Ryan Jore and Landon Horst discuss fatigue management in fitness and nutrition. They emphasize the importance of protein intake, especially during dieting, to avoid under-recovery. Ryan highlights the significance of volume and intensity in lifting, advocating for personalized programming to avoid overtraining. Landon stresses the role of overall calorie intake and meal frequency, noting that gradual weight loss is more sustainable. They also discuss the benefits of high-fiber carbs and the need for individualized training frequency. Both agree on the importance of sleep as a foundational element in fatigue management.

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Ryan Jore 0:15 Hi guys, welcome back to Strength Stories with Jore. Today we have on three time repeat guest Landon Horst to discuss an underrated topic of fatigue management. Mr. Horst, welcome back to the podcast.

Landon Horst 0:26 Thank you for having me. It’s been forever since I’ve seen you.

Ryan Jore 0:30 So in looking at this on fatigue management against a topic that probably doesn’t get enough covering, yeah, I think a lot of people just think more is always the answer in terms of fitness, and then less is always the answer in terms of calories. So Landon and I both came up with our big four. I’m going to handle more the lifting and fitness side of my big four things for fatigue management, you’ve got your big four on nutrition. So let’s, I think we’ll just alternate on these. What’s your number one for? I guess actually, maybe we should even say, when we’re talking fatigue management, we’re talking recovering between workouts. We’re talking having energy throughout the day. Again, it’s great to be able to lift heavy weights, do and lose weight things like that, but we also don’t want to feel like shit all the time. We want to actually still feel like a normal person. So Landon, what’s your number one thing to look at for fatigue management from a nutrition perspective?

Landon Horst 1:17 I want to piggyback off of what you said first, which is that I think this is also important for achieving your goals too. Is that, you know, if you’re not managing your fatigue, and you think that just trying your hardest all the time is the way you’re going to come up short on your goals too.

Ryan Jore 1:33 Or, yeah, eventually you just burn out and you just go totally off plan, yeah.

Landon Horst 1:38 So you know, the very first one I have, from a nutrition standpoint, is especially for strength training, would be protein. And you know, especially as you’re dieting or trying to lose weight, eating fewer calories, you kind of have to prioritize the protein to make sure that you’re getting enough. But yeah, you don’t want to go into your next workout under recovered, then you’re just digging the hole deeper rather than improving.

Ryan Jore 2:07 So what would be some potential signs someone would look at to understand whether or not they are deficient in protein?

 Landon Horst 2:13 I mean, the first one would just be to track it, you know, and that’s a I think that’s an eye opener for a lot of people, especially because I a lot of people think they eat more protein than they do.

Ryan Jore 2:24 Yeah, I had two eggs for breakfast. Like, that’s enough, right?

Landon Horst 2:26 Yeah. Or, you know, we have protein with dinner every night. Yeah? A lot of people do. And I think Americans eat more meat than any other country. But you know, we don’t necessarily get enough protein still. And so it’s not just what you had for dinner. It’s also, you know, every meal should have protein.

Ryan Jore 2:45 Well and that would be to a looking at the source of the proteins again, that people might say, Okay, I have meat, but, like you talked in a previous episode about your protein ratio. So yeah, if you’re having like, sausage or bacon or something like that, that is meat, but per calorie, it’s not going to be a great source of protein. Great source of flavor, but probably not a great source of protein.

Landon Horst 3:02 Totally and just, you know, probably not the healthiest for your heart and things like that. Ryan Jore 3:08 So how would someone tell from a body perspective, like, what might they notice that would tell them, I’m not getting enough protein? Beyond just tracking the numbers?

Landon Horst 3:17 So the loss of muscle mass is probably the most worrisome one, you know, and especially with weight loss, which it’s worth saying that I work in weight management, and so I do kind of, you know, look at everything through that lens, in a sense.

Ryan Jore 3:32 What symptoms might someone notice from like, a body perspective, of like, telling them that they’re not getting enough protein in.

Landon Horst 3:38 Right. So, you know, especially with weight loss, your risk of losing muscle mass is a lot higher, which is, you know, the classic sign, if you’re not getting enough protein, you’re going to feel weaker. You know, lifts might not be going up like they would normally, or even, you know, regressing.

Ryan Jore 3:57 That’s probably a good sign, then, or a good indicator, as well as someone should be doing beyond just like stepping on your bathroom scale. That’s where getting, like, an actual scan at a gym or a nutrition store can be helpful, because you see what that muscle mass is, because the scale might be moving down, but we don’t know, is that coming from muscle, or is that coming from actually just fat loss.

Landon Horst 4:13 Definitely. And you know it’s going to help you kind of get around that mindset of the scale messing with you. And I see that so much. I’ve probably heard 100 times people that have quit going to the gym to lift weights because it was slowing down their weight loss progress, which, of course, it is. It’s a good thing. Yeah, it should be. I like to say that if you’re, you know, of course, if you’re losing muscle mass and fat mass at the same time, you’re going to lose weight faster, but that’s not the goal.

Ryan Jore 4:48 Well, exactly, you’re going to look worse. And no one knows what’s on the scale other than like you and your nutritionist. So it’s like, yeah, who cares what the actual number is? It’s like, we care about how we look in the real world.

Landon Horst 4:57 Right, and perform.

Ryan Jore 4:58 Yeah. So my number one on the lifting side is going to be volume. So for people to know what volume is, that’s just the amount that you’re doing in a workout. So on a run, that’s how long your run is. In lifting, that’s how many sets, how many reps you’re doing. I think a lot of times we end up overdoing the side of volume as a way of like masking the fact that we don’t actually push to true intensity. But that volume comes at a big time costs in terms of what it takes to recover from workout to workout. So we might be looking at, you know, you hit a heavy squat session, or, like, a high volume squat session, and you’re not able to hit similar numbers the next time you do it, because you’re still just not recovered from previous session. So again, with volume, we want to look at something it’s like it’s got to be enough that we see a change from it, or enough to stimulate, not so much that we’re just still feeling that a week later. It’s normal to have a performance drop for a couple of days, but if you’re still feeling that performance drop five, six days later, it’s probably a good sign you’re just doing too much in each workout and not doing the correct amount for you and your current capabilities.

Landon Horst 5:55 So would you consider that junk volume?

Ryan Jore 5:57 Yeah, exactly. Junk volume. It’s and again, I think that’s fine. I did an Instagram posting this today on how I think a lot of times we just, we have this idea in our head of what constitutes enough. And sadly, most people don’t base that on results. They base that off of, like, well, you know, I read this article 15 years ago in men’s health and said you should have seven exercises in your workouts. Like, well, maybe for that advanced bodybuilder, he needs that. But it’s like, if we could get by with three sets of three different exercises. Like, why are we doing more? We’re doing more just to prove it to who exactly?

Landon Horst 6:25 Yeah, and then that’s the same person that burns out

Ryan Jore 6:28 Exactly

Landon Horst 6:28 Right? Because they’re like, God, this is just kicking my butt.

Ryan Jore 6:30 I can’t fit this 90 minute workout in. It’s like, well, don’t f—- do a 90 minute workout. Landon Horst 6:34 Yeah. 60 minutes of it is, you know, doing you harm, right?

Ryan Jore 6:36 Exactly. What’s your number two?

Landon Horst 6:41 So the second one there would be just overall calorie intake. And again, I think even, you know, maybe not thinking about weight loss specifically, lots of times people are under eating for their goals, just because, you know, they’ve they’ve seen that it’s supposed to be 1200 calories a day, or, you know, just some blanket recommendation, and you know that they should be able to just willpower through a workout if they want it bad enough. But you know the calories are your energy source. And of course, if you’re not getting in enough, then your workouts are going to suffer. And you know, a few things there is, one is meal frequency. I think you know just that if you’re, and this goes back to protein, if you’re eating regularly throughout the day, it’s just more opportunities to kind of get the right stuff in. And, you know, with calories, I was just reading recently, actually, that if you’re trying to even gain weight or gain muscle, the calorie surplus, the amount of extra calories you need, is not a whole lot, but, you know it’s, it is above your current needs, yeah. And so that’s, I still think, more than people are eating typically.

Ryan Jore 7:56 Exactly, and they said going kind of meal frequency. And I know it’s kind of one of your other main ones, but I main ones, but it’s funny how we’re surprised when we eat, like a massive supper and, like, have a coffee for lunch, and then, like, you know, they nibble on like, a donut for or, sorry, massive supper, coffee for breakfast, small lunch, and then we’re wondering why, like, our energies are crashing throughout the day versus having, like, a more stable stream of energy coming in. It’s like anything like, the more steady it is, the better you’re going to typically feel.

Landon Horst 8:23 Yeah, and there’s, like, a disconnect I feel, you know, some people just think that they should feel better, or, like, should just tough it out. Or, you know, this is what it takes to lose weight. It’s like you’re allowed to kind of tweak some of the variables and see if you feel better.

Ryan Jore 8:38 For sure. And I do think there’s something to like, I think there is a case to be made sometimes to save a little bit of calories for, say, like a slightly bigger supper, or things like that. And I think in moderation, that’s a healthy thing, but when it becomes like, 100 calorie breakfast, 100 calorie lunch, so I can have a 2000 calorie spurge for supper, it’s like, that’s probably not the healthiest anymore. And also, you’re probably more likely than to even blow past that at supper, because you’ve used so much willpower going throughout the day. You just have nothing left for supper.

Landon Horst 9:02 I like to sell that as an advanced strategy, yeah, you know, kind of the calorie hoarding, or whatever you want to call it, but yeah, it’s like, well, we’re working on that down the road, but right now, let’s just try to get, you know, reasonable amount of calories at each meal.

Ryan Jore 9:15 Exactly like there’s and again, how you define it depends on the person, because, you know, you could save a couple introduction. That’s probably reasonable. But when reasonable. But when it becomes this thing where it’s like 80% of your day is all saved for one meal again, some people could do a mega work. I don’t think it’s most people. Yeah, if you have a question whether or not you’re the one who can make it work, you’re probably not.

Landon Horst 9:33 Another thing I see with that too is carbs, specifically, people are trying to avoid them so much during the day, or save them for some huge like carb load in the evening, yeah, but it’s just the worst carbs, you know, it’s like a bowl of cereal or something, not that, you know, you can’t have a bowl of cereal occasionally, but you know, then they’re not getting any fiber. They’re like, constipated or things like that.

Ryan Jore 9:56 And it also becomes such a massive amount at that final meal then, that feel bloated, and then, like, I just don’t think carbs are good for me. Well, no, carbs are fine. You’re just not eating them appropriately.

Landon Horst 10:05 Yeah, it’s like, every time I feel or every time I eat carbs I feel tired. Yeah, it’s like, and I also overeat them.

Ryan Jore 10:11 Yeah, that’s not the reason. Definitely just carbs themselves. Second on my list is intensity. So similar volume intensity is how hard something is. So on a run, that would be more like your speed, or like, how hard out of 10 the run feels. With lifting, that’s generally gonna be weight, as far as, like, overall total weight, or like percentage of your one rep max, again, with both intensity and volume, I think the swings that I really like personalized programming so much for because there’s such a massive variable between person to person. I have, like, some people who say, on bench press, we can hit like 95% on their bench every single week, and they recover from it. And then I have some people on certain lifts to say, like, deadlifts, one of my previous clients, we couldn’t go over about 80% for more than two to three weeks without her back hurting. So it’s like, if we’d stay the whole cycle, like 16 straight weeks in the 70 to 79% range, and then we just, like two, two to three heavy weeks, she’d crush it. She’d add like, 30 pounds to her deadlift every time. Again, it’s so it’s just so variable, and when it comes to that stuff, and again, if you’re constantly seeing your numbers dropping down, or, like, when you’re just unracking the bar, even it just feels heavier than normal, it’s probably a chance that you’re just doing too much intensity, too frequently. So we want is, again, just like volume, it becomes, we need to do enough so that we can touch the slightly heavier weight next week, but not more than that.

Landon Horst 11:28 And I do think that’s the added benefit of a coach, is that that, you know, they’re looking at that a little bit more closely than you would, yeah, and with just a, you know, more experienced eye, too. But a lot of people may never figure out what is kind of their, you know, appropriate volume, or what wins too much, but yeah, having an expert to help.

Ryan Jore 11:47 It’s kind of like going back to what you said the beginning. I think a lot of people just always think, like, well, more is better. So I think they get the idea. They say, on bench press, I’m just gonna max my bench every week, and it’ll get better, yeah, and especially as a beginner, for a few weeks, it will. And then a certain point, either your shoulder’s pissed off now, or you’re just not recovering. So it’s not necessary. You’re gonna get injured, but you’re just not recovering. You can’t keep gaining every time. I kind of use the analogy of you’re trying to run your fastest and you had to touch that wall in front of us. You wouldn’t start six inches from the wall and sprint into it every single time, you need to get some momentum going into it. So if we think of that momentum, like in a training cycle, of like, maybe week one is like a six out of 10 intensity. Week two is a seven, then an eight, then a nine. Again, that’s those are all heavy enough weights that it’s going to allow us to progress, but it’s also not so heavy that we lose all that momentum going into it.

Landon Horst 12:34 But it’s not hard enough Ryan.

Ryan Jore 12:37 Again, that’s relative to every person, because I’ve certainly been proven wrong on some people where I’ve cut back the intensity too much and realized like, oh no, this person does require that. But I’d always rather err on the side of too little intensity, because it’s always easy to bump that intensity up. It’s a lot easier to do that than it is to get yourself in a fatigue deficit from just crushing nine out of 10 every single week, or worst case scenario, like your shoulder hurts, and now we have to cycle way back in intensity and find something that doesn’t bother that anymore.

Landon Horst 13:04 And you know, an added benefit of a coach and working with one over a long period of time is that they kind of learn you specifically, and you know what works for you. Same for nutrition, right? It’s like even the amount of calories somebody needs, or you know how you might manage their carbs throughout the day or something is very specific to a person. And you know, the longer I work with somebody, the better kind of idea I can get of what they need.

Ryan Jore 13:29 Exactly, and that’s one of the things I was trying to advocate for. Long term coaching, is it’s not just obviously, like a money thing. It’s more a matter of, we can spot trends over time, like, whether it’s nutrition or training, every single person that comes to you, you’re going to have, like, a general idea of where they should start based on where the average person is. But the longer we start to work with them, the more we realize, oh, this person doesn’t respond to that this person does, and making the little tweaks so that every progressive cycle can get better and better just based off the previous knowledge,

Landon Horst 13:58 And that, you know. So it’s like, I’ve started hundreds of people in this same spot. And so I know kind of what a an appropriate progression right here.

Ryan Jore 14:05 Like, you have like, a template, like.

Landon Horst 14:07 Yeah, like a frame of reference.

Ryan Jore 14:08 I know everyone’s going to do, like, some version of a squat, some version of a hinge, some version of push, some version of a pull, but what that looks like is going to vary so wildly from person to person, it’s again, I think this is just where that experience comes in of realizing, like, certain things you’re going to know to start with, and then certain tweaks you’re going to make along the way.

Landon Horst 14:26 Yeah.

Ryan Jore 14:27 I think we’re on to your number three, right? Landon Horst 14:29 Three, which is carbs here, and

Ryan Jore 14:33 Which are bad, obviously.

Landon Horst 14:34 Yeah. And so what we were going to say is to just avoid them entirely. No, you know, carbs, I think is something that is kind of specific to a person too, and my recommendation is usually that they should scale kind of with your activity level. But, yeah, especially if you have strength goals or even endurance goals, carbs play a huge role. And, you know, if you’re trying to do those and lose weight, you still have to have some carbs in there to kind of make it all work. But again, kind of going back to what I said earlier. You know, a lot of people eat just junky carbs and then feel that carbs are their problem, rather than, you know, really trying to focus in on some good, healthy ones that give them sustained energy, which, you know, they might have a whole different experience with.

Ryan Jore 15:25 For sure, it’s even because I went through a couple years there working on some gut stuff, where, for a while there, I was actually not doing super high fiber, because, for some reason, just didn’t seem to agree with my stomach at the time. Working that back in I think it was a good reminder. Just also for myself in dealing with clients, is how important that fiber can be. And also just most people are not going to get their fiber goals eating mindlessly, like most people are not selecting squash and beans as, like, the primary sources of their food throughout the day. And again, we still want to incorporate fun foods. We still want to incorporate foods that like, make you enjoy them. And again, not that you can’t enjoy squash and those are foods, but again, unless you’re actually tracking, you’re probably, well, lower than that, than you actually think you are.

Landon Horst 16:05 Yeah, and I think, you know, fiber is even just a good proxy for kind of your the overall health of your diet, for sure, just an easy, kind of quick look, especially, you know, when I’m working with somebody, and I can see what they’ve tracked if I look at their fiber, and the average for the last month is like three grams per day, even if they’re hitting their protein and their calories right on. You know, we might have to have a talk about what, what foods are you choosing?

Ryan Jore 16:30 30 minutes to poop every day?

Landon Horst 16:34 Oh my gosh, exactly.

Ryan Jore 16:35 Yeah, it is. I think that’s one things I’ve really focused on a little bit more, even just with my clients in the last year, and again, I think it’s made a dramatic difference of just how people feel throughout the day, which, again, gives you more energy, and then you naturally move more and then you tend to lose more weight. It’s like these things are all a domino type effect.

Landon Horst 16:54 And it also shows that there’s not just one solution for, you know, whatever you’re working on, and that kind of adding all the things together is really what gives you the good long term results.

Ryan Jore 17:03 Synergistic effect.

Landon Horst 17:04 Yeah, and, you know, fiber, I think the solution is just eat a quest bar every day.

Ryan Jore 17:10 Yeah, two or three of those in your knowledge. No one.

Landon Horst 17:16 You’ll really have some poop problems.

Ryan Jore 17:16 No one’s just at the allulose inulin in there.

Landon Horst 17:20 Oh, yeah.

Ryan Jore 17:20 No one.

Landon Horst 17:21 No.

Ryan Jore 17:21 Before we move on to the next thing for our audience who’s maybe less informed on that, how would you define a good carb versus a bad carb? Maybe bad carbs, the wrong words to use.

Landon Horst 17:30 First thing I’d have to say is that there are no good or bad carbs, because I’m legally obligated as a dietitian to say that. But no, and I also do believe it is that, you know, carbs can come in all sorts of varieties. They all should be part of a balanced diet. But, you know, kind of stemming from the fiber thing there, that’s an easy indicator for a lot of you know, maybe your more nutritious carbs is if they have more fiber. And that’s why, I think you know that kind of avoiding all carbs tends to backfire. Is that then, you know, when you do finally eat carbs, it’s not a high fiber carb, but yeah, you know, some of your more quick digesting carbs, let’s put them that way, would would maybe be the ones to limit. And those would be, you know, like your sugars, simple simple carbs, things that are low in fiber, I guess.

Ryan Jore 18:26 When you’re dealing with when you’re with a client who’s trying to sit in a calorie deficit on the higher fiber thing, how do you approach it for the clients who are using foods that are artificially boosted with fibers? Do you still consider that a good choice? Or where do you sit on that?

Landon Horst 18:40 That’s a good question. And I think a lot of it depends on, you know, how are their symptoms? Yeah, if they’re doing that and still constipated or, you know, having a different issue, then we might have to work on that. And if I’m trying to use fiber as like a general proxy for the healthfulness of their diet. I got to look a little closer, because that might, you know, be-

Ryan Jore 19:07 So you don’t want them to just eat rice all day, but then throw in a bunch of like psyllium husks at the end of the day to just bump those numbers up.

Landon Horst 19:13 Yeah, unless they try it and it works wonderfully for them that I might just say, go for it, but yeah, I think a more balanced approach seems to work for for more people,

Ryan Jore 19:24 For sure. And that’s like we were joking about the Quest bars earlier. Again, the audience who doesn’t know those have what, like, eight grams of fiber, 10 grams of fiber.

Landon Horst 19:31 And I think it’s 20

Ryan Jore 19:33 Absurd amount. Landon Horst 19:35 It’s made of fiber.

Ryan Jore 19:36 Again, I think those are all worth trying, but I think it’s very much a person by person. So like, I can’t handle like I do them. And it’s, my body just rejects that completely. I can’t even look at them. My wife can have, you know, one every day, and it doesn’t bother her at all. So again, it’s comes down to all these things. There’s never a blanket statement. I would never tell someone don’t try them at all. But it’s like, try it, but also don’t be married to it. Landon Horst 19:57 And if you are having digestive issues, you know, like. Get some of those things right? Because sometimes people just assume it’s like, well, no, that’s a healthy thing. It’s a protein bar. That can’t be my issue. And it’s, you know, it is.

Ryan Jore 20:10 Well, I think, and I think I was kind of guilty this, like, the, like, 10-15, years ago, of the classic thing, like, then was just like, eat a s— ton of vegetables, like this massive bowl vegetables, and then wonder why I felt terrible. And again, it wasn’t that vegetables were bad, but it’s like I was just trying to jam through a bunch of stuff to, like, fill myself up temporarily with that. And it’s like, again, that’s not how vegetables should be considered. It’s more like, you want to get some at every meal, but it’s not, you’re not using this as, like a band aid to cover everything. Landon Horst 20:35 And they are a little more difficult to digest than processed foods.

Ryan Jore 20:39 You know, it’s a very, it’s a very common, not allergy. What am I trying to say? Intolerance?

Landon Horst 20:44 Intolerance, yeah, yeah. But you’re right. And then, you know, don’t adopt the attitude that veggies don’t agree with you just because you’ve been eating them, you know, maybe there’s oftentimes more to it.

Ryan Jore 20:55 Well, again, I think that’s that’s funny enough, because I’m just as guilty of this. Like, I think for a while there, I felt like green or cruciferous vegetables were just not good for me because I was having issues with it. It’s like, well, yeah, again, when you eat a thing of kale this big shocking that your body doesn’t want, nobody’s body’s gonna know, like, maybe I should just have a moderate size and move on.

Landon Horst 21:13 I’m glad you learned

Ryan Jore 21:15 That’s all part of it.

Landon Horst 21:16 Yeah, it’s the experience.

Ryan Jore 21:17 My number three is frequency. So again, just how frequently we’re doing an exercise or a certain cardio modality. Again, frequency isn’t everyone. That’s highly variable depending on person to person. So if we look at, I think bench press is one of the easiest ones to look at. You’ll have some people who can only bench press heavy once a week, usually, maybe like twice. And then you have particularly small females who can bench six times a week and keep making progress. So there’s a huge disparity there between what’s required for each person with that we’re kind of looking at. So if we’re looking for whether or not we need more frequency, it’s more a matter of like, how rusty or coordinated it feels like, if we’re hitting a lift and it feels just heavy, that’s probably not a sign we need more frequency. But if you’re pulling it out and it’s been, you know, four days since you bench last and it just feels kind of clunky for the first couple of reps, that’s probably a sign you’re someone who might you’re someone who might benefit from more frequency. However, again, I think a lot of people also just try and hit everything way too often. They’re doing, you know, seven workouts a week, and sometimes two a days, and then they’re wondering why they’re not seeing progress. So it might not be too much overall volume or intensity. It’s just that they’re just never giving themselves a chance to recover. So by cutting back, and I’ve had, I can’t count how many clients with this where, you know, before training with me, they were training like six days a week. I actually just had a girl tell me this today, how she used to do like, six days a week with no plan or no structure, and like, if she missed one workout, she felt super, super guilty about it. Now she trains three days a week. She’s leaner than she was, then she’s way stronger than she was, and she actually has a chance for her body to build off the previous workout. It’s not just like finish one and roll right into the next.

Landon Horst 22:47 Yeah, it’s kind of hard to talk about these, you know, individually.

Ryan Jore 22:51 They’re all so connected.

Landon Horst 22:53 Yeah, I assume as you increase frequency, you adjust for intensity and things like that too. And you know, I think another thing with frequency of training is, like, if you increase your bench press to five days a week, you’re gonna start doing it and it really responds. Well, that doesn’t mean that deadlifts gonna be the same way exactly, and you probably shouldn’t do that same time either. You know, if you’re gonna increase the frequency a lot on one, I’m sure you’d agree that, you know, you might dial back the volume.

Ryan Jore 23:24 Exactly there’s, there’s rules of thumbs on all these things. Yeah, it’s like, deadlift probably responds to the lowest frequency. Bench response probably the highest. And not that those are the only three lists. Those are just three really easy examples to place on those. And also, because they’re probably the coolest lifts.

Landon Horst 23:38 Yeah, most people know them.

Ryan Jore 23:38 Yeah.

Landon Horst 23:40 Is that also related, do you think just to the kind of recovery that you need for a deadlift versus a bench press? Ryan Jore 23:49 I’d say yeah. I’d argue there’s probably more systemic fatigue, and also just that, in general, most people can deadlift more than they can bench press. Just to use like, and since I trained mostly females. I’ll use a female example of like, so if, let’s say your max deadlift is 250 and your max bench is 100 obviously 250 pounds is two and a half times weight. And it’s not that it’s a one to one comparison, but it’s just going to be more taxing every time you do a max deadlift versus that same 100 pound bench press. And again, it’s insane how often I’ve had female clients who can bench four or five times a week, and it’s almost like, you know, they benched on Tuesday, they come back in on Thursday, and it’s like nothing happened, like they’re just as fresh as they were before, versus we hit a heavy deadlift session, and if we say, overshot it, it might take a couple of weeks to truly get back in that same groove again and again. That’s also why I would indicate or advocate for working with a qualified coach who knows where you should be starting and knows how to make these adjustments.

Landon Horst 24:41 And yeah, I think there’s kind of, now some crossover there with the trading and the nutrition part, right? Is that, especially if you’re trying to lose weight, you might have to adjust your training to, you know, for what the limited amount of calories you’re on can help you recover from.

Ryan Jore 24:56 Yeah, in general, like, if I’m working with someone where we’re in a more severe calorie deficit, I will frequently cut a little bit of volume on exercises, and obviously I’m increasing potentially when they’re bumping their calories. And yeah, we might just take like two and a half percent off of every lift that we’d have normally done, which doesn’t seem dramatic, but over the course of a cycle that is a lot of additional weight that we’re not hitting, just because we know their recovery capabilities aren’t going to be the same.

Landon Horst 25:18 Yeah, it reminds me of when I was getting ready for that bodybuilding competition, and I, you know, thought deadlifts were the best exercise of all time, so I thought, I’ll just do them more often. So I was dead lifting like, three times a week, and all these really low calories and just destroyed all the time, and I couldn’t figure it out, you know, like, I can’t imagine why I’d be this tired.

Ryan Jore 25:39 Well, and that’s what they say. You know how success leaves clues, and there’s a reason why you reason why, you see a lot of professional body wheels were cut out certain lifts entirely for like, six weeks leading into a show, because they just know, you know, they’ve done this enough years to know they don’t recover from that when they’re in a super deficit.

Landon Horst 25:53 And you know, bodybuilding specifically, there’s no exercises that you have to do. And so yeah, they kind of cater it to what they can recover from as they get closer.

Ryan Jore 26:02 And I think it’s a classic case of, like, everyone wants everything at once. It’s like, well, like, I’m going to train for an Ironman and max my bench press, and I’m going to lose 30 pounds and I’m going to quit smoking. It’s like, you can. You not that you can’t do all four of those. You’re not going to do all four of them. Well, right?

Landon Horst 26:15 If you try to do them all at once.

Ryan Jore 26:17 Exactly, there’s just a lot more variables to select there. What is your number four? Landon Horst 26:23 So my number four, we originally put meal frequency, but that, I feel like we kind of mentioned with protein and calories, and what I really was thinking more so was like, you know, just long term management of even a calorie deficit. You know, I like to tell people that if you have a lot of weight to lose. You know, specifically thinking of weight loss, you don’t want to do it all at once. You know, it’s good to maybe do 10% take a little break, kind of, make sure you can maintain that. You know, lose another 10% make sure you can maintain that. And so, you know, just kind of taking it slower in that sense, and having some planned even breaks, or, you know, things like that, allowing for vacations or something like that, allows you to do it over a longer period of time. And that’s how you really see the long term results.

Ryan Jore 27:12 So that’s preferable to losing the same 20 pounds over and over again.

Landon Horst 27:15 That’s the ideal. Is to, yeah, just yo yo your 20 pounds.

Ryan Jore 27:19 It’s not yo yo dieting, if I plan on doing it forever, right?

Landon Horst 27:22 That’s right, yeah, or you’re just a professional yo yo I guess.

Ryan Jore 27:25 My last one is D-loads. So D-load is where we temporarily pull back either volume, intensity or both, usually for like a week, to enable us to continue making further progress. And I think if you had asked me this eight years ago, I probably would have put that actually, as my number one for fatigue management. But fatigue management. The longer I train, I think the less important D-loads actually are.

Landon Horst 27:46 Really.

Ryan Jore 27:46 I still use them with the majority of people. But again, when I was getting into training, general used to be, every fourth week you d-load, you cut back, you know what? 10% of your intensity, 50% of your volume, every single time.

Landon Horst 27:57 As far as I knew, that’s what you still did.

Ryan Jore 27:59 No.

Landon Horst 27:59 Have you changed up-

Ryan Jore 28:00 Dramatically.

Landon Horst 28:01 Oh, really? Tell me.

Ryan Jore 28:01 So I’d say again depends on the person, and again, I think it’s because of those first three things we talked about. I think if you handle those better, you can get away with a lot more. So, for example, I’ve also realized that, I should say, partly, it’s those variables, and partially it’s realizing which each person you have in front of you. So some people actually get weaker following a deload. So we start to realize, like, well, this person may person, maybe we need to push out every five weeks, six weeks, seven weeks, and they get better because it’s more heavy training time, and they don’t need as many recoveries. So again, some people I have where we still hit a fourth because it’s like, by that third week, they are tanked, and we need it. So it’s part of it’s a variable by person to person. But again, part of it is managing fatigue and intensity better. I think a lot of times, or, sorry, volume and intensity better. I think a lot of times when we’re needing that every fourth week, it’s a sign that we’re either hitting too much intensity or we’re hitting too much volume. And again, if someone’s still making progress, and we’re seeing PRs, you know, every couple weeks, every couple months, then maybe that’s fine. But it’s like, if we’re not seeing progress, like, why are we taking this off every fourth week when we could be stretching it out further. It’s saying that one of those variables needs to be adjusted. And again, that’s where you’re going to want to work with the coach who can look at your current plan and figure, okay, what’s our most likely things that we can make adjustments to here. So again, I still think D-loads can be super important for a lot of people. And honestly, anymore, most of my deal those for people are just when they’re traveling, it’s like, yeah, they’re gonna be out this week anyways. Maybe they get in one to two travel workouts, but like, they’re getting that reduction just by nature of not being working out.

Landon Horst 29:28 When I was kind of getting more into power lifting and things like that, I was reading, there’s this gym, and one of their philosophies is that, you know, they never train over I think it was 85% maybe. But they also never d-load, yeah. So their thought was just, if they can kind of keep the fatigue down, then they’re always training, you know, heavy ish. And, you know, they felt that that maximize their results a little bit. So I think it also shows that there’s just more than one way to do it.

Ryan Jore 29:56 Oh, for sure. And that’s honestly with a lot of my people I use like, which is called wave loading. So should I give an easy example to like, make the sense quickly, visually, but if you think of it like, maybe week one is like four, and then it’s five, then it’s a six, and then we come back to a five, six. What like a six out of 10? Intensity, I guess. Okay, or, well, yeah, let’s maybe, let’s say pounds here. So we’ll say week one is like 100 pounds. Week two is 110 week three is 120 then we come back on week four, and it’s 110, 121, 30. So it still lets us cycle back every little bit, but every three weeks, or however long your wave is, you finish just a little bit higher than the time before. And that could be 10 pounds. It could be 50 pounds, depending on the strength of the person. What I found by incorporating that, because, again, most of our fatigue is going to come from our biggest lift. So if you’re like power lifting, it’s your squat, your squat, your bench and your deadlift like stuff like rows and bicep curls, those matter, but not nearly to the same level. So honestly, if we’re just cutting back from our main lifts, for some people, that’s enough. That’s all they need to see to keep getting progress. So something as simple as a wave load allows us to keep making steady progress, but we never have to truly cut back and take like, a full on Recovery Week. And again, it also depends on the person that I have some people who genuinely want their recovery weeks. And so it’s like, if they feel they respond to it and they’re genuinely excited to have their recovery Awesome, let’s use it. But I’ve also had, like, when I trained, I guess I’ll leave her novice here. She would basically, like, not listen if I did the recovery weeks anyway. So a certain point, I realized she just got to do it. We just figured out other ways, because it hurt, didn’t feel worth it. So yeah, depends on the person.

Landon Horst 31:21 Well, and it is. There’s a, you know, psychological aspect to the to the D-load as well. And so you kind of have to read the person a little bit to know, how are they going to benefit?

Ryan Jore 31:30 Well it comes back, like you’re saying, or people think, well, if I take less recovery weeks, I’ll get there faster and again, depending on the person, possibly. But for a lot of people, no, because they just hit a fatigue wall, yeah. And then we’re just doing the same hits over and over and over again. Landon Horst 31:42 I think it’s an advanced strategy to never de load, yeah, exactly. It’s like you have to know what you’re doing all the time.

Ryan Jore 31:47 Ironically, it’s an advanced strategy, but it’s used by, that’s the very unadvanced-

Landon Horst 31:50 Yeah, similar to when we were talking about hoarding your calories.

Ryan Jore 31:55 That is my four and that is your for any other things you wanted to go over on, things people could look at for fatigue management, I guess I would say outside of none is just sleep.

Landon Horst 32:04 Oh, yeah, sleep. When we first started talking, I was thinking, you know, we should put sleep on here. And it almost feels like that should just be kind of a blanket for all of the training and nutrition. Is that sleep is the foundation of it.

Ryan Jore 32:16 And I think that’s why, on looking from either side nutrition or training. It’s important why we have, like, a more comprehensive approach. Because, let’s say your squats not going up. It might be the volume, the intensity, whatever. Or, yeah, maybe it’s something nutrition related. And same thing, your weights not moving. Maybe it’s calorie related. Or maybe you’re not pushing yourself hard enough in the gym, like there’s so many variables.

Landon Horst 32:35 Or not sleeping

Ryan Jore 32:36 Exactly. Yeah, weird. How that works. Awesome. Well, I feel that pretty well summarizes what we had to say today. So we’ll see you guys next episode.