Hello and welcome to the Progress Theory, where we discuss scientific principles for optimising human performance. In this episode, we are joined again by the legendary Dr. Pak. Now, it was so good to have Dr. Pak back on the show. His last episode was amazing, but this time I wanted to move away from the minimal dose effect research that he's done before and focus more on this new research, which is more around strength and hypertrophy and how we can utilise this information to become as strong as possible and apply this to the deadlift.
In this episode, we discuss:
- 0:43 - Introduction
- 1:50 - What is Kyriakos Grizzly like?
- 8:33 - Minimalist training
- 10:50 - Common traits in super strong athletes
- 12:51 - Expectations on strength gains
- 15:21 - Strength and muscle mass periodisation
- 22:33 - Hypertrophy for deadlift
- 29:42 - Deadlift focused training
- 34:45 - Social media memes and training
- 39:20 - ‘Being Evidence-based’ need to do better
- 51:14 - Dr Pak’s current research and media projects
- 55:50 - Deadlift recommendations
Viral Topic: The Illusion of Strength Standards on Social Media Quote: "A 200 kilo deadlift if you're a lifter is not something that many will regard as impressive. But if you start thinking about your strength in percentiles compared to the average gym gore, if you're not a power lifter, right, then that's a different game."
Hypertrophy Training and One RM Specific Work: "So let's say you are far away from a competition, or you have a year where you can work on hypertrophy. I would personally still have some one RM specific work there."
The Importance of Hypertrophy for Strength Athletes: "And for strength athletes specifically, I do feel that a lot are guilty of massively mistreating hypertrophy specific work and viewing hypertrophy stuff as obviously there are accessories, but I do feel like calling them accessories sometimes leads to them being treated as like, if it's higher reps and it's a machine based exercise, or it's not like an SPD exercise for power lifters, then, okay, I've done my hypertrophy work regardless of whether it was close to failure, whether it's progressing over time, and so on and so forth."
Predicting Deadlift Progress: "But your starting point may be completely different to that of another person, if that makes sense."
The impact of body weight gain on strength training: "But when working with somebody and they want to increase their strength, which is almost everyone I work with and nobody has come to me and said, hey, man, too strong over here, I got to get weaker."
Powerlifting Progression: "Yes, I want 300, but I am at a place in my lifting career where the deadlift now needs either a lot of focus from me and a lot of dedication, which I have other things going on in my life if I want to get close to that 300."
Fitness Myth: "And the more calories would be mostly, it may be placebo to a certain extent, but like, gaining a couple of kilos over a few months means that I am in a calorie surplus, that I am giving myself a bit more, that I am improving my recovery a bit more."
Viral Topic: Social Media and Personal Branding Quote: "I am somebody who's not very serious as an individual, I'm serious about the things I do, but as a character, I like to have fun with things and I like to have fun with more, let's say complex or serious topics like scientific studies and stuff."
The Importance of Evidence-Based Practice: "But I do think that the clash between the two sides, which are not really sides, is just a result of people wanting to naturally go against something and have this enemy."
"Improving Deadlift Strength with Variations and Singles": "Doing one RM specific work in the form of singles, keeping the majority of those with a few reps in reserve, but still having some heavier singles there, and potentially working on variations of the deadlift like the Romanian deadlift, maybe other hip hinge exercises like a good morning, or even variations of the deadlift with dumbbells or different bars just so that you can get the muscles involved in the deadlift stronger."
Follow our Host / Guest
For all our other episodes and to get in touch, please visit www.theprogresstheory.com.
Thanks for listening!
All rights reserved. © The Progress Theory & KULT Media LTD 2025
Mentioned in this episode:
The Science of Hybrid Training
It was originally thought that you could not effectively train for both strength and endurance at the same time because they required different adaptations which were not compatible with each other. It was claimed that ‘an interference effect’, blunted the adaptations for strength if you simultaneously trained for endurance. However, recent developments in sports which require both strength and endurance have really challenged this idea, with hybrid athletes producing impressive performances in both strength and endurance sports together. This had led scientists, coaches, and athletes to rethink what is humanly possible and suggests the interference effect is not as influential as originally thought. But what is a hybrid athlete? What is the ‘interference effect’? And how can we maximize our training to improve at the same time our strength and endurance performance? In this book, Dr Phil Price provides insight into the misconceptions surrounding strength and endurance training by distilling the past 50 years of research and drawing on the conversations he had with great scientists, coaches, and athletes on The Progress Theory podcast. This book is essential reading for hybrid athletes and coaches who are looking to understand the key training variables and their effect on the simultaneous development of strength and endurance performance.
Progress Theory Newsletter
The Progress Theory newsletter. If you want the latest information and recommendations on how to optimise your physical and mental performance, then subscribe to the free Progress Theory newsletter on Substack today. Click the link in the show notes and subscribe to get the best information on human performance sent straight to your email. https://theprogresstheory.substack.com/ Sign up today.
