Tactical Fitness Report with Stew Smith Podcast · Stew Smith

SEAL - Sleep, Eat, and Lift + LIVE QA with Stew Smith

July 16, 2025·1 hr 3 min·5 clips

Stu Smith starts the session by welcoming listeners to the Monday live Q&A. The topic, as people gather, is hard gainers. He frames it as the familiar frustration of young lifters who want to get bigger but struggle to put on weight. He reaches for the old line that if you want to be big, you have to eat big and lift big. He follows that with one of his favorite acronyms for SEAL: sleep, eat, and lift. He says he has been using that language since the 1980s. He also points listeners to studies he found through Nick Beringer's Instagram and says those studies helped explain how to gain weight. He mentions a related Tactical Fitness Report podcast about how to gain weight when you just cannot seem to gain weight. He notes that the problem is especially real for young people who are still growing. The live Q&A then shifts into swim coaching. He talks about side stroke and freestyle as useful pairings. He explains that when a shoulder or elbow is irritated, a swimmer can change the work balance by using side stroke with the hurt side underneath. He describes the bottom arm in side stroke as doing very little, almost like a small breaststroke skull. He says the top arm can still do a full freestyle catch, breathe, kick, and recover underwater. He treats that as a useful option, not a magic fix. He also pushes the idea that having more than one stroke or kick matters. He says he likes teaching a range of options in swimming and treading water. He gives examples such as breaststroke kick and eggbeater for treading. He says variety helps when a hamstring cramps or when a scissor kick starts feeling wrong. He then answers a question from a midshipman in SAR school about rocket fins. He says rocket fins and jet fins can wreck the ankles and shins if a person has not built up to them. He emphasizes that getting into a program that requires them without preparation is a good way to get hurt. The answer is short and blunt, and it fits the live format. Later he moves to pull-up grip advice. He says his grip has evolved over the years. He describes shifting away from one older grip and using a mountain-climber style grip with the thumb positioned differently. He says that lets the forearms last much longer. He contrasts that with the false grip he uses for shorter sets. He says he uses the newer grip when he is doing 150 or 200 pull-ups in a workout. He says he uses the false grip when the total is more like 50 to 100. He tells listeners to try it and see whether it helps. The whole session stays practical, a little loose, and very specific. It sounds like a coach answering real questions from people who are trying to train without breaking down.

As heard by us

Plainspoken coaching for hard gainers who want to get bigger without overcomplicating it.

Stu Smith uses a live Q&A to answer a problem many new trainees hit fast: they want size, but their body will not cooperate. He keeps the advice plain. Eat big and lift big, or, in his own shorthand, sleep, eat, and lift.

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Need a direct answer for getting bigger when the scale will not budge?

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