Introducing Road Trip Rants: a Table Talk without the table, where the only thing more dangerous than Dave's ranting is his driving. If you've watched Table Talk in the past, you know the drill. You ask questions and Dave gives answers. This road trip begins in Akron, Ohio with a question from Instagram user ironmike_reid:
"Rant about the over-elaborate squat, bench, and deadlift setups that are so prevalent today. I understand getting hyped, but whatever happened to just getting up to the bar and just lifting?"
First and foremost, there have always been over-elaborate setups from lifters. In one of Dave's first-ever powerlifting meets, a lifter in the meet got in a three-point football stance and charged the squat bar, hitting himself in the head and bleeding all over the platform. But back then, it only happened in meets — not in training. So what changed? Well, now you see everyone's training online, so you see dance routines all the time. For Dave, this one's not really worth ranting about, because he doesn't care enough to get mad about it.
From Instagram user dchatman500:
"How bloated is too bloated?"
Short answer: when you can't see out your own eyes — and yes, this is possible. But before you get to that point, here's what you're looking for in a good bloat:
- Purple skin
- A round face
- Slits for eyes
- Ears that look like they're sucking into your head
- Sausages on the back of your head
From Instagram user hunter.aiken:
"Why is it so hard for people to understand the passion for lifting weights? If people say they can't work because they have football practice or hockey practices it's normal, but if you say you need to go to the gym and work on lifts for powerlifting everyone thinks it's so strange. "
Dave's answer is simple: if you're really passionate about lifting weights, why does this even matter to you? If training is what matters to you, why do you care if other people find it so strange?
From Instagram user condorwarren:
"Why do people hate gaining weight to reach their goals?"
For competitive powerlifters, hesitancy to gain weight usually isn't for vanity reasons. It's usually because the lifter feels they have some unfinished business in their lower weight class. For instance, Dave says he never wanted to leave the 242-pound class before he came to Westside because he had never put his best lifts together in the same meet in that weight class, which would've given him almost 150 more pounds on his total. What he didn't understand at the time was that his leverages were not optimized in the 242-pound class; he needed to be heavier to lift his heaviest weights possible. These leverages can change by gaining weight, which for Dave happened a little when he went up to 275 pounds and even more so when he went up to 290 pounds.
From Instagram user swolederella:
"Hitting bench, squat, and deadlift the same day every day, and lifting 85% to max three to five days out from a meet because you're 'hardcore.'"
Dave doesn't call this hardcore. He calls this being a #hardcoredumbfuckinass. Everything in training is debatable, even if you use scientific literature to back up your position. There are studies that disagree with each other, and you can always find research that contradicts other research. No matter what, though, you have to recover. Whatever your frequency of training is, you have to be able to recover. Dave squatted every single Friday for many years and almost never wavered from this frequency. This may have worked for him, but could he have also squatted more or less frequently and been just as strong? This is why you need to remember the minimum effective dose principle: you want to do the least amount possible to gain the greatest benefit.
If Dave's working with someone and they can't justify why something is in their program, that thing must come out of the program. It's unnecessary. And no matter what that justification is, it has to come back to the minimum effective dose: do you know that this additional part of your program is what's needed to produce your current performance capability? If you're squatting five times a week, is there a reason that you have to squat five times a week to be as strong as you are? Could you be just as strong only squatting three times per week or even only once per week? It's not hardcore to do more work for the same result — it's just stupid.
WATCH: Table Talk — Rotating Specialty Bars for the Bench Press
