Episode 30: Birthdays and Training Intensities

DM Us! We love chatting with our audience, please feel free to do so on Instagram and say what's up!

• Joe Gambino
• Joe LaVacca

Want to work with us? Apply here!

Watch on YouTube here.

Summary
In this episode of the Beyond Paint Podcast, hosts Joe Gambino and Joe LaVacca celebrate Gambino's birthday and discuss various personal and fitness-related topics. They delve into the importance of gauging training intensity, utilizing the RPE scale, and the five, three, one strength cycle. The conversation emphasizes the balance between pushing oneself in the gym and understanding personal limits, while also sharing personal anecdotes and experiences. In this conversation, Joe Gambino and Joe LaVacca explore the complexities of training, particularly focusing on the emotional and physical barriers that individuals face. They discuss the importance of understanding pain and discomfort in training, emphasizing the need for flexibility in training approaches to ensure success. The conversation highlights the significance of monitoring heart rates, recognizing personal limits, and adapting training strategies to accommodate individual needs and experiences.

Takeaways
Celebrating personal milestones fosters connection and community.

Understanding training intensity is crucial for effective workouts.

The RPE scale helps gauge effort and adjust training accordingly.

Failure in training is a skill that can be developed over time.

The five, three, one strength cycle is an effective training method.

New clients often struggle to gauge their own strength levels.

It's important to teach clients about their limits and capabilities.

Accessory work can vary in rep ranges based on training goals.

Emotional and physical loads can affect training intensity perception.

Creating a supportive environment encourages personal growth in fitness. People often have emotional barriers when starting training.

Heart rate monitoring can provide objective feedback during workouts.

It's important to assess both physical and emotional responses to exercise.

Training intensity should be adjusted based on individual comfort levels.

Pain guidelines are useful but not absolute; modifications may be necessary.

Untrained individuals can still see gains with lower intensity workouts.

Flexibility in training can lead to better adherence and success.

Small wins in training can boost confidence and motivation.

Understanding personal pain thresholds is crucial for effective training.

Success in fitness can come in many forms, not just traditional methods.

Transcript

Joe Gambino (00:01.396)
Welcome back in to the Beyond Pain Podcast. am one of your hosts, Joe Gambino, and I am here with Joe LaVaca. No adjectives for you today, Joe, just maybe.

Joe LaVacca (00:12.076)
No adjectives because I'm going to interject here. You deserve the adjectives, Joe, because we are on the eve of a very special day. It's Joe Gambino's birthday. So happy birthday, my friend. Thank you for doing this with me for the last six months. Of course, of course. You know, I do have a hack on how I remember. I think I've told you this. You share the same birthday as my dad. So

Joe Gambino (00:15.373)
do I?

Joe Gambino (00:21.926)
that is right.

Yes, that's right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for remembering.

Joe Gambino (00:41.092)
well that makes it easier.

Joe LaVacca (00:41.912)
by just linking the two, who's also named Joe. I know I have two Joes on November 9th to not mess up and not forget to wish happy birthday. But listeners, if you're out there, drop Joe a little DM or a little happy birthday comment this week. He'll really appreciate it. And it's always good for the social media algorithm. So you're helping a lot of different things, right? So happy birthday, my friend. What's going on? Do you have plans?

Joe Gambino (01:09.354)
We do, we're gonna actually do a little drive shack golf sesh with some friends. So that'll be fun. Yes, yes. It's been a while since I've swung a golf club. What is what? The kids are coming with us. They're coming with us. Yeah, if our friends have kids and they're just gonna be, know, well, two of them will move and Olivia will move, but last time she got to hit some golf balls too, so that was kind of

Joe LaVacca (01:16.558)
Very cool. What are the kiddies gonna be doing? What are the kiddies? The kids are coming with us. It's a full family event. Very nice.

Joe LaVacca (01:36.063)
that's awesome. That's awesome. And I see that her form and her technique is getting much better in the garage gym workouts as well.

Joe Gambino (01:41.288)
Yes, yeah, she was she's picked up two two three pound weights one in each hand and was just like curling them and trying to press them. I was like, damn, she's getting after it. I was just like, I just like just watch your toes because you just drop some on the floor after.

Joe LaVacca (01:50.04)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, every now and then, Gabor.

But dude, that's the exact, like Avery occasionally still like will walk over and just like, you know, grab a kettlebell and be like, ugh. And I'm like, well, it's pretty good. I mean, know, considering that it's probably like your body weight for the most part, right? And I'm just like, I'm going to let you do this. I'm not worried you're going to hurt yourself, but I am worried about those little toes. And, and I'm really worried about my floor because I rent this place. So we can't be damaging floors, maybe one.

Joe Gambino (02:19.402)
Hehehe. Hehehe.

Joe LaVacca (02:25.27)
And then one B is we can't be breaking toes, at least on daddy's watch, at least on daddy's watch.

Joe Gambino (02:28.53)
Yeah, makes it. Yes. Yes. No, that's a that'd be a that'd be rough. So I always tell I was like, listen, if you're going to lift those weights, just just make sure you watch those toes because that's a I'm giving you the lesson before you have to learn. I think as I've been there, I've done that and I already know that you shouldn't do that.

Joe LaVacca (02:47.732)
man, I dropped a, I was talking to a client. was unracking, you know, one side of the bar as they were unracking the other side. we had a plate on the bar and then I forgot I put a two and a half pounder on there. So all I did was grab the 45 pound and pull toward me. And then I just felt this excruciating pain on my big toe and look down.

Joe Gambino (03:04.477)
Hmm.

Joe LaVacca (03:13.518)
there was the two and a half pound plate that just just landed perfectly right on top of it and that toe turned black. This was over I think the summer. That toe turned black about 24 hours later and it was not a pleasant week and a half I'll tell you that.

Joe Gambino (03:27.299)
Definitely not. How do you catch on your thumb when you're a dumbbell back on the rack? There's like the two worst things.

Joe LaVacca (03:31.674)
yeah, did that this past week as well. Nice little blood blister. And of course, when I get those, I'm like, I can't wait to go home and stick a pin in this thing. And that's going to give me a massive infection, I'm sure, one day. So is there something gratifying about? Yeah, I know. I always think about that. But you know what the problem is? I guess this is a solvable problem now that I'm saying this out loud, because I do have a lighter and I could, you

Joe Gambino (03:36.71)
Yeah

Joe Gambino (03:46.826)
That's why you have to heat it up first, Joe.

Joe LaVacca (04:01.166)
always heat up the tip a little bit. But my oven over here is one of those infrared type things. So, you I don't know if I could just hold it.

Joe Gambino (04:08.744)
Hmm, I see. I'm not a big fan of those. We had one in the last apartment we were in and was not a fan. I much prefer gas.

Joe LaVacca (04:16.236)
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. think gas is a lot more even, but you know, depends on your stance. Like a lot of things this past week, you know, what do you like? What do you not like? What do you, what are you for? Yeah. So, so did I. So did I. All right. Well, I want to just make sure we said happy birthday. You can finish your intro. I'm really excited to hear about your birthday weekend next week, but yeah, we could fill in the gaps of the Instagram and the YouTube and I'll let you do your thing.

Joe Gambino (04:23.508)
Very true. I did grow up on gas stoves my whole life, so that's probably it.

Joe Gambino (04:33.194)
Appreciate you. We're back to it.

Joe Gambino (04:42.728)
Yes. Yes. As Joe's linty, you can find us both on Instagram at Joe Gambino DPT for myself at strength and motion underscore PT for. Lavock over there. this podcast is also an Instagram, at beyond pain podcast, and it is on YouTube cups of Joe underscore PT. So if you do want to watch these episodes and see Joe's handsome face and my dad's dash, you are more than welcome to hop on there and, pop a pop of you.

Anyway, Joe, how are you? This was all about me. How was your weekend? Or what do you got going on this weekend? Maybe since we're Friday.

Joe LaVacca (05:20.782)
The past weekend was yeah, well, you know, I'll you know We'll look ahead rather than looking back because we did not link last week Our schedules did not align We were we were recovering a little bit. I will say this I'm gonna leave this just open-ended but Halloween got a little out of hand for me and It was very surprising. That's all I'm gonna say. It was just like a very surprising night We went out early we ended early, but it was a lot more aggressive than

Joe Gambino (05:31.23)
We were recovering, Joe.

Joe LaVacca (05:49.772)
I thought it was going to be. And I guess that's what happens with live music and karaoke. You know, I just sort of get like, I just get carried away, carried away.

Joe Gambino (05:54.214)
I guess so. you and karaoke that will. Yeah. That's mm hmm. Yeah. I was, I was more referring to our Yankees, having a really rough loss and I just needed some. Yeah. But yeah, I'm glad you had some fun, Joe. You and karaoke. That is a, we should just have a recording of you doing that and just leave it on the YouTube channel for entertainment value.

Joe LaVacca (06:06.306)
Whoa.

Joe LaVacca (06:09.944)
Moment of silence there.

Joe LaVacca (06:20.162)
Well, the next time maybe you and I can't align, we'll do like maybe we could just talk about doing like mini episodes by ourselves. Like, hey, can you steal five or 10 minutes? Just record some thoughts. I'll steal five or 10 minutes. can put them together. But my five or 10 minutes will just be me singing karaoke forever.

Joe Gambino (06:29.897)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (06:34.674)
Yeah, just next time you're at the bar and you're there's karaoke and you're getting up there. Just have cord record you and we'll just upload it for everyone's entertainment. Have a great.

Joe LaVacca (06:44.43)
Yeah, love it. Love it. Yeah, but in the week ahead, as I mentioned, my dad's birthday is tomorrow as well. My mom's birthday is November 14th. So I'm gonna have everybody over the apartment. We're gonna do a nice brunch spread for everyone. So my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece, nephew, everybody will be here. And it'll be a nice change of pace for me because now I don't have to drive all the way to Connecticut. I'm actually...

Joe Gambino (06:56.926)
Mmm.

Joe LaVacca (07:12.386)
forcing them to come down to New York. I'm just pulling them into the clutches because there's just so much traffic I can handle. And being that we're at the year end, I sort of have hit my quota on traffic tolerance. So we are going to start divvying it up a little bit more, think. Or that's my hope.

Joe Gambino (07:14.45)
That's nice.

Joe Gambino (07:20.742)
Yes.

Joe Gambino (07:30.814)
That is a sounds like a very busy November for you. on that note, I actually have my traffic quota has nowhere near been met since I've moved. It's it's been very nice. I was in one. There was a motorcycle accident that ended up closing down a bunch of roads and I was in a ton of traffic and like to go a mile and a half. It took me like almost 50 minutes, I think. And I was like, I can't. This is like it's just like getting on the George Washington Bridge is like, God.

Joe LaVacca (07:59.138)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Gambino (07:59.464)
And now, that was just, that was my fix. It made me feel like I was back home for a second, but let's get into it. Let's get into it. So we have, you had some questions that you wanted to ask. I'm actually excited to talk about it. Cause I do think that this is, actually something that a lot of people struggle with. think people either go too hard or they go not hard enough in the gym. There's very few people that find this balance point in the middle. So I think the questions really stem more so around how hard should you train?

Joe LaVacca (08:04.11)
Alright, I love it. Alright, yeah, good.

Joe LaVacca (08:09.976)
We

Joe Gambino (08:28.266)
in general with your fitness and also the themes around pain. So why don't you ask the questions and then we'll riff.

Joe LaVacca (08:36.206)
Yeah, so like you said, it comes up weekly, probably daily, especially when we have new clients and we're trying to engage in fitness and rehab programs. But the thought I had or that was a consistent theme and I figured I'd bring it up to you is how do you help gauge intensity or correct dosage with clients? So we're gonna leave kind of pain out of the discussion for a second.

but someone comes to us, I wanna get stronger, I wanna get bigger, faster, whatever. mean, how are we best guiding them in those decisions?

Joe Gambino (09:14.187)
Yep. Yeah. So I'm a, I'm a big fan of, RPE scale, right? So, you know, using that, maybe in the show notes, I'll try to try to get a little, little diagram or some sort of breakdown of it. But in essence, right. want people to be, you know, depending on what we're doing anywhere between sixes and, I can go up to 10. So for, for clarity for people, RPF 10 is there's, you know, that's like the last, you can only, if you have to do 10 reps.

By the 10th rep that is the absolute last trip you can do before there's some sort of failure that happens either technical or you just can't lift it anymore. that would be a 10 out of 10 intensity level nine. have kind of like one, maybe two reps in the tank and they would be two, maybe three reps in the tank. Seven would be. You know, three or four and so on and so forth. so I think that's, I like it because it, you know, sometimes people have more energy. Sometimes people feel like shit. So it kind of helps, you know, like even it all out.

with that being said though, sometimes, RPE scales don't, you know, you have to have some sort of experience with lifting and lifting heavy, right? If you've never actually gone to failure before or lifted, you know, like a one rep max, you're not really going to know what heavy is. And a lot of times when I'm training someone, especially for the first time, I hand someone like a 35 pound weight to do a goblet squat and they're like, my God, that's so heavy. And then they do it and they do 10 reps. I'm like, well, it looks like you could have done like 55 more.

You know, so, you know, what I ended up doing that is like, I'll start people off. We'll have our peas. but then as like people have some experience in the system, I actually really like, I don't know if you've, ever used the five three one, strength cycle. Have you ever used that program before?

Joe LaVacca (10:59.031)
well, I think I know what you're talking about, but no, please elaborate. Maybe I haven't referred to it in that way.

Joe Gambino (11:02.962)
Yeah. So I love using this because it's a pretty much what you do is you take set like either 90 or 95 % of the person's projected one rep max. And then you, it's like, you shift, you have, reps of five reps of three, days where it's a five through one, and there's a deload week. and then on all of those days, that last set set three, so say like, you know, week one, it's three sets of five.

The last one is five plus. So really you just do as many reps as possible until failure. Then you have three, three, three, three plus on the last set you do three plus. you do pretty much as many to failure. And then last one, five, three, one, that one is a plus you do as many reps until failure. And what people find out is like, you know, it's adjusted off of like, okay, well based on the weights that you've been doing, I'm going to calculate this is like, this is your one RM. We're going to just come off that a little bit so that we're really going to give you some wiggle room. And I have like a couple of people on it right now.

who have been like part of our journey has been like, how do we get them to load heavier? And now we're on it. They're crazy, like personal best happening because like now I just take this and like this person was kind of like, okay, like I just topped this weight and now it's only like maybe like a 10 pound difference. And he did like 15 reps when before we were doing like five or eight reps at like whatever rate. So now it's starting to teach them like, I can go above.

Joe LaVacca (12:21.675)
awesome.

Joe Gambino (12:29.576)
And now we go back to RPE scale, their RPE scales are gonna be redefined. So there are some ways you can play and teach people, or I'd just say, okay, for this particular set, let's just go to failure. It's like, you're just gonna perform reps for 60 seconds, find a weight that's gonna bring you to failure. now you start to have to, failure is another thing that you have to learn. I'm doing Grayson's ISM program and they do a lot of stuff to failure.

And it took me a couple of months to even remotely get close to true failure because you start to get the fatigue and you have to almost learn how to fight through the fatigue sometimes. So failure is also another skill. And then that starts to change your RP scale. So I think there are little tips that you can do, but I think in general, when we're talking about strength training, you don't have to go to fail. You don't really have to do that stuff a whole lot. You can stick to RPs of seven, eights and nines for multiple sets.

and do pretty well from a strength perspective. But you actually, if you're using an RPE scale, it has to be as true to nature as possible. So I think you can use some of those other things to really teach what real intensity looks like and then use the RPE scale to back off. But also if they're new to training, you're probably not going to throw them into do max reps at this. there's some learning to that as you go along.

Joe LaVacca (13:47.97)
Yeah, I like that five, three, one thing. I think I know what a lot of people are going to be getting come January. I never liked to, I know we just started a new block. I was pushing people a little bit more towards hypertrophy this block, just because I figured holidays were coming. It's nice to get a couple more sets of things, maybe burn a few more calories in the process. But then five, three, ones, if you're a trainer with strength and motion, watch out January. I like that. Now, will you keep them in a five, three, one? You said this weekly.

So three by five, three by three, three by one, right? Are you letting them do the same exercises, let's say on a two or three day split, like if they're focusing on one thing, or is it like a barbell bench press on Monday, a dumbbell bench press Wednesday, and then pushups on Friday or something like that, or what do do?

Joe Gambino (14:34.632)
Yeah, you mainly, so I mainly put them around the major strength driving movement. So either the big three squad bench deadlift, or if like someone's not benching in your chest pressing with dumbbells, right? Then you're just supplemented for the dumbbell or whatever variation that you're using. So that's kind of how it's broken up. And then the accessory work, I don't use the five, three, one, four. Then it's just like, okay, we're going to do for eight or maybe we're going to do it to failure or maybe we're going to do for whatever, you know, if it's hypertrophy, right? Those rep ranges.

So it just depends on whatever the rest of the goal that that program is. Usually it's just like a typical strength block. So the accessory work will probably have a little bit higher rep ranges than that. But again, right, trying to hit those like RPs of seven, eights and nines. I don't use percentages too often, but sometimes I find them valuable just because it will, you you kind of force people to have to push a little bit when you're using 90 % of someone's, you know, one RM, so to speak.

Joe LaVacca (15:33.336)
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I really think what you said was important because anchoring, like understanding what an effort looks like or feels like for so many people is really important. And I think where the effort system sort of maybe needs a little massaging for some people is that there can be these emotional loads and there can be physical loads.

Joe Gambino (16:01.406)
Mm.

Joe LaVacca (16:01.954)
So again, still not talking about pain, but people are apprehensive, people are worried, people maybe have just been sedentary for a really long time. So just the idea, like you said, my God, like holding a 35 pound dumbbell or kettlebell just to do a goblet squat. And my God, like the emotional load of just holding that and going through it at each rep, like kind of having it unknown. So I love the idea of the anchors.

Joe Gambino (16:06.388)
Mm-hmm.

Joe LaVacca (16:29.922)
But I also like would add on top of that of like, Hey, there's physical, there's emotional, and then let's break it down after those 10 reps, because I don't use heart rate enough in clinic. You know, it's something that I try to teach people a little bit of when they're away from the clinic. And maybe that's an opportunity for me and clients in the coming weeks and months to take advantage of their Apple watch or maybe just buy like a nice cheap heart monitor for the clinic. But the thing about

Joe Gambino (16:41.257)
Hmm.

Joe Gambino (16:53.364)
Mm-hmm.

Joe LaVacca (16:57.922)
the objectivity after they can maybe move past some of that emotional component and emotional load is, did 10 with the 35 pound goblet squat, that was great. What did you think? Tell me what you did well. And then a lot of people are like, well, I thought it was gonna be painful, it wasn't. Okay, good. Here's what I'm looking for now to know that you're probably safe to go even heavier. It didn't look like you got out of breath. It didn't look like you slowed down at all.

You were kind of talking to me between the reps. So that still implied a lot of safety. So why don't we take this now 40 or 45 pound dumbbell? And I want you to just kind of focus on it again, hit in another 10, right? And I found that when they anchor themselves and then there's a little bit more of that positive feedback from me on, well, hey, how do you know I can do another 10 pounds? Here's why, right? You didn't get out of breath. You didn't do this. You didn't start busting a sweat.

Joe Gambino (17:26.046)
Mm-hmm.

Joe LaVacca (17:55.596)
So a lot of times when people are going for as much as they can or as many as they can, right, that barrier, I've almost started to shift it a little bit to, hey, I want you to go until you feel out of breath, right? Get that huff and puff. And then once you get the huff and puff, then we'll put it down and then we'll sort of see what your recovery is like, right? And it's sort of a little bit of a blend and I love this five, three, one. And I'm sure you're familiar with the talk tests

people,

Joe Gambino (18:28.156)
I am, yeah. I use it with like zone two work.

Joe LaVacca (18:29.006)
Yeah, yeah, perfect. So I was actually using it just yesterday because I was out for a run and I was talking to Courtney and then every time I was talking to her and we were talking about some different things, I'd get a little bit emotional about certain things going on in my life. And then I was like, OK, I feel like I can't complete the complete sentence. Let me start walking for a little bit. And then when I recovered, we're talking. I'm like, OK, I'm going to go for a run again. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going do this. But when they get all huffy and puffy, you if they drop that weight and then they're able to just like

you know, carry out a conversation. like, yeah, wow, that was, I can actually feel that. Okay, cool. Like to me, then you're probably going to be working at like that six or seven, you know, rep range, right? If they put it down and they're really out of breath and they can only speak like one sentence, I like, wow, that was tough. I didn't think I could do that. You know, and then there's always like those pauses, right? Now I think I'm kind of probably going to like those eights or nines. And then if they're like completely like, you know, and I've had this happen before too, like

people need to sit down, people get lightheaded. And I'm like, wow, okay, that was pretty close to a max effort. So that's how I've kind of been anchoring it. And I know it's probably better suited, and I will say this, it's probably better suited for aerobic work, but have you ever used the talk test for strength work or power work or things like that?

Joe Gambino (19:51.953)
I haven't really for that stuff just because if you're talking about like pure strength here, like for me personally, like if I'm squatting and it's heavy, I'm out of breath afterwards, like all the time. And it doesn't mean that it's a nine for me, right? It could be a seven. I'm like, my God, like squats suck, you know? But then if I'm like benching or deadlifting, I'm like, maybe if I'm like deadlifting, if I'm like really pushing like an RP of nine, I'll be like, okay, like.

I feel a little winded afterwards. but like bench press, really lunging unless I'm doing high reps, not really. So, it depends on like rep schemes and things like that, that, that drive a heart rate. I don't think that it's, it's a bad thing to look at, but I think when we're, looking at it, it's like intensity is intensity. And it should feel like if you're doing a nine, that if you even considered doing one more rep, you'd be like fighting for your life.

You know, like that's the kind of feeling that you want to get and not it's a skill to get there. which is why I like to find ways to, to layer on. How can we teach you that maybe what you think you're doing as an eight may not really be an eight. It might actually be a seven. And then we do that by like, well, let's go to failure or let's like really, really, really push it. You know, like I had somebody, he was doing trap bar deadlift the entire time.

And then I don't know if his gym doesn't have a trap bar anymore but he had to use a yeah, he had to use a barbell and I had programmed in Five the five three one program for the trap bar. So he had to use a barbell and When he told me he's like, I don't have the barbell. I didn't have the trap bar I'd use the barbell. I felt a little bit my back. So I'm not sure if I'm doing a ride He's taking a look pretty good. So I think it's just a new variation for him and I was like, do you actually hit the numbers?

Joe LaVacca (21:15.47)
One of my favorites.

Crazy. It's not a gym then. It's not a gym.

Joe Gambino (21:45.16)
And he's like, yeah, I had all the numbers. I was like, that's fucking awesome. I would have expected it to be, you would have missed him because I was calculating your trap bar and that's going to be, you can lift more on a trap bar than with the barbell. So I was very happy with that. And again, right. Probably showing that what he's been doing has been heavy for him. Right. I'm not going to take that away from him, but he probably could have been pushing a little bit more. Right. So you started to learn like, you know, people like that where, you know, I'm not, you know, it sounds like they're working hard.

But I can always like, even in a remote environment, I can kind of start to tell if somebody's really not pushing hard enough. think, you know, just experience of seeing like how people have progressed over time and how much load people can normally push. And like, you know, it's not really unrealistic for someone to like deadlift one times their body weight. Like that's like a pretty easy benchmark for people to get up. They're struggling to get there and they're saying like, my God, this is really heavy.

I'm starting to think like, it's heavy, right? But it's probably not like heavy heavy. So, you know, we can try to tweak those intensity levels. And I think that's really one thing that's missed for people who like struggle seeing progress in the gym is they're probably not like not working, but you're also not working hard. And like you need to work to a certain degree to actually get your body to change, right? Like we're trying to create physical adaptation. So if it's like hard, but somewhat comfortable, it's not going to be enough to really stimulate change for you.

Joe LaVacca (23:09.772)
Right. Right. And maybe that's a nice segue because the second question I had for you was a little bit more around like, how much do you let people push past discomfort? And we've talked about pain guidelines and keeping things that are for, then monitoring for this monitoring for that. What you just said, though, made me think about trained versus untrained people. When someone comes in with pain and they're already trained, having this like

Margin for error is like a lot wider because they get it. They know how to work hard already a lot of people though in Persistent pain or maybe stuck in pain and they haven't you know, they know they shouldn't be sedentary kind of air quotes They know that they need to do this or they need to do that a lot of them Will tell me Well, I pushed it too hard I wanted to do more or when we're in the gym sort of trying to find

good rep range with a talk test or an RPE scale. I think I could handle a little bit more. It was a four out of 10. It was this, it was that. I'm really good at tolerating pain, right? A lot of these people would say. So I can do more and I almost don't want them to do more because to your point, when you have a lot of these people and we're programming for them,

they could be working probably at 30 % or 40 % of their one rep max and still see gains in strength and function. They could be 90 and 95 % of their one rep max and definitely see gains in their strength and function. So with this whole large scale where people can do less and yield maybe just as good benefits in the long term, long term I'm saying, right? know, maybe stacking things up side by side in four weeks, you know, maybe intensity really matters, but.

You and me are usually after lifestyle change, behavior change. So how much would you let, and let's maybe put it to like an untrained person. Someone who comes in, says to you, I'm good at tolerating pain. I really am great with it. I can push through this or I can do this. can do this. Do you let them do that? And when do you pull them back?

Joe Gambino (25:22.684)
So in like the specific case of you talking about somebody who has pain, they've been in pain for a while. Now, if they're untrained and they're not in the gym, that's going to be maybe it's going to be a little bit different of a conversation. But I'll go back to like your original point and then I'll go to untrained. You know, you were talking about someone who like been in the gym, they they know how to load, but they've been in pain for a while. Those are the people where.

Probably most likely load modification is going to be what they need typically someone who like I have a good pain tolerance and You know You know, you're telling me, know I'm starting to feel a four out of ten pain when I'm at like 50 percent of my max and I know I can do more so then they do more because they want to get the the feeling of training and all that stuff and then all of sudden now their pain gets too high and now you're in this light little loop of

Joe LaVacca (26:06.018)
Right, right,

Joe Gambino (26:18.364)
setting things off and then having a rest, recover and setting things off. So if it's the case of we're going above those things to try to get a trending effect and that is leading to pain, not coming down, but staying out of the same or potentially getting worse. Then you can't really go and use, like you can't go above the pain guidelines. In my opinion. I also had somebody who had this like chronic shoulder issue and he would only have like ones and twos with stuff.

And that's within the pain guidelines, but his pain was getting either the same or a little bit worse with consistent loading. So even with ones and twos, we had to like take out all the irritating factors and really work on things to get them over the hump and then put those things back in. So the pain guidelines are not perfect. They're, they're good guidelines, but there are cases where if things are irritated and persistently irritated, you're probably going to need to modify load. And what I find with people who are active and struggle and kind of really push, even though there's pain.

Joe LaVacca (27:07.256)
Come on.

Joe Gambino (27:17.77)
They need modifications. They need to reduce how much pain that they're feeling with during their sessions. They need a lot of that environment to bring down their pain response. So in those cases, I'm probably gonna always be under the pain guidelines. Now someone who's untrained, and they're just people who I feel like, I'm not trying to take away from their pain, but I don't know if they have a really good understanding of what their pain scales are really like. They might tell me it's like a six.

But then everything else that I'm hearing from them tells me that it's really not a six. Like it's a six to them. I'm not going to take that away. But to me, from what I'm hearing, like I have a client that I'm working with and she was telling me like she had like all this like pain and stuff and she felt tight on certain days, but they were always around days that she trained harder and it sounded a lot more like muscle soreness and like, know, like you're really sore, like you feel tight. And like sometimes even with my back,

Joe LaVacca (28:11.841)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (28:14.858)
If I make my hamstrings really sore, I feel my back, just because of the way all that's tied together. So was kind of guessing that that was a little bit of that. So in those cases, I'll be like, okay, well maybe we can try five or six and see what happens, right? What happens afterwards? So then there's some experimenting that you can do. And then really I look at what happens 24 to 48 hours afterwards in those cases. So.

If there's someone where I'm like, well, maybe in this case, it might make sense for us to play with fives and sixes because when they're done with the session, they're back to normal or they feel a little bit better or something like that. Then the pain guidelines, like you can almost push them a little bit more because either a that pain response is not really a true five or six or maybe it truly is, but they're feeling better afterwards. So that pain is really not a threat to their system because there's a clear effect coming after that.

that calms the system down overall. So then we can push past that. So that's probably the times where I'm sticking to flexibility with the pain guidelines. Sometimes you need to just not even use them at all. Sometimes pain needs to be avoided to kind of create progress. And then sometimes you really need to stick to them because if someone's pushing hard and they're just going above it, and they're always fours and fives or whatever they're doing seems to be an irritator that you just have to kind of.

listen to the body a little bit more and make some changing, even if they're not 100 % happy with it. And that's where you have to find modifications that they can push and use higher RPs to have some enjoyment with training. Sometimes that's harder to do.

Joe LaVacca (29:49.868)
Yeah, I like that a lot. And I think just as a final point, just so I can share a little bit too, because I don't want to just throw questions out you without giving you my opinion. I think when I look at each individual person, you sort of get a read on them. I think with more of the trained people, when they say, well, you know, I could do more. You know, my question to them is, well, why? What's the point? Well, you know, I don't want to lose my this or lose my that. And I would say,

Okay, but you tried this already. That's why we're having this conversation. So if you're already at a 50 % of your one rep max, and you're feeling some discomfort, well, what's the goal of this exercise? It's, you know, for posterior strength. So could we superset it with something else that's non-irritable, rather than just, you know, keeping your deadlift as a single exercise by itself for the long recovery? Right now, we're taking that exercise, we're cutting the...

the intensity in half. So you shouldn't need as much recovery period. You should have a little bit more in the tank for something else. So maybe it becomes a superset. Why don't we try that? The other thing that I sort of would then say them is, well, you were doing maybe a three by five program or three by three or wherever you were with your gym or coach. Now we're at 50%. So what if we move to a five by 10 or a five by 12 type program, right? And then make up for some of the intensity with an increase in volume. Why can't we try that?

But then at one point or another, with a lot of the trained individuals, I kind of get a sense that they're going to do it anyway. You know, they're going to push it because I gave them a little bit of that pain talk. I was kind of inferring that hurts not harm during the session. I'm kind of inferring a few things that pain is a learned response. It's a condition response, things like that. And I know that they'll just go out and they're going to try to push it. And I tell them off the bat, if you're going to do that, just be ready to accept.

the outcomes. So what's going to be a good outcome? What's going to be a bad outcome? If you couldn't deal or couldn't cope with your five or six or seven out of 10 pain, but now you've had this little pain education seminar in our session and you're like, well, okay, maybe I can reprocess that five, six or seven and I can get up and go for a walk afterwards when I wake up and I'm sore the next day and I will go to the gym if you're telling me I'm safe and okay, right? And like you said, the pain guidelines aren't perfect and people

Joe LaVacca (32:15.15)
do have a little bit of a misconception on how high pain is or how it isn't. To just take that one step to the untrained person and they're like, well, I feel like I can do more, but it's a four. I usually am like, well, hey, here's the good news. You don't have to, right? Because based on the strength that I've seen, we can be at 40 % of your one rep max. We can be at 95 % of your one rep max. You haven't done this movement in a really long time or maybe this movement's new for you. So because you're brand new,

You don't really have to work that hard. Isn't that amazing? So I almost kind of would flip that story for the untrained person knowing that, hey, I know you're gonna get benefit if you just keep showing up for eight weeks or 12 weeks. And whatever base you have, we're gonna build as opposed to being here with our trade people and then worried about them kind of slipping back. So I think that's where I maybe add a little bit of context, but I totally agree with you and I really appreciate you answering my questions today, Joe, thanks.

Joe Gambino (33:09.736)
No, of course, no problem. And I like, I like what you just said there. mean, it's a, you know, pain, you know, if they feel, if they feel confident and they can do it and you know, sure pain pops up here and there, right? Like that's expected in someone's journey. But if they're continuing to get better and they're loading, it doesn't matter if there are four or if there are five or three level pain, that's a point. It's, it's more of like when you really have that person and they're, kind of pushing it, but then there's like a clear, nothing's getting better.

then something needs to change, right? Like, and those are the harder conversations to have. And I think people also need to like, and I dealt with this for a long time in my back where we have our experiences in the gym. We know what's kind of heavy to us, what's not heavy to us. We have a little bit of ego to it, right? So when you're going back into it, like when I was dead lifted in 350, I'm like, well, 275, right? Really isn't heavy for me. So as I'm kind of going back into my training, yeah, exactly, right?

Joe LaVacca (33:56.878)
Yeah, sure.

Joe LaVacca (34:06.318)
Flex show.

Joe Gambino (34:09.482)
So when I'm going back into training, I'm like, okay, let me start at 225. That's my starting point. was never 135. It was never 185, right? Like those were warmup sets. Then my first set starts at 225. If I tolerated it, I go to 250. If I tolerated it, I go to 275. And then every time I get to 275, my back hurts because I never listened to my body, right? And just kind of went back to my old thinking habits. And if I would have just maybe like 250 was fine. Well, what happens if I would have trained at 250 for a while?

Joe LaVacca (34:24.226)
Yeah. Yep.

Joe Gambino (34:39.166)
Right. I may not have been having in so much pain for so long. Right. I've been able to navigate things a little bit better. So, people need to also like, have a little bit of flexibility. And I've been finding myself having the conversation about flexibility with your programming, with the time you have dedicated to it. Like if you are always in it, like it has to be perfect. It has to be this intense. It has to be this or that.

When it comes to times when you can't do that, it becomes very disappointing. And that's the number one reason why I find people to fall off. mean, there are certain people who never miss because that's just part of them. Like, you know, I mean, I've had times where I didn't really train that much, but it's like, honestly, for me, it's like a lifestyle. I love it. I enjoy doing it. It's very rare unless there was something that really kind of pulled me away from it. But there are people and I had a conversation with someone yesterday.

Joe LaVacca (35:13.389)
Yeah, sure.

Joe Gambino (35:28.394)
Where the conversation was around like, I don't know if I can do it I don't know if I'm be consistent and that's kind of been a theme for them in the past Well, yeah, you know and she was thinking like I need to you know Wait till I come back from my trip because I need to have all my energy to it I need to do this and that but she also had like a billion things on our plate You know, she's like studying for an MCAT and she works in a lab and she has her thesis coming up and there's like a billion things going on like Well, if you're trying to wait for perfect, you're probably gonna fall off

Joe LaVacca (35:33.375)
you

Joe LaVacca (35:42.606)
Mm-hmm.

Joe LaVacca (35:51.202)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (35:57.237)
regardless. figure out, know, like you really need to have a little bit of leniency here and figure out where can you get your small wins now. Cause then when you start to feel better and you have a bunch of small wins, well then getting in the gym becomes easier, right? It's very hard when you have all the stuff going on. Then every time you go in the gym, have a flare up, right? So people need to get away from this idea of like, need to be in the gym five days a week for one hour. And it needs to look like X, Y, and Z because sure, maybe you've had success like that in the past, but you can have success in a billion other ways.

Joe LaVacca (36:13.41)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (36:26.266)
And the more you can kind of get away from like it needs to look like this for it's like nothing. The better it is going to be for you mentally, for your consistency, for your progress and things like that.

Joe LaVacca (36:39.084)
Right. All right, man. I love it. I love it. That's a great closing remark. You got anything else? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, if you've made it this far, we love you. Joe, I love you and happy birthday, my friend. Please tune in next week for another exciting episode of the Beyond Pain podcast.

Joe Gambino (36:45.893)
I'm sure I do, but you can take us home.

Joe Gambino (36:54.855)
Thank you.