Joe Rogan’s weightlifting philosophy actually makes an awful lot of sense

In case you didn’t notice, Joe Rogan is absolutely jacked.

The long-time UFC commentator has a better physique than plenty of fighters whose bouts he finds himself calling on Saturday nights and it comes as no surprise.

Rogan has been an athlete all his life, kickboxing as a teenager before becoming interested in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a discipline in which he holds a black belt under the esteemed Eddie Bravo.

But Rogan supplements his martial arts training with a regimented strength and conditioning programme which typically involves equipment from the Onnit brand with which he is affiliated.

An advocate of functional strength, Rogan prefers kettlebells, battle ropes and maces to more traditional weightlifting equipment.

And who’s to question the method? Just look at the results.

But if you were of the opinion that Rogan is one of those meatheads who exhaust their bodies to the point of fatigue then you’d be wrong.

The 49-year-old is very cerebral when it comes to working out and he’s a loyal follower of the philosophy of Belarusian fitness expert Pavel Tsatsouline.

“I follow the Pavel Tsatsouline protocol,” Rogan explained on a recent episode of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. “Where say if I can do 10 reps of something, I never do 10. I do five.

“If I’m doing something heavy. Like if I’m doing 90lbs clean press squats where I’m holding 90lbs over my head, I could probably do 10 of those but I’ll only do four or maybe five.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRj6n5Z_Q-E

“I don’t go to failure. I don’t believe in going to failure. What I think you’re best off doing is less repetitions but more often. So instead of doing one day where you blow your whole fucking system out and you do ‘ONE MORE BRO, COME ON. ONE MORE!!’ And then the next day you can barely walk.

“I think, and this is what Pavel says, and this is what a company call StrongFirst recommends… there’s a few people at the front of the line when it comes to what you would call functional fitness and functional strength. It’s what Pavel calls ‘greasing the groove,’ which means to do it more often but not to failure.

“So instead of having one workout every three days where you blow your body out, have one workout every day where you don’t blow your body out. And you’ll get stronger quicker.

“There’s no reason in nature why you would go to failure. Why would you go to failure in nature? You wouldn’t!

“How do animals and people and farmers get strong? Farmers don’t get ridiculously fucking strong from going to failure every day. They get ridiculously strong from consistently taxing their bodies, moving bales of hay and picking up heavy things.

“You do that consistently and you get stronger and stronger so that’s mostly what I do.”