Ep.17 - Interview with Lyndon Purcell - Critical Thinking, Reading Books, Algorithms and Programming for Hypertrophy

The Science to Muscle Podcast

Today I have the pleasure to speak with Lyndon Purcell, someone who I've been keen to have a lengthy conversation with since knowing him on Instagram, he has a unique way to articulate his thoughts which is the result of exposing himself to a variety of topics mainly from books, thoughts that he's now writing down on a series of articles on his blog https://thereforethink.org/ Lyndon has a Bachelor degree in Sports and Exercise Science and a Master in High Performance Sports, he works at JPS Health & Fitness as a coach, content producer, and he is also part of their menthorship program.

In the first half of this episodes we have a chat on a broad range of topics starting from why reading books is so important, critical thinking and then we dive into computer science and algorithms. In the second half we address a few topics where people have different opinions when it comes to training programming such as deloads, set progressions, training to failure and intensity techniques.

Below is the timestamp of the episode divided by topics so that if you're not that into general topics you can skip right to the training conversation, I hope you enjoy it because I certainly did!

Timestamp (books and computer science):

1:20 The idea behind creating his blog

5:00 Emotional vs analytical thinking

8:45 The importance to read books outside the scope of our expertise

13:30 How to find time to read books and thoughts on speed reading

18:00 Short term gratification and its effect on productivity

20:40 Books Lyndon is reading at the moment

23:40 Lyndon experience with Computer Science and Programming

28:00 Feedback timeframes in computer programming vs training programming

29:30 Theory vs practical experience: what is more important to train people?

33:50 Validity and correctness of claims in computer science vs exercise science

36:40 Online resources to study algorithms

39:00 The importance of optimization in computer science

44:40 The four color theorem and Machine Learning

50:00 Complexity theory and derandomization

Timestamp (training):

54:10 Preplanned vs reactive deloads

1:03:00 Dealing with clients that always want to do more

1:07:00 Set progressions throughout a mesocycle

1:12:00 Performance-based decision making in taking deloads

1:16:30 Functional overreaching and the importance of experimenting

1:23:20 The physiology of hypertrophy and mechanical tension

1:26:00 Increasing sets to improve work capacity and recoverability

1:29:30 Benefits of fluctuating intensity and volume overtime

1:37:00 The problem with being attached to a certain training approach

1:39:30 High rep training and the effective reps model

1:47:20 Where to find Lyndon

1:49:00 Social media and how they negatively affect productivity

Lyndon contacts:

Instagram @l.j.purcell

Blog https://thereforethink.org/

JPS website https://www.jpshealthandfitness.com.au/