Strength Training for Sport w/ Alex Sterner

Podcast – Steph Gaudreau

Combining the world of strength training and sport, specifically Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, might seem counterintuitive, but it is exactly the opposite. My guest today is here to show you how a crossover between these two worlds can help you train better, prevent injury, and enjoy the sport you love for longer.

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Key Takeaways

If you want to use strength training to improve your sport, you should:

1. Track what you are doing and assess it
2. Get your body accustomed to stress and impact
3. Be consistent with the low-hanging fruit

Finding a Balance

Alex Sterner, BS, CSCS, is a co-founder and Head Coach of Electrum Performance and the Director of Performance at Jiujiteiro. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Strength and Conditioning from the University of Connecticut and obtained a CSCS through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. As a Head Strength Coach of Atos Jiu-Jitsu HQ, he led the S&C training camp that resulted in Atos winning a team Gi World title in 2017 and 2018.

Not All Stress is Built the Same

Some people are afraid to lift heavy due to the threat of injury. But the truth is, your muscular cellular system will respond positively to the right amount of stress. Alex wants to encourage you to get your body accustomed to impact in a respectful and gradual way.

By harnessing the power of control that you have in the gym, you can teach your body how to trust increment levels of stress so that you can come back from injury and pain with more resilience. This is why strength training is such an important asset and can lead to many more years of enjoying the sport you love so much.

Track Everything

Alex believes that all progress comes down to tracking. Understanding your missteps, and being able to differentiate between short and long-term gains will help you figure out where you are going right and wrong in your training. You don’t need a fancy app, just a notebook and a pen. If you can figure out when something you are doing isn’t showing up, you can figure out why and make a switch. It may be as simple as adjusting your work-to-rest ratio, but without tracking, you will never figure it out.

If you want to explore strength training options, either specifically for jiu-jitsu or another sport, let me know your thoughts about Alex’s well-balanced and informed approach below.

In This Episode

• Addressing the ‘insult’ of strength in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the benefits you might not realize strength has (13:42)
• Myth busting the belief that lifting weights will cause you to get injured and take you out of your chosen sport (20:55)
• Understanding how liability in the medical system could be skewing your perception of recovery (37:30)
• Common under-rated and over-rated Jiu-Jitsu specific strength training and why it needs to change (41:32)
• Why the spine is so important in the context of Jiu-Jitsu and the nuance of loading your spine (53:20)

Quotes

“Heavy lifting; it is not just about building this brute muscular athlete. It’s about longevity; it’s about preventing injury or minimizing injury so that you can spend more time on the mats.” (10:13)

“When people start to trust that the weight room is this deliberate thing where we don’t just make bad things worse… you start to realize that these other environments are way more open than the gym, and you don’t have nearly enough control.” (26:53)

“Understand what your limitations are, take whatever you still can, and go from there” (40:23)

“All of it comes down to tracking. Be aware of what you are doing, is it improving? And if it is, great! And if it’s not, figure out a switch to make.” (51:25)

“Biological organisms respond positively to stress in the right amounts.” (57:20)

Featured on the Show

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Related Episodes

FYS 425: Nutrition for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu w/ Alex Maclin

FYS 431: Should You Get A Lifting Program?

Strength Training for Sport w/ Alex Sterner Transcript

Steph Gaudreau
Should you be doing strength training, and what, if your main pursuit is another sport? Such a common question, and one that I hear all the time, my very special guest today is going to be talking about the application of strength training specifically to the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But I know that no matter what your activity is, no matter your main sport, you’re going to find a ton of crossover. And finally, answer this question for yourself.

Steph Gaudreau
If you’re an athletic 40-something woman who loves lifting weights, challenging yourself, and doing hard shit, the fuel your strength podcast is for you, you’ll learn how to eat, train and recover smarter, so you build strength and muscle, have more energy and perform better in and out of the gym. I’m a strength nutrition strategist and weightlifting coach. Steph Gaudreau, the Fuel Your Strength podcast dives into evidence-based strategies for nutrition, training, and recovery.

Steph Gaudreau
Once you’re approaching your 40s and beyond, you need to do things a little differently than you did in your 20s. We’re here to challenge the limiting industry narratives about what women can and should do in training and beyond. If that sounds good, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and let’s go.

Steph Gaudreau
Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am very excited to bring you this topic, because so many of you out there are participating in some other sport or leisure activity that’s like the main thing that you love, everything from pickleball to martial arts, running, hiking, I mean, you name it. Triathlons, biking. There are so many things that y’all are doing out there that’s like your main squeeze.

Steph Gaudreau
But if you know anything about this podcast, we talk a ton about strength training. And I know there are some of you out there who are still reluctant to or not sure about how strength training should play a role in your sports preparation and what it really is for and hopefully by the end of this podcast episode, you’ll walk away with a better idea of what that is. I’m also excited to geek out on this episode because it’s really the collision in the best possible way of two things that I really love.

Steph Gaudreau
I’m really excited about this episode, though, because I get to nerd out a bit on two things that I love, number one, strength training, obviously, and number two, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a sport that I’ve been doing now since 2017 and I’m a brown belt, so that means I’m one belt away from a black belt level. It’s something I do every week, multiple times a week, and it’s just such a fun and challenging sport.

Steph Gaudreau
With that in mind, I’m really excited to welcome Alex Sterner as my special guest to the podcast this week. Not only is Alex an extremely smart strength and conditioning coach, somebody who I really look up to and respect, but he’s also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner, and so he really understands the meshing of these two worlds in Jiu Jitsu. There’s oftentimes a saying that if you say someone strong, that that’s an insult, right?

Steph Gaudreau
We have this idea that strength and technique are opposing each other, and that to call someone strong, it means that they’re not actually very good at jiu jitsu technique. And I think by the time you’re done listening to this podcast, you’re going to understand why Alex is so passionate about bringing strength training and great strength and conditioning principles to the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. But no matter what your sport is, you’re going to learn something in this episode that’s going to be applicable to you.

Steph Gaudreau
We’re talking about kind of on a conceptual level, why we need this training, why it’s helping us be more resilient, how to navigate through injuries and times where we know that something has gone awry and we need to get back to training, but we’re not sure how to do that, or we’re a little bit nervous to do that and so much more.

Steph Gaudreau
If you enjoyed this episode, please help us out by hitting subscribe on your favorite podcast app and also over on YouTube, hit subscribe and ring the bell for more notifications. Most people aren’t subscribed, but it is a really easy way to help the podcast grow before we dive in. If you listen to this episode and you’re like, Okay, I am ready to get to work. I want to take my strength, muscle, energy and performance and take it up a notch. I want to take it to that next level. I want to feel like a badass, but at the same time, do it in a way that works with my physiology as an athletic woman over 40, with coaching and community support.

Steph Gaudreau
Then go ahead and check out Strength Nutrition Unlocked. This is my group program. We’re going to lay out the framework for you and guide you as you implement and really customize it to all the things that you’re doing, your preferences, your likes. And the the places you want to go with it. Then go ahead and get on board. You can start your process by submitting an application at StephGaudreau.com/Apply. We would love to hear from you and see you inside the program. All right. Without further ado, let’s jump into the podcast with Alex Sterner of Electrum Performance. What’s up? Alex, welcome to the podcast.

Alex Sterner
Thank you for having me.

Steph Gaudreau
I’m super excited to have you on the show, because not only are you somebody who I respect a lot as a colleague, you’re also somebody I’ve been working with with my own strength training programming in the last few months and lifting at your gym, and just so glad that I have a coach like you, you know, on my team, because even though I love coaching, there’s just some things, like searchers class that I don’t want to do unless I have so many making me do them. So I’m excited to get into all things strength training with you today.

Alex Sterner
Hell yeah, no, I’m happy to be here, yeah, and to have good conversations. It’s, uh, it’ll be fun to have one, you know, recorded. Yeah, totally.

Steph Gaudreau
Sometimes I look at my watch when I’m in the gym lifting and I’m thinking, like, how, okay, I’ve got time I can, like, bend Alex’s ear about this particular thing. We have a lot of things in common in terms of our philosophy, our approach, but I also learn a lot from you.

Steph Gaudreau
And I think that’s the really cool part about working with somebody like yourself, who has a ton of experience, but you also have just a really great head on your shoulders, and you’re really well balanced in your approach with strength training, especially for, you know, at least in other sports. And I just, I always pick up little little nuggets from you along the way. And I just, I just feel so lucky that I’m able to to be in there and chit chatting with you on the daily and stuff like that. So it’s really..

Alex Sterner
I think I Yap a little too much sometimes.

Steph Gaudreau
Well, you and me both, and sometimes you get a little bit of just sort of reassurance of your own. Like, okay, yeah. Like somebody else thinks this too, and it’s, it’s awesome. So I know, for the listeners, they may not know about your gym, but a lot of the athletes that you work with are in the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. How did you decide that you were going to start working alongside jiu jitsu athletes with strength training, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered with bringing strength training into this sport.

Alex Sterner
Yeah, so I decided a long time ago that I wanted to do this. I wasn’t really too certain of the path, but I sort of had, like, a bit of a North Star. You know, when I was in school at the University of Connecticut, I remember there was a day in one of, like, our sport administration classes, it was all of the exercise science majors, but they went through and they asked us, like, where we wanted to go with our career.

Alex Sterner
And I said that I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to do strength and conditioning in Jiu Jitsu. And the instructor, you know, he didn’t, he doesn’t know Jiu Jitsu. He’s like, Oh, does that, you know? Does that exist? Like, is there a, like, you know, a place you can go for that? That was, like, before the, you know, UFC Performance Institute, like, there was nothing even in that realm. And I was like, Yeah, not really. And he’s like, Well, how are you going to do that? I’m like, I don’t know. I’ve trained for a long time.

Alex Sterner
Maybe I’ll go train with those guys and see where it goes. And, you know, kind of not a great answer in academia, but that’s kind of what I did. You know, I moved out here, started training nadato, started competing with those guys in 2015 and then very quickly, you know, started to work with JT Torres first. And from there, it really opened up to, like the rest of the comp team, and now plenty of people you know that are not affiliated with Atos, of course, like you know, I train with a lot of them, so it’s fun working with them, but I love working with people from any sort of affiliation. So that’s kind of how it got started.

Alex Sterner
The challenges, I’d say, the biggest one, I think there’s a few angles we could look at this, but in a sport that really started from the idea that a smaller, less physical opponent can utilize technique and leverage to overcome or neutralize a stronger, more athletic opponent, you know that’s what really brings people into the sport initially, so it’s kind of tough, you know, it’s like, it’s like this little counterculture of, like the small guy, right?

Alex Sterner
And I think a lot of competitors understand, they’ve been, you know, they’ve been matched technically, with another opponent, and have felt that, you know, a stronger or more explosive or more conditioned competitor might end up beating them. So they’re an easy sell. It’s the everyday practitioner, you know, someone who listens to the Joe Rogan podcast, or, you know, whatever they get into it because they like that trope. It’s a hard sell to them. And even, like, you know, showing them that, hey. Be lifting and stuff. It’s not just about building this brute, muscular athlete. It’s about longevity.

Alex Sterner
It’s about preventing injury, or mitigating or minimizing injury so that you can spend more time on the mats. You know, that’s really the angle that I’ve taken with it. That’s the thing that’s central to the way that I train. You know, I do different forms of strength and conditioning, so that, you know, when I back in 2018 when I wanted to jump into rock climbing, I could jump into rock climbing Right? Like, I like learning new things, and it’s not just the one sport that I do, but I like to train in a way that allows my body to encounter stressful situations and sort of take it in stride.

Alex Sterner
That’s really like the undercurrent of my training, and whether it’s the hobbyist that I’m working with or the high level competitor, the most important thing is lifting in such a way that we induce positive changes in tissue quality that allow that person to express their athletic potential in whatever area that they want to and experience less injuries and and train for longer. Because deep down, you know, if you train jiu jitsu, you don’t want to have that last day where you hang up the GI and you go, man, I can’t keep up with this anymore, right? And and strength training is our ticket to do that.

Steph Gaudreau
Absolutely. I am 45 as of the time of this recording. So having been athletic, really, my whole life, and now doing a sport where, you know, the I love the I love the creativity of jiu jitsu memes and gifts and things like that on the internet and reels, and there’s no it is an endless source of entertainment. Because, in a way, we’ve been there. We’re like, oh, you know, I always joke, when you get a brown belt, it should come with a complimentary bottle of, like, ibuprofen and and a lifetime, lifetime subscription to get taped for your fingers.

Steph Gaudreau
Like, we know little things are going to happen, and the longer you’re on the mats, like, shit happens, right? But at the same time to be aging now into my mid 40s, I know people who are training, who are in their 70s, like we want the best runway, I think, for doing those things for as long as possible. But if we’re not taking care of our bodies, we’re not building the resilience and making ourselves more anti fragile, as you say, then we’re it’s just me that much harder to participate in a sport that is very unpredictable and very explosive and very physical.

Steph Gaudreau
I mean, what we do is extremely physical. There’s a ton of contact. There’s probably people listening to this show who don’t do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but they do other sports, or they have other interests and hobbies. So I want them to listen to this conversation through that lens, like some of the things you might be specifically talking about in this podcast, maybe a little bit more jiu jitsu related. But take whatever sport you like. I mean, Pickleball is like, taking people out left and right.

Steph Gaudreau
These days, you know, people are like, I hurt my knee playing pickleball. Oh, you know, I did this, that and the other. So just like, Listen. I want people to listen through that filter as they’re listening to whatever you’re going to say today, where it’s like, how can I take this concept and apply it to me as an athlete or as somebody participating as a hobbyist in these other things that I like, even if it’s not Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. With that in mind, I know that there is this culture in jiu jitsu that’s like, being strong is a is a is almost like an insult. So I’d love for you to talk about when it comes to jiu jitsu and, like, actual strength training, what are some things that people can benefit from by getting into the weight room, getting into the gym and lifting for their game?

Alex Sterner
Yeah, and, and the thing that I am going to like lead off with is that this is true, whether the application is Jiu Jitsu or it’s the reason that I brought up, you know, rock climbing or whatever the thing might be, right? I think in general, there are, there’s a lot of low hanging fruit for the, you know, for our body and for its ability to perform and encounter stressful environments. And I’ll go through each of those in turn.

Alex Sterner
So I think you’ve got the musculoskeletal, musculoskeletal system and tissue quality, and whether that is bone, tendons, ligaments, you know, muscles, cartilage, anything in between, those things all remodel positively to the right dose of stress. And strength training is a very deliberate way to place that stress on the body. We can do it through lots of different ways. You’ve always got those people that are like, Oh, yeah. What about a manual labor job? Sure. I mean, when we apply stress to the body, it will adapt positively.

Alex Sterner
The thing with a manual labor job is the fact that, like, you know, it’s not about like, Okay, how do I stress this one joint to an ideal level of fatigue? And then I stop, and then I go home and I have my protein shake. Right? Like, it’s not the physical, you know, a job in labor is not as measured as that. It’s just kind of like, all right, you got to move all of this shit here, over here, and it doesn’t matter, like you have to complete that task. It doesn’t matter how much it does or doesn’t affect certain tissues.

Alex Sterner
So it’s not as as direct, deliberate or measured strength training is a really good way to do that, and we can do it in a relatively short amount of time, 245 minute workouts where we emphasize multi joint movements. You know, your hinge, your squat, your push, your pull, maybe some unilateral stuff, some lunging, and then a little bit of single joint stuff. If you want to really like go over the top, boom, we’ve we’ve nailed that. We’re going to improve tissue quality. If we are increasing our performance of those movements over time, our bones are going to get denser, cartilage going to get denser. Ligaments are going to hypertrophy.

Alex Sterner
Tendons are going to improve in stiffness. The list goes on and on. Our body will become better at encountering physical stress that’s huge. So first low-hanging fruit is improving tissue quality in the musculoskeletal system. The next one is actually going to be lumped in with that, but really emphasizing range of motion as we do that, we don’t have to train mobility or stretching separately. There’s a lot of motion.

Alex Sterner
If you add a deficit to a Bulgarian split squat, we can get some mobility, and we can start to in, you know, improve force production or tolerance at those end ranges, sometimes a bit better than we can with just stretching. So you really emphasize range of motion. As you do that, you’re going to get some mobility with that as well. Another low hanging fruit is energy system development, right? A little bit of cardio. It doesn’t take much, and no, lifting is not cardio, even if you end up breathing heavy, right?

Alex Sterner
We could get really into the nitty-gritty details, but the occlusion effect from like bracing, bearing down, using your muscles, your heart rate can go up, sort of regardless of cardiovascular stimulus, right? If you walked around a corner, or actually You startled me the other day in the gym when my heart rate went up from that was not a cardiovascular stimulus, my body was not utilizing more oxygen, right? Same thing if you have an energy drink with some caffeine that’s going to increase your heart rate, that is not a cardiovascular stimulus, and neither is lifting weights so well, some of the low-hanging fruit is cardiovascular training.

Alex Sterner
I think some easy zone two or three cardio for longer durations is a great way to do it, and to mix in some stuff that is higher in effort, which would be much shorter in length. You know, something I’ve been doing since I got this watch is I’ve been sort of micro dosing my my interval training before I go home for the day. I don’t want to be stuck here sweaty all day. So right, literally, right before I go home, I’ll do a quick circuit and like, it’s crazy, how now that I’m measuring this regularly, you know, my resting heart rate is already noticeably, like, in a relatively short amount of time, decreasing.

Alex Sterner
Again, it’s that low hanging fruit. I wasn’t taking advantage of it before. I’m putting a minimal, minimal time investment in but I’m being consistent, and things are moving. And then the last one, I would say, is explosiveness, or power or rate of force development, doing some sort of plyometrics, getting your body accustomed to impact, to not just applications of force like strength training, but rapid ones, and not just producing force, but absorbing it. So not just when you leave the ground, but then when you encounter the ground once again, that’s very important as well.

Alex Sterner
I know it sounds like a lot, right? But if you lump in mobility with your strength training, that’s going to account for your tissue quality, you got some cardiovascular stuff that you do on its own, and you do maybe some power work before some of those motions in the weight room. Seriously, two bouts of 45 minutes can encompass the tissue quality, the range of motion, slash mobility, and the power you can get your low hanging fruit in an hour and a half a week there, and then you add in some dedicated cardio work. Could be walking while you listen to a podcast for a long duration, right?

Alex Sterner
Could be a shorter interval thing. But like these, things don’t have to take over your life. You don’t have to live as like a new fitness influencer, right? Even you know, people like you and me who build our life around it, like I don’t want to be doing six hours of cardio a week, so I’m not going to right, but I can still hit that low hanging fruit and see improvements if I’m consistent with it. So I think the big thing is, is hitting that low hanging fruit, if there’s one of those areas that you’re missing, add it in and not a ton, just a little bit. If you apply that consistently over 612, months, you will see massive improvements in quality of life, transfer to sport, injury prevention, etc.

Steph Gaudreau
Absolutely, I’m going to poke the bear a little bit, because I know you fairly well. Well, and I know the things that really like get your goat, or you want to just like, bust this myth, right? So one of the things I hear a ton is, if I lift weights, I’m going to get hurt, and that’s going to take me out of Jiu Jitsu, even though, you know, these are the people like hobbling onto the mats. We’ve seen them bless, right?

Steph Gaudreau
Like they can barely make it on the bat. So talk to me sort of about this intersection when it comes to people’s fear that they’re going to do this strength training program is going to hurt them, then they’re going to be taken out of their sport. So, you know, I guess, the companion to this would be, you do sustain an injury, potentially in Jiu-Jitsu, you’re still there, back there in class, training, but you’re going to skip the gym.

Steph Gaudreau
So talk me through, what are your thoughts on that sort of, like, injury risk mitigation, like, when we start to think about Jiu Jitsu, like, how do we bring those disparate thoughts together?

Alex Sterner
Yeah, so it’s tough, right? Because if someone’s already got their mind made up, and the thing that they fear the most is an injury in the weight room that takes them away from Jiu Jitsu, you know, sort of like you and I have said before something I’m big on is, like, I’m not gonna paint some like fantasy land for somebody, right? Can you get hurt in the weight room? Yeah, of course you can. Right? You can get hurt tying your shoes.

Alex Sterner
The worst back pain I ever felt was playing with a puppy. Am I never going to play with a puppy again? But hell no, of course, I’m going to play with puppies like injuries, and pain, they’re very complex, right? And I think what is a liberating thought when we can really wrap our heads around it is the fact that they are inevitable. Now I get that that could be scary to some people, but when we recognize that it’s inevitable, we start to expect that living an active or a sedentary lifestyle, they’re going to happen.

Alex Sterner
Once we sort of accept that they’re part of our reality, that biological organisms experience pain, we start to be able to treat it, treat dealing with those things as a skill in and of itself, so that when they roll along, you get better at dealing with them. Part of that is prevention. And yes, when we apply stress to the body, there is always risk involved. If we change gears a little bit. It tends to make more sense to people, not sure why.

Alex Sterner
But if I had, you know, a client comes to me and they have multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease, right? And they tell me, hey, I want to, I want to make sure that I have the lowest chance of actually having a heart attack in my lifetime. I’d be like, All right, we’re going to stress your heart together. Now we’re going to do it in a deliberate, incremental manner, but we have to stress your heart. And when we do that, in that short term, our risk goes up, right?

Alex Sterner
And this is sort of the thing that I work through with people. If I was going to keep the answer shorter, it wouldn’t conflate short and long-term risk. Yes, with lifting, there is a short-term risk of musculoskeletal injury, and that risk goes up relative to baseline. Long term the risk goes down dramatically. There’s a massive meta-analysis that shows there’s a 69% decrease in injury in sport when long-term strength training is introduced.

Alex Sterner
So like, okay, yes, there is a slight increase in risk during the strength training session session, but it’s not an increase of 69% so overall, your risk goes down. Yes, if all you’re looking for is like, the one example of somebody who got hurt not doing their sport, and then it kept them from their sport, sure you might go, I can’t do that thing. And that thing is strength training or playing with puppy dogs, or whatever you want to make it be right.

Alex Sterner
But playing with puppy dogs, as cool as that is, doesn’t give you any decreased rate of injury in sports strength training, markedly does so again, like it’s sort of being able to separate for people, or guide them to separating the difference between short and long term risk. And I think that example of a person with cardiovascular risk factors is a great way to do it. If I wanted to make sure I didn’t increase their short-term risk, I’d sit down and play checkers with that person, and I would have the lowest possible chance of that person having a heart attack when they were with me, but I would also probably guarantee that one day, that person would succumb to that heart attack, right?

Alex Sterner
So again, with that person, I would then I’d explain to them and be like, Hey, I get it at first. You know, you might be a little uneasy doing increasing your heart rate and feeling yourself stressed, but know that, as a coach, I’m going to create a little staircase approach, and we’re not going to jump up to the top of the stairs right away. We’re just going to hop on that first step. You might. Don’t feel like that first session is too easy, but eventually, we find ourselves far enough up that staircase where we can turn around and look and be like, Oh my God, look how far I’ve come.

Alex Sterner
That’s the goal, right? And that is where then the long-term benefit far, far outweighs the short-term risk. And with both strength training and cardiovascular training, the short-term risk goes down the more experienced you get at it. So like, yeah, it’s not a reason to avoid it. It’s like, let’s, let’s figure this out. Let’s accept injuries are inevitable, and let’s get good at dealing with them. And the weight room should also be our safe zone when we do get hurt. Before, I talked about how it’s a very measured and deliberate way to apply stress.

Alex Sterner
Well, you know, when you went through a recent injury and you came to me, I wasn’t like, all right, this plan, all we’re gonna do is a ton of heavy, rapid, elbow-centric stuff, like, Hell, no, right? We were like, deliberate about how we tested that out, how we saw like, I wanted to get into searchers because that was better, but I didn’t just throw them in there, because it’s loading something close to that area. So as uncomfortable as it’s been, it doesn’t seem to be making the symptoms any worse.

Alex Sterner
So this seems like a good thing to proceed with. And I think that when people start to trust that the weight room is this deliberate thing where we don’t just make bad things worse, as opposed to a sports context, right? Like you could go in with, let’s say, a bad neck in Jiu-Jitsu and be like, Alright, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna pass today, because I can’t invert and play guard. So you go in with that, with that plan.

Alex Sterner
But Jiu-Jitsu is unpredictable, and you can’t fully control what goes on. And then someone clubs your head even though you were passing, and you’re like, I heard it again. You know? You get you start to realize that these other environments are way more open-ended than the gym. You don’t have nearly as much control. So I like to show people like, Hey, we got a ton of control in here. If picking up the 40-pound dumbbell hurts, guess what?

Alex Sterner
We’re not going to do it today. We’re not going to pick up the 40-pound dumbbell, but yeah, I think short versus long-term risk is huge. The control that we truly have in the weight room is huge. As people start to understand those different concepts and how they apply them to the weight room, they start to trust it a bit more, and they view it as a safe space that I know, that you and I do.

Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. And I think that the distinction between the short and the long term is so important. And oftentimes, you know, our human brains, we go back to our lizard brain, and we’re like, oh, this thing hurts, you know, right now, this seems really scary, so, therefore, I’m just, you know, I’m going to stay away from the gym, or I’m just not going to participate.

Steph Gaudreau
I mean, I have tons of people that I work with that are over 40, 5060, you just get, I mean, I don’t know anybody who’s like, yep, like, my body feels 100% all the time. You know, you’ve got little ace aches and pains, past injury, past surgery. You’re working around things. You’re just, you know, living the human experience in this human body. And things do happen, but it’s really common for people to think, Oh, well.

Steph Gaudreau
And to use me as that example, you know, I hurt my elbow during worlds. Got arm barred really hard. Was trying to tap, you know, didn’t ref, didn’t stop it until I’ve verbally tapped and so whatever Shit happens. But I wasn’t about to say, Well, my elbow is kind of bothering me, so I’m just not going to come in and do anything like I think. I don’t know. What do you think the gap is there?

Steph Gaudreau
Is it a lack of working with somebody a little bit more closely who can help you understand? Well, hey, there’s still a bunch we can do. Is it just old school thinking, less progressive thinking about, well, you know, you’ve sustained an injury, or have something here that’s kind of bothering you, so shouldn’t do anything? I mean, where do you think that comes from? And then, how do we, sort of, like, help the mental aspect, do you think of working people through that?

Alex Sterner
I think it’s twofold. One, people become more risk-averse as they age, right? I mean, thinking back at myself at 20, I was freaking, I was reckless, right? Like I was dumb. And so in a lot of cases becoming more risk averse as we age tends to be a good thing, but there are applications where it doesn’t serve us.

Alex Sterner
And I think following an injury all of a sudden, like falling back to this safe area of being totally sedentary is like a misapplication of being a bit risk averse, right? So I think that’s that’s part of it. I think the other thing, and this is tied into that, is that it’s a bit of a survival mechanism to not want to, like, touch the hot stove again, right where you know you do something. It could even not be in the weight room.

Alex Sterner
You could get hurt elsewhere, but you did it through activity, and you’re like, No, no, no activity. Now I don’t want to touch the stove. Right, you know, I got to go back to this. And that’s, that’s, like, a huge lesson, it’s funny. when I’ve had an LCL injury on both knees, and the first one happened in college, and it really was not that bad, but it was my, it was my first time injuring anything since my shoulder in college, which was actually quite bad, and so I catastrophized, like real hard.

Alex Sterner
And I remember I was interning with the strength coach who was actually, you know, a huge part of Maureen Butler at UConn. She’s a huge part of why my training, you know, style and system is the way that it is. But I remember, I told her I hurt my knee, and, like, I missed a session. And like, thinking back on this, I’m like, Oh God, I was such a freaking wuss, right? And I, you know, I told her that I was missing a session, and then the next one I came in, I had crutches, and she like, looks at me sideways.

Alex Sterner
Mind you, hopefully, she’s not listening to this, but she’s like, you know, she’s maybe five foot, right? And I remember her like, looking at me sideways. And she’s just like, Why the hell are you on crutches? And I’m like, I hurt my knee. She’s like, it’s just LCL, right? And I’m like, yeah. She’s like, I don’t know what she needs crutches for. She like, walks off to, like, go do something else. And I remember I was like, What the heck is she crazy? But like, having experienced more injuries, seen other apps, you know, other athletes sort of catastrophize things.

Alex Sterner
I get it now I was like, babying the shit out of it. I didn’t even go to intern hours. I wasn’t even lifting. I would have just been, like, standing there. Like, yeah, I could do that with a popped LCL. Like, of course, right? And I was like, Oh, I can’t do anything. And I, like, stayed in my house. So I’ve, I’ve been there too. I get it. Fast forward all the way to 2017 at NoGi Worlds.

Alex Sterner
You know, I had such an extensive like incident to my LCL while competing, that also, like, my hamstring tendon partially tore. And I remember, like, one I wanted to do my neck, you know, I was up, I think, 12, nothing in that fight, and I finished it, then I wanted to do the next one. But it was like, really starting to lock up on me in between. Like, you know, it was pretty painful as the adrenaline sort of worked its way out of the system. I was like, Man, I might not be feeling too great.

Alex Sterner
I remember the next day, like, even though it was a mess, it was swung and everything. I’m, like, holding on to my couch and doing, like, assisted squats and like, really trying to, like, grab this recovery process by the horns and, like, see what I was capable of, really assess what’s wrong with my knee. Don’t just baby it and, like, just sit there freaking out. Like, no, let’s see what this thing can do. Let’s see how bad it is.

Alex Sterner
And, like, if it’s really bad, I’ll know, you know. And it turns out, like, I bounced back from that second one so much faster than the first one, despite the fact that there was more. You know, we had talked about the biopsychosocial part in terms of biomechanical damage, there was more to more structures and more to the LCL, and I bounced back faster because of that approach. So I think sometimes when it’s new to somebody, very quickly, they just want to, like, you know, run back into their cave and hide.

Alex Sterner
And I think it’s important that, like, as coaches, we sort of without being reckless, but like having them come in and like, hey, let’s work through this a little bit. Let’s do some really low-risk things. Let me show you, like, ways we can just, like, mobilize and move the knee, and you can explore these ranges and see what’s doable and see what’s not. And then all of a sudden, the world opens up, and they’re just like, Okay, I’m working through this.

Alex Sterner
This isn’t so bad, right? And it tends to be a really good thing when you take your own recovery and rehab into your own hands, even if you’re not a PT and you don’t know these things, like you have spent your whole life living in your body, and you can do some things that are relatively low risk to sort of assess, like, Huh, okay, well, there’s this elbow I’ve had my whole life. What can? Oh, well, can’t straighten it all the way.

Alex Sterner
It’s a little weird. All right, maybe I won’t do that for a little bit, but, like, that’s, that’s essentially the process, right? Like, take that ownership, explore a little bit. And if you constantly run into the fact that, like, Man, I cannot. I’m trying to go through this in an organized way, and I can’t. Okay, that’s when you’re like this. This is maybe really bad, you know, and maybe then you go, you get it checked out.

Alex Sterner
However, the vast majority of musculoskeletal injuries have a positive, natural outcome. Give them enough time in the right environment, and you’re gonna Your body knows what to do from there. So it’s important that this part of the body doesn’t become a big roadblock for us in that process.

Steph Gaudreau
Alex is pointing to his brain, his head, for those of you listening and not watching, yeah, it’s, you know, when I think that was on the Thursday when I came in and walked over to the table and was pretty upset, you know, I’ve heard this elbow before. And I was just like, fuck. But then I was like, All right, well, I’ll see.

Steph Gaudreau
You guys on Monday, and, you know, go to the gym, we’re trying some different SWAT variations. And I was like, Yeah, back squats are going to be a no-go right now. But like, you know, that’s when the conversation around searcher came up. And then we’re like, yeah, there’s something else we can do here. And I think for people having to have options, and I don’t know if this has played into sort of how people feel about this, but they’re like, well, the back squat is the only way to squat.

Steph Gaudreau
You know, that sort of thing online where you get people arguing, you know, the high bar squats, the only way to squat? No, it’s the low bar squat. And you have people who are very polarized about these, like, this is the only right way to squat, or the only right way to deadlift, or the only right way to move your shoulder, or whatever it is.

Steph Gaudreau
And so people feel like they’re automatically going to have to self-select that out. Like, if you have a shoulder thing going on, maybe back squatting isn’t the best thing for your elbow thing. But hey, you can find a safety bar and squat that way. You could find a belt squat and squat that way. You know. So there are options. And I think the more proactive people can be in terms of problem-solving like it’s just the better off. Instead of going, well, I can’t do that thing that was in my program, so I can’t squat at all, or I can’t do whatever.

Alex Sterner
I also think one other thing that plays a huge role in people’s beliefs is that if they misstep again, then it’s all over for them. Like we tried out the back squat for you, and you were like, Yeah, this isn’t happening. It’s putting some pressure here. And your arm didn’t light on fire. You didn’t fall to the ground, like, like, clutching at your heart, right?

Alex Sterner
Like it was, you know, you’re like, Okay, I’m getting some signals here that this is not a good thing. Let’s move on to something different. And I think that’s big too. People think they have to navigate this like rehab is, is like, almost like this mystic process of navigating this perfect path where you feel zero pain, there’s no setbacks. Every day is better than the day before it. And I think it’s also kind of liberating to know that that’s not the rehab process.

Alex Sterner
Even with the best professionals, the best imaging, the best whatever in the world, that’s not how that process works. There are missteps. Those missteps are not catastrophic, right? They’re actually a part. They’re a feature, not a bug, right? That’s how we figure out where we’re going. And as long as you are measured in terms of your progressions and the way that you’re testing things out, that’s totally fine.

Alex Sterner
And I think, liberating people from that, as opposed to like, you know, when you take a step back and you look at the way liability works in the medical system, you start to understand why doctors say some of the things that they do, right? They don’t. They don’t know that. Frank here is going to be able to navigate nuance and figure out how to bench press with his new shoulder injury.

Alex Sterner
He’s just going to say, Hey, you can’t bench press for x, right? Because the last thing that the doctor wants is for that advice to be misused, or for Frank to not understand any nuance, and then come back and sue the doctor. Because he goes, Yeah, you said to just bench a little lighter. So I went from benching 365 to 315 and I fucked myself up, and that’s your fault so doctors will protect themselves, give, like, the hyper-conservative answer, but then people internalize that, right? And they’re like, oh, man, I can’t mess this up.

Alex Sterner
Okay? The doctor told me to do nothing for two weeks when I hurt my knee last time I hurt my knee, this time, I’ve got to do nothing for two weeks, and it’s like, okay, we can do better. Like, you have to understand the shortcomings of the medical system in that sense. And like, you know, an example I use with clients is like, Whatever, whatever their injury is. Let’s say LeBron had that injury today, tomorrow, his PT or his ortho wouldn’t be like, Oh yeah, LeBron, I know. Well, yeah, you got that playoff series coming up. Okay, well, you’re gonna do nothing for the next two weeks.

Alex Sterner
Oh, yeah, no, shoot around. No, no, nothing. You’re not gonna do anything. Oh, rehab, no, we’ll start that in two weeks. You’re doing nothing, LeBron. Like, obviously that doesn’t happen, right? And when people start to understand that, like, Okay, well, LeBron gets a little bit more face time with his ortho than the 14 business minutes you get with yours. They’re able to explore that nuance, right? And I think when people start to understand that and know that, like you know, it’s not gospel, what that doctor says, it’s a professional recommendation that comes with limitations for that person’s practice, you take it with a grain of salt.

Alex Sterner
You sort of, you know, you rule out any red flags if you are going to that professional or whatever, but you can internalize that do nothing for two weeks or whatever it may be, and think that that is the best approach to recovery, because it’s not and all that’s doing is giving you an easy answer to latch onto something that your fear can fuel, you know, and it becomes this vicious circle.

Alex Sterner
So I try to explain it in more of like that, that context from the outside, like, Hey, I’m not saying don’t listen to doctors. Listen to doctors. They’re a very useful tool. They’re very educated. They know. Things, right? Like, take advantage of that. But like, just like, I wouldn’t want someone to take all of every word I say as gospel. Like, take it with a grain of salt. See the limitations. If I’m training somebody online, there’s going to be limitations with that, right? So, like, understand what those limitations are. Take whatever value you still can and go from there.

Steph Gaudreau
Absolutely, I want to pivot just back a little bit to some Jiu-Jitsu-specific strength training stuff, because, all right, let’s say somebody’s like, but Alex, I am strength training. What I’m doing is, like, I do a shit ton of, like, burpees. I’m doing, like, jumping around, doing stuff between my sets, because I’m trying to, like, burn off more calories, you know, maybe I’m cutting weight, or maybe I just feel like I have to be super active all the time.

Steph Gaudreau
Or I’m doing things like, you know, trying to strengthen my grit for my strength for rear naked choke. So I’m, like, Rear Naked choking a foam roller. Like, you know, I’m doing these, you know, ghee pull-ups. Like, I know that there are some things that are very pervasive in the Jiu-Jitsu world in terms of, like, well, this is how you get stronger. So let’s say somebody is doing those things. What are maybe some of the underrated and overrated things that are that people are doing for Jiu-Jitsu-specific strength training that you’ve noticed and that you speak about and that you wish would change?

Alex Sterner
Well, that depends. Am I getting asked this at like, a party, because I’ve changed the way that I do this? When someone asks me stuff like that at like a social event, and like, they heard that I’m, like, a trainer or whatever, and they want to, like, talk to me about that, I just agree. They’re like, they’re like, they’re showing me the video of them, like, choking on a FOMO or, I’m like, That’s tight.

Steph Gaudreau
No, I think from the perspective of somebody who’s actually curious, like, they’ve, they’ve taken the step, they’re like, Okay, like, I know getting stronger for jiu jitsu is important, but what the sort of application of that concept is leading them to things like, I don’t know, foam, foam roller, choking and doing, you know, ghee pull-ups, and the things that people do because they see that and they think that this is right, or they’re filling their rest periods with burpees, or, you know, things like that because it’s going to help them be more efficient. So this is a person you can assume wants to learn how to do things better. Yep, they want to hear it.

Alex Sterner
Well, yeah, no, I just say that because, like, at social events, people just want validation. And I just, yeah, that’s like, Yeah, I’ve been doing carnivore, and this is where my HDL and my LDL is. I’m like, that’s so cool, but yeah, no, when it comes down to somebody like structuring their own thing, I think a lot of these fads and everything else can really be cleared up with one principle, track what you’re doing and assess it, right?

Alex Sterner
If, like, and when you start doing that, a lot of these, like fad-like, things will fade away. So you’ll be like, Damn, I’m not really getting better, right? Like, for example, you know, I mentioned, like, the occlusion effect of, like lifting for cardio, and that really contributes to your heart rate a lot in circuits. Well, if somebody is tracking objective metrics for cardiovascular fitness and they’re doing endless circuits, they might find that short of them being terribly out of shape at first and getting, like, some beginner gains, like they’re like, Damn as a long term strategy, this doesn’t seem to be panning out that much.

Alex Sterner
I’m doing all these circuits. I’m tired as hell. I’m sore as shit, but my resting heart rate’s not really going down, you know, if I do a vo two Max assessment, that’s not really moving, like, why don’t what am I doing, you know? Or, like, you know, I have other people who just, you know, they do stuff that’s cardio related, and again, they don’t, they don’t assess and I, and I compare that to, like, lifting, where, imagine you went into the gym first and you put duct tape over all the dumbbells like you’re moving stuff around like you’re doing work, but like, what are you doing? Are you tracking it?

Alex Sterner
What did you do last Tuesday? If you don’t have a way to know that, like, how do we know that this effort that we’re putting in is actually yielding the results we want? So really, I think the vast majority of these issues, the like, let me grab random things I’ve seen on Instagram that really only flourish when somebody’s not like tracking and assessing what they’re doing. If you start tracking and assessing, you’ll know, you’ll know what works and what doesn’t work.

Alex Sterner
And in general, I think that, like, yeah, a lot of people will go into it, they’ll be like, All right, well, I want to get better for Jiu Jitsu, so my lifting should feel like Jiu Jitsu, and Jiu-Jitsu sure as hell is not like 15 to 30 seconds of effort followed by three to four minutes of rest. So they won’t lift like that. But. But what are we doing here? You know, when we’re looking for changes in tissue quality, that’s not going to occur most efficiently through Jiu-Jitsu, which is why we’re going to the weight room, right?

Alex Sterner
And I think again, a lot of those things, you know if we are tracking what we’re doing, a lot of those things will start to illuminate. If we’re just really restricting rest all the time, you’re also going to notice that from strength and standpoint, our weights aren’t really going to move all that much, right? And for the first couple years that you’re doing strength training, couple of years you should consistently see increases week by week, not every time, especially if you’re training concurrent with Jiu Jitsu.

Alex Sterner
But like, the monthly trends should be obvious, like, very obvious. And again, if you’re tracking, those will jump out at you. If you’re not tracking and assessing, then you’ll continue to sort of spin your wheels and do these random things, sort of with blindfolds on. So yeah, I think if you want me to talk about, like, the specifics of, like, gi pull-ups, for example, if someone was really tracking and assessing and they start really pushing for performance, it’s overloading structures that already get overloaded so much from Jiu Jitsu, things that tend to be the weakest link that ends up experiencing tissue damage anyways, yeah, exactly.

Steph Gaudreau
I’m showing that audience my fingers because they’re already kind of.

Alex Sterner
Despite my last 20 years of training, I don’t really have too much to show for that, which…

Steph Gaudreau
I don’t know how you got away with that strong fingers.

Alex Sterner
But yeah, I think you know, we’re replacing overused joints. Joints into compromised with more use and more direct loading. And if you’re tracking it, like purely tracking your key pull-ups and like trying to a really tough to trend in a good direction for any significant amount of time, people think that I like, I like, you know, shit talk, ghee pull-ups from a place of having never tried them.

Alex Sterner
No, I have. And like, you know, I’m also kind of like a child in the weight room. And like, there’s plenty of things I don’t prescribe for people that I try for a long time myself. Ghee pull-ups were one of those things. And like, if you ever really try to progress them, like high effort sets, a couple of them, at least once a week for multiple weeks, like, they will not progress. Like regular ass pull-ups.

Alex Sterner
They won’t, they can’t, especially when you throw jiu-jitsu into it, and that’s before you ever, like, again, I don’t really experience a ton of finger injuries, and I still did not progress all that much. Now, an important caveat is I am a bit heavier, right? Like, 230 is not really a great weight to just be, like grabbing a key and like throwing yourself around, especially like, you know, differences in body weight are significant. Differences in hand architecture are not relative to body weight, right?

Alex Sterner
Which is, again, another limitation of the lift. It just doesn’t, doesn’t make sense long term. And if you were tracking that, it would be very obvious to you. You wouldn’t need somebody like me saying they’re overrated. You would do them for a while and be like, damn well when I did pen lay rows, I was able to, you know, have monthly positive trends for months and months and months. And then I made my pulling variation key pull-ups, and, yeah, it improved a little bit over the first few weeks.

Alex Sterner
Then it flatlined. Then I experienced a finger injury, and I had to cut my reps, reps in half, which then, like, think about it, what’s that? Then doing your laps? Like you all of a sudden do half of your reps, and it’s limited because of a finger injury, and then, like, what’s really important, and the thing that really people, it forces them to hurt their fingers more, and more. It’s really hard to put load management in effect for your fingers, and your digits in Jiu-Jitsu, right?

Alex Sterner
Like, even if you buddy tape, even if you do whatever, like, they still experience so much trauma. So you’re that person doing gi pull-ups, and you’re doing them regularly and experienced a finger injury. Had you cut your reps in half, how long would it take you, realistically, to even just get those reps back to where they were? I mean, it’s going to take forever, and that’s still to get, you know, a very sub-maximal stimulus to your laps and your biceps and everything else and even your forearms, like, Okay, you do a set of Gi pull-ups, an important thing to note.

Alex Sterner
The muscles responsible for grip live mostly in here, in your forearm, right? They’re not in your hands. When you finish a set of Gi pull-ups, where do you feel it? It’s not in your forearms. Those muscles are not like getting this crazy stimulus where they’re like, Oh man, it’d be so much better this. You get off there, and your hands are like these claws that you can’t open, right? And you have. To, like, force your fingers open again. It doesn’t even make sense in terms of what we’re stressing or just over-stressing the crap out of those joints.

Alex Sterner
So yeah, again, I think a lot of these things, if we come back to track, if you’re tracking something, you don’t have to be, you know, a genius in this field. You don’t have to be an experienced coach. Just write the stuff down, you don’t even need a cool app or anything, just like a notebook, or a little training diary, and just track what you’re doing. And if something’s not moving for a significant amount of time, try and think, why?

Alex Sterner
Maybe it’s not such a good thing to do. Try something that’s maybe adjacent to it, and try that. Maybe try it with a different like work to rest ratio, right? All of a sudden, all these other options open up. You try with a different work-to-rest ratio, and all of a sudden you’re like, Damn, I’m adding weight every week again. Maybe that’s better. And all of these principles that you and I will preach, people will get there themselves, you know, if they’re just tracking and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

Alex Sterner
The reason you and I preach the things that we do is that I’ve had some clients for seven years, and they don’t get to a point after training with me for three months, we’re like, all right, dude, what’s the secret? Because, like, nothing’s improving anymore, right? Like, we don’t have that conversation, because this stuff works. So yeah, I think all of that comes down to tracking, be aware of what you’re doing. Is it improving? And if it is great, if it’s not figure it out, you know, a switch to make.

Steph Gaudreau
Absolutely this is a we did a podcast not too long ago about sort of a lot of popular fitness programs, especially aimed at women that say they’re really there to help you build strength. It’s really just circuit training, and there’s no way for you to really track what you’re doing. The rest is very limited, very minimal.

Steph Gaudreau
So a lot of people will come from that and say, you know, maybe I did see some benefits at the start, but, like, I kind of ran into a hard stop with things actually progressing. So a lot of them kind of come into a strength training program from there. But it’s hard. It’s hard when that sort of put out there as, this is the this is the one thing, right? Or people will see the accessory exercises or things, things like that.

Steph Gaudreau
They’re like, supposed to be Jiu-Jitsu specific, and they’re like, this is what all these top people do. So I should do this as well. But yeah, collecting that data is super, super important. So you know, you can see the trend over time. The patterns are really important. Kind of the last question, and I’ll let you go, but you mentioned moving your joints.

Steph Gaudreau
And one of the things that is still such a, I don’t know what we’re going to call this, it’s just such a thing that is so pervasive, is that we should load progressively, all these different joints in our body. But when it comes to the spine, that’s like a no-go. You know, we shouldn’t do that. You know, only a neutral spine. You know, at all times we should never bend our back.

Steph Gaudreau
I know you have an entire account dedicated to talking about this, and you’ve talked about it a lot on both the Electrums page and on your own Instagram, so people can go dive into those posts. But give me your sort of gospel, I guess, about why the spine is so important, especially in the context of Jiu-Jitsu. I mean everyday life. Of course, we know as well, but specifically in the sport of Jiu-Jitsu, why it doesn’t make a ton of sense to try avoiding loading your spine when the sport is anything but a neutral spine.

Alex Sterner
Yeah, the first thing I will say, if this is something that someone has, like, very close to their heart, they’ve hurt their back before they feel frustrated. It’s a complex topic, and I’ll sort of get into some of it right now, but I actually have, I have a 40-minute YouTube video. Yeah, I do make memes on this subject and stuff, and I really just try to grab attention with those, but I try to direct some of that attention to this YouTube video, because there I go over 24 publications and like a research review in terms of how I came to these conclusions, I’m not just, like pulling this out of thin air or like random anecdotes.

Alex Sterner
I might use some anecdotes and stuff now for the sake of brevity, but yeah, this is a subject that has become, like a near obsession of mine. It’s something that really plagues people in general, bringing it back to the hot stove, like people, you know, the vast majority of people have felt back pain. That back pain has happened usually when the back is being moved through a range and is loaded to some degree.

Alex Sterner
Sure, there are some examples, like mine with the puppy where there maybe isn’t loading present, or there isn’t all that much motion, but those things normally present. So the person goes all right, hot stove. Is my spine moving with load bad and like that’s already in the lizard brain, that’s before anybody else tells you or reaffirms that.

Alex Sterner
I know you mentioned Stu McGill before he’s you know, one of the leading researchers on spine biomechanics. And honestly, as much as I give him shit, he is phenomenal at researching the biomechanics of the spine and the bio kinematics of those joints. However, he gets outside of that lane and starts to talk about things like pain science, etc. And that’s that’s more so my my issue with him, but you have some of these early studies, mostly by Stu McGill.

Alex Sterner
They take these animal models or spine segments, where it’s there’s a fixed plate, there’s a vertebrae, there’s the intervertebral disc, the next vertebrae, and then another plate, and they take it out of a dead pig, and they make this spinal segment, and they add various forces of compression, and then they apply different joint angles with that compression. One of his most famous studies did is it included flexion cycles, or repeatedly flexing that spinal segment while also applying pressure.

Alex Sterner
And what they did was they mapped out the injury that occurs in a vacuum. That’s a very useful bit of research I’m not going to hate on that in and of itself. Now, how some people wield that, I will absolutely attack so that research was largely what fed what I like to call the glass-back propaganda. This thought that, like we’ve got to keep our spine neutral, because look, when we flex it and we apply force, you see the delamination of the collagen matrix along the backside of the disc, which then will herniate or bulge cool with a dead pig spine segment attached to force plates outside of its body, not adapting.

Alex Sterner
Yeah, that’s how that happens, right? But like in a living, adaptable tissue, the rules are different. And I think, like, really, like, bringing that back to people like, you know, I look at the broader picture, like, biological organisms adapt positively to stress. Yes, when we go far enough into it, we find that like, eustress, which is the positive one, becomes de-stress. But like, in general, everyone’s focused on, like, the de-stress. What about the U stress? What about the fact that, like, you know, let’s look at the complete absence of stress?

Alex Sterner
What happens when an astronaut goes up to the International Space Station? There are actually studies on humans and animals being in Zero-G environments, in a lack of physical stress, the body deteriorates. That’s not the answer. Lack of stress is not the answer. It’s about applying deliberate amounts of stress to elicit those positive adaptations. And that’s true whether we’re talking about those, you know, joints in the digits, whether we’re talking about the segments of the spine or anything in between.

Alex Sterner
That’s what we’re looking to do. So, yeah, as it relates to the spine, you know, there’s a lot of human data that shows that injuries occur in the neutral zone that, you know, we can see positive changes that occur when you load through different ranges, that impact is beneficial to the spine. There’s a famous study that looks at runners as they age. It’s like a, you know, a long-term study, and inter-vertebral disc thickness is greater in aging runners.

Alex Sterner
The impact, the repeated impact, of running, gets demonized as well. Everyone’s like, oh, running so high impact. Yeah, that’s actually great, and it’s great for our back. And there are countless applications, you know, loading through spinal flexion, extension, lateral flexion, rotation. It shouldn’t be a hot take, to take any joint and load it through its natural range. That’s just like, that’s what we do in our day-to-day life. We’re going to just do that in a more focused and deliberate setting, in the weight room.

Alex Sterner
And I think for me, it’s about pulling those, those that fear off of it. I think there’s another layer of fear because you know, when you recently experienced an elbow injury, you’re able to live your life when someone experiences back pain and this like I really empathize with the individual, because I’ve also felt it. It’s debilitating. You can’t do anything. So I get the fact that the negative outcome is more dire as it relates to the back. I do get that, but avoidance, or too little stress, is actually worse for us.

Alex Sterner
Like sedentary people experience disc bulges and herniations at a greater rate than weightlifters. So step one, very clear, like push like we got. Load this thing, right? Being sedentary isn’t the answer, and loading in a Zero G environment is definitely not the answer. So we go over this way. Okay, now, do injuries occur in these loaded settings? Yes, they do, right? But at a lower rate than literally sitting here doing this interview. Actually, you know, I’ve been sitting here doing this interview and my back actually doesn’t feel that great.

Alex Sterner
Actually going to go lift after this, and it’s going to feel a hell of a lot better. Some of those animal studies, if you look into ones like JC Lots, show that dynamic loading of rat spines results in an anabolic environment. So it’s not just this. There’s like, static and dynamic loading. The studies by McGill were static loading. You’re it’s not in a living tissue.

Alex Sterner
You just kind of do it at this one point in time, and you do it until there’s an eventual failure. You take a living tissue and you take periods of loading, followed by periods where it’s not loaded, and it goes about its day-to-day life. And if you check out the contents of the spine, there are actually indications that it’s now an anabolic environment, and it’s adapting positively to that stress. And like we might think that’s crazy, but it’s not crazy, like every part of our body does that.

Alex Sterner
When we look at changes in bone density, the bones in our body most adaptable to loading are our vertebrae and pelvis. Those are the bones that will change the most through lifting. So I think, like, if we want to be pessimistic about this and just grab the studies or the examples or the anecdotes or the personal experiences where lifting or doing something like that is bad.

Alex Sterner
We can do that, and we can live in that space, but we can just as easily be optimistic or just sort of fit everything into this worldview where it makes sense that applying stress to the body’s complex, sometimes it doesn’t work out great, but the vast majority of the time, if you’re smart about it, you have a system, and you’re incremental about how you do it. You make things more resilient. You make them harder to hurt. That’s true for our biceps. That’s true for the structures of the elbow. It’s true for our spine. And you go about it that way. You give the body times of stress and then times where it can sort of recover, and you give it the nutrients to do so, and you focus on sleep.

Alex Sterner
You know, it’s not such a hot take to think that loading our spine through different ranges, tends to be a good thing for it, and for a sport like jujitsu, which will definitely load your spine through those ranges, I went to class the other night, and we were doing situations from side smash, literally lying there.

Alex Sterner
My shoulders are flat on the ground, my hips are pulled 90 degrees to the side like that’s we are loading it in, actually an end point range of motion, and from there, we’re then going live and, you know, exerting maximal effort. So I think in a sports context where it’s inevitable, you better figure out a way to do it in a deliberate fashion in the weight room, to get us ready for that stress. But then I would also argue is, even if you don’t train jiu-jitsu, it’s worse for you to be sedentary.

Alex Sterner
Those injuries occur at a greater rate in the sedentary population. So let’s not do that. And you can actually see benefits from all sorts of training, from different like strength sports, from different forms of cardio. There’s another famous study where they look at rowers, and they show that different proteins in the intervertebral disc indicate that there is an anabolic environment from rowers, from the loaded flexion that occurs as they’re rowing.

Alex Sterner
So it doesn’t even, you know, we don’t have to be dogmatic about this. You don’t have to just do like search or deadlifts with me. You could run, and that can be really good for your back. You can do some rowing. You can do different rotational power movements. The list goes on and on. There are lots of ways to improve spine health, but in general, the one thing that tends to not be good for it is complete and total avoidance. So definitely don’t do that.

Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, I think that people oftentimes think that it’s either that or it’s a reckless sort of, like a recklessness toward loaded flexion or toward loaded rotation, or like that. Those are the only two options. And I think, you know, living in those two spaces, neither of those is helpful. And I think you do such a great job. You do such a great job navigating the middle. We’ll definitely link your YouTube video because I know you put a lot of hard work into it.

Steph Gaudreau
And, you know, one of the things I appreciate a lot about you is, I think the first time I ever went into your office, I was like, Oh, look at these numbers written on this sticky note. I know what those are. Those are PubMed ID numbers like, you know, I appreciate very much that you take that, you take that to heart. You take that very seriously, you know, looking at the research and what that says, and very pragmatic in that way.

Steph Gaudreau
So I hope that this gives people a little bit of peace of mind. I get it. I hurt my back too in 20. Be 11 or so, and I was like, I can’t sit, I can’t lay down, I can’t stand up. It was bad and I was in a lot of pain, but I’m here and I’m lifting. And, you know, you get through that, and to your point, like having that positive outlook is so important, is so so important. And in Jiu Jitsu, especially, I mean, we’re just like, there’s nothing in jiu-jitsu that’s, like, gentle, you know somebody’s gonna be stacking you or smash, blanketing your whole body out.

Steph Gaudreau
You’re like, upper body twisted one way, and your lower body’s twisted the other way. And specifically for this sport, even I play a lot of spider guards, so the person who’s standing has that great pleasure, for sure, being bent over. And then amount of people who are like, I can’t do this drill for a minute because my back is hurting, and I’m like, It’s it needs to be stronger. Yeah,

Alex Sterner
I had a client, you know, they were actively training Jiu Jitsu, and they were telling me they couldn’t do deadlifts because of their back. And then I saw a video that they posted where they were doing a triangle escape, like the typical triangle escape, where you, you know, you sort of, like, shrug your shoulders forward, and you’re like, lifting your hips and like pushing yourself backward and out, but essentially, like lifting another human being, and because their hips are attached to your upper body off the ground to put pressure on where the, you know, the triangle is locked up, flexing the spine and walking backward.

Alex Sterner
You know, I showed them this. I’m like, okay, that person weighed more or less than 135 pounds. They’re like, more, you know, they weighed like, 200 I’m like, okay, and your back was totally rounded. And, like, they already knew where I was going with that. But like, Why? Why can’t you deadlift 135 pounds in a controlled setting? You can. And again, like you were saying it’s, it’s about that middle area. It’s not like, okay, let’s max out your deadlift, right? And go total ooga, booga, until, like, one of your eyes is red and bloodshot.

Alex Sterner
But, also, let’s not avoid it entirely. Like, you know, I like to use an example of a weight on a bar that’s less than that person’s body weight. For a deadlift, most people in their day-to-day life move their body weight or around that through like, a deadlift-type motion. Like, that’s not a strange thing. If you have to slide your couch over, if you like, the list goes on and on. Like we do that in our daily life, especially if you train a combat sport, you’re moving another human that weighs like, what you weigh like, always, like, often, so sort of breaking that down of like, you know, people aren’t out there fear-mongering.

Alex Sterner
Like, okay, guys, when you get triangled, just get triangled, because are going to destroy your spine. Like, there’s no one out there doing that, but there are people out there doing that as it relates to deadlifts, you know, yeah. So they associate that fear, even though biomechanically, like, if we looked at like, you know, their l 4s you know, l4 l5 vertebrae. And mapped out what was occurring there in terms of total forces, sheer forces, and compressive forces during a 135-pound deadlift versus a triangle escape, like, the forces are probably greater during the triangle escape.

Alex Sterner
So, yeah, I think it’s like breaking down that fear and encouraging people to be like, no, look, this is okay. This is fine. You know, there’s times where I show them where I’m like, yeah, actually, I just deadlifted 100 pounds less than I did the week before, because I’m living in that gray area. And there’s some signs for me that were like, Hey, uh, maybe don’t push it as hard as last week. But doing it 100 pounds lighter is so much better than just being like, Oh, my back feels kind of funny because I had that podcast with Steph, so I didn’t deadlift at all.

Steph Gaudreau
You know. Well, on that note, I’m gonna let you go deadlift. I very much appreciate this conversation. So much. Thanks for sharing your expertise with the listeners. If there’s anyone out there who is like, Okay, I need to explore like training options, specifically for jiu-jitsu and strength training, tell us about what you offer, and how people can find out more.

Alex Sterner
Yeah, so we have a training app called Electrum Performance. It’s the same name as my gym, my Instagram, and my YouTube channel. Electrum is spelled E, L, E, C, T, R, U, M, and through our app, we have, you know, more inexpensive options for people who just want a little bit of guidance, all the way up to, like, remote coaching, where you would get, like, video calls with a coach, you know, either me or, you know, we mentioned, you know, that I have other coaches at my facility, so Yeah, there’s lots of options like that. We also share a ton of content for free. I welcome people to check us out. Message us. You know, we love talking about this stuff.

Steph Gaudreau
Awesome. All right, we’ll link all of that up in the show notes, and when it goes out. Thanks so much for being with me, and I’ll see you on Friday. Okay? Yeah, thanks. There you go. That’s a wrap on this episode with the amazing Alex Sterner of Electrum Performance here in San Diego and also online.

Steph Gaudreau
We’re gonna make sure that everything we discussed in this episode is linked up in the show notes, so go and check there. Thank you for being here and really taking it in to really understand why strength training is such an important asset and can ultimately lead to so many more years of enjoying the sport that you love so much. All right, I will catch you on the next episode, and until then, stay strong.

Strength Training for Sport w/ Alex Sterner | Steph Gaudreau.