Mark Rippetoe on Training for Strength vs. “Aesthetics”

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Hey, it’s Mike. And I’m back with another episode of the podcast. And in this episode it’s actually the first part of a two part interview with the always enlightening and definitely entertaining Mark [00:03:00] Ripito, who you’ve probably heard of if you take fitness seriously, but in case you don’t know who Mark is he was a competitive power lifter for about a decade, but is better known now as the author of several books, including two classics that I think.

Everyone that’s into weightlifting should read and those are starting strength and practical programming for strength. But Mark has also coached over the years. Thousands of people at this point all over the country on proper barbell training through his seminars which you can learn more about at www.

startingstrength. com. He’s also just a fun guy to chat with because he’s colorful and he just shares his thoughts openly and isn’t one for euphemisms or minced words, which I think is refreshing really. And in this particular chat, Mark and I talk about training for strength versus training for aesthetics and why there really isn’t as much of a difference between these two things as many people think.

And this podcast really just drives [00:04:00] home an important lesson that I learned years ago, and that’s, it’s very hard to build an all around muscular, visually appealing physique without getting really strong on a handful of key exercises. And these aren’t the exercises that you see most people spending most of their time on in the gym.

Now, if you’ve been following my work for any amount of time, you already know this and you know where it’s going. And if you’ve implemented any of my stuff, you’ve experienced it. But you’re still going to get something out of the conversation. Even if it’s just motivation to keep doing what you’re doing and a few laughs.

So here it is. Mark, thanks for coming back on the show. It’s been a while. People have been asking for you. Here you are. 

Mark Rippetoe: Here I am, I’m always here. I am at starting strength. com available virtually 24 seven. I’m always, my time is yours. 

Mike Matthews: Thanks for coming back. And so we’re going to do a two part, which is going to be fun.

So in this first part just for the listeners, they know what we’re going to be talking about here. It’s going to be training for strength versus training for [00:05:00] aesthetics, which is a word I’ve come to hate. It’s a cool word. Before a bunch of 19 year old YouTube goobers got a hold of it.

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah, it 

Mike Matthews: sticks. 

Mark Rippetoe: You know there’s such a thing as an esthetician who is somehow different than a cosmetologist. Yeah. What’s the difference then? I don’t know. I’m just saying. It is a stupid word. You’re absolutely right. It’s Augh tion. 

Mike Matthews: Maybe is more comprehensive. I don’t know. 

Mark Rippetoe: I don’t know if they do makeup and hair or if they do makeup, hair and liposuction.

Yeah. I have no idea. Maybe there’s like 

Mike Matthews: skincare in there somewhere. 

Mark Rippetoe: I bet someone in the comments will clear us up on that. What do you want to bet? 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. So first to clear it up, get something cool. Yeah. No, but the, in, in the fitness sense, aesthetics is the looks.

So it’s, looking a certain way, having a physique or whatever. And Yeah, exactly. It comes down to like abs and chest [00:06:00] and right shoulders and everything from the belt. Abs and upper body basically. 

Mark Rippetoe: Everything that you can see in the mirror with your pants on is is aesthetics. Abs, arms, traps.

I think they call that a yoke, a yoke and yeah, it’s it’s the same thing that we’ve dealt with in the gym industry for four decades. What can you see in the mirror standing in front of the dumbbell rack with your pants on? Pants off is when, the gym closes. Your special time.

Yes. What’s your personal attention to our clients? Some people have no shame. Some people, they don’t give a shit. They just, No, some people are in a management position and just Shamelessly take advantage of it. 

Mike Matthews: Their hair is too long to care. I mean There’s this one guy that would come in the morning.

I would go early in the morning and [00:07:00] He would wear these tiny little red shorts Spandex no underwear didn’t give a shit he was one of the more amusing Ridges on the glands and she did not care. He did He would go up. He would talk to girls. I actually I liked him Yeah, I don’t even I never even talked to I didn’t know his name, but every time he was there I was happy 

Mark Rippetoe: What a maniac.

Yeah, there’s the gym business is full of those kind of colorful individuals. Yeah. Yeah 

Mike Matthews: So let’s dive into the subject at hand, which is the difference between training for strength and training for aesthetics. And then, you can go over the programming of it, but then also it’ll help people understand what direction should they go in based on their goals?

Mark Rippetoe: That’s a good question. And we don’t deal with it much on our end of the deal because we’re, Primarily involved with strength training and strength training is how strong are you? What are what numbers are you moving? And that’s our primary emphasis at yeah, that’s your stock and trade of course.

That’s our [00:08:00] deal. I am aware of the fact having been in this industry for 40 years that the vast majority of the market. is interested in strength only in that it is a very effective way to, to enhance aesthetics, so to speak. If you walk in my gym and you are either too skinny or too fat and you’re not happy with your appearance, I put you on strength program and it doesn’t matter which one of those problems you’ve got because a strength program as a side effect improves aesthetics.

And so that’s the way we’ve always approached it. I know how to make a guy stronger. I know how to get a guy’s squat up 405. I can get a guy’s deadlift up to 500 

Mike Matthews: pounds. 

Mark Rippetoe: I know how to do that. In the process of doing that. Improves aesthetics every single time, no matter what his problem is. He look, people look better when they are [00:09:00] stronger.

And since the process of becoming stronger is an easily quantifiable process, we know how to program that. We can make that occur. And without exception, every time that happens, a guy is going to look better because Of the fact that human aesthetics are primarily controlled by the perception of body contours, which are defined by muscle bellies.

Yeah. Your muscles get bigger when you get 

Mike Matthews: stronger. Especially your big muscles. Those are the ones that tend to, those are the ones that look good. And I would say this isn’t just for guys too. It’s for girls as well. 

Mark Rippetoe: That’s obviously true for girls. 

Mike Matthews: But But a lot of girls think that especially with strength training, the heavy weightlifting is just going to make them look bulky.

Mark Rippetoe: I have a friend who’s a plastic surgeon down in Round Rock, Texas. And as a part of his practice, women come to him specifically to look better. He has a little different take on it than we do. His interest. Is is following along with what we’re talking about right now [00:10:00] is primarily aesthetics.

So he will have them squat because it is his contention that the squat makes more difference in a woman’s aesthetic appeal because it specifically works the hips and the legs. And the butt and and to a lesser extent the calves but the effects of the squat are specifically what his research into the subject has indicated to him are the most important things that you can do.

Yeah. Now we know that anecdotally, women were concerned with their lower body development because that’s the part that the girl can women can. affect the appearance of that by themselves without the surgeon, right? Now, in, in contrast, he does not recommend that women do any type of exercise that’s going to add muscle mass to the arms.

Lats or [00:11:00] shoulders and he and I’ve gotten in arguments about this. And I’ve, I’m just, I, my position and I’m sure it is yours too. I appreciate muscle, a muscular upper body on a female and most people that are involved in. In physical culture would agree with that. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: Women and girls start with so little muscle that, muscular upper body for a girl.

That’s a relative statement, 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah but keep in mind that he is. He’s approaching this from the standpoint of a plastic surgeon. He deals with the general population. He doesn’t deal with us. He doesn’t deal with physical culture. He doesn’t deal with weightlifters. He deals with women who want to look better for whatever reason they want to look better.

And his assessment is that in terms of the general population’s perception of pleasing aesthetics The squat [00:12:00] and basically only the squat is the thing that that makes the most amount of difference in the shortest amount of time. So he recommends that any, and in fact, he hands him my book in his in his office and prescribes, if you will, squats to, to these ladies that come in for for aesthetic manipulation.

And you and I can sit here and say, yeah, we’d like the sweep of a nice muscular forearm on a female, but his research indicates to him that the general population is only looking at the ass. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And the legs, cause then you wear the tight, pants or the jeans or yoga pants or whatever.

And 

Mark Rippetoe: that’s that’s where you, that’s going to get more attention than your arms. Yeah, no, don’t misunderstand. He is saying that muscular arms are a negative, that they are a drawback to the perception of feminine physical beauty to the general population. I [00:13:00] am not in a position to comment on that because I know what I like.

You know what you like. We’re pretty much in agreement on that, but the general population, there’s people walking down the street at lunch in Brooklyn with their copy of Cosmo in their purse so they can read it while they’re having lunch at a bistro are not the same kind of They have a different set of standards we do and I guess that’s fine.

I’m not concerned with them I’m again concerned with getting people strong, but 

Mike Matthews: I can speak for I’ve worked with and heard from thousands of everyday normal women that just want to be in better shape and I’ve found that a lot of the a lot of the attention initially is on Stomach like they want a flat stomach And they want butt and they want legs, but then as they get into weightlifting more, they come to appreciate muscle definition or as they would say, depending on the terminology, they’d say, Oh, I’m getting toned arms and now they never really would have thought that they wanted some muscle definition or muscle in their arms, but now that they’re getting it and they’re getting leaner, [00:14:00] then they start getting into it.

You know what I mean? But it, yeah, there aren’t very many come into weightlifting saying, I wish I had better forearms. 

Mark Rippetoe: What what he’s learning now, through his association with us, is that aesthetic standards do in fact change over time. Because, as you spend time in the gym, as you go through the process of getting muscular arms, And a lat sweep and a little bit of breadth to the deltoid and a little trap definition.

I think most women don’t bitterly cling to their previous aesthetic standard. I think it evolves and matures over time as they begin to appreciate the the process of getting stronger. So this leads back to our original premise. What is the, what’s the relationship between strength and aesthetics?

And I think probably the the best answer to that is that strength. Is the process by which [00:15:00] human aesthetics are improved and in order to fully appreciate that, you have to do it. Totally. 

Mike Matthews: Now I would even argue that strength programs are probably more directly relevant to women with how they want to look because strength programs are generally more lower body centric.

Lower body volume is just higher. They’re 

Mark Rippetoe: directly designed, that’s true. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, cause you’re doing a lot of squatting and pulling. And I’ve found though with guys, depending on, see, I don’t know if this has been your experience, but in my experience, just working with a lot of guys, their upper bodies develop slower than their lower bodies, bigger muscle groups, your legs are going to, a guy can get legs and a butt that he’s happier with a lot faster than he can get a chest and arms that he’s happy with.

Sure. So I have 

Mark Rippetoe: muscle belly, the faster it grows. Yep. And I just, I think that traps grow real fast too. That’s another thing that you see within two years of a guy starting a program that features [00:16:00] heavy deadlifts, he’s going to have traps. Yep. His neck’s going to grow an inch and a half. He’s just, these are just the immediate side effects.

And as you say, it doesn’t take very long. for this to happen. Arms, forearms, biceps, those 

Mike Matthews: take a while to say it. And in chess too, it seems to just be a stubborn muscle group for a lot of guys. That’s just speaking anecdotally. It just seems to take a lot of work to go from, where a guy’s normally starting doesn’t have really shit for chess cause we don’t use our pecs in a, in daily living all that much.

So they just come in very underdeveloped and it can take a couple of years to get to a to that point where, they look where I would say that fitness model type of look, enough chest to where it’s clearly, it shows through your shirt. It’s a feature of your physique as opposed to a weak point.

You know what I mean? 

Mark Rippetoe: Here is another this is a very good place to, to talk about this. If we’re talking about the muscle group [00:17:00] chest, this is the kind of thing that if you are interested in developing your chest, quote unquote, you better be benching heavy because all of the cable crossovers and dumbbell flies in the world will not make the damn thing grow like getting your bench press up to three 50.

If you want a noticeable chest through your shirt the most important thing you can do is get your bench press up. It’s just because chest diameter, chest girth, is what we see through clothes. In the same way that we see your hips in terms of hip girth through clothes and thighs in terms of thigh girth.

This is why the big exercises are the things that make the greatest amount of difference in the shortest period of time, in terms of aesthetics, because they are the things that make muscle bellies bigger. Now, unless you [00:18:00] spend, unless you plan on spending most of your day naked, Yeah, there are places in the world, but for most of us we remain clothed and as a result of that you’re probably better off with 16 percent body fat and a 350 bitch than you are with 10 percent body fat and a 225 bitch.

Just in terms of external physical appearance, right? People see you in clothes. If we have to strip you naked before we can tell that you train, then you’re not really understanding the process by which other people perceive your aesthetics, right? Your aesthetics are not visible. We don’t care about your razor abs.

If you’ve got a shirt on. Now I’m 60 years old and I’ve got a pot belly because one, I don’t care. And two, I don’t really care. I eat too much and I drink too much [00:19:00] and all this other stuff, but I, I’m probably, I weigh about 230 at five, eight. I can still deadlift 500. I can bench close to three.

Knees are creaky these days. I’m not squatting heavy much, but aside from the pot belly, I look like a. Relatively muscular, probably 50 year old guy instead of a 60 year old guy. And this is because I weigh 230, if I took my belly off, I’d still weigh 215. And I’d still look like I trained.

But if you guys that are watching this, you go ahead and laugh at my belly all day. But I want to tell you something. If you’re 5’8 and 165, Nobody knows. Nobody, you don’t look any different. Unless you’re wearing extra small shirts. Unless you’re wearing razor, painted on shirts. Nobody knows any difference between you and a guy at 165 that doesn’t train.

Yeah, nobody can tell and yes, if 

Mike Matthews: you’re a [00:20:00] psychological thing those you get leaner Oh, you just don’t want to ever be fatter. That’s just you know, that is 

Mark Rippetoe: that’s another show Michael that’s another show entirely That is that’s we need to get a psychologist on with us to talk about that because no, I understand it’s all of us that have trained have gone through that Yeah That phase where we’re just dialysis most.

Most common thing we deal with on the boards and at seminars is how do I get big without losing my razor edge? And the real answer to that question is you don’t and I’m real sorry about that But if you want to get big and look big it looks strong You’re gonna have to gain some weight some of that weight is going to be body fat We know how to get that off later But you get ready to go to the bodybuilding company, okay?

But the process by which muscle grows is anabolic. And anabolic processes affect all of your tissues, not just your muscles. This is extremely [00:21:00] important to understand. 

Mike Matthews: Yep, 

Mark Rippetoe: and it’s a good point because 

Mike Matthews: I run into quite a few guys that, they’ll just look into dudes on Instagram and you’ll have guys at 6 7 percent body fat pulling massive amounts of weight and they don’t realize it.

They just don’t realize how prevalent drug use is. They don’t 

Mark Rippetoe: understand the drugs involved in that. If you’re looking at a guy On Instagram with 7 percent body fat, whose deadlift in 700, he’s taking a bunch of drugs. I’m not here to judge that, I don’t care. Guy wants to take drugs, he needs to take drugs.

But we’re not talking to him. We’re talking to you guys. You guys out there who have, who are trying to look better in your clothes. Who are trying to get big and strong and look like you’re big and strong. The process of doing that is going to cause your body fat to go up a little bit. All right. Now here’s the interesting thing.

You could take a guy and sit him on the couch and give him three bags of Doritos and a gallon of Coca Cola and have [00:22:00] him gain a hundred pounds of body fat, eating Doritos and drinking Coke. All right. 25 percent or so of that body mass gain is going to be muscle tissue. It’s going to be lean body mass.

Because the processes are inseparably intertwined. Now, you can take another guy and have him gain a hundred pounds of body weight over the course of two or three years of heavy training, of eating correctly, eating a nice, clean, high protein diet. Devoid of sugar, all the healthy stuff we know we’re supposed to do.

And drink a bunch of milk and get big and strong. And 75%, maybe only 70 percent of his body mass gain is going to be muscle mass. And 25 30 percent is going to be body fat. In other words, any body weight gain is composed of both [00:23:00] lean body mass And body fat, you can skew the results in the direction you want them to go.

But you cannot separate the two process. Exactly. Even when it just boils down to you need to be in a caloric surplus to really gain muscle effect. And a caloric surplus is going to result in a body fat increase. We’ll worry about that later on. Now, I guess we could, 

Mike Matthews: yes, we could give the exception of somebody brand new to weightlifting.

They can be in a deficit and gain a fair amount of muscle for their first, bit at least. 

Mark Rippetoe: Sure, but they’re still going to gain some body fat. They’re going to go from 8 percent to 12%. Oh no, I 

Mike Matthews: think people start at high. Like a guy starts at 20%? 

Mark Rippetoe: Now that’s, yeah, that’s a special case.

Let’s talk about the guy that starts at 20%. 35 percent because that happens all the time. Yeah. Okay. Now in once again, let me make this clear in the absence of a bunch of drugs that you know, specifically, how do specifically how to dose, how to administer any body [00:24:00] fat, any body weight gain is going to be composed of both lean body mass.

And I think even seasoned, experienced contest bodybuilders that gained a bunch of body mass in the off season are going to see some body fat increase. Yeah, they do. You can’t be on that many drugs all the time. Exactly. You have to rest. You’re going to gain some body fat. It’s perfectly normal. You’re supposed to gain some body fat.

You guys that are 8 percent body fat that are looking at your abs in the mirror weighing 135 pounds have got to get past this. My people. Oh. You’ve got to get past that because you’re going to gain some fat and you need to gain some fat because the processes that also enable you to gain muscle mass are going to make you gain some fat.

Yep. And that’s good. Yep. 8% For somebody not going to a contest is an awfully low body fat, and nobody even at a contest is gonna hold on to 5% body fat for more [00:25:00] than a couple of days at a time. And this is all. All right. So let’s here’s a more, here’s a 

Mike Matthews: more likely, I would say like what I tell guys, cause they want the abs and the abs don’t really start coming in nicely until you get a little bit under 10%.

And I, and my general thing is. You’re going to have to, exactly what you’re saying, you’re going to have to deal with having a higher body fat percentage to gain the size that you need to gain. And then when you’re at the point where you’re like, I no longer want to get any bigger, I’m happy with my physique, then you can maintain a lower body fat percentage, but don’t expect much to change with your physique for as long as you are staying at 8 percent body fat.

You’re just not going to gain much more of anything, not much more not strength 

Mark Rippetoe: or size. It comes very, strength and size are. Again, inexorably intertwined. If you want to get bigger, you have to get stronger, and that’s just all there is to it. But here’s a more common situation.

Let’s say you’ve got a guy walks into the gym and he’s he’s a fat guy. He’s got 35 percent body fat. Okay. [00:26:00] Yeah. This guy is already in a situation where anabolic processes are taking place. He’s not emaciated. He’s not skinny. Things are growing, even though they’re not the things we Okay. So this guy.

is in a much better position to make positive changes in his aesthetics than the little, skinny, shrimpy, 135 pound kid on the internet who is happy weighing 135 at 5’8 because he’s got abs. That guy’s got psychological problems. My guy with 35 percent body fat, he walks in the gym, he knows he’s out of shape, he wants to get strong, he wants to lose his belly.

This guy is gonna eat enough. We’re not going to have problems changing his body composition. Not nearly the kind of problems that we will have with a little anorexic kid with an eating disorder. Because that’s what it is. He’s grown himself an eating disorder. I’d much rather deal with a 35 percent body fat guy because all I have to do [00:27:00] with him is get him to quit drinking cokes.

If I get him to quit drinking five cokes a day, I can make a gigantic improvement in his body composition and his aesthetics over a two month period without really having to do anything. I’d much rather deal with an overweight guy than a little skinny guy who’s. Intensely focused on staying underweight and skinny.

That guy’s got problems that are outside my bailiwick as a strength coach. Okay? It’s real hard to talk those guys into eating enough. It’s easier to talk the 35 percent guy into dropping sugar. 

Mike Matthews: I’ve dealt, I’ve dealt with a fair amount of those people that come in just underweight and don’t want to gain fat and have, some can’t be persuaded, but quite a few that I’ve dealt with.

We’re able to get over that and then actually like we’re saying with the girls that have come to appreciate muscle elsewhere They came to appreciate getting stronger and being bigger and like you were saying, you [00:28:00] know We spend majority of our time with clothes on so then so they you know, they actually do it They go they say I’m gonna give this three months and I’m just gonna do what Mike says I’m gonna eat enough food I’m gonna train heavy and see what happens and then people start noticing it though and people hey You’ve been working out or you know 

Mark Rippetoe: It 

Mike Matthews: becomes 

Mark Rippetoe: self reinforcing if you do it for a little while.

If they’ll just shut up and listen to it. Rehabilitative, that’s all. I’m proud for kids that can get past that little phase. But a lot of you guys listening to us right now are right squarely in the middle of this. You don’t believe Mike. You really don’t believe me. And you’re not going to do anything about it.

And to you, I would just say, you need to listen to us. You need to listen to us. There’s a reason why we’re here and you’re there. Okay, we’ve been doing this a long time and we know what’s going on and you have to give your muscles the Antibiotic environment in which [00:29:00] to grow if you want to be perceived as anything except a little skinny shit All right, if you want to be perceived continued to be perceived as an annoying Little skinny shit, and life goals, you know how aggravating you are thanksgiving with the family You have no idea how much your family hates you Not me.

I think last thanksgiving. No, i’m talking about i’m 

Mike Matthews: not talking to you. No, I ate I think Seven plates of food last Thanksgiving. I ate until I couldn’t move. That’s the way it ought 

Mark Rippetoe: to be. But the guys I’m talking to, you guys, that I’m talking to right now. Not everyone. Now listen to me, I’m telling you, there’s a bunch of guys right now Who go to thanksgiving and have the turkey and that’s all they’ll eat is the turkey cut the skin away from it yeah with the skin removed And people get tired of that and these kids don’t understand that everybody hates them And I think it’s just my duty to tell you guys that [00:30:00] really not only are you not doing yourselves any favor, but you’re a pain in the ass.

Okay. Now let’s talk about this. All right. In our program, when we, when let’s say we take a guy in the middle, let’s say we take a kid that walks into the gym at 155. He’s 19 years old. He’s 155. He’s just out of school. He’s still right directly in the middle of the anabolic window. His testosterone levels are high.

He’s a perfect specimen to grow, alright. If this kid will come in and do the program that we’re talking about, and it’s just a strength program, it’s not, it is, it has no arms in it aside from chins. It’s based on the five major exercises, plus chins. We’re going to train three days a week, every workout.

Every one of his numbers are going to go up, because he’s going to put more on the bar to lift it. He’s going to force himself to get stronger. [00:31:00] He’s going to, let’s say this kid is, he’s 155 pounds, he’s 5’9 he’s underweight. I’m going to have this kid drink a gallon of milk a day. A gallon of whole milk a day in addition to whatever else he’s eating right now.

I’m gonna, I’m gonna yell at him about his protein intake. Try to get his diet cleaned up. I don’t want him, the rest of his meals to consist of fast food and bread and a bunch of goo. I want him to eat nice and clean. I want him to add a gallon of milk a day to that. That kid can weigh 185 pounds. of a slight increase in body fat and gigantic amounts of perceptible muscle belly mass increase in about two and a half, three months.

Every time he can gain 30 pounds of good body weight. 

Mike Matthews: That’s a lot of way. How much did you say is actually lean mass though? Obviously there’s water, there’s glycogen. It’s not, you [00:32:00] mean 

Mark Rippetoe: water and glycogen and all that stuff is lean body mass, lean body it’s bigger tendons, bigger ligaments, heavier bones, heavier muscles, whatever they’re composed of.

And the ratio that we see is generally about 70 30. So he’ll gain 70 percent lean body mass, 30 percent lean muscle mass. What was his body fat? Was it 12 percent? So now he’s 16 percent. That’s fine with me. Yeah. That’s fine with me. The kid’s now strong. Yeah. His self perception is improved because he sees the process of going from 155 to 185 and it didn’t take very long for him to do this.

Same kid will be 205 by the end of the year. Same kid will go from 155 to 205 in a year. That’s not, An exceptional performance. That really is not, we see that all the time. Anybody that, that walks in that demographic, in that age group, underweight young men, can gain 50 [00:33:00] pounds of good body weight in a year, every single time.

And I don’t know what your position is on this, but Mike, we’ve done it for, I’ve 40 years. I know. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: No, you have more experience than I do. I would say it really I would I just don’t want, I don’t try to give people too high expectation. I tell guys that, in your first year of quality lean mass if you gain 20, 25 pounds, you’ve done a good job.

That’s what I’m, that’s what I’m 

Mark Rippetoe: we can get better than that results because I am not concerned about. Him gaining some fat the trick is the milk sure would probably never just that’s just a lot of calories It’s an easy way to go. It’s a hell of a bunch of calories, but it’s good calories.

It’s good fat. It’s good protein It’s good carb. It’s it is it’s the food that is designed to make mammals grow But it works very well. And this is and now you little skinny Snots in the audience are [00:34:00] saying, I have a heart disease. You’re not going to do this the rest of your life. I’m talking about for six to nine months.

Six to nine months. That initial growth spurt, we kick it off with a big calorie surplus. We teach your body to grow. We give it the stress it has to have to adapt. And then we give it The tools it needs to recovery. We sleep. We eat too much. We focus every workout on handling more weight. Now, how would you modify that 

Mike Matthews: for, let’s say someone who is, they’re just not in their hormonal prime anymore.

Someone then, 

Mark Rippetoe: say, modify it for the guy that’s 35 percent body fat. We do exactly the same thing without the milk. So just less calories. Oh, there is too, but specifically without the milk. A guy that’s 35 percent body fat is not having any trouble growing, as I mentioned before. His anabolic [00:35:00] state is guaranteed.

All right. It’s a different guy for whatever reason. He doesn’t drink the milk. Not everybody drinks a gallon of milk. This is what we get criticized for all the time. If you’re. I guess it’s. It’s not everybody drinks a gallon of milk a day, does it? Sure. Okay. But if you are skinny, if you’re 155 at 5’9 you’re 19, you’re underweight, you know you’re underweight, you want to be bigger, the best way to do it is eat more meat than you’re eating right now and add a gallon of milk to your diet.

You’re not going to do it the rest of your life, but it will solve the immediate problem you’ve got. And as a result of that, your aesthetics will improve. I assure you that we’re not interested in your razor abs. We want to see your shoulders, your traps, your hips, your legs, and your forearms. These things are the things that you, that make [00:36:00] the initial aesthetic impression of people looking at you.

Your abs are the least. Of your problems. They’re the least of your problem. They’re also easy to get you just lose fat and they’re There’s fat but if you weigh 135 pounds, how easy is it to lose fat? 

Mike Matthews: Gain, there’s nothing to lose But i’m saying that way you get nothing to appear from gaining body fats.

It’s just so easy to lose who cares 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah, exactly. But my bigger point to address the aesthetics of it Is that if you are 135, you’re 5’8 135, and you lose 5 pounds. What have you accomplished? More than you were before. Oh, but my abs are Boys, we’re not looking at your abs. Okay? We’re not looking at your abs.

You can’t go out on the street without your clothes on. You’ll get arrested. It’ll be even a bigger pain in the ass doing that than you all are doing. Then [00:37:00] you already are at Thanksgiving. Okay. This is that you have to understand that bigger is aesthetically pleasing. Bigger is aesthetically pleasing.

Mike Matthews: And I would say, I will say that a lot of girls will say the same thing. This isn’t just two dudes talking about it, but even though I am an abs guy and I stay lean and all that, I will, I’m married, so I don’t have to care. I just do it for myself, whatever I want to do. But if you ask just to take a panel of.

Girls out there and you have a guy at 15 percent who’s big strong and then you have, and again even I would say, of course, clothes on, there’s no contest between him and the dude who’s 7%, but a lot smaller. And then, but a lot of girls would even take with clothes off would take the guy at 15 percent who’s just, 20 pounds bigger.

Mark Rippetoe: I’ll tell you, I’ve talked to a lot of girls about this and you’ve seen the studies and you’ve seen the interviews. Guys who are fastidious about their abs, or extremely fastidious about their abs are perceived [00:38:00] by most normal women as narcissists. Yep, that’s true. It’s just. I’m sorry, boys.

That’s the way it is. Especially, you have the self absorbed, it shows through in your behavior. And I, I don’t. But then 

Mike Matthews: there’s that double standard though, because then you’ll have the latest Thor movie and you’ll have Chris Hemsworth, his shirt off and then girls are.

Mark Rippetoe: Chris Hemsworth, that’s the biggest casting error in modern film. Can you think of a better? Now, I don’t know. Hey, I got numbers. I think the numbers. I’m a great big fan of the Marvel movies. And I think. Chris Evans as Captain America was a fabulous casting choice. That guy’s, he’s great in that part.

But Hemsworth weighs 185 pounds. Thor doesn’t weigh 185 

Mike Matthews: pounds. So you want to see something like in Game of Thrones, like half Thor Bjornsson or whatever. 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah, you want, they should have found a guy that could carry that role that was a sufficiently decent actor and [00:39:00] introduced him. And he should have been 6’2 245.

That’s Thor, right? It’s a marketing play. Hemsworth is I understand what’s going on, but Jesus Christ. As an aficionado of the of Norse mythology myself, I’m personally offended by it. I’m personally, I’m deeply offended. You guys are worshipping a skinny guy. Thor was Thor’s big.

Mike Matthews: Thor’s 

Mark Rippetoe: big. He’s big and strong. And that hammer was not light to him because it’s magic. The hammer’s light to him because he’s Thor, because he’s big and strong. It’s just all the rest of it. Oh, that was disappointing. And it, it further, just like we’re talking about it, it further reinforces this stereotype of, these kids go to the movie, and they see a little skinny guy with abs, and he’s held up as a superhero.

And that’s just unfortunate. 

Mike Matthews: Evans, by your standards, is a skinny guy 

Mark Rippetoe: with abs. Yeah, but [00:40:00] Captain America is a different character. It’s true. Captain America is a different character and Evans doesn’t look as skinny as Hemsworth does. Somehow he makes an impression on me that he’s about 15 pounds heavier than Could just be height or just his muscle bellies and how his body’s formed.

He looks, he just looks good in a uniform. Yeah. And Hemsworth is just a little skinny snot, and he’s not Thor. That’s the weakest casting of all. And that first Thor movie was just just, I almost didn’t see the second one. Yeah. That was better, the second one was better. What a great franchise.

Have you seen Civil War 

Mike Matthews: already? I saw, I actually wasn’t able to finish it. I had to leave in the middle of the movie, but I saw half of it. You 

Mark Rippetoe: went 

Mike Matthews: to the theater, 

Mark Rippetoe: had 

Mike Matthews: to get up and leave? Yeah it was. It was my wife’s birthday party, and I had to, she was, she needed my help, and I had to go, but Oh man, 

Mark Rippetoe: There’s a time to turn off your cell phone.

Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: I couldn’t, I knew she was gonna be calling. I, you I was hoping that I could make it through, but it didn’t work [00:41:00] out. 

Mark Rippetoe: The thing comes out on DVD here. Yeah, then I’m gonna finish it. I’ve got it ordered, so yeah. I don’t like to go to the theater, I don’t want people Cell phones ringing and shit.

I aggravate easier now than I did. You’re just an ornery old guy now. Ornery old, what’s the term? Curmudgeon? Yeah, that works. Asshole! 

Mike Matthews: Alright, so let me post something to you here. So I’ve heard from quite a few guys just over the years that have started with a strength training program that, again, going back to even something I mentioned earlier in the podcast, that designed strength training programs generally have a higher volume on the lower body.

They just hit your legs and butt more than they hit your upper body because of the amount of squatting and deadlifting. We’re squatting and deadlifting. Exactly. So guys will do that for a period of time and experience everything you’re talking about. And they see positive changes throughout their entire body.

They get strong and they love weightlifting, blah, blah, blah. But they feel like now their lower body is getting. Too big for their liking, [00:42:00] and then they find that reducing the volume on the squatting and deadlifting and increasing the volume on the bench pressing the overhead pressing, even in some cases, arms.

Some guys, their arms are very stubborn. It takes, you do your heavy pulling, you do your, but then it takes, Quite a bit of additional just biceps work for them to get to where they feel like their proportions are good So they feel like we’re now their shoulders are big enough their biceps are big enough in proportion to their shoulders What are your thoughts on that because i’ve seen it many times and I tell guys to expect that if you’re going To go into a pure strength program You’re lower you in six months from now You might look in the mirror and be like damn my legs and ass are huge But my upper body’s underwhelming 

Mark Rippetoe: It’s been my experience that And this goes back to one of our earlier comments, aesthetics change with experience.

As you as you do a properly designed strength program, you’re going to be doing a program that is more heavily dependent on [00:43:00] hips, legs, back, lats, traps. Because of the fact that constitutes most of the muscle mass of the human body, Working two big major exercises that hit those muscle groups just reflects the proportions across the body with which your muscle mass is distributed.

I think it’s, I think it’s probably good to have big hips and legs. And you’re going to, if you’re doing a balanced program, you’re going to work those more because that’s where most of the muscle mass gets. Now. I understand that most people, the majority, the vast majority of people, even people who are primarily interested in strength are going to train arms.

And I think you need to do some art. I think that chins and some barbell curls, some heavy barbell curls are probably enough. I think that since we’re doing squats every day, since we’re doing either presses or [00:44:00] benches every day and since we’re probably doing chins twice a week that our version of a proper strength program reflects a little bit more emphasis on upper body actually because we’re doing all these all these chins and presses and benches.

And no, I completely agree. I think that most guys want a bigger chest. Most guys want a bigger upper body. So the question then becomes from a strength versus aesthetic standpoint, what makes your chest grow? What’s the most effective way to get your chest bigger flies, cables, or get your bench up to three 50.

Of course. So then the question becomes, how do you most effectively get your bench press up? If you bench four days a week, that’s not going to work. You’re going to over train stuff, you’re going to get tendon insertions inflamed, you’re going to get to the point where you’re injured, you can’t train, you have to approach this sensibly in a way to get your bench up.

But the best way to get your chest big is to get your bench big. [00:45:00] So then the question becomes, how do I achieve the side effect of a big chest by getting my bench press up? And then we do an effective bench press program. I think that’s you’re going to do, if you’re training three days a week, you’re going to do upper body every one of those days, and you’re going to do chins twice a week.

I think we’re, I think we’re, closing in on the problem here, but yeah, see, here’s another thing that people don’t and it goes back to this, to the statement you just made. Squats make everything grow. If you do nothing but squats for a year, let’s say something, some religious revelation has occurred to you and you’re not going to be, and you’re going to do squats.

And squats only, and do heavy squats and nothing else for a year. What do you think is gonna happen to your chest and arm? I you’re gonna grow. 

Mike Matthews: Have you had people do that? I’ve never had anyone do that, actually. 

Mark Rippetoe: Yes. Yes. The [00:46:00] effect of the systemic anabolic effects of squats are undeniable.

Sure. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

Mark Rippetoe: If you squat and don’t do any benches and don’t do any chins, don’t do any arms at all, because, and I’ve trained cyclists. That, that, that do this. Their arms get big and their chest gets big. Accidentally. No, 

Mike Matthews: mechanistically. 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah, I understand it. It’s growing. Yeah. The whole thing’s growing.

Growth is a systemic response. And that just comes back to It doesn’t just affect the muscle groups that are directly involved in the kinetic chain of that particular exercise. It affects the organism. 

Mike Matthews: I’ve seen it obviously years ago with my body and then just working with so many people that Like you were saying you just don’t get if you do a bunch of isolation magazine type, you know bodybuilding type stuff Sure, if you’re new to weightlifting you’re going to get something out of it, but you know Give it [00:47:00] three months and then that’s about it 

Mark Rippetoe: That’s what the skinny kid the 135 pound kid, 

Mike Matthews: but you go to the 

Mark Rippetoe: gym and that’s what 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s all.

You see the skinny kid doing the curls and then doing the dumbbell pullovers and then doing the tricep push downs and, but never have you ever seen him pull or squat or, yeah, because that’s too hard. Yeah. The bench press you might see for obviously he’s gonna bench, sets at 12

Oh, that’s the heavy, that’s the heavy, that’s a 30 sets of 30 heavy day. Yeah. Heavy day. So yeah, I guess it’s from what I’ve seen is that it’s just there. It depends on what people, and this is what I tell guys in the company, it depends what they want to do because the higher volume on the lower body is going to bring it up faster.

Where you put your work in is is where you see your progress and your results. So I guess that’s just something that I have always let people know that I think strength programs are a great place to start for everyone, but just know that in time, depending on how your body responds, don’t be surprised if your lower body is you get to a point where you’re like, wow, my lower body.[00:48:00] 

is, has outpaced my upper body if you don’t make any sort of adjustments for it. 

Mark Rippetoe: That hadn’t been my experience is all I can tell you. I, but again, I deal with a different demographic than you. And all of my guys are big and strong and most of them are carrying 18 percent body fat.

They’re big and strong. They look big and strong. Their arms are big and strong. Chests, shoulders, traps, big and strong. But I’m dealing with guys at heavier body weights than you are. And I would ask you to consider that maybe that’s part of the reasoning here. If you, 

Mike Matthews: And also my guys, when they come and they find my stuff.

They also, They want to get to a certain look as quickly as possible. Sure they do. And that’s usually an upper body centric. 

Mark Rippetoe: I absolutely agree. I know the demographic. And like I said, we’re just dealing with two different groups of people. Those guys that are dissatisfied with their upper body might have seen their upper body [00:49:00] grow.

Were they a little bit less tight on their diet on the way up? That would be my, my, from a far observation of the. of the situation. I think they might have grown more arm, they might have grown more chest, and shoulder, and lat sweep, had they just gained another 20 pounds. Yeah, and then I think I’d ask you to think about this 

Mike Matthews: too.

You’ve probably seen the genetics come into play where some people’s, we all have our genetic strengths and our genetic weaknesses. And when it comes to weaknesses, some guys, I mean if biceps are a genetic weakness, it can take a lot more work for that guy. To get to his 16, 17 inch arms or whatever, then it will take to the person who’s buys.

All they ever did was pull heavy and they have massive arms. 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. Biceps are almost, they’re probably 90 percent genetic. They just are. Deltoid separation, those capstone deltoids, it’s genetics. Big calves. Or drugs. I don’t, I know a lot of guys that have taken a [00:50:00] lot of drugs that don’t have capstone dealt.

You’re born with those. Yeah, it’s true. Big calves. With big, separate, lateral medial gastroc development. Yeah. That’s genetic. Yeah. You are not going to grow calves on a guy that doesn’t have any calves. You can do as many calf raises as you want to. You can do as much direct work on those things. They will not grow.

They’re genetic. 

Mike Matthews: People do not I’ve dealt with that where, my calves grow, I’ve been doing a lot of calf stuff, and they’ve grown slowly, but genetically, I had no calves. My dad has no calves. Even though I grew up playing ice hockey, doing things you think would give me calves. Doesn’t matter what you do.

Mark Rippetoe: Calves, calves are genetic. At the competitive, professional bodybuilder level, So that activity is controlled essentially 100 percent by genetics. In other words, a person without the genetics can do anything. They can train any way they want to train. They can take as many drugs as they can possibly afford, [00:51:00] mortgage the house, take as much drug as you want to, but you will not place in the top 10 at the Olympia without, not just Good genetics, but without top three without freak genetics You will not place and you will not place at a state meet at this point in fact with with anything less than freak genetics.

And would you say that applies to strength, too? This is so difficult. No. No, it doesn’t apply to strength. Okay. That’s what’s cool about strength. Okay. Anybody can get strong. Anybody can pretty much get real strong. But in terms of the aesthetic appearance of the muscle bellies. Yeah. This is, this, you’re either born with it or you’re not.

And this is what is so hard for kids to understand. We all grew up looking at the body building, and we all were fed This Weider bullshit about if you do this program on page 17, [00:52:00] then you will look like Robbie Roberts. No, you won’t. You’re not going to look like Frank Zane. You’re not going to look like Arnold.

Only Arnold and Frank look like Arnold and Frank, 

Mike Matthews: yeah, these days, it’s a lot of these YouTube guys that, yeah, they have great physiques, but they have had great physiques since they were 13, yeah, they have. 

Mark Rippetoe: That’s the point, but teaching that to these kids that are watching this.

This podcast right now is very difficult because they want to believe that they can do it too. And I don’t, look, I don’t want to discourage anybody from. From training, I don’t want to discourage, but what you have to understand is that if aesthetics are your only judging your only yardstick, the only way you have of judging your success you’re not going to be as happy with yourself as if you shift the motivation over strength.

Because anybody, any intact male can get their deadlift up to 500 pounds, right? Anybody can. And [00:53:00] that’s a good deadlift. And anybody, you can do it. You can do it. You little skinny shit watching this can get your deadlift up to 500 if you’ll just do what it takes. What you can’t do is be on the Olympia state.

Okay? That’s not a realistic goal. Yep. It’s entirely controlled by things that are not within your purview. Okay? But you can control how strong you are. And my advice to you is to Get this thing out of your head and get strength into your head because strength goes up. Strength can be trained. You can make your deadlift go up for the next 20 years because it’s entirely within your ability to control this.

If you do the work, if you eat, if 

Mike Matthews: you rest, And I would say that anyone can get a body that they’re happy with. Can’t anyone get a bigger body than they’ve got right now? Yeah. And anybody, everything And building everything and getting nice proportions and getting to wanna get, you’re gonna look good.

Are you gonna look as good as Frank Zane? [00:54:00] No. Am I ever look good as Frank Zane? No. It doesn’t matter how many drugs. If I were willing to do that and wouldn’t, it doesn’t matter. I would never approach that. So it’s 

Mark Rippetoe: genetic, it’s Frank. Frank has Frank’s Gene, Frank’s genetics, and nobody else did. Chris Dickerson was another amazing, balanced physique.

Didn’t know how to train, had no idea what to train, but he was just, yeah. He was Chris Dickerson. He looked great. Yeah. He looked great. Most of those guys at that level, especially 20 years ago, would not have 20, 30 years ago, did not do what we would call effective strength based training.

Because they didn’t have to back then. Now these great big giant guys in the wake of Dory and Yates, all those guys are strong. But that’s a different physique than what was winning back in the 80s. Very different, yeah. A whole different physique. All those great big strong giant guys that look big and strong and giant are strong.

Yeah. Because they’re doing some version of strength training. Yeah. Okay, but. Although, you had [00:55:00] Arnold, you had, what? Arnold. 

Mike Matthews: Franco, they were strong. 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah, they were pretty strong. Look at Arnold’s forearms. Next time you, in most of the places Arnold posed, his forearms aren’t that strong a body part for him.

He had amazing calves. He was just a wonderful balanced physique and Arnold was not a strength based, later in his career. Yeah. Yeah. He started with powerlifting. He started with squats and deadlifts and the. I guess he did the Olympic lifts too because everybody did them back then, but all these guys that are carrying 300 pounds of muscle mass at 6 percent body fat.

Those guys are strong. There’s no doubt about it. They’re strong. And learn guys, learn a lesson from that. Okay. Big and strong is training. Big and strong is training. 6 percent body fat is diet. I’m afraid that the vast majority of you guys watching us right now are only doing the diet part. Okay. So that’s [00:56:00] my advice.

Mike Matthews: I’ll still, again, I’ll stick up for, there’s a good portion of the crowd that’s right on board with this. Yeah, 

Mark Rippetoe: I bet there are. I bet there are. But since they’re already on board, we’re talking to the little guys that need our, That need to listen to what we’re 

Mike Matthews: saying. Fair enough. And yeah, that’s that’s the, I’ve been preaching from the beginning is there’s a reason why it’s not just coincidental that more often than not, the strongest guys in the gym are also the biggest that, there’s a reason for that.

So if you want to get bigger, you have to get stronger in coming, just commenting for girls, what a lot of girls, the idea that they’re going to get bulky. It comes from the fact of if body fat levels are too high and you just add muscle, yeah, you just look bigger. That’s what happens.

So you know, girls tend to, at least a lot of girls that come to me care more about that and they’re afraid of that. And then they realize once they do it. That gaining muscle isn’t the problem. They just need to be in the right body fat percentage range for the look that they want. It really [00:57:00] depends on them.

A lot of the girls that I’ve worked with, they want to have that athletic, defined type of look. They want to have muscle, but they don’t want to look like overly muscular. And it seems to be 20 percent body fat. With maybe the, maybe 15 pounds of muscle gained from the beginning, 15 to 20 pounds at 18 to 20 percent body fat.

And then that is a sweet spot for a lot of the girls that, that 18, 

Mark Rippetoe: 20 percent body fat is a good athletic body fit body fat percentage for women. Yeah. I think that the vast majority of women in that situation are going to find that. gaining gigantic slabs of muscle is not the biggest problem they’re going to have.

Women just don’t do that. You already know that. You don’t need me telling you that. But I also know that once again, aesthetics change. As women begin to train, their idea of what is excessive muscle adapts along with their physical ability as it improves. And what [00:58:00] they start off thinking is too much muscle may end up being just fine.

Yep. Just fine with them. Agreed. 

Mike Matthews: Alright I think I think we’ve covered everything. I think we can leave it at that. I think that’s a complete statement. Yeah. 

Mark Rippetoe: Yeah. I think so. What we have done is a complete statement. Period. Full stop. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. Yeah.

Thank you. 

Mike Matthews: Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www. muscleforlife. com. where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written.

I release a new one almost every day. Actually I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscle for life. com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.