, pull the handle in towards your body and you almost rotate your hand.

And I found that. Suspension trainers particularly were very useful. So I would do inverted rows and start with my hands almost pointed away from my body. And then as I pulled up, I would rotate the palms. So they were facing in a different direction. And for some reason, again, that seemed to be very much a joint friendly way of doing the exercise.

That was the one that I stuck with. And the great thing about inverted rows as well, is you’re getting a. a solid stimulus for your back and biceps, but there’s not so much stress on your lower back as well. So if you’re lifting heavy weights, if you’re rowing with heavy weights, there’s a lot of work being done by the lower back.

And if someone’s got back problems, it’s not always an option for them. Whereas with the inverted row, you can work the exact same muscles, but it takes a lot of the load off the spine. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s a good tip. And it’s good even for. Even if you’re not really having issues and let’s say you’re going to have a deload.

If you’re lower back, let’s say it’s not a problem and you’re able to train, but it’s just a, it’s an area that’s more sensitive when you’re deloading, you could stay away from the deadlift or a barbell row and just do things that give your lower back really a break. So then when you come back to your next training block, there’s no residual.

Fatigue or even micro damage. 

Christian: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s certainly if you’re following one of the five by five type of programs, there’s obviously, there’s a lot of work going through the lower back with that type of routine. So squats will be working at deadlifts bent over rows as well. It is tough on the lower back, which isn’t necessarily a problem if you’re healthy, but if, if you do have back problems, then you are going to need to look for alternatives.

Mike: Agreed. I think that covers all the major points, at least in terms of what you were running into. Is there anything else that’s top of mind that you wanted to share before we wrap up? No, I think that pretty much covers 

Christian: everything. 

Mike: I think it’s pretty extensive. And obviously that’s just really a preview of everything that went into this new course you released.

So why don’t you just tell everybody quickly about that, where they can find it? 

Christian: Oh if they wanted to find out more, they can go to muscle evo. com forward slash MX for, and everything they need to know is there. 

Mike: Great. And I think they already know what kind of stuff they’ll find in it. So yeah, anybody out there who it sounds like it’s not just for getting, working around injuries, but it’s more, it sounds like it has a.

A longevity angle of if you’re following a more traditional, just hard and heavy barbell centric program, something like, even my bigger than your stronger program or whatever and it’s working well for you, not having issues. Great. But if you’re not quite able to, Do that. Or if it is just giving you aches and pains that are not going away or getting worse, then here are some options of how you can really customize what you’re doing to your body.

So you can be doing it for a lot longer and not have to go through the weightlifting or the workout equivalent of your tennis experience. 

Christian: Yeah, exactly. And that’s, it would certainly be useful for anyone who isn’t injured. And would like to stay that way as well and even if you’ve got a few niggles or just not something that stops you from training, but you just feel like this is a minor problem that could turn into a major problem.

It’s worth looking into at least and experimenting with a different type of training because. There may be things that you can pull from it that will help you to avoid injuries further down the line. 

Mike: Makes sense. Thank you, Christian. I really appreciate you taking the time. This is a great discussion.

I think everybody’s going to find it. I think a lot of people are going to find it very helpful. Again, these are things that I haven’t really spoken or written much about. So yes, thank you. I really appreciate it. 

Christian: Thank you very much for having me. It’s been a pleasure. 

Mike: Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful.

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