Maximise Strength & Hypertrophy For Your Deadlift with Dr Pak

Dr Phil Price [: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Progus Theory, where we discuss scientific principles for optimising human performance. I am Dr. Phil Price, and on today's episode, we are joined again by the legendary Dr. Pack. Now, it was so good to have Dr. Pak back on the show. His last episode was amazing, but this time I wanted to move away from the minimal dose effect research that he's done before and focus more on this new research, which is more around strength and hypertrophy and how we can utilise this information to become as strong as possible and apply this to the deadlift. As always, follow the progress theory on Instagram, YouTube, and cheque out all of our other episodes.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:00:37

Here is Dr. Pack. Dr. Pack, thank you for coming back on Dr. Price.

Dr Pak [: 00:00:47

I don't know why it started there. I was like, Dr. Phil Price. But then I was like, no, it's going to use the last name. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure to support, arguably the number one, number, top three, I'll say, because I've been to other British podcasts, so I don't want to upset anyone. But top three British podcasts to ever make it out of this wonderful land that we call home.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:01:12

Thank you very much. That's a big compliment coming for you. I know how many podcasters you've been on. You got your own one as well, so top three. I'm happy with that. Maybe one day we might hit that top spot, but I'll keep working on it.

Dr Pak [: 00:01:24

The criteria list that I have is how handsome the host is. So there's nothing else there. So you're definitely there. Top three.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:01:34

Knowledge chat means nothing.

Dr Pak [: 00:01:39

I'm not even sure these mean anything. In general. It's all about looks, lifts and physical possessions.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:01:48

Well, first of all, I have to ask, what was Kiriakas? Kiriyakas grizzly. What was he like?

Dr Pak [: 00:01:55

Honestly, man, one of the most passionate people about training I've ever met. People don't know his story. So exclusive for this podcast. So he is a man who lives in Northern Greece. Sorry, I was thinking of north and South in Greek and then I was like, which one is it in English? Northern Greece. Like at the top of Greece in Cavala. And he is somebody who has loved physical training since a kid and who has been doing like boxing and lifting and weightlifting since a kid. He has gotten a bunch of injuries over the years.

Dr Pak [: 00:02:36

Like he's torn his bicep at two different spots, torn both of his legs, hamstrings, and he's just working around his injuries by doing whatever he can, but he is just literally somebody who loves lifting heavy and loves exhausting themselves. But super kind, really friendly and insanely strong and very physically fit. Like, people don't notice. But we shot a lot of footage, and I haven't uploaded anything because I'm making a proper video about it. So we had a professional videographer with us, but I'm sure you've seen the sled push, the homemade sled, which is like scaffolding essentially, that he pushes up and down. We did that for like, three minutes with, like, 200 kilos. I was destroyed at the end. And keep in mind, I weigh half his weight and I walk a lot, et cetera.

Dr Pak [: 00:03:34

And I was sweating. I was out of it, and he didn't even blink. He was fine. And then he kept adding weight and kept doing it. So we're talking about a guy who is just there training and lifting hard every day just for the love of it. And he hasn't really done anything to monetize all his success, which is crazy, right?

Dr Phil Price [: 00:03:58

Yeah, because he's so popular, surely I would have thought he would have had some kind of monetization through stuff he does on YouTube.

Dr Pak [: 00:04:06

No, because he doesn't speak English and he really doesn't care. So he's like, there's very big names in his DMS, huge names. Like, we're talking millions of followers asking for collabs and stuff. And he won't reply to some. Not because he's impolite, because he's like, I don't know. I can't be bothered now with this because it's in a language I don't understand and I don't want to have to care and I don't want to be out there. I just want to be left alone to train, not left alone in a negative way. But he just loves his really, really nice guy, though.

Dr Pak [: 00:04:40

Really nice.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:04:41

That's really cool to see because I know, because he's grown so popular on YouTube. You see the comments and you can tell that people are kind of criticising but not really appreciating or understanding what and why he's doing what he's doing. They just see the creative, like, the shrug that he does, and they come out with the, like, poor range of motion, no rep, all sorts of bullshit comments in the comments section. But really what he's doing is very unique and really challenging what we understand for physical training. And if he's just doing it because he's just someone that just loves training on his own and training around a load of injuries that he's had, I think that's really quite impressive. He is actively contributing to the training space without really trying to, which I think shows just how special he is, actually.

Dr Pak [: 00:05:37

Yeah. And I think the pendulum has swung a tiny bit because it started with people just sort of being super critical, but then people that really know when people started seeing the weights and then started seeing some other. Because there are some lifts, like when he just holds the weight and does this. Yeah, that doesn't look that impressive. But then when you start seeing the 100 plus kilo easy bar, upright row, where he sat down and he is literally toying with 100 kilos. Or you see, the craziest one for me is where he does this behind the neck wrist curl with, like, 300 plus kilos. And if you're a lifter and you see the zurcher and you're like, wait, this guy has a bar with over 300 kilos just sitting without any padding. What are they called? No elbow sleeves? No nothing.

Dr Pak [: 00:06:37

You start being like, wait a second. And then you see how Eddie hall reacted to his lifts and how other strong men have reacted. Because he is insanely strong. Because, yes, sure, he'll do these good mornings where the range of motion is limited, but if you've ever lifted, having 320 kilos on your back and still bending and keeping, like, a neutral spine and doing that 20 times, even if you're not really getting the biggest stretch on your hamstrings, it's 300 kilos. Most people wouldn't be able to even unrack that, let alone move so comfortably with it.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:07:12

What did Eddie hall say? I haven't seen that YouTube video.

Dr Pak [: 00:07:15

He watches his videos and he's impressed because he's like, what the hell? Because Eddie hall looks at the numbers and is like, okay, this is insane. And the same goes for Brian Shaw. When he tried to do his zurture, you could see Brian Shaw at 100 or 150 kilos less than what Kiryakos had done. He was like, oh, okay, this is heavy now. He wasn't moving in much, but, yeah, even the sled stuff. Like, the sled stuff is a great example. Because we tried that sled together, I was able to push, I think, the max I was able to do for, like, because he wanted to do 50 reps each, and we did, I think, up to 250 kilos, and then he did 550 and was just pushing it and pulling it in the room, which, okay, yeah, he's a very heavy guy, but this is not like a SNC sled. This is literally a scaffolding piece of metal with a bunch of plates on it and he's pushing it with these.

Dr Pak [: 00:08:22

Anyways, very strong guy, very kind guy, a lot of love for him and, yeah, it's wicked.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:08:30

I am very jealous. I also like, because he has a number of constraints on him. So, like, he's injured. He has loads and loads of plates and barbells, but obviously the equipment that he's created, like the scaffolding survey's created himself, there are kind of like constraints on training, but he's not sort of taken that and gone, I can't train optimally. I can't do as much as I can because of this, that and the other, which a lot of people would do. He's just gone, okay, this is what I've got, this is what I can do. I'm just going to get as super strong as possible in these few things. And he has done and I think more people should have that perception of training.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:09:09

I think I've been guilty of that, especially when lockdown happened and you couldn't get to gyms and I couldn't do this and that and the other. I started wondering where my training goal was going to go, but really I should have gone, actually, what can I do? Those few things, right. Get as good as possible on those few things as you can and you'll see such a great stimulus from it.

Dr Pak [: 00:09:30

Yeah. And that's why I said he's one of the most passionate people I've met about training because the guy literally just goes there and exhausts himself because he loves training. And as you said, look, if you've torn both of your biceps and I think one of the triceps hamstrings, you've got all the excuses in the world. But for the past few years or the past year, he's been just doing the sled thing, which, okay, yeah, it's not optimal for hypertrophy, by no means, but to tell yourself, okay, we're going to go there today and just do sled. I don't know. For me, it's admirable because you can see that that's all he wants. He wants to go in that weightlifting hall, which was fantastic, by the way, and just do whatever, anything that is physically exhausting but really cool space as well. You as a fellow lifter, you'd appreciate it because you had that vintage sort of weightlifting hall vibe, but everybody was very friendly, which is a hit or miss with weightlifting halls.

Dr Pak [: 00:10:38

So especially, like in the Eastern European countries, you may go in and feel a bit like I'm out of place here, but, yeah, super cool experience, man. Super cool experience.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:10:48

Yeah, wicked. Obviously, he's one of them, but, you know, a lot of very strong people. What are the common characteristics between them? This could be mindset, it could be physiological, biomechanical, whatever it might be. But with all the really strong people, you know, what are the common traits do you see in them?

Dr Pak [: 00:11:15

So, yeah, obviously, work ethic and the fact that they're training hard and are consistent with training, but muscle mass, I'd say, is one without it being like the. I'd say it is one of the big predictors of strength. No surprise there. But muscle mass and for sure focus when it comes to training. But I have come across some people that are insanely strong because they are genetically blessed in that department, that are not really focused on strength training, but have been seeing great results just because they're predispositioned to gaining strength. But I'd say the two main ones would be muscle mass. Three main ones train specificity and also commitment, obviously, and patience, because getting strong is and getting big. And I assume the curve looks the same when we talk about any other physical characteristic, either that being like endurance or whatever, I think it looks similar over time for most of these physical attributes.

Dr Pak [: 00:12:34

So it starts very quick. You get strong really quick in the first couple of years and then it sort of plateaus, and that's where you have to manage your expectations and be consistent and have that work ethic while also training specifically for what you're trying to improve.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:12:51

Yeah, I definitely see that in many people, as in, say, they did like an eight week training programme, and really that's just one block out of hundreds over many years. This training block was great. I increased such and such. But if you're relatively new to training or you just do something new, you're obviously going to see some big increase because you're kind of like early on in your journey. And it's really those that are still making progression, like 510 years after starting doing the same thing are the ones that probably know quite a lot about strength training. There's a lot of people that can talk about strength training because they've got strong quickly over a small space of time, but that's, I guess, in the grand scheme of things, relatively easy. But it's those that can continue to progress later on in their careers that the ones that have really found something that is what's going to take them to. It sets them from that sub elite to the more elite strength level.

Dr Pak [: 00:13:55

Yeah. And the truth for some, because I mentioned good genetics, is that there are people out there that will not be as blessed. So you'll have the opposite happen where, and I don't want to be the social media guy, but nowadays with social media and how much we get exposed to and how frequently we get exposed to, I do think that strength standards for some people are somewhat obscured in the sense that a 200 kilo deadlift if you're a lifter is not something that many will regard as impressive. But if you start thinking about your strength in percentiles compared to the average gym gore, if you're not a power lifter, right, then that's a different game. Then that puts things a bit more in perspective because people will see 300 kilo deadlifts if they are into like fitness and lifting, and they follow a lot of big accounts and king of the lifts and all that sort of stuff, and assume that in their lifetime they'll be able to hit at least something very close to that just because they are seeing so many people do it. But in reality, they are in an echo chamber where they're bombarded with the few individuals in the world that can do it. And then they assume that that's the norm, which then creates a different set of expectations and often comes with some disappointment when it comes to strength gains.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:15:19

Now, I was going to touch on the idea around muscle mass being a good contributor to sort of like maximal strength over time because I know we try and avoid talking about what's been put on social media, but I think this has been a discussion point recently, I guess around sort of like block periodization where you've got some people say, okay, you want to get really strong. Well, you do like a hypertrophy phase first, and then you do your strength phase so that the hypertrophy provides the base to build your strength on. And then others say, well, it probably doesn't have to be as binary as that. Yeah, you could probably start off with higher reps and slightly lower intensity, more volume, and then you just tailor the two leading up to bringing volume down, increasing intensity as you move into the strength bit of the block. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have like a hypertrophy block or do you kind of like. Well, yeah, I do start with a high volume and lower intensity, but I wouldn't necessarily think, oh, that's my hypertrophy bit. Hypertrophy is more like a response from just that type of training.

Dr Pak [: 00:16:30

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of, I get the utility, the utility, or at least the intuitive. How a hypertrophy block, a strict hypertrophy block makes sense intuitively, but I do think in the power lifting and in the strength world, it has become a bit of a thing that people do, so we keep doing it. But when you run an eight or twelve week hypertrophy block, you view it in a binary way, as you said, and then you go back to strength training, like strict strength training, and the volume goes down massively. Sure that eight to twelve week block will offer something, but especially if you're a trained lifter, unless you are, you're not going to be making a tonne of gains in three months. You'll see some gains, but muscle growth takes time. So I'm a big fan of always of viewing, let's say, strength one RM specific work and hypertrophy work, not a switch, but as a turn. What would you call that? How you could dial a dial there?

Dr Phil Price [: 00:17:43

You could dial, yeah.

Dr Pak [: 00:17:44

So you have your hypertrophy dial and your one RM specific dial, and sometimes you twist one a bit more than the other, but both are somewhat always there. So let's say you are far away from a competition, or you have a year where you can work on hypertrophy. I would personally still have some one RM specific work there. And now that we are seeing that lower RP work could be beneficial as well. For one RM strength, you could have like a few singles at a lower RP that are not going to be mentally or physically taxing, and then focus the majority of your workload to be on hypertrophy specific work. So more hypertrophy efficient work, let's say, because you could still gain a tonne of muscle doing triples and doubles, but you just need to do more of those. And then as you're approaching a competition or your test day, you're essentially twisting the dials the other way and you still have some hypertrophy work. Obviously, that may dissipate towards the last three weeks before you peak, but there's always one element of the other there, at least to a certain extent, if that makes sense.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:18:55

No, certainly. I recently was writing one of the chapters in my recent book, which was based on the previous season of the progress Theory a lot on hybrid training. And I talk about programming as two dials. And if you took your strength and your endurance, either they're like at 50 50, or you might slowly turn one, that means the other one turns down and then vice versa. But one of the key reason behind that is that the changes that you make are technically quite subtle, and that's very similar to what you were saying regarding volume and sort of like one RM and intensity stuff. It sounds like really, whatever it is, the two things that you're balancing the movement between the two over time should be quite subtle. And it's when you make big changes, I guess quite similar to the whole idea around block periodization is when you start to see, I don't know, I think people sort of, like, peak too early, and then all of a sudden they've kind of, like, plateau and got no way to go, and then their progress stalls because they've just accelerated themselves into an area where they just can't go anywhere. So, yeah, it's quite interesting that you use the Dahl analogy.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:20:11

I've used the Dahl analogy. It kind of just makes sense to me. And when you described it made me think, actually, that analogy probably applies to many, many different things as well.

Dr Pak [: 00:20:21

Yeah. And for strength athletes specifically, I do feel that a lot are guilty of massively mistreating hypertrophy specific work and viewing hypertrophy stuff as obviously there are accessories, but I do feel like calling them accessories sometimes leads to them being treated as like, if it's higher reps and it's a machine based exercise, or it's not like an SPD exercise for power lifters, then, okay, I've done my hypertrophy work regardless of whether it was close to failure, whether it's progressing over time, and so on and so forth. But on your point about muscle mass being important for strength, that is something that is still not 100% figured out. More research is definitely needed. We have data that hints at at least body weight and muscle mass would come with that being somewhat important for strength or predictive of strength. Although. Although more research is needed. And I wouldn't say that, hey, if you maximise your muscle growth, then you'll necessarily maximise your strength potential as well.

Dr Pak [: 00:21:41

However, if you're somebody who wants to get really strong, either as a byproduct of trying to get really strong, or as a way to, let's say, break a plateau, at some point you'll have to gain some weight, gain some muscle, and that will probably help. But you can't be a very strong individual if you are not looking at increasing your muscle mass whatsoever. In my opinion, at least. However, again, terms and conditions apply. And I cannot say with confidence that, hey, we have it figured out. And in the scientific community, there's actually quite a bit of a debate about how much muscle mass contributes to strength increases, actually.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:22:32

I know we wanted to link this podcast to the deadlift, as in have use an exercise with a bit of context around just getting as strong as possible. Obviously, height muscle mass is going to be important, or total body mass is going to be important for overall strength, that's just physics. But for the deadlift, in terms of the movement itself, where do you think the importance of hypertrophy is like? Are anthropometrics more important? As in, like longer arms tend to do pretty well with deadlifting, or should, if you wanted to improve your deadlift, just increase your mass. And a good way of increasing your mass is increasing the amount of contractual tissue you have. Muscle hypertrophy. So I'm just arguing, is muscle hypertrophy really important for deadlifting, or does it lend itself a bit more to squat or bench press?

Dr Pak [: 00:23:28

Yeah, that is an interesting question. So I'd say if we're going to, we're obviously not going to look at absolute deadlift numbers and compare, like person A to person B, because then, yeah, the person who has a better build for deadlifts will see better absolute increases over time. But if we look at relative strength and we say, okay, for you as a person, what will help you get your deadlift to progress faster over time? Because even if you have good proportions, viewing it as an absolute number may make it look like you are doing much better. But your starting point may be completely different to that of another person, if that makes sense. Right. And yeah, it is one of those lifts that can be very tricky to somewhat predict. And I would say that gaining a bunch of body weight may help to a certain extent, but because of leverages and having to be bent over and be in a certain position, anecdotally at least. And we see that with some super heavyweights, some, right, because you still have like Eddie hall or Thor, half Thor, and they were super heavyweights and they had a lot of mass and they still deadlifted the most anybody has deadlifted at this stage.

Dr Pak [: 00:24:49

But I think there comes a point where if you're gaining a bunch of body weight very fast, your squad and your bench may respond much better to it versus the deadlift, simply because you'll have more mass and that will affect range of motion and just how comfortable each of these lifts are with a deadlift, I think it's slightly less sensitive to body weight gain. And in some individuals who may have a big midsection, losing weight may actually benefit them more than gaining weight. However, I wouldn't treat the deadlift as I would treat it slightly different than let's say the bench or the squad, depending on the individual. But in terms of general principles on how to get stronger on it, I'd say you'd still benefit from doing hypertrophy work that will increase the size of your hamstrings, your glutes, your erectors, and get you to practise hinging and practising a hip hinge. But anecdotally, for a lot of individuals, I do see that there is a slight difference in how they respond to higher RP work on some lifts versus the others. Although because it's anecdotal and because it's scattered all over the place, I can't really draw any inferences from those observations just yet. But when working with somebody and they want to increase their strength, which is almost everyone I work with and nobody has come to me and said, hey, man, too strong over here, I got to get weaker.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:26:26

I wish I had that problem.

Dr Pak [: 00:26:27

That would be nice. That would be cool, man. That would be a really nice call to a coach, like the one person that listens to this and then commits to it and does it. That would be a good consultation call. Yeah, I'm too strong.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:26:39

Film it, please. Film it and then just. We'll upload it.

Dr Pak [: 00:26:44

Yeah. I do keep an open mind and I do feel like there are different and more unorthodox approaches that may work better for some lifts versus others. For example, doing very low volume, super specific, even low RP work on the deadlifts, like in the form of a few singles per week at an RP of five to six, meaning a relatively easy single performed a few times per week, has worked really well for some people, whereas on other lifts you'd see them not responding as much, which is interesting, but I can't really tell you with certain that, yeah, this is because of this and because of that, but if you want a big deadlift, deadlifting is almost non negotiable, and getting bigger erectors, hams, glutes is probably going to be a good idea.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:27:37

Can I ask what your deadlift PR is?

Dr Pak [: 00:27:40

Yeah, for sure. So my deadlift PR is 285 kilos. And, yeah, I don't know why I said it, as if there was more to say there, though. That was it.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:27:51

Do you have any aspirations to get to 300?

Dr Pak [: 00:27:54

Yes, this is a nice pass to briefly mention, like a paper. A paper had the honour of being part of, but it was led by Christopher Latella called longitudinal growth modelling of strength adaptations in powerlifting athletes across ages in males and females, essentially looking at over 9000 powerlifters over time and how their strength changes. And what you see is that there's like a 7.5 to 12.5% increase in powerlifting total in the first year. And then there's about like a twelve to 20% increase in the next ten years. So where I'm going with this is, yes, I want 300, but I am at a place in my lifting career where the deadlift now needs either a lot of focus from me and a lot of dedication, which I have other things going on in my life if I want to get close to that 300. So I do believe that if I did like a very focused 16 to 20 week training block with some body weight gain, nothing too extreme, and yeah, just really high training consistency, I would get close. But I'm at the point where like a ten or 15 kilo increase is a huge increase and it could take time. But yeah, I would love to.

Dr Pak [: 00:29:25

300 would be the only PR would be the PR that sort of ends it for me. I'd be like, okay, I'm good. I've hit 300 on the deadlift. I don't care about getting another PR on the deadlift ever again.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:29:39

I can retire.

Dr Pak [: 00:29:41

Yeah, pretty much.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:29:42

Well, aside from weight gain, do you think there's anything you have to do differently compared to what you've done before? Or is it just like I could continue what I've done before, I just need to give myself some time, a bit more weight gain, do the training, and I'd have confidence that over time it would hit, that it would increase by 15 kilos. But you just don't know when that could be because like you said, 15 kilo increase for when you're already at that top end is huge. So predicting what's going to happen is very difficult. But I know if I just did this over a long period of time and be consistent, I would get there.

Dr Pak [: 00:30:22

Yeah, it's an interesting question because I am not sure, to be 100% honest with you. I do think that dedicating training time and recovery resources more on the deadlift and having my training be centred around it, that would definitely help. Because at the moment I'm doing a lot of hypertrophy training. The majority of my training is like quote unquote bodybuilding training. So it's like a lot of higher rep stuff and I love training to failure. So the deadlift at the moment is like it's just there in a minimum dose sort of style of training where I do a few singles every week and I have been doing so for the past couple of years and it has still progressed. And I managed to hit 285 at a lower body weight, at a much lower body weight than when I had hit 280. So that's a thumbs up.

Dr Pak [: 00:31:17

But I'd say simply from focusing on it, on it and maybe doing a bit more volume than I'm doing now and gaining a bit of body weight, I think those two would definitely help me get a PR. Now, whether that would be 15 or five kilos, I'm not sure. But given the fact that I've been doing so little volume on it again, like, there are weeks where I may do one single and I'm travelling all the time, lifts that fatigue, some of the musculature involved in the deadlift. I do think that if I took a step back with the rest of my training, or at least with some of my training, and said, okay, a bit more deadlifting, a bit more rest, a bit more food, and just consistently having a plan around that lift, and getting really good at lifting stuff off the floor and doing different rep ranges, and maybe doing a bit more training volume, then I would bet a good amount of money that I'd see some solid progress.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:32:20

I know we talked about minimum dose effect on the last episode, but I guess you kind of showed how important it is there, because if you've technically had a very small volume of deadlift training, but you still manage to progress, and you also managed to progress to the point where you've hit a higher PB at a lower body weight, showing that your training isn't just determined by how much you're weighing at that particular time, that shows how much that's worked. You said maybe if to get that little bit more, I need a bit more volume. So I guess, yeah, you're going slightly above your minimal dose effect, is that right? You're just, okay, I've passed that minimal dose threshold, but I really want to get to that next stage. So I'm just going to turn the dial a little bit, add a little bit more volume of that, and that's what's going to take me there. There's no big, massive deadlift plan. It's just same as before. Slightly more calories. Yeah.

Dr Pak [: 00:33:19

And the more calories would be mostly, it may be placebo to a certain extent, but like, gaining a couple of kilos over a few months means that I am in a calorie surplus, that I am giving myself a bit more, that I am improving my recovery a bit more. If I'm doing a bit more volume, as well. We know that strength and volume don't have the same relationship with strength, with volume and hypertrophy. But even for strength and volume, slightly more volume in some cases equals more strength. And because I have a hectic schedule and because I'm not a big believer in, unless you're able to have the best structure, you're not going to make gains. At the moment, the deadlift, there are weeks where I'll do, like, a couple of singles, and that's great. Other weeks where I may do something completely different. So there is no real structure which is great for not just maintaining, but slightly increasing strength on an already almost topped out lift, and obviously enjoying training and enjoying life.

Dr Pak [: 00:34:27

But when you reach the point where it's like, okay, these may be the last ten or 15 kilos I can put on this lift, approaching it like that is not the best way, if that makes sense.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:34:43

Certainly I want to take a little bit of a detour and just say how much I'm enjoying your social media at the moment. A lot around your memes. I don't always look out for memes on Instagram, but yours hit a particular nerve because you've got the two people, you've got the hypothetical person that's really sort of into over the top with their opinions and their training, and then you've got the more nuanced, casual person underneath, which just shows that people need to be calmed down with their opinions a little bit. And quite often it's like, yeah, take this, but evidence is medium. I really should have my phone out just to give, like, an example of that. But it really highlights the fact that you've got so many people online providing information, but they're so polarised with it. And then you provide the alternative person who isn't sort of like going all in or like dying on the hill of one particular opinion. Everything is very nuanced.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:35:51

I see it all the time, and I think it's a meme that really highlights what needs to be said. But I wondered what made you start doing those types of memes?

Dr Pak [: 00:36:01

Yeah, I was looking for a way to communicate my thoughts format that is easily digestible, but at the same time still allows for, can still be intriguing enough, and can still allow me to maybe have a more complex message in a more entertaining or creative way, and essentially trick people into being like, hey, it's funny, but then you're like, okay, now I'm actually thinking about training volume, or whether hypertrophy, whether strength equals hypertrophy or whatever. And I've always liked Wojak, the character that I use for the memes. I actually have him tattooed on my calf and I have for years now, and he's even there on my.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:37:01

Field.

Dr Pak [: 00:37:02

Yeah, that's a Facebook group that I essentially came up in, which taught me a lot about strength training. That's a different story, though. But yeah, at first I was looking at what sort of content I can put out there because I did want to share my thoughts and I am somebody who's not very serious as an individual, I'm serious about the things I do, but as a character, I like to have fun with things and I like to have fun with more, let's say complex or serious topics like scientific studies and stuff. And I thought, hey, I started doing it and then I was like, you know what? This allows me to express myself well. It seems to be relatively well received and yeah, let's give it a go. And it's been going well, although I do want to put out some video content as well because the memes are great, but they are a bit limited when it comes to discussion generation and what you want to say. But the caricature characters that I've used, I think have allowed me to get my message across. Most times.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:38:11

You're going to bring those characters over to the videos?

Dr Pak [: 00:38:15

No, the characters will be me in that video, so there will be some acting involved. But yeah, it's crazy. As you said, there's a lot of people out there that are willing to die on hills that are not necessarily worth dying on and having been exposed to the scientific side of things, and you're a great person to share that with. Being cautious with interpretation, with interpreting data and keeping an open mind is something that I think we don't often do enough of. And I think that the evidence based scene has at least some of the flag carriers, at least in the eyes of most people, in my opinion, have somewhat stopped doing that because they just use the evidence based stamp and then they'll say things that they shouldn't be saying with that level of confidence. But anyways, that's, again, another discussion.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:39:18

Yeah. Well, I noticed you were on a podcast recently which I think discussed the role of academia within the training science and the training space, which I thought was a really interesting topic. Because one of the reasons I started my own podcast is because I wanted to speak to a variety of different people, academics, coaches, athletes, because you get loads of different opinions and then you utilise and synthesise all those ideas to formulate your own opinions. But at times you could take a step back and look at social media and there seems to be this battle between the evidence based lot and the coaching lot, which I've always been confused about because I don't see why there should be a. Should be a battle about that anyway. Because if you think about it, all the academics that I've spoken to have always been very nuanced with their opinions. They are open minded, they understand the limitations of their research. But I guess you do have the OD person online, which then has like, doctor within their name, and they're very much like polarised with their opinions, which goes against what an academic should be, because they really should understand just how nuanced everything is.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:40:35

And I think that's what's pissing off the coaching community. Do you think the term doctor has sometimes been abused and people have utilised it to try and sell something?

Dr Pak [: 00:40:46

Yeah, for. I mean, we are doing that to a certain extent, but I think there's a happy medium because me having Dr. Pack or Dr. Phil Price on our profiles does help with credibility a bit, because you do see somebody who has a PhD, and I think that helps, at least to a certain extent, with trusting that person a bit more. But you do see a lot of individuals who may not be, maybe even PhDs, that use the title to essentially get a free pass to say whatever they want. And then you also obviously have people who in other countries can call themselves doctor because they are whatever, a doctor of X or Z. There's many fields where you cannot call yourself a doctor and then that dilutes or sort of takes away from that title a bit. But I do feel like that sort of clash between science and practise comes mainly from people that don't understand each side.

Dr Pak [: 00:42:04

Because if you're a real scientist and you're really evidence based, practise is always an important part of what you do. And looking at practise often informs what we look into as far as the science goes. So for some of the research projects that we will be focusing on in the future, they're directly informed by things that we've seen in practise and we're like, okay, let's see if this works, and vice versa. But yeah, I do think evidence based and science based and doctor. The use of the title has become a bit gimmicky. And you do have people like Joel. What's his name? Joel Seedman.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:42:45

Seedy boy.

Dr Pak [: 00:42:46

Yeah. Those types of guys where you're like, in character. Yeah, you're like, okay, now everybody sees him and then thinks, okay, yeah, these are the PhDs, or there may be some other PhDs or MDs or whatever with a bad take, and then those become essentially the representatives of Anybody who has doctor in front of their name. But I do urge caution and critical thinking, regardless of what one's credentials are. So, sure, somebody having a PhD probably tells you that they've been exposed to. Not probably, they should have been exposed to quite a bit of research. But at the same time, a PhD is use getting really knowledgeable about a very specific and narrowed down topic. It doesn't necessarily make you an expert in all things exercise science the same way.

Dr Pak [: 00:43:47

I don't know much. I know enough about endurance training to have a chat, but I will be miles and miles behind somebody who has done a PhD in endurance training and vice versa.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:44:01

Additionally.

Dr Pak [: 00:44:02

Sorry for the slide, Rand.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:44:04

No, that's exactly what I was looking for. Well, looking for your opinion on this.

Dr Pak [: 00:44:08

Yeah. It's also that science is sexy from the outside, this caricature of science where science has an absolute answer for everything. And let's ask the scientist. But if you've ever done science and you've ever read papers, it's not sexy. It's the opposite. There is a lot of ifs and Mays, and further research is needed. And even for topics that you'd assume we know quite a bit about, we don't. And that's not really sexy.

Dr Pak [: 00:44:40

People don't want to hear, you know what we don't really know. This is the current evidence we have. Yeah, the current evidence. When we tried to evaluate it, some of it was low quality, there was a high risk of bias. And our best guess at the moment is that maybe this will work. People don't want to hear that. People want to hear that, hey, the scientist will give me the answer. What's the answer? Okay, twelve reps is better than ten reps or whatever.

Dr Pak [: 00:45:05

They want an easy answer that doesn't have any sort of space for being wrong in the future. And that's another thing with science, and that's where people in the field sometimes get it wrong, because they will see people in the science world. There will be a paper that comes out that shows X works better than y, but that paper will also say, hey, still very preliminary, more Research is needed. Then everybody hopes on the evidence based train. The headline game. All of a sudden, X is better than Y is being presented in a way, in a very absolute way, and as if it's an established fact. Fast forward three years, the same scientists who haven't said anything wrong and they've explained everything in their discussion. They have their limitations on their paper, their future research section as well.

Dr Pak [: 00:46:08

They come up with a paper that actually now shows that Y is better than X or that X is not better than Y and they're the same. And now the headline scientists take that and then they run with a new headline that completely contradicts what was presented as a well established fact a couple of years ago. So then you get the people in the field being like, here we go again with a scientist. Like two years ago they told us this doesn't work. Now all of a sudden it worked. We told you it worked. We knew it. You guys know nothing.

Dr Pak [: 00:46:40

You're just a bunch of pencil necks.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:46:43

Pencil necks, yeah, that happens so often. I've seen a lot of people, if someone puts up an opinion or something they've said online and people disagree, they'll go, oh, have you got a pubmed link for that? Have you got a paper to cite for that? And I've never really understood that just one paper, because like you said, if you get one individual paper and it's an intervention, it's showing that something worked or didn't work, or just remained the same for the people that were involved in that study, you are making generalisations to everything everyone else if you are making big interpretations like that. But really that's what the paper is showing from, that you're making a best guess of what would happen in a bigger scenario. So, yeah, I've never done that because I've always thought that was linked to the evidence based lot, because they are like, show me a paper, show and it works and I'll use it. It's evidence based. I've got proof that what I do is right because this paper shows it where I don't know. Any idea that I've come about that's been derived from reading a lot has come from loads and loads of different papers, not just one. I would struggle to give a good one.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:47:53

I might be able to give an example of what I mean, but it wouldn't necessarily always show exactly what I'm trying to say. So, yeah, that's another thing I've kind of seen what people think evidence base is. It's just like, here's a paper showing what I do and I think it's much more nuanced than that. And if you are just blindly copying what papers say, that's limited. And even if you've got a paper which is purely developed by a load of experts in the area that provide guidelines like they're guidelines, you should be able to utilise them a bit more effectively to be effective for the population that you're working with. So sometimes that might be following the guidelines exactly. Another time it might be following the guidelines with a slight twist or ignoring the guidelines because it just wouldn't work in your scenario. But I don't know, I worried that people aren't really thinking like that, because to be evidence based, you've got to do what the science says.

Dr Pak [: 00:48:56

Yeah, and that's a big misconception on being evidence based, because evidence based is a combination of experience, totality of scientific evidence, and that totality of scientific evidence needs to be of a certain quality for you to be able to put a lot of stock on it. So, like, if you have three or four studies on a particular topic that are relatively low quality, sure, that's what we have. That's the totality of current available evidence, but that's very different to a topic where you have 30 studies and then obviously you have personal preference and so on and so forth. But I do think that the clash between the two sides, which are not really sides, is just a result of people wanting to naturally go against something and have this enemy. But in reality, if you sit with somebody who's truly evidence based, and let's say you're not an absolute fool and you're somebody who's like a coach, I doubt you're going to have. And you have an open mind, right. I doubt you're going to find it very hard to have a chat and learn from each other. But that's where I cringe as well.

Dr Pak [: 00:50:12

So I cringe with the evidence based folk I cringe with in the field folk as well, where it's like you cannot be drawing inferences with absolute confidence in expressing things in an absolute way, when you have all this noise and so many co founding variables and you're just making an observation based on what you think worked and then you run with that for the rest of your coaching or training career. Right. Just because you worked with somebody and you did X and that seemed to work fine. Sure, keep doing that until it stops working. But that's not a pass for you to say, oh, yeah, I worked with three people and we tried this one thing once and it worked well for a specific period of time, but you didn't try everything else to see if that on. I'm opening a lot of Pandora's boxes here. There's like a whole collection.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:51:11

What research projects have you got going on at the.

Dr Pak [: 00:51:17

We have. I'll be travelling to New York in the next couple of weeks for a study we're doing on regional hypertrophy, comparing the leg press and the leg extension, as well as other exercises, mostly on the lower body. But there are actually. Let me get the list up. So we have that paper that I just mentioned looking at strength increases over time in power lifting that will be published in Sports medicine soon. There was the Delphi Deload paper. So essentially a paper trying to establish expert consensus on what Deloads are. You may have noticed that dealers have received a bit of attention in the last few years and this paper is essentially trying to get that more official, sort of not strict definition, but like consensus on what deloads are out there.

Dr Pak [: 00:52:20

There are a couple of papers that were published as preprints one cold water immersion and the Deload intervention study by Coleman Adal that are currently being reviewed in their respective journals. And there is a project that I will be heading on training technique and trying to see what good training technique or what. Yeah, let's just say what good training technique for hypertrophy really is and what that means. Other than that, there's nothing else that is coming off the top of my head. I know Milo has a few things going on, on the range of motion side of things, plus some of the studies from his thesis that haven't been published that will be published at some point soon. But. Yeah.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:53:10

Is that the hypertrophy with lengthened muscles in terms of versus shortened muscles as in focusing on a specific end range?

Dr Pak [: 00:53:19

Yeah, there's a couple of studies. So he's done one on the calves that is not out there. And there's another one. There's also a survey study and an interview study he did. And there's also an intervention study that we are doing in collaboration with some other universities that's looking at comparing, well, full ROM to length and partials versus just specifically comparing length and to shortened. So yeah, a lot of cool stuff that will be coming out soon. Obviously, as you know, with science it takes a lot of time to do, takes some time to write up and then by the time it starts circulating, that also takes a bit of time. It's not like with music where a new song is out and all of a sudden everybody is listening to it.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:54:08

Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, just adding on to what you were talking about earlier because obviously you're doing some stuff with the videographer. You discussed your research project there and there's so many different exciting areas there. But what other projects are you involved in? Because it sounds like you're moving things more into the video space, maybe more into YouTube, and it's just so that we can get listeners to head towards your content.

Dr Pak [: 00:54:38

Yeah, so I do want to make a bit of video content. I'm not sure. Well, I have an idea of what that will look like in the first few months, but I'm not sure the direction that it will go towards in the next year. There is the app that Milo and I have been working on for the past two years. Essentially, it is a training app that does what a coach would do in real life as best as it can. Obviously, we want it to be the next best thing after Premium one on one coaching. I have a book, so this is the first time I've mentioned it that I am planning on doing, which I'm super excited about. And yeah, other than mean, obviously podcasts, the Muscle and Fields podcast with Milo and other minor ish projects.

Dr Pak [: 00:55:34

Obviously the podcast is not minor, but other projects that are out there.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:55:41

It was so good to catch up again. I've been waiting for this for quite some time, just to finish off, because we linked this episode with developing of the Deadlift. If you had like three things you'd recommend to anyone wanting to improve their deadlift? I guess not from a technique perspective, because we haven't really discussed that, but more from like a loading perspective. What would you recommend?

Dr Pak [: 00:56:06

I would recommend definitely doing some one repetition, maximum specific work in the form of singles, potentially doubles and triples. But practising the actual test that you're going to be tested in and getting good at doing those singles now, you don't necessarily need to go all out and be grinding out singles every week. You could leave even like four plus reps in reserve. But I do think that being exposed to some heavy grindy air singles may also help you get good at the lift when things get hard. Because when you go for a one RM attempt and you are trying to lift as much weight as possible, you will find yourself in a position where things slow down. And if you've never done that before, you may not know exactly how to grind that out. So doing one RM specific work in the form of singles, keeping the majority of those with a few reps in reserve, but still having some heavier singles there, and potentially working on variations of the deadlift like the Romanian deadlift, maybe other hip hinge exercises like a good morning, or even variations of the deadlift with dumbbells or different bars just so that you can get the muscles involved in the deadlift stronger. Obviously, just deadlifting and doing volume on deadlifts is also good, but for some people, it may help them to have something different, just for enjoyment's sake.

Dr Pak [: 00:57:47

But the number one thing I would say is work on practising the test and get really good at doing the deadlift and obviously lifting heavy weights over time. But for strength, lifting heavy, even if that's not close to failure, is almost non negotiable. So practising the test with heavy weights, not overdoing it and maxing out all the time, I think those three points are major.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:58:15

No, sounds good, and I'm sure they speak to everyone. Lift heavy frequently, but don't just go all out all the time. Makes sense.

Dr Pak [: 00:58:26

Yeah. And we know that that may not really give you much in terms of strength anyway. So for hypertrophy, yeah, going to the point where you're unable to do another rep may be better than leaving three reps in reserve. But for strength, you doing a relatively comfortable but heavy single may be in most cases, as good as taking that single to the point where you're there barely making it.

Dr Phil Price [: 00:58:51

Yeah, no, that's a really good distinction to make because people quite often try and do. They leave some in the tank for their strength work, but then they do it the same for their assistant, accessory, whatever you like to call it, their hypertrophy work. And then you got others that are all out with their sort of high rep work, and then they're all out with their strength work as well, which then has a kind of, like, too much on the athlete too soon. So they then accelerate, but then plateau and then have nowhere to go again. So having a distinction between the two is really cool.

Dr Pak [: 00:59:28

Strength takes time to build and being comfortable with the idea, especially if you're a trained lifter of your deadlift, or whichever lift, taking time to budge. Being in that mindset will be much more productive than being like, okay, when is the next big PR coming? Which then sometimes leads to random max outs. Then those sometimes don't go as well as you wanted them to go, which then reinforces the idea that you're not making progress. And then that leads to a whole different host of issues that are mainly psychological, in my opinion.

Dr Phil Price [: 01:00:09

Pat, that was brilliant. Where can people find you on social media?

Dr Pak [: 01:00:12

They can find me on Instagram, at Dr. Double underscore Pack P-A-K. And on my Instagram, I have my link tree link in my bio, and all my stuff is there. All my research, podcasts and so on and so forth.

Dr Phil Price [: 01:00:27

Yeah, brilliant. And everyone listening, I definitely recommend go cheque all of them out.

Dr Pak [: 01:00:30

And cheque out.

Dr Phil Price [: 01:00:31

The memes we discussed in this episode as well, you'll probably found them quite entertaining if the discussion that we had today resonated with you. But PAC, we will do a third because we always need a trilogy.

Dr Pak [: 01:00:44

Third is a charm.

Dr Phil Price [: 01:00:46

Exactly. Brilliant. But I'll catch you soon.

Dr Pak [: 01:00:49

I appreciate having me on.