Do you train consistently without seeing the results you want? If your training has hit a wall, todayās guest just might open your eyes. This weekās episode features Luke Vitale, a former collegiate lacrosse player and current trainee on our new Training Team. Luke just finished a training cycle with us and in his words, āThe progress I made was stupid. Iāve never seen that kind of progress in such a short period of time.ā
We dive into Lukeās major progressions and PRs heās seen throughout this 12-week training cycle: 500 x 5 deadlift (old 5 rep max was 455), 275 x 5 bench (old 5 rep max was 255), 17 inches added to his broad jump, and 20 calories added to his 10-minute assault bike challenge. We then steer the conversation to Lukeās training background in playing lacrosse and how he enjoyed lifting; the effort was there, but he wasnāt seeing the results he wanted. Luke shares his experience writing his own programs and his frustrations he faced in always overcomplicating things. This episode is all about Lukeās journey from getting his training āout of the mudā and how he made it happen.
What Youāll Learn in This Episode:
- [02:45] An introduction to Luke Vitale
- [04:10] Diving into Lukeās PRs
- [11:05] Lukeās training background prior to Rebel Performance
- [14:00] What led Luke to stumbling upon the Apex Training Team
- [15:30] Overcomplicating programming
- [22:50] Surrounding yourself with people who push you
- [27:45] Lessons Luke took away
- [29:50] Using autoregulation in programming
- [33:40] Why you should join the training team
James Cerbie: Anyhow, let’s jump into the episode with Luke Vitale. Oh, there you go. And we are live with the one and only look, is it vitale?
An Intro to Luke Vitale
Luke Vitale: Vitale.
James Cerbie: You need an accent.
Luke Vitale: Yeah, you know, it is what it is. I think I’ve given up on correcting people. So whatever’s easiest Vital is fine, everyone that I’ve ever played sports with knows me inside out. So I’ll get
James Cerbie: Beautiful. Yeah, my last name is kind of hit or miss. It’s a 50-50. Like if we go out and make a reservation at a restaurant, 50-50 if it’s going to be Serbia or Kirby.
Luke Vitale: Really. Yeah. I didn’t even think Cerbie and see what would address it, but there you go.
James Cerbie: Yeah. Because I guess things are tough in theory.
Back in the day, whenever my ancestors first came over I think it was an S. For some reason they changed it to Cerbie and I was like, the first spelling actually makes vastly more sense.
Luke Vitale: Yeah, I know, like my grandma, her maiden name. I don’t even like Ensonia, and when they came from Italy, at Ellis Island, they changed it to Sagna. So Americanized Italians like you do.
James Cerbie: Yeah, yeah. Fighting a losing battle over here, just changing things for the sake of changing them.
Luke Vitale: Just to make it easier.
Diving Into Lukeās PRs
James Cerbie: Awesome, dude. So what I wanted to do today is I wanted to dove in. You just wrapped up a we’ll call it a 14 week training cycle with us because we had the test in 12 weeks of training test out. I have some of your numbers here in front of me. But I’ll double check with you because I don’t have all of them. But I love the note that you left here and the forum, 5×5 almost shit me britches.
So you tested it at four fifty-five by five. Yeah. And then rock five hundred and five. It was a good set too because you posted the video like it was a strong set, especially considering the fact that you hit 470 for five directly before that and had some pretty fatigue, but like essentially adding fifty pounds to your five rep Max is pretty cool and then a seventeen inch increase in your broad jump.
Yep. Casual just over a foot. Where were you? Bench and squat and some of the other things that we tested in.
Luke Vitale: So I don’t know if you recall, but when you first got in touch with me, I just kind of tweaked my knee in training. So like I was kind of doing a little more Olympic lifting, kind of getting my feet wet there and then just like squat in one day. Pop my knee and it just kind of like not great. So my front squat and bench were both two fifty-five by five and then throughout the training cycle. There was probably more me being stubborn, like I should have picked a different squad variation.
So I feel like every week, I took a step forward in my healing process. And then when I come in squad again, it would just take like not even like two steps back, which is like one step back to baseline. And then finally, I think in the first or second week of the final block, or just like Savage and Rapp’s, I like walked away from one of the squad sessions like, yeah, this is not probably not a good idea.
So I didn’t retest the squat, but my bench went from 255 x 5 to 275 x 5. That was pretty, pretty huge. I think my vert went up like an inch or two. I don’t know. I also I measured chalk on the wall the first time and I used to protect the second time so. Yeah, yeah. That’s kind of a hard change in facilities that I was using. So it was kind of hit or miss with that.
And that I’m actually planning on doing the assault like today because of that. I’ve been in only had the echo bikes and I tested on like the assault bike. And I hate the echo bikes, I don’t know what it is about them, but.
James Cerbie: Dude, they are they’re just big and it’s just like you can’t get any momentum because as soon as you start to slow down, just like they stop the assault, like you can kind of trick, because if you come out of the gates hard, then you can kind of like dial it back and just cruise and it’ll hold your pace higher echo like the minute you kind of take your foot off the gas pedal, it’s just like, nope.
Luke Vitale: They’re out of the tires. I don’t know if you run into this. And this is probably a it’s a simple fix. It’s just a matter of like tightening up the bolts on it. But one of the reasons that I was at the echo bikes, I don’t throw anyone on the bus, but the maintenance was not top-notch on them. So, like, the arms are like really loose. So there’s like wave and then it starts moving. And I was just like, you know, I better wait until I can get into and get back on an assault bike and just do it right.
But yes, I’m going to I’m going to try and do that today, assuming I think they I think they have like an assault bike at this place.
James Cerbie: So beautiful. Let me know how that goes. I, I’d be surprised if you don’t hit a nice and ISPR on that front.
Luke Vitale: Yeah, yeah.
James Cerbie: Yeah. People usually add. I would say like on average or same probably like point three, point five, but like half a mile. Yeah. And that ten minutes, something like that.
Luke Vitale: Well, even in like two weeks, one through four, when we were doing just like the rower, like every week my pace increased, which I was surprised because I’m not an endurance athlete by any means. My position in lacrosse was a very like. Stop and go sprint like repeat, repeat after, but not a sustained effort type of guy. So, yeah, I was I felt like for me I was crushing the rower, like, relative to myself. And I know that there are some other people in that Apex group that were just absolutely gillnet.
James Cerbie: Yeah, for sure. So we’re looking at fifty pound five, right. Max PR on deadlift, 17 inch increase and broad jump. A few inches on a on a vertical. Twenty or twenty five pound, twenty pound pr five reps pr on a bench press squat was one that we knew was going to be a little. If you leave your knee, to be honest, we probably just should have, like, pulled squat and. Taking you off program for that movement and spent some time really working on it.
Luke Vitale: Reverse lunges when those were like unlike those never bothered me. Right from the start, I probably should have been like, you know, why don’t I do a barbell reverse loungers, you know, Hatfield squat or something. But yeah, it is what it is you learn.
James Cerbie: Yeah. The last time we’ve had a lot of success taking people away from a big bilateral squat and having them like SSP reverse lunge instead. Yeah. It’s like most things maybe you’ve got like knee hip back stuff going on. A lot of times it’s like we seem to kind of step away, spend some time with like an individualized one on one program to like get it fixed and then bring you back in to like the more team templated approach. But still. Big fan of all the other PR’s that way.
Luke Vitale: And this was like the like a year or two ago on a barbell is 465. And I probably had more in the tank. I was probably not pushing myself like I really should have. But yeah. So even like when I tested in on bar with four fifty five by five, I mean I know it’s a trap bar so it doesn’t really count, but even that I was like damn ok, it’s pretty cool.
Like I’m pretty psyched with four fifty five and then. Yeah. Five hundred. I just like feeling it. Yeah. I think I had like four seventy five going into it. I was like you know what; I’m not even going to bother with like forty five for ninety five minutes. I really wanted that five hundred. So Yeah dude did it and yeah I felt pretty good about that.
James Cerbie: Yeah. I mean that crooked number of the front looks, it looks so nice.
Luke Vitale: Yeah. Yeah.
James Cerbie: So let’s do this, let’s backtrack a little bit so we know what the outcome was. We know what the win is like. We’ve got big PR’s and a deadlift big PR bench. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a seventeen inch increase on a broad jump and a 12 week cycle. So improvements in vertical and then you’re going to let me know on that ten minute assault by challenge. Will we be cooked up here? I’d like to kind of backtrack and let’s talk first about your background, because I know that you play lacrosse, so I’d like to dive in a little bit about your background and then how things were for you prior to jumping into the program with us.
Lukeās Training Background Prior to Rebel Performance
Luke Vitale: Yeah, sure. So I didn’t start playing well. I played lacrosse like kind of when I was in, like elementary school that and like I think soccer and baseball are probably the sports that, like everybody plays. And of course, growing up on the East Coast, like lacrosse, kind of big here. So I was another one. But then I got really lazy and I was like a really kind of neat, bullish child. So sports were my thing.
I got into rock climbing a little bit, which was really cool for a few years, and then I kind of fell out of that just because I like I got lazy. And then my freshman year of high school, I had no intention of playing sports. And my friend, his mom was my ride home. And he was like, oh, I got to stop in the coach’s office real quick. And Bob, I just come with me.
So I went in and he’s like, oh, hey, coach, like, Luke’s going to play lacrosse this year. And I was like, yes, I’m playing lacrosse.
James Cerbie: I respect that. That’s a good friend.
Luke Vitale: So going into sophomore year, I kind of like trained a little harder for lacrosse, started getting in the gym and my brother and his friends, dad and yeah, from there I was kind of like I had like this whole lifting thing is kind of cool.
Like, I wouldn’t mind doing this a little more too. So I mean, throughout, like, sophomore senior year, I just kind of lifted like a meathead, not very good at it, but just like kept on pumping up and the effort was there. The effort was there for sure. And I mean, like think about like training with any of your like high school buddies, dads that played football back in his 90s. Like, you know, what I was probably doing in the gym, right? Yeah. So it was just kind of that, you know, like it was fun. And of course, like I was new to training. So all my numbers shot up like pretty quick
James Cerbie: So, what did training look like for you in the immediate window prior to jumping on board with us for this program.
Luke Vitale: I had my gym access during the summer, was kind of whacked just because of Kobe, like I didn’t want to go back to the big global gym in town. So the gym was in kind of like a lot of cattle. There’s not a ton of equipment, which was fine. I didn’t need a ton. So like they had bumper plates, they had a barbell, an entire kettle bell, like pullovers. So I’d always wanted to get into Olympic weightlifting a little more.
I thought it was just like fat ass. And then so I was like, yeah, this is a perfect time for me to kind of get into that. So I was doing a lot of Olympic weightlifting, very basic stuff, just trying to learn the movements and make some progress. That was really what I was like. Probably four days a week is like a snatch variation or variation spot all that accessories, and that’s pretty much it also, man.
James Cerbie: And so what led you to want to jump on board when we were getting this program rolling?
Luke Vitale: Yeah. So I got mentioned earlier and tweaked my knee probably a few weeks prior to me stumbling upon APEX. And so, like, I wasn’t really doing too much like lower body stuff, trying to rehab the knee. But I just I felt like I was kind of spinning my wheels with everything else because I was just trying to get, like, way too cute with my programing just to kind of like make up for the fact that I wasn’t able to do what I was enjoying previously.
Overcomplicating Programming
So I was way too in my head about what I was doing in the gym. And there was not much accountability for me to like where I could go to the gym and be like, oh, man, like I’m not really feeling this today. Like, I’m just going to be like, I don’t know, I’ll do something else. Or like I’ll change the reps game like, oh man, I don’t want to do twenty five reps on this.
Like let’s do more sets, fewer reps, whatever. So I kind of just was like, you know what, probably good for me to just like offload the programing like issue to someone else. And then that way I can just go into the gym, look at train heroic and be like, oh cool. We got Devore’s today, we got benched today. And I’m like, we’re going to have these accessories. Like, I don’t need to think about what I’m doing. I just need to do it.
James Cerbie: Yeah, for sure. I think two things there that we hear a lot from people are one. They even coaches like people who have been doing this for a very long time are traditionally terrible at trying to program and manage everything themselves, because I end up just getting to this point where they overthink it. They second guess it all the time. I think the word you use cute is like perfect. We get way too cute with it. We get way too fancy.
We’re always changing it. It’s like we’ll sit down and write it and then you get two weeks and you’re like, I don’t really like this here anymore. I’m going to change this. And then it’s like you start changing it every two weeks and then it’s like, bro.
Luke Vitale: Like that’s exactly what it was. And like, I mean like analysis or paralysis by analysis. And it was just like everything I was looking at was like, oh, is that right?
Or like, should I like change the week by week? And like it was like, yeah, I’m like changing set rep schemes every week and I don’t know, I guess you can make a case for that with like maybe like really advance athletes. And you’ve done all you’ve worked with them for years and you know how they respond to whatever. But like for me it was like, no, I’m just being stupid. Like it was part of one thing about APEX was that it was almost aggravating for me, like looking at the program and being like, oh, sweet.
Three by ten. Three by ten, three by ten on accessories. And like, it gets so much shit the three by ten. And I know like I’ve thrown plenty of shit at three by ten sat reps scheme, but it works. I mean every week I was like at least hitting a top set that was higher than the previous week or matching it. Right. And then when we move into like three by eight or four by eight, I’m like, oh shit.
Like I’m stronger now. Like, duh, that was one thing. I was like, wow. I was just making my own programing so much more complicated than it needed to be and yeah, like, no wonder I was stuck in the mud, like I was playing with way too many variables and they were probably all acting against each other and then said, OK, come on a program and just be like, oh, this is pretty like I don’t want to say that simple.
It wasn’t simple, but it was like straightforward deliberate progressions, I guess. Yeah, for sure. It worked for me at least I know it worked for plenty of other guys and gals in the in the program.
James Cerbie: So yeah, simple, simple usually wins. There’s no reason to make things more complicated than they need to be. Like only make things complex when they need to be complex. Right. Right. And so it’s like what gets more complex. And that program has already started thinking about what happens over the course of an entire training phase. Right. Is like an individual training day is relatively simple. But when we put that within the scheme of a week and we put that week within the scheme of a month and we put that month in the scheme of three months, it’s like, OK, that’s where the art takes place of being able to have the vision of here’s where we are, here’s where we’re going to go.
Let’s lay out what the next 14 weeks of your life are going to look like. Right. I think like another point you mentioned that we hear a lot from people is like the accountability bit where it’s like one, I think when you try to program and do it all yourself. Right. Like you end up getting too cute with it. You overthink it and you get that kind of stuck in the mud feeling that you mentioned because you’re just spinning your wheels or changing stuff.
Too often you just need to be able to shut your brain off and just train like just be an athlete and just train shut your brain off and just execute, period. Right.
Luke Vitale: Like the last time I’ve been in, like a team setting, so to speak, was when I was playing lacrosse. And so I was my senior year, like how some didn’t like we didn’t have a strength conditioning program at the school, so and it was D three. So I don’t know, like. You’re only granted so many team days where you’re like where the coach can mandate that you do something, and I think in the off season it’s like essentially zero.
So strong conditioning is it’s on the athletes to go about that themselves. So my senior year that was like my internship, I had a salary with a class fell through and my advisor was like, hey, you’re like writing the program for the team anyways. Like, why don’t you just spend more time on it for a week and you can get credit for it and get an internship experience, kind of not your typical like Division one SNC internship, but nonetheless, that was the last time I was training in like a team setting.
And it’s kind of funny to think back on that. Like, I wasn’t changing the program every day or every week because I was like, oh, is this really right? It was like, no, I’m pretty confident in what I put together. I’m sure if I look back at it now, there are tons of things that I would change about it. But we had a group of guys in the weight room. Everyone was kind of competing against themselves but with each other.
And like, yeah, there was that accountability aspect of like, all right, we’re in here for an hour and a half. We’re just going to get it done and like, move on. But then, you know, when you’re out of that setting, it’s definitely easier to go and be like, well, ten by three on squats today. It kind of sounds rough. Maybe I’ll. Yeah, like maybe I’ll do four by four.
James Cerbie: I don’t really want to do this.
Luke Vitale: Yeah. You like racialize in your head. You’re like, well you know, if the efforts there then like that’s all that matters, but you know, what are we doing. And so yeah, it was kind of funny, like it was kind of like a little flashback to that group training environment, which was which is definitely key.
James Cerbie: Yeah. And I think what you just hit on there is important for two reasons. One, it’s like when you walk into the weight room and like you’re not having to think about what you’re going to do because the plan is just laid out for you. And then to you know that there are going to be a group of people that are also doing like they’re also showing up to put in the work that day. Yeah, it’s like they may not be there with you in person because we can only make that happen so often.
But it’s like in the back of your mind, you’re like I know TJ showing up to get it today and he’s going to post in the forum how he did. And if I don’t do it and don’t post, then I’m probably going to get shit for not doing it right. These people are going to hold me accountable. They’re going to hold me to a different standard. And so it’s like that’s where that whole team camaraderie competition bit is like.
That’s really the gasoline on the fire that takes a that takes like a good program and a good training experience and makes it really exceptional. At least that’s what we found over the past handful of years.
Luke Vitale: And I don’t want anyone to get the impression that in college I was some like stuff lifter in the gym I wasn’t. But truthfully, on my team, I was one of the stronger athletes, not necessarily one of the most athletic. They’re different, but it is myself and one of my good friends, Josh, who were probably like the most weightlifting oriented a star athlete.
But like, he and I were usually like the top dogs in the gym, so. Going into Apex and seeing some of the people in the testing week, putting the numbers down that they were putting down, it was definitely like, oh, shit, like I got some big dudes in there. Like, yeah, I’m not like I’m not even really, like, near the top of the totem pole here. And again, not to not to sound too full of myself, like that’s not who I am as a person.
But yeah. So it was it was cool to be in a group of guys that and I think there are a few females on there too. But just being like, oh shit, like this dude is making five hundred look just stupid light. Meanwhile until a few until. Two or three weeks ago, that was a number I’ve never touched. So it was a really cool kind of experience to be surrounded by people much stronger than yourself or myself.
Surrounding Yourself with Others Who Will Push You
James Cerbie: Yeah, there’s got like two things going on there. And I had a really similar experience coming out of college. And it’s like I think one of the worst things that that you can have in your life is to be a big fish in a small pond. It’s like being a big fish in a small pond is the kiss of death because it’s like you don’t have the people there to push you and challenge you. You maybe get a little bit complacent, whatever it is.
Right. And like the second piece there is, there is this like attractive force that happens when you’re in like a group of people all working towards similar goals and you have people scattered across the spectrum, people who are better than you have certain things worse than you are, certain things, et cetera, et cetera. But then you can log in every day and you see these people hitting these numbers. It just becomes ingrained in your mind that, oh, that’s doable.
Yeah. If you don’t see it happening consistently, sometimes it can feel like this really far off thing that you’re never going to be able to get to. But when you see people doing it every single day and that culture is there, you’re just like, oh, like this is going to happen. Like, I’m going to make this happen. Like, it doesn’t become a question of like, can I do this anymore? It’s just a matter of when is it going to happen?
It’s like the first time what’s his name runs a four minute mile. Everyone’s like, well, you can’t run a four minute mile. And like, the minute someone did it and they could see that he did it, it opened the floodgates. And like that perception changes. And so that’s what’s great about the group, is that across different metrics, strength or power or endurance, you have these people who are almost functioning like gravity. They’re like pulling everyone towards them.
Because people realize like, oh, that’s doable, I can do that.
Luke Vitale: Well, like, I just I remember like a time when, like I mean, like for plates for me, I’m still like, oh, that’s like a barbell. But like seeing consistently in the group, people like slapping on like five or six plates on my right. Well like maybe that looks like maybe that’s not as daunting anymore. Yeah. Unfortunately on the trapped bar that I was on, it was like sixty five pounds. So five hundred was like four plates and.
I don’t know, just a massive change plates, but seeing other people. Consistently like posting those numbers in like. Videos with a lot of plates on a bar like this, like this isn’t some far off like fantasy and I think that was also a huge thing for me. Yeah, I don’t know really where I was, where I’m going with this. But like, when I think back to when I was like squatting in high school, like I didn’t have a really have a super strong squat by any means, but like two seventy five like two plates and a quarter on the bars, I was like that’s pretty good.
Whatever I look like that looks good. And I think like the first time I hit three fifteen I was like, oh OK. Like now three plates is kind of like that’s the market. Like I need to be consistently able to hit three plates and I’m like, you know, like four is next. And I think once I, once I get there again, like five plates is going to be like closer than I ever really think it has been.
I don’t know if that makes sense. It’s less of me rambling.
James Cerbie: But nothing like the perception there is so important, like the perception in your mind of the thing that you’re trying to achieve, this task you’re trying to achieve. And a lot of this also just comes back to that same idea of it doesn’t really matter like what metric in life we were to measure. You’re going to be the average of the five people that you probably surround yourself with the most.
Right. And so if you surround yourself with a bunch of strong, jacked, powerful people who are supportive and we’re all in this similar path in life, but you can’t help but be like that.
Luke Vitale: Yeah, you have to. You have to otherwise, soon enough, you’re just like they’re not going to want to have you bring them down. That totally makes sense. And it was definitely like, yeah. Having people in that group just. Yeah, you’re right. It is kind of like a gravity that was kind of like pull you up that way because I honestly like I if you told me that I would have put what was it.
45 pounds on the deadlift right around.
James Cerbie: Yeah. You went from 455 to 500. Yeah.
Luke Vitale: I like I would have yeah. I would have laughed in your face.
James Cerbie: I love it. So what were I think we kind of hit on these already but hit on some of them potentially. Now that you’ve gone through it, think about kind of how your training has been previously, the experience working through the program with us. What were some of your really big lessons and takeaways from the experience?
Big Takeaways From Joining the Training Team
Luke Vitale: Like personally going forward or.
James Cerbie: Yeah, like big lessons, big takeaways, things that you’re like, I need to make sure I keep doing this, I’m going to take this with me moving forward.
Luke Vitale: I did not think. I mean, like those Metcons sucked, they suck like almost like a little bit of Stockholm syndrome going on, we’re like totally like as I started doing on, I’m like, I don’t know, like. Here they got a place in my heart, I don’t know.
They slowly become everybody’s like favorite part of the program. It’s actually really funny, like just a little bit of, like, God that everyone loves. Everyone loves to brag about how much something sucked that they did. You know, you do that on Saturday and on your site, you go out with your friends or whatever, you’re like, oh man, like I have the worst like Metcon shit today, like, oh, God, I’m so beat up.
Everyone loves to brag about how they are. So I think I think throw in some of those in my programing going forward. That’ll probably be like at least once a week. Besides that, I think just like looking at what I’m programing a little like, yeah, more deliberately, I guess, and just not getting so bogged down in what minimal change I can make to the program every week and every exercise. And like, you know, I’m going to change the tempo every week to provide a certain stimulus there.
I’m going to change the set up schemes every week because it needs to progress. Right, like or like. Hey, how about. Yeah, maybe for my accessories for this block, I’ll just do three. But then maybe on the fourth week I’ll go for about ten and I’ll just try and hit a heavier weight each week or I’ll try and match last week’s top set for two sets this time. And so like I think that is probably my biggest takeaway because that was my biggest issue before.
It was just like getting way too cute, way too bogged down with the little things that like, yes, they matter. But if you’re changing them every week or just not adhering to them, then it doesn’t matter because they’re not doing what you planned for them to do. And besides that, I kind of like the idea of like if you’re going to make any big changes week to week, make them in like your main lift. So like in APEX, it seemed like that was the squat bench and deadlifting was like that’s where things were changing the most and not a whole lot.
It was usually just like I think the AMRAP are great. I used to use them a lot in my programing. I don’t know why, why I took them out, like why I stopped doing them. It was probably because I saw a post on Instagram like, hey, you don’t need to train to failure to stimulate hypertrophy anymore. And I was like, yeah, like I’m just going to throw it all out the window, but like being exposed to them again.
I was like, oh man, I forgot how awesome these things are, because if you could program the same thing week to week and have an amateur, and then if you add three reps to that, like I made progress from last week. So yeah, I think, I think like limiting. The fuzz is my biggest takeaway.
James Cerbie: Yeah, I think kind of what you’re getting at there in terms of when I’m thinking about putting together programs, I’m always thinking, OK, how can I game if I have this for the end user? Like, how can I put in little places daily and weekly where it becomes a game and a competition with themselves to be like, oh, well, can I just do a little bit better here? Can I do a little bit better there? Right.
Because that’s what we’re that’s what we’re trying to create for the athlete is like that internal competition so that there’s always that, like, little bar to beat the next time they’ll go in and they’re not having to sit there being like, oh, I don’t know what I’m going to try to do today. And then the like, the arm wraps, et cetera. It’s like I always on the big lifts. That’s one of the biggest things across the board.
One of the reasons I think we’re so successful is that, like our maiden lifts are always, always going to have some form of auto regulatory component to them. Something will be question marked. I’m not like this all knowing wizard who can predict exactly what 100 athletes are going to feel like on one day. So the only way that I can ensure that each person is working to where they need to be on that day is a question mark, something in the big lifts to give them that ability to auto regulate?
Luke Vitale: Yeah, I think that’s huge. And you’re like in my head, even though, like, I didn’t really get there myself the with the game of buying things and making it a competition. And again, like, I’m not I’ve never been like an endurance athlete and I know a 12 minute rower is not really a ton of endurance. But I think I hit like a ten minute to row the first week and then the next I came in when I did that was like 10.
Got a break. I got to break that, like, I got to get a little faster than that. And I think I ended up over like three weeks. I dropped my 2k row to like eight minutes. I was like, oh shit. Like for example, like I’ve never really, never really thought about like. Actually pushing myself on something like that, because I’ve always just been like, that’s boring, but like you take a boring exercise and you make it like a little mini competition and all of a sudden it’s like fun again, because, like, if you’ve ever been an athlete, you are competitive on some level.
So like just something as simple as going in competition, it’s like a game changer.
Why You Should Join the Training Team
James Cerbie: For sure man. Excellent. So last question I’m going to ask you here. If somebody is listening to this and they’ve been on the fence for a little while about jumping on board. With rebel training in the US for three, four, five, six months, whatever it’s going to be, if they’re still in there, they’re kind of on the fence. What would your recommendation be? What would you tell them based off of your experience and the results that you got?
Luke Vitale: Do it. I mean, yeah, I’m like I’m so glad that I did, because I’m just thinking about, like what I was doing before and I don’t know, like I’d probably still be ripping like a four or five deadlift for, like, heavy singles and. Yeah, I don’t know, like. The progress that I made was just like stupid, I’ve never I’ve never seen that type of progress in such a short period of time. And like, if you’re if you’re programing for yourself and you’re feeling kind of bogged down, like it was so nice to just not have to worry about it, not having to program for myself and just be able to just go into the gym, look at my phone, see what I have to do, do it and then be able to compete with other people doing the same thing.
That was huge. Is this a great experience all around? And definitely kind of pushed me. So I put a little more into it, because it’s so easy for like when you’re in the gym by yourself to just rationalize, like not doing something or maybe doing a little bit less of something. But when you see other people doing it, you’re like, you know, this guy that he got in and he did eat it all nine working cents plus an AMRAP like.
I got to hit the AMRAP set. I think that was like the first week, I don’t think I did any of I think I just did the eight by five or whatever. And then after that, I saw, like, everyone had done the ten plus the AMRAP. And I was like, all right. And I don’t think I think every week after that, besides maybe one on the squats when I was like, I think every week after that I did the 10 sets and and tried to like, set up an AMRAP PR kind of thing.
So, yeah, if you’re thinking about it, I would just do it. I think it’s worth it and I’m sure I’ll be I’ll be back again not too long. I definitely do want to kind of get see where I’m at with the Olympic weightlifting stuff. I’d love to hopefully do a lifting competition without any expectations of like placing or doing well, but just to do a competition, then I’m sure I’ll be back.
James Cerbie: So beautiful, man. I love it. Luke, thank you so much for coming on, brother. It was a blast having you on board for these past three and a half ago. Four months to do. You absolutely mashed you crushed it. I think you’re just beginning to scratch the surface of your potential, what you’re really capable of. So, yeah, man, thank you. Thanks for showing up. Put on the effort and put in the work.
Luke Vitale: Thanks. I appreciate that. I had a great time. So thank you.
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