Get ready for an exciting episode of 'Muscle Matters' with hosts Blake Burnard and Steve Suthers. They take a deep dive into the world of fitness training, exploring the differences between athletic performance and bodybuilding. From the importance of training hard and pushing limits to the benefits of a more measured approach with top sets and volume, they provide a well-rounded perspective. With techniques like giant sets, supersets, drop sets, and time under tension, they share valuable tips and strategies for maximizing your workouts. Don't miss out on this informative and engaging conversation!
[00:00:00] Podcast hosts discuss importance of intense training.
[00:03:37] Training method: intense, focused, efficient workouts.
[00:06:50] Obsessed with heavy training, minimal effort.
[00:11:15] Intense workouts, constant tension, muscle growth.
[00:14:59] Summary: Emphasizing the benefits of supersets and density training for increased work capacity and conditioning.
[00:17:41] Dense workouts, giant sets, drop sets.
[00:21:12] "Believe in pumping, find what works."
[00:23:58] Limited options with one squat rack. Hamstrings often overlooked but important. Stiff leg exercises are effective.
[00:27:05] Focus on quality over quantity in training.
[00:30:03] Summary: Chase the pump, push your limits.
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Speaker Blake Burnard: This wouldn't have been sixteen year old athlete Blake, but maybe just the the enthusiast. Right? The guy fresh out of playing college football that I was just like, man, I just wanna kinda live a normal fitness life now. Oh. If you're lifting for longevity is a lot different than lifting for the for an elite physique or elite would you agree? Wow. We're gonna never believe this. We're on Spotify. We're on Apple. We're on Google. Go out there and listen to us. So we're excited about it. We're glad you're excited about it too. Guys, welcome in. This is muscle matters. These are your hosts, Blake Bernard, Steve Suthers. And, we're coming off Thanksgiving week last time we talked about how to stay on track during the holidays. Tonight, we thought we would finally wet your palette with some actual training advice and not a beatdown of stuff that doesn't work, but things that we know to work between how many decades have you been training me?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Well, I started on seventeen. I'm fifty two now. So, yeah.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Four. Almost four decades. Yes. I've been training for almost two. So you got fifty years of training experience sitting between these two guys and, it's night we wanted to give you guys some ammo to really kick off this new year the right way. So Steve, I'll let you take this thing man. First of all, let's identify what is probably the number one thing that holds people back from their from the results they want in the weight room. And what's your favorite way to address that?
Speaker Steve Suthers: It's it's it's such a loaded question.
Speaker Blake Burnard: No. No. No. You can't go diet. You can't go spike. We hammered those.
Speaker Steve Suthers: We're not gonna mention food. I we're not gonna mention food. Honestly, what holds most people back is they don't train hard enough. Okay. In end of the story, you don't train hard enough. Like, I I people always talk about, man, I want legs. Legs want Blake. I'm like, have you ever thrown up in a trash can? They're like, no, I go, oh, there, there's why you don't have legs. I mean, there's certain You have to be a you can't be afraid of being medieval. You can't be afraid of going to Gladiator School. You can't be afraid. Like, I don't know how people work out in one hour. Like, I understand if your time constraints got a busy schedule and you've only got an hour to work out, you're you're you're only doing it to stay healthy. I don't understand one hour workouts. It just does not it's If I work out an hour, I feel like I just robbed myself. Blake, I legitimately robbed myself of a workout.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Give us some context. What is the average run time for you?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Two to three hours.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Goodness. No way. Yes. Okay. So you would hate me. I gotta be out. In seventy five minutes or less. Hour fifteen is my cat, man. And so and I can't I just can't get this out of my head. Mel Sift talks about, you know, serum testosterone starts to take a dive at the fifty minute mark. So anything past and hours really kind of wasting your time if you're not enhanced Right? So if you're taking exogenous hormones, that's not going to, play as much of a role. But for the natural guy, What are you doing past that? I'm pushing back hard tonight. We might disagree tonight, guys. It's gonna be
Speaker Steve Suthers: And and it and they said, This is just belief system and what I've seen working. The the the the forty five minute body versus the two hour body. They're miles apart.
Speaker Blake Burnard: If you're not willing to put force effort, so in your hour and fifteen, you're you're you're you're trucking. So that brings me to my favorite training method. And I was gonna say the same thing. People don't train hard enough, but I'm a menser guy. So, like, I'm going to top sets true failure where I I sincere failure. Right? I literally cannot do another rep. And I do those judiciously in the in the I put the volume into the movements and aren't gonna be near as taxing on my body. Fall in the eighty twenty principle. My twenty percent goes to the really hard things. Those are the ones I send it on. Right? But that allows me to continue growing. I'm getting strength gains constantly. And I do I like to do back down sets off that top set for the volume that I need, but I'm not spending three hours in there. Accruing volume that if I can do four sets of eight on something and I know that it's only the top one or two reps that are actually stimulating to the muscle fiber to actually tell it to grow, then what am I doing all those other reps for? If I can just do one set
Speaker Steve Suthers: to absolute failure. Everything about Mike Ventures's a lie, right?
Speaker Blake Burnard: Then why is it working?
Speaker Steve Suthers: It's everything about it's a lie. Then why
Speaker Blake Burnard: is it working? And why is it working from a client?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Well, different things. Your clients aren't working to be bodybuilders.
Speaker Blake Burnard: That is true.
Speaker Steve Suthers: So it's a totally different thing. Your your clients are working to be athletic. Your clients are working to be stronger in a point of field. Mhmm. But as far as Mike Mintter, he's a liar. Everything about his training is one giant lie that he sold the world.
Speaker Blake Burnard: You're gonna have to elaborate.
Speaker Steve Suthers: He doesn't count his pre exhaust.
Speaker Blake Burnard: No. No. No. No. We talk about that.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yeah. But he doesn't count it in his forty five minutes. I I followed I followed heavy duty Sure. That is my my love is heavy duty training. I'm strong and I love to be strong, but the first hour and fifteen minutes of my workout is all volume. The last forty five, which you're doing is dedicated to power and strength.
Speaker Blake Burnard: No. No. No. So we do versatile. So we don't pre exhaust. We do that on the back end. So we get our accessory volume in the single joint movements. So that's a Louisism right. We shove it all there. The compound lifts. So our primary main, our supplemental, our speed stuff, our our plyometrics, those are all taken. So usually it's the first three lifts, the sprint and the primary jump of the day. Those are gonna be taken to sincere Blake I'm I'm setting a record. An all time record on those things. Then there's usually two or three, accessories that we try to, you know, you have to train, more of the soft tissue stuff, the connective tissues, and as well as, you know, easier to recover muscles Blake triceps, hamstrings, your shoulders, the smaller Steve. That's what we're gonna shove our multiple sets into. But man, even without pre exhausting, you know, pecs prior to to, bench press, right? We're still able to get really strong. And I love that our guys are able to bounce back day after day after day.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And that's what I'm
Speaker Blake Burnard: tearing away from the the,
Speaker Steve Suthers: when it when it comes
Speaker Blake Burnard: to and
Speaker Steve Suthers: that's just the difference in the training is you're training athletes. I'm training to be as big as I can get the basics.
Speaker Blake Burnard: One hundred percent.
Speaker Steve Suthers: So literally my leg day I crippled to next leg day.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Mhmm.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And that was that was the way I trained, you know, I laugh when I had Dorian Yates train talk now because I followed him directly directly everything he said because Dorian was the first one to walk from behind the curtain and go look what I do.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Mhmm.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And I was just just because back in the Joe wetter days, everything was three sets of ten.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Mhmm.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And it was very boring. It was very blah. When Yates tore open the fabric, it was just like, oh my god, I love that type of training. I'm strong. And it just it just it worked for me. So I everything about the heavy duty principle, I use, but I use it in the way that they don't talk about.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Sure. We still get a lot of volume in though too on those back down sets. So that's post, post activation potentiation, which you could argue those fatigue sets are. Right? Or the, those are intensifiers. But pre exhaustion what you're talking about. We're just doing it in the in the reverse. Yeah. Highly stimulate the muscle.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I would do Tom's hundreds at the end of my day. I mean, I do all that and it would just I just was I was obsessed with being as big as I could possibly get. And I I got up to 03:40 pounds. I had twenty three and a half inch arm. So everything was to be as big as I could possibly be. So it was always Blake, I didn't do enough. I didn't do enough. I didn't do enough. It was always, that was the driving mentality. And you know, it's it Steve serve me well. I'm I'm fifty two. I barely can do much anymore and I'm still two eighty five pounds.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Absolutely.
Speaker Steve Suthers: So the way it was lived and I came up with the old timers and if you, you
know, I don't know how many the seventy and the sixty year olds you've met they all train the way I train, Blake, and you see these old dudes, unfortunately, we're all broken.
Speaker Blake Burnard: So that's the downs. That's the
Speaker Steve Suthers: downside to it.
Speaker Blake Burnard: You said you're obsessed with other things. I'm obsessed with what's the minimum I can do to continue growing and continue getting stronger. I've found that to be in the top set protocols. Now I don't follow his stuff to a tee but I always say I always give credit to the guys I read Right? So that I can, you know, you can at least get an understanding of where I'm coming from. Right? So I am trying to do the absolute bare minimum. I'm sticking to the stimulating reps and nothing more. Right? And at the end of the day, it saves me a lot of time because I don't have three hours to train. And the usual and I would reckon that probably majority
Speaker Steve Suthers: of the list don't have
Speaker Blake Burnard: that either. So I think you and I agree on what's essential. And that is the issue is that people don't train hard enough.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yes.
Speaker Blake Burnard: So you mentioned you're crippled to your next leg day.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yes. And
Speaker Blake Burnard: I've done that before too. Right? That's the way I definitely use to train. My body hated me for it. I'm I think my thing now is I my objective is to train like I'm sixty now so that I'm still able to train like I do now when I'm sixty. Does that make sense?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Oh, yeah. No.
Speaker Blake Burnard: I'm still breaking records on a on a weekly basis.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And I'm
Speaker Blake Burnard: in, you know, according to the goal, that's how I train. And man, if I can still stay athletic when I'm sixty and with a body and a Eek that I'm proud of.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Hopefully, I'm still alive so I can see this. Dude, come on, baby.
Speaker Blake Burnard: I could tell you I have no back issues, no knees, no none of that stuff, man. And I I I've never felt better than I do right now. Good. Yeah. Here's the here's the thing though. Between both of what we're saying, taking things to actual failure and like sincere exertions right, where you're, pushing past limits. You I'm sure you keep a workout log?
Speaker Steve Suthers: No. Not anymore.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Not anymore.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Not anymore. You track your numbers? No.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Is all up top?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yeah.
Speaker Blake Burnard: You really remember that stuff? Yes. Oh, did you or Savant?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yeah. It's
Speaker Blake Burnard: the opposite of me.
Speaker Steve Suthers: But, it it it was my exception. Inception. So
Speaker Blake Burnard: You're like rain man.
Speaker Steve Suthers: So when it comes to the gym
Speaker Blake Burnard: Are you kidding me? Yes. Yeah. I can't even fathom that. I'm still ADHD. I cannot remember what I did yesterday. So I have to keep a log, but you remember the number you gotta beat, right? Yes. Okay. That's what I'm getting at. I don't see anybody walking around notebooks.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I I can't even go into this new generation and I won't go into this new generation. Because they I think
Speaker Blake Burnard: our listeners are probably tired of us. It's talking about the new generation. When you're, like, you're you're our and
Speaker Steve Suthers: hour and fifteen, hour and twenty minutes of working out, you're you're you're trucking. I see these guys are legitimately forty five minutes, and they're picking up a twenty pound dumbbell. And it drives me insane. I'm like, there's no stimuli there. You're you're not doing anything you you have to cause in order to grow and you you you have to do something to the muscle tissue. Mhmm. You've got to affect it unless you're chemically enhanced through the brain cells, but at at the end of the day, that chemical enhancement is only gonna let it go so far. I meet these junctures, and they're on, grandmother's, a grandmother's, a grandma grand, and it's just Blake, they're on all these compounds, and they're only big as a minute. I sent you that video today and it was my giggle because of what the guy said. You know, they're all wannabe bodybuilders, but they're all physique. And it's it's it's
Speaker Blake Burnard: Kinda got out to the show.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And it dry it drives me insane. Anyway, so if you do not keep for me, my favorite my favorite type of training is time under tension. I believe you should be that muscle should be a constant tension. It should never be a lock out because and this is just body building. You should never be at a lockout as a bodybuilder because a a muscle that's locked, a muscle that's locked out is resting on the joints and is resting on the joints is taken away the stimuli to the the actual muscle belly. So the goal is to get as much blood into the muscle belly to cause it to engorge because blood carries nutrition nutrition is is the key to growth. You have to do all these things to make it actually grow. You have to Blake. What is that? What do they call that stupid thing that's on top of the muscle? It's the membrane that's on top of the muscle. You have to, you wanna, I can go and blank. It's a big word. I suck at big words. And you have to, I can't It's Steve. But you have to actually cause tears in that fiber. Blake, people go get deep tissue massages to cause that fiber to tear so the body can grow. It it's sarcoplasmic hyper Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. So they have to cause it to tear. So if you don't keep a constant tension and constant blood flow. To me, the pump as a and as a body builder, and this is body building train. To be a body builder, the pump is the most important thing of everything. If you do not have a mind blowing pump and it should be. It it it should be painful.
Speaker Blake Burnard: So what are your favorite rep schemes to achieve that mind blowing? You mentioned hundreds. What are some of your favorite techniques that somebody could walk away from this try tomorrow and actually absolutely hobble out of the gym.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Super sets. I love the Suthers set. Like I said,
Speaker Blake Burnard: what's a Suthers set if somebody really think doesn't know?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Oh, man. You go find you a nice fly. Dumbo press bench press, and you find you about fifty percent of your max. And then you find about fifty percent of your maximum dumbbells, And then you set a good did thing on flex and you do, ten sets of ten each. That should be your day. You should be pretty much wrecked. That's that's a rec set. Like, you're wrecked. I actually stole that from Jake Cutler. Mister I don't bench press and I was like, fool, I stole something
Speaker Blake Burnard: from you.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And it was it was 02:25 for ten one hundred pound dumbbells for ten hundred pounds on the fly on the on the pec fly for ten and it's just thirty second breaks and the thirty second break is at the end of the three. Mhmm. Not in between. You don't get the rest in between. Right. It's And you have your dumbbells right there, you rack it, you pay it down, you pick your dumbbells out, you go Steve down, you can do dumbbell fliers, you can do machine flies, flowers allow you to catch a little bit of breath, but yeah. Yeah. So so are
Speaker Blake Burnard: you a fan of less exercises more sets? Or you like, Hey, man. I'm gonna get my thirty sets. However, I get it kind of a deal.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I'm gonna get my thirty sets. Okay. I I truly keep it simple. Keep it simple. Okay. I remember training legs with Jason House in Vegas with him and I he fabulous legs and he I call them the Jason Us and it's a squat and it's three down one up per set of ten. So it's literally four reps per set. So you're doing forty reps on total, but it's three quarters bucket bucket bucket bucket bucket up bucket. And
Speaker Blake Burnard: Yeah. Yeah. You will not feel your butt for
Speaker Steve Suthers: weeks. Yeah.
Speaker Blake Burnard: No. Definitely. So I love, I love what you said about Suthers sets. That's I call that a giant set. Super set in my mind is like two exercises. And then giant set is three plus, but I've always trained that way. One of the things that that I really like about supersets and, other parties call that Blake density training, whatever, you know, because you're making your hour more dense. Wipe fitting more volume in there is my work capacity is so much higher than everyone else's. Because my rest is used on something that won't affect the exercise that I care about. Right? So to that tonight, right, before coming here, I hit I was doing single arm overhead dumbbell press because I gotta get my overhead press better. And, It's always been a major weakness of mine. So I'm shoving a lot of my, my heavy volume into that. And I'm super setting that with something like, like pull ups, bulgarian split squats. Right now, I'm on a toe total body thing that's kind of I like it. I gotta mix things up very much. Total buys where it's at for me right now. But it allows me to work on other things that won't tax me for the overhead press I care about. Right? What happens? It ends up turning it in natural conditioning. That's gonna wipe you, you know, if you're not taking real rest. Or if I'm going heavier, I'll just take sixty seconds between each thing. That way I'm genuinely. No.
Speaker Steve Suthers: No. When you do when you do get to the heavy sets, it does require more more rest. That's why you always hear us talk about power lifters being in the rack for five hours because
Speaker Blake Burnard: they need rest of two, five minutes. Yeah.
Speaker Steve Suthers: They're doing seventy five percent max reps. For sets of five. You Blake some time to have to do it again. Take you build up that energy. Yeah. So
Speaker Blake Burnard: I like getting my conditioning without stepping on stairmaster. So I'm like trying to find ways to always make my stuff more dense and naturally I just kind of shay stay in decent shape all year. It's not the same as if I was going No. You know, hitting dedicated conditioning days, but my baseline's so much higher with the giant sets and
Speaker Steve Suthers: When I was when I had a motor I would have two extra pair shirts and that was just from the gym session. Okay. There was thirty second rest. I mean, catch my wind, go catch my wind, go catch my wind, go catch my wind, go You go, I go. You go, I go. There was no hanging out conversations.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Talk about gnarly pumps too. Yes. Because, like, you you're those so, okay. I'll I'll What was the the giant set you mentioned earlier? It was a press,
Speaker Steve Suthers: dumbbell, compound bench press, dumbbell press, and flies.
Speaker Blake Burnard: You're using the same muscles in different ways, but the radiation effect is still present where Blake even on those flies, you're still affecting the shoulders that were involved in the two presses and those pumps are nasty.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And, what, basically, it you're you're you're playing a game with your mind. Think about when you're training. You can squat fall down and you're done, right? Mhmm. But you can go leg press. Your your mind has decided that it's done with that workout.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Mhmm.
Speaker Steve Suthers: The the the the nervous system, everything is shut down, but you still have enough enough muscle fiber to go over there and and leg press. So it's the mind. So the trick is, like, when you're doing these sets, you're benching, and then your mind's you when I'm done benching. Sure. Now I got the dumbbells. I'm a set them up. So everything you said is correct, but you're also playing a game with your mind.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Sure.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And I tell you what else I don't see people doing, especially, and and I'm go I'm picking on bodybuilders. I don't see drop sets anymore. Oh,
Speaker Blake Burnard: like run the rack type stuff or just like a single drop.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Run the rack drop drop sets. You don't see them snatching those numbers. Man. I mean, you haven't lived until you've got fifty pounds and you can't move it and you're you're coming down from whatever your max rep is and you get down to like the bar and the bar is No. Yeah.
Speaker Blake Burnard: How often do you, Blake, how many times a workout? How many times a week do you suggest that people throw those in?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Drop sets, drop sets, you cannot do every workout. Right. You cannot do that often, but drop sets should be there for, stagnant days, Blake, if you're just having a bad workout, it's just not going there. Your mind's not there, you know, like, just not happening. And it works great when you have a competitive partner. If you've got a competitive partner, drop sets work great. Put
Speaker Blake Burnard: you in a body bag.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Because it because nobody wants to go first. Nobody wants to go first because whoever goes first, the one who goes second is always gonna do one more rep.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Yeah.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And then when it's yours set again, it's
Speaker Blake Burnard: like over time.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Man, if the the better the partner, the better the drop set. It's
Speaker Blake Burnard: a great observation. But I like what you said about throw that in on a on an off day, like when you're just not feeling it, man. That's a great, great, great. Because
Speaker Steve Suthers: that's something you can do all the time because you will tear something up. It will there's it's not an all the time thing, but it's It's a every blue moon. I don't I really hate myself today, and I'm just going to, destroy it. You said, I just believe that the the I'm just one of those people that believe in doms. The more doms you have, the the better your growth is.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Doms is delayed onset muscle soreness, guys. So so it makes it more miserable. You can make yourself the better. Yeah. Yes. Alright. Fair enough. So you mentioned time under tension. Are you a fan of tempos?
Speaker Steve Suthers: I I'm not a fan of of the of the slow countdown. Okay. I am a fan of pumping.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Okay.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I'm I'm a pumper. If you watch me train, I still I'm still a pumper now, A lot of the youngsters ask me how come you don't come out and I go because I'm turning my chest. I'm turning my shoulders. I'm a tricep. I'm turning this part of my leg. I'm trying to, you know, I I'm working on a certain one and and like I tell you shouldn't watch me train if you're trying to learn how to work out because My brain and my mind have such connection now. Have you ever seen Blake the pros? It is the ugliest workouts you ever seen in your Blake not one single rep is correct. But their mind and their muscle have a have a great connection. Just believe in pumping. That's me. The more the more engorged I can get it, the better growth. I I and that's just and it's an I believe You're gonna find out what works best for you. That's why there's a plethora of books. There's a plethora of of training techniques and you just have to find the one that works best for you.
Speaker Blake Burnard: That's why you and us training styles are so different.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yes. You you know? But every well, you find the one that works for you and you it it it works. I was watching one today and, what did the guy say? Some days you have to forget what you're doing. Just go in there and like, I'm just gonna do this and let it happen. Oh, I'm just and when I say, man, I wish I could I'm a have to look for my old journal. We're gonna go to my mom's house, see if I can find my own journal. I was yeah. Yeah.
Speaker Blake Burnard: I go back to those old journals and I'm like, dude, what the heck was I doing? You know, what was I thinking? Man, I like going in with way less expect expectation. Because I psych myself out if I if I think too much about that lift that's gonna destroy me and I'll find a way to just kinda like beat around the bush. You know what I mean? I'll put off my workout till later in the day. I'll be kind of afraid of it. I so so so prefer to have like a general plan of these are the things I'm trying to accomplish today but I don't choose the lifts until I get in there. How about you?
Speaker Steve Suthers: I have an idea of where I'm going. Yeah. But my body will tell me what I'm doing. And the downside bring back all kind of flashbacks. The downside of working out in a fitness center I can have a plan, but I may never make it to that machine right there.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Sure.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I may never make it to especially when I I I started, you know, no no disrespect to you, John, especially when I started working at a body exchange. Body exchange did not have a plethora of equipment. So it just got real. Like, there was two bench presses. Mhmm. And
Speaker Blake Burnard: I
Speaker Steve Suthers: may not be able to get and I was an angry gorilla back then and just Some days, I may not be able to get to it with one squat rack. Blake, how are you a squat monster? I can't can't get to square. I used to drive me insane. So I learned So the plan goes out the window. It's hard to write. If you've got your own gym, you can have a plan.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Yeah. That's exactly right. That is exactly right. One of the best things that that happened when I got on my garage gym too was, getting able to accrue being able to to accrue more equipment gave me more options for what to do in those giant sets. You only have a squat rack. My people training at home and that's a big thing right now. If you're using the squat rack to bench in, you're kind of limited. What else you could use that squat rack for? You know what I mean? And so my home gym now it has a little bit. I've refined it to only the things that that I use consistently. So I've got like my power Blake dumbbells up to nineties which nineties not enough anymore, but I gotta I just get my volume with those. Got a glued ham raise. My half rack.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Wish I'd have known about those. They would have been around when I was when I was training.
Speaker Blake Burnard: I would They're actually incredibly versatile.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yes. Yes.
Speaker Blake Burnard: You do all kinds of stuff on them. Yes.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I look at those things now. I'm not tearing my hamstrings off.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Man, but you guys have a couple inverse curls.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yes. I'm not tearing my ham off anymore. No.
Speaker Blake Burnard: With little assistance.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yeah. No.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Oh, man. I love those. Yeah. Every facility I I build from now on, I do believe the inverse curl, but you can get so much so many more exercise and weird variations out of a glute ham raise threes. They still have benefit, and I like burning out a glute ham raise a lot more than I do on an inverse curl.
Speaker Steve Suthers: But the the that man you you will have strong hamstrings, you
Speaker Blake Burnard: know,
Speaker Steve Suthers: with fans or butts.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Mhmm. Now tell me where hamstrings lie in in your hierarchy of development for a bodybuilder.
Speaker Steve Suthers: They get there on day for me. Really? Yes. Hamster when I and that was you you weren't here when when Tom and I had this discussion. I I was one of those people I would compete and I would do a hard line. Look at my physique.
Speaker Blake Burnard: A what? A hard line.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I just look at my physique Sure. And just be like, No. And I just realized, like, I'm squatting a reserve amount of muscle. I wait, but I didn't have hamstrings. Because hamstrings, you know, they get overlooked. You walk away from an hour of squatting. You're not really wanting that there's not a lot of energy left to go and pick hamstrings like you should. But hamstrings when I was doing it big, I had to give them their own day. And that is how I was able to grow a pair of hamstrings.
Speaker Blake Burnard: What is your favorite exercise for the hamstrings?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Stiff Blake hand. Stifflakes.
Speaker Blake Burnard: So not already else, stiff legs, deficit. Yep. Okay.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yep because you can pull more weight. And I think you pull more weight stiff leg? Oh, I can.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Interesting. Yes. I was able to pull more with an RDL.
Speaker Steve Suthers: No. Yeah.
Speaker Blake Burnard: That'll make a pop.
Speaker Steve Suthers: So it just was to stretch Yeah. To the pool, and I could just I could put bar bending weight in order to do that. Mhmm. So it did really and then then, the standing one leg curl for the high volume because it because that mimics track.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Mhmm.
Speaker Steve Suthers: And that motion, if you look at somebody who sprints, they have beautiful hamstrings.
Speaker Blake Burnard: What's your favorite machine for the standing hand curl?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Hammer still makes the best one.
Speaker Blake Burnard: I love the hammer. The one with the the knee thing that switches Oh, I love the hammer.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Amber still makes the best one.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Yep. I agree.
Speaker Steve Suthers: I agree. Amber still makes I love and it's there's a lot of new companies and I and I have to say, I I've I'm still have a passion towards the gym and it's still there. It's just not as loud as it was. I follow a lot of these new gyms. The fusions, the uh-uh the the the two of them that are in the the Middle East And, man, there's a lot of neat little new equipment that I wish I could touch. Mhmm. Like, I see these equipment. I'm like, I saw a, a row machine. And I was that just looking at it, it was in one of the saudi gems. And I was Blake, that just looks so fine. Oh, it just looked fine.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Yeah. There's some grail items for sure that if I was like, man, if I just have it square footage to burn, you know, get a get a couple prime fitness equipment. You know, there are just some crazy brands out there doing good work. I think in at the end of the day, if if I had to give advice to Even a younger, maybe sixteen year old Blake, before I started kind of getting into this world and learning at an accelerated rate, I definitely would have told him he wasn't training hard enough. But I also would have told him, to be more judicious where he was putting his volume, because the kids that get the back injuries blow out the knees, they're always banged up at practice, whatever. You know, oftentimes they're putting too much volume into the big stuff that's the most taxing. And I'm Blake, man, if you're just chasing a good physique and wanna wanna, you know, live long and, this wouldn't have been sixteen year old athlete Blake, but maybe just the the enthusiast. Right? The guy fresh out of playing college football that I was just like, man, I just wanna kinda live a normal fitness life now? Oh. If you're lifting for longevity is a lot different than lifting for the for an elite physique or elite perform Would you agree?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Yes. I I definitely would have told, young me. Hey, bro. You'll be strong one day. Don't try to do one rep every thing.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Man. That's
Speaker Steve Suthers: great. It was because you think about it, those young days, everything was a one rep. You'd you'd lift, lift, lift, lift, and then it was Blake, but at least I see how strong I am.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Why not?
Speaker Steve Suthers: It was always how strong I so much would have got so much more out of it.
Speaker Blake Burnard: Maybe that's that should be our next episode. Lessens to a younger Blake love letters to young young Steve Blake. You know what I mean?
Speaker Steve Suthers: You know what? Yes. If I if they I could go back in time, man. It'd be a different story.
Speaker Blake Burnard: And it's not even Blake about living in the in the in the past, but rather if we can help somebody else avoid those pitfalls, the things that may be held us back from avoiding a surgery or, you know, not being able to squat for six months, whatever, because I've had so many of those soft tissue things. I'm like, I was being a freaking knucklehead. I pulled all my hamstrings and said, well, train ham strings. Wouldn't wouldn't you know it? You know what I mean?
Speaker Steve Suthers: When I I would definitely say the number one thing I would tell young me Ao means chill. I remember when I popped the tendon on my chest and I just said, oh, I just won't bench over 03:15. And I did felt it snake away. And I was just like, oh, just then. It's like,
Speaker Blake Burnard: That's some logic, you know. Made sense of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe that's next, man. So Steve, To wrap this thing up, the number one thing that you would you would tell, an enthusiast, right? That's looking for an elite physique. What's one thing they should start throwing their program tomorrow?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Chase the pump. I mean, honestly chase the pump. The better the pump, the better the growth. And in order to get a pump, you have to train hard enough because whether you wanna do tension, whether you wanna do speed, whether you wanna shorten your time, whatever it is in order to get a pump you have to go hard enough to get a pump. And make it Burnard just a pump, but like, oh, I got a pump, but like,
Speaker Blake Burnard: crap that burn. Absolutely. And my advice guys would be regardless of the goal. You've got to stimulate the muscle to tell it. You basically have to send a signal to tell it to do what it what it I mean, let's face it. If wanted to do it, you wouldn't have to put in your work in. Right? So ultimately in order cokes that muscle to into the adaptation that you desire, you have to send a signal large enough to for it to make a change. Gotta say, oh, wow. What is going on? I don't wanna ever ever feel that way again. It adapt. It changes the next time that becomes easier, but then you got a new number. You gotta be So my biggest recommendation would be keep a log, right? Keep records and always chase to break those either for reps, for time under tension, for for weight being lifted. There are a million records you can keep. There's always something to Blake. And if you are not trying to push your limit on a daily basis, you're just not going to achieve your full potential.
Speaker Steve Suthers: Hey, man.
Speaker Blake Burnard: So, guys? Absolutely. This has been muscle matters. Steve, where can they find you?
Speaker Steve Suthers: Steve four two zero District Boulevard, right across the street from Nestle.