The "dad-bod" episode of Barbell Logic with Santana

[ithryn]

So....I liked this one. (Disclaimer: I haven't listened to Barbell Logic since maybe episode 2 and I know some people here hated them a while back)

https://barbell-logic.com/110-end-dad-b ... t-santana/


I mean, I don't know if this is THE ONE THING NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT. But I liked the emphasis on the fact that if you're, say, a non-lifter who's <180 lbs but still fat, you don't have anywhere to cut down to. That is, you can cut to 150, or 138, but you'll just look cachetic with no muscle mass. Guys with a normal BMI but fluffy body are not so much bodyfat-excessive as they are muscle-deficient. Their bodyfat is proportionately too high to their low lean body mass.

They "came right out and said" you're not going to get "the results you want" (i.e. abs, or looking like GI Joe I guess) unless you train consistently for 4-5 years and then cut. Jordan was kinda hinting at this when he was on the SS boards, if I recall correctly. Anyway it's a departure from the old days of "LP your squat to 405 and then the weight comes off easy"

Santana really pressed the fact that you aren't going to look like you lift until you get your deadlift up. "These guys who squat more than they deadlift" and "struggle with a 115 press" are never going to have upper body mass until they fix that. This was literally my problem forever and I wish Starting Strength circa 2014 wasn't so almost exclusively squat-focused.

It still sucks that I gotta track calories to lose weight though. Why isn't training for five years just the magic wand for losing the spare tire, lol.

[augeleven]

unless you train consistently for 4-5 years and then cut.

hmm. While I now take what I hear from them with an Arby's Beef and Cheddar of salt, putting off a serious cut for another 2-3 years sounds like a great idea.

Where does this little gem fall on the spectrum of zero to sheetcakes? Specifically for a 38 year old male that's been training for 2 years and around 26ish bf% ?

[Allentown]

Santana really pressed the fact that you aren't going to look like you lift until you get your deadlift up. "These guys who squat more than they deadlift" and "struggle with a 115 press" are never going to have upper body mass until they fix that. This was literally my problem forever and I wish Starting Strength circa 2014 wasn't so almost exclusively squat-focused.

[BigDave]

Santana really pressed the fact that you aren't going to look like you lift until you get your deadlift up. "These guys who squat more than they deadlift" and "struggle with a 115 press" are never going to have upper body mass until they fix that. This was literally my problem forever and I wish Starting Strength circa 2014 wasn't so almost exclusively squat-focused.

I know all the bros I see with big upper bodies at the gym literally all the time must be doing their heavy deadlifts. Can’t be the upper body volume.

Overall reasonable stuff by Santana but things like this... I have to imagine he doesn’t believe some of the stuff he says just to appease his employer

[ithryn]

Beef and Cheddar

Dammmmmmmmmit I don't have the car and Arby's is a mile away

putting off a serious cut for another 2-3 years sounds like a great idea

Their discussion was specifically for the non-obese lifter, so I'm pretty sure they didn't mean it's okay to pork up for five years, but point taken, their argument could I guess be simplified to / will be heard as "don't bother losing the spare tire for five years." I know Santana wouldn't actually do that with a client (having been a client). The SSOC coaches though, I'm not so sure.

I know all the bros I see with big upper bodies at the gym literally all the time must be doing their heavy deadlifts. Can’t be the upper body volume.

To be fair I probably paraphrased him poorly, his point was he gets these guys who squat okay after Starting Strength but they have a low bench and press, a poor deadlift, and "obviously you haven't been doing your pullups." Which....was me for a long-ass time.

On the other hand, the other two guys were saying you don't need to do curls because....deadlifts will plump up your biceps

[quark]

unless you train consistently for 4-5 years and then cut.

hmm. While I now take what I hear from them with an Arby's Beef and Cheddar of salt, putting off a serious cut for another 2-3 years sounds like a great idea.

Where does this little gem fall on the spectrum of zero to sheetcakes? Specifically for a 38 year old male that's been training for 2 years and around 26ish bf% ?

Don't take rules of thumb too seriously (even if you're being sarcastic).

I like Jordan F's recommendation that at some level you're obese and must lose weight (over 40" waist for a male), at some level you're too light and must gain weight (too low a BMI) and in the middle you can emphasize gaining muscle or losing fat as you see fit.

[Allentown]

I know all the bros I see with big upper bodies at the gym literally all the time must be doing their heavy deadlifts. Can’t be the upper body volume.

Overall reasonable stuff by Santana but things like this... I have to imagine he doesn’t believe some of the stuff he says just to appease his employer

Exactly.

To be fair I probably paraphrased him poorly, his point was he gets these guys who squat okay after Starting Strength but they have a low bench and press, a poor deadlift, and "obviously you haven't been doing your pullups." Which....was me for a long-ass time.

On the other hand, the other two guys were saying you don't need to do curls because....deadlifts will plump up your biceps

It is very, very unlikely that any "dadbod" (little upper body, slight beer gut, thicc legs) SS lifter will de-dadbod themselves exclusively by getting their deadlift up and doing some pull ups. Gonna need more upper body volume, direct bro-work, and a de-fattening.
Signed, guy who had a 585 DL and bad case of dadbod

[michael]

Sad fact:

If you are 180 pounds with 25% body fat, you will get praise and respect if you drop down to 150 with 10% body fat. Conversely no one will think you look better, the opposite actually, if you go up to 30% body fat at 200 pounds.

[mgil]

I know Santana wouldn't actually do that with a client (having been a client). The SSOC coaches though, I'm not so sure.

Herein lies the crux of the matter. Anyone of reasonable intelligence isn't going to promote SS protocols (especially regarding nutrition) to non-SS clients. Santana was adamant for a while about getting shredded and down to 165 or so. However, if you are in SSOC, who knows what the actual advice is with regards to nutrition.

One of the posts I made, since deleted, is that calorie intake can simply LP like the weight on the bar. No one needs to hit some arbitrary number and just lift their way to optimizing those calories. That's dumb. If the advice is over-cueing like the majority of the squat cues are, then they should be upfront about this.

Chins, pulls, and SS Rx for pressing movements ain't gonna make you look swole af in the upper body.

[alek]

I had dadbod--umbilicus measurement > chest measurement--before training and after finishing an LP and 12 weeks of HLM. It wasn't until I actively cleaned up my diet and started MM--thank you upper body AND deadlift volume--that I no longer have dadbod. Today my umbilicus measurement is 37 to 37.5 inches and my chest is 44 to 45 inches.

I still have pretty small arms, but I know that'll take a lot more bro work than I do now.

[alek]

I know Santana wouldn't actually do that with a client (having been a client). The SSOC coaches though, I'm not so sure.

Herein lies the crux of the matter. Anyone of reasonable intelligence isn't going to promote SS protocols (especially regarding nutrition) to non-SS clients. Santana was adamant for a while about getting shredded and down to 165 or so. However, if you are in SSOC, who knows what the actual advice is with regards to nutrition.

One of the posts I made, since deleted, is that calorie intake can simply LP like the weight on the bar. No one needs to hit some arbitrary number and just lift their way to optimizing those calories. That's dumb. If the advice is over-cueing like the majority of the squat cues are, then they should be upfront about this.

Chins, pulls, and SS Rx for pressing movements ain't gonna make you look swole af in the upper body.

And why didn't you tell me this two years ago???

[mgil]

And why didn't you tell me this two years ago???

I think some of us were trying.

[alek]

And why didn't you tell me this two years ago???

I think some of us were trying.

Eh, I may not have listened anyway. I got just as hypnotized as many others did when I found SS after Stronglifts, but it's great advice anyways.

[quark]

Sad fact:

If you are 180 pounds with 25% body fat, you will get praise and respect if you drop down to 150 with 10% body fat. Conversely no one will think you look better, the opposite actually, if you go up to 30% body fat at 200 pounds.

I'm not quite sure why this is sad, but I'm probably missing the tone of the comment.

Going from 180 25% to 150 10% means maintaining LBM and just losing a lot of fat. Seems unambiguously good.

Going from 180 25% to 200 30% means gaining 5 pounds of LBM and 15 pounds of fat (and being 30% fat), which is not great.

[FredM]

unless you train consistently for 4-5 years and then cut.

hmm. While I now take what I hear from them with an Arby's Beef and Cheddar of salt, putting off a serious cut for another 2-3 years sounds like a great idea.

Where does this little gem fall on the spectrum of zero to sheetcakes? Specifically for a 38 year old male that's been training for 2 years and around 26ish bf% ?

Don't take rules of thumb too seriously (even if you're being sarcastic).

I like Jordan F's recommendation that at some level you're obese and must lose weight (over 40" waist for a male), at some level you're too light and must gain weight (too low a BMI) and in the middle you can emphasize gaining muscle or losing fat as you see fit.

I hate Jordan's advice -- and I think Santana's is just as bad. Nuckols is the only one that's taken everything Jordan and Santana talk about to it's logical conclusion, instead of stopping short of speaking the truth because it might hurt Rip's feelings.

If you're a novice and >20% bf, you should lose weight. End of discussion. It doesn't matter if you're waist is 36". You need to cut to 12-15% bf AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, and bulk from there. Why?

Because novice gains don't magically override the fact fat begets fat. The fatter you are the more fat you will put on in a bulk. In addition, and this is KEY -- the longer your training history the worse you are at building muscle.

As Nuckols points out, novice GAINZZZ are basically all neuromuscular. You'll get them on a cut too. The prescription from SS and BBM that unless you're >40" waist you should bulk or "recomp" is malpractice. The amount of muscle you can gain your second year of training is literally HALVED. Neuromuscular gains will always be there for the taking. Muscle building gains go nowhere but down.

So while i agree that the real problem is probably "you're undermuscled" they way to fix that isn't run LP out in a recomp, small bulk if you have a Dad bod. The way to fix that is the same as everyone else. Get to 12-15% bf as quickly as possible, bulk from there. The faster you get there the shorter amount of time you'll have to be undermuscled and the greater your potential for actually being big and strong in a reasonable time frame.

[mgil]

I think Jordan uses the 40" waist heuristic simply because it correlates highly with increased morbidity in the general population. As a result, it's an easier stance to take with regards to dietary advice, specifically amongst sedentary groups.

I think he would actually agree with you with respect to getting to 12-15% bf and tracking macros to clean bulk while training both weights and cardio appropriately. Doing so requires a next-level degree of discipline in the client. Using the waist measurement is easy to observe and a much easier target to hit. Gotta get people in the door and on the right path. After that, you can likely identify the ones with the level of discipline needed to get leaner and won't screw up a clean bulk. Then you adjust the advice/programming accordingly.

[michael]

As Nuckols points out, novice GAINZZZ are basically all neuromuscular.

Novice gains are not mostly neuromuscular.

You'll make about half of your lifetime lean mass gains your first productive training year. In two years about 80%. Post novice gains are mostly neuromuscular.

[Allentown]

the longer your training history the worse you are at building muscle.

You'll make about half of your lifetime lean mass gains your first productive training year. In two years about 80%.

I dislike you guys.

[quark]

If you're a novice and >20% bf, you should lose weight. End of discussion. It doesn't matter if you're waist is 36". You need to cut to 12-15% bf AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, and bulk from there.

I agree with this for most younger novices, presuming it won't take them too low (too little muscle) and they're getting enough calories to train productively. I'm less sure for older or much older novices.

There are populations other than novices with >20% bf.

[RyanB]

As Nuckols points out, novice GAINZZZ are basically all neuromuscular. You'll get them on a cut too. The prescription from SS and BBM that unless you're >40" waist you should bulk or "recomp" is malpractice. The amount of muscle you can gain your second year of training is literally HALVED. Neuromuscular gains will always be there for the taking. Muscle building gains go nowhere but down.

From what I understand from Jordan and Austin's discussions, aren't the neuromuscular changes the more finite resource, and eventually you have to build more muscle mass to gain strength? And the concept that you might gain slower as you're more well-trained, isn't that because you become more resistant to the stimulus, thus if you change the stimulus you get new results (e.g., more volume, more hypertrophic-scaled programming)? Basically, this is all programming dependent, right? But in a vacuum, yeah, you build muscle more slowly through time (holding things like programming constant) -- that's my current understanding...