Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive
Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Aia.
[music]
Jeff, man, thank you again for coming
back to Austin. So good to see you
again.
>> I'm super happy to be back here.
>> You've been here in the heat, you've
been here in the cool. It's all great,
right?
>> This is a beautiful place. We were
talking to the uh driver on the way over
and he uh I said, "Where's the one place
in Texas that I should if if you were to
choose one place?" He says, "Honestly,
Austin, because it offers the most
diverse opportunities and not just, you
know, the night life, but it has the the
scenery, the culture." So, I love it.
>> Awesome. We'll try to get you to move
here.
>> Yeah. [laughter]
Um, well, there's a lot I want to chat
about with you today. Um, and I also
realize that for some people listening
or watching right now, they might not
know a lot about you. Um so maybe just
briefly te tell tell tell us a little
bit about uh your your journey to to
here um we didn't talk about it really
on the round table so maybe just explain
a little bit about how you found your
way to doing what you're doing right
now.
>> Sure. So I think grow growing up I
always wanted to get ultimately involved
in some career where I could help people
or educate because I always loved doing
that. My father was a doctor. I had uh
aspirations at one point as the third
kid of three to maybe become a doctor
cuz no one else had. But uh for me, I
always had this other love of sports
though, too. So, if I could figure out a
way that I could get into working with
athletes at the same time that I could
help people, not just a athletes,
because that's a smaller population,
then I would find I I would feel would
be my perfect fit. Well, I started being
able to uh work strictly with athletes
as I got a job with the New York Mets.
I'm a physical therapist. I was our head
physical therapist for uh three seasons
and then
left to pursue whatever this was
ultimately going to become. But I I
started pretty early making videos for
YouTube, educational videos for YouTube,
uh focused on trying to take the lessons
that I learned from training with top
level athletes and apply them to people
who are never going to get paid to do
this, are never going to get a pro
contract, but just wanted to be able to
benefit from
what they need to focus on to perform at
such a high level because I think we all
have a lot more we can do if we focus on
the right things. And I started off with
a couple videos and the next thing you
knew a couple more, you know,
subscribers and I saw that there was an
opportunity to continue to pursue that
path. And I did. And ultimately here we
are now almost 15 million subscribers.
Uh doing what I've done since day one,
which is just trying to use the platform
to educate and empower people with the
techniques and strategies to from both
the realms of rehab as a physical
therapist and strength and conditioning
as what my other role was with the Mets.
Because to me, they're all one
continuum. Like if you're hurt, you're
just less functional at the moment. But
as you become able to get higher and
higher levels of function, you could get
to extreme levels of function and
capabilities, and that's athleticism.
>> And so when what year did you start the
channel in earnest?
>> 2009 is when I actually started to make
content for it. My my years with the
Mets were 2006, 7, and 8.
>> When you think about the evolution of
the channel, right, there's so much
content on there. Um, how do you think
about that from the standpoint of injury
prevention? Um, to a lot of the stuff
that I actually uh probably discovered
you maybe on Instagram a few years ago,
maybe a little longer than that. I've
been following you for quite a while.
Um, but a lot of it is on honestly like
why why is it that when you're doing a
lat pull down, you're not getting the
right engagement? Like this is geared
towards function and hypertrophy as you
said. Like this is not about an injury.
This is about making progress. Um, how
has the has that been an evolution for
you or have you always provided
information on that continuum? I've
always provided people information on
that continuum because I feel that's the
part where my skill as a physical
therapist comes in because if you're in
a rehab setting and somebody comes to
you with whatever ailment they have at
the moment and they need help, you will
never be able to follow the playbook as
instructed or as written or as the
protocol comes, you know, that says this
is what you're doing one week later, two
weeks later, 3 weeks posttop, whatever.
something always comes up where that
individual has something that doesn't
feel right or they don't have the range
of motion that's expected or something
is preventing the playbook from being
able to be executed. That's where you
need to be flexible enough to be able to
say, "Well, what? Okay, try this
instead." Even it could just be simply
moving your leg further out into
abduction to then go do a leg lift. All
of a sudden, painfree motion again.
They're able to do the the activity. So
if you don't have that ability to have a
lot of flexibility in your approach,
then I don't think you can effectively
perform a rehab on somebody. It's no
different in weight training and
strength training. Like there not every
exercise will feel great for every
person or feel as effective as it
should. there's tips that you can give
them to increase the the stimulus that
you're feeling and that might work for
almost everybody, but there's still
going to be people who don't have that,
you know, effect with the exercise
they're doing. So, you need to find
exercise number two or three. And the
beautiful thing about strength and
conditioning is there's never just one
option. There's usually like hundreds of
options to to to go to. So, if you're
diverse in your in your playbook, you're
you're going to be able to do that. So,
I think over the years, my ability to to
navigate even similar issues, I've
covered I've done 1,700 videos at this
point. I mean, we've covered a lot of
the same issues twice, but coming at it
from a different angle and making it
click for somebody for the first time
because we're explaining it slightly
differently is probably where the the
power is. You've probably observed the
same thing that many people have
observed, which is um some combination
of the human attention span appears to
be getting shorter and shorter and
platforms seem to recognize that and
prioritize uh shorter and shorter
content. Now, I I think I'm a bit of an
unusual person in that I don't like
short form content. I really like long-
form content. I like watching a 20inute
video where I will learn something in
depth that's at the you know the
master's level uh as opposed to uh a one
minute video that just you know shows me
something sort of at a superficial level
that obviously even if it's correct it's
it's incomplete. Um, how has your uh
ability to provide content evolved in
that environment and and are you still
making a lot of long- form content and
and how have you basically struggled
with trying to educate people as much as
you can but understanding that your
opportunity to do so like every one of
us is trying to educate people is is you
know it's narrowing. It's been a a a
huge challenge for me personally and I
think even for obtaining the information
that I do like to obtain because I like
you, I like to find that long form
content. I like to dive deep. I I have
no problem taking a three-hour podcast
or even just a 40minute video and
chunking it down into sessions so that I
can watch 10 minutes now and then watch
10 minutes again later. I have no
problem with that. I what I don't like
is the watering down or the thinning out
of the content specifically because it
needs to fit this format, this short
form format. And
what you're forced to do as an educator
is to pick and choose the things that
you think are going to be the the most
impactful, but you're not really even
given the the opportunity to explain
why. And so I'll give you a great sound
bite, but is the sound bite really
valuable if you don't also understand
why? Because unless you remember or
memorize that sound bite and can
implement whatever the soundbite is
telling you to do. If you forget the
why, then you may never be able to
actually understand why you're doing
what you were told. And that is why I've
always done long form content because I
want to have the opportunity to explain
the, you know, to explain. We have a
joke internally at my company where they
say sets and reps please cuz that's what
people literally will say [laughter] in
comments. They like they'll bypass the
entire explanation of why which again I
feel is not just I'm not trying to make
a long video. I'm trying to give you the
information that you need to be able to
implement this not just on whatever I'm
teaching you in that video but other
things too. I
sets and reps please is basically the
punchline to like I don't want to hear
any of that. I just want to know, tell
me the what. And I struggle. I still
struggle. But I I I will always continue
to make long form content. Now, we've
had to make short form content. I've had
to take clips from these longer videos
and convert them into things that we can
present in short form format. I have had
to make them more intentionally engaging
in the first three seconds because I
know that is the attention span of the
person who's about ready to flip that
thumb one more time and skip right past
me to have something that's going to
catch their eye just so that I can I
have the opportunity to teach them
whatever I think is going to be
valuable. I think that's a game that
kind of sucks to be honest with you, but
it's sort of part of what social media
is evolving into.
>> Well, the good news is I don't know how
many minutes we're into this discussion.
probably 10 or so. Um I can assure you
that any of the people that need to um
get hooked in the first 3 seconds are
not only gone from [laughter] this.
They're they're like they're 10 steps
from it. So anybody who's still sticking
around is in this for the long haul. So
we should not be apologetic for the fact
that we're going to talk about many
topics in depth. Um, okay. Let's start
with well, one other kind of personal
question that I think helps sets the set
the stage, Jeff, is um
>> help people understand your own personal
injury history, right? I mean, we all
you don't get to be in your 50s like we
are without a lot of stripes on your
back. Yeah.
>> And and I think that can also explain
sort of where you're coming from. So, I
know of at least two injuries you've
had. you probably had more like what
what are some of the major sports
injuries, training injuries that you've
experienced?
>> The most significant injuries that I
deal with on a daily basis are probably
a result of poor training advice,
overzealous attempts to become something
that I wasn't, you know, in my teens and
early 20s in terms of being a a lifter
or a bodybuilder.
and most of all not correcting some of
the issues that I knew were there but I
felt were like old man issues when I was
20. So for instance I have incredibly
flat feet. If I took my shoes off now
and stood you think I have flippers on
my feet. That is how bad they are. There
is no arch in my feet. Knowing now what
the implications of that could be with
every single step you take being having
to be the consequences of those absorbed
somewhere else up the kinetic chain. My
knees, my hips, my back. I would have
done something back then to become a lot
more diligent with finding the right
orthotic with actually staying true to
wearing the damn thing, you know, not
taking it out because it was
uncomfortable in one shoe or it wasn't
really, you know, I couldn't wear my
favorite shoes because of it. So,
that had a lot of repercussions on my my
knees for that I feel every day now
still every day. Now, there's things
I've been able to do and work around
which we can talk about cuz I believe
you should be training no matter what
your pains are. There's ways to train
around them. But I have been able to
navigate that. Now, the other one that I
significantly deal with is in my right
shoulder, torn labum, 50% tear my
suppinatus rotator cuff, degeneration in
that shoulder as a result of the torn
labum. the your labum is basically there
to provide a nice level of support
inside the joint. When you tear that and
that bone and that bone is able to kind
of move around a lot more freely than it
should without the stability, you can
get a lot more accelerated arthritis and
degeneration in that shoulder. I was
told that I had the shoulder of an
80-year-old person. So, I'm only 50.
That's a little disconcerting, but right
now that doesn't actually hurt. So, I'm
able to do almost anything in the gym
that's not unwise
because I' i've learned how to sort of
train around those things, but it's
always going to be persistent there. To
be clear, you have a 50% laboral tear
and you independent of that tore the
rotator cuff. Yes. And you have at least
a 50% tear in did you say infraspanatus
or suppinatus?
>> Super suppatus.
>> Um, and the other three muscles are do
you know this?
>> They're they should be they're pretty
intact. Yeah.
>> And how many years ago was that? Um, so
that was actually the funny the funny
part about my uh that injury because
that I've told this story before that
was on a day or on a bet.
>> Oh, I know this story.
>> Yeah. So I I I I was coaching with the
New York Mets and it was my second year
with them and so I was very comfortable
around the guys at that point. We're
definitely would be known to to ride
each other's weak points and and where
their insecurities would be. And I think
they all knew I wanted to be an athlete
one day. I wish I was the the baseball
player on the other side, you know, in
uniform. But I picked up a ball one day
and I was standing next to one of our uh
all-star outfielders. And I said to him
just casually cuz we used to do our
conditioning on the out in right field.
I said, "You know what's crazy? It
doesn't look that far from here to third
base. It just doesn't." And he's like,
"Really?" And he hands me the ball. He
goes, "Why don't you try throwing it
there?" I said, "It's not It's not
that."
>> How close are you to the wall?
>> Uh oh, we're on the warning track. So
just just in front of the warning track.
So it you know it but it
>> see to me it looks far as hell by the
way. But okay
>> to me it didn't look so bad. I mean
maybe again
>> No, but I think when you're on the field
it's different.
>> It is different. It was definitely
different. Things look a little closer.
So I uh [laughter] he handed me the
ball. I said, "What do I get if I do
it?" He says, "1,000 bucks." And so I
said, "All right, give it to me." And I
basically crow hopped about three steps
or so. I backed up a little bit, crowd,
threw it. As soon as I let it go, I
don't even remember seeing the ball
land, but I think it was somewhere
around second base that it landed and
bounced and and rolled pathetically
towards third base. I I uh I felt like a
zipper-l like pain in my shoulder and I
knew that I had just screwed up and uh
it was pretty pretty debilitating for
the, you know, the next couple weeks in
terms of that really acute injury. But
then I was able to, of course, I still
had to go to work every day. And but
there's a lot of laughing that went on
at my expense. My my my ego was hurt way
more than than uh than my shoulder at
the time. But uh I've since lived with
that cuz that was never repaired. And
and I went through some periods where I
could not train
with a variety of exercises without
pain. Like it it's impossible.
Impossible. And I tried all different
ways. I did everything I just mentioned
to you before, the slight angling of the
arm and the changing of the and nothing
nothing would work except for completely
getting away from some of those
irritating exercises and then getting
into some other other movement patterns.
And I was able to get back to the point
where now I can bench press and I can I
don't barbell bench press, but I
dumbbell bench press and I'm able to I'd
say pretty much do a a full training
routine without limitation from the
shoulder. I do know that if I were to go
do something like let's say a dip too
low and I do this sometimes trying to
demonstrate the wrong way to do things
and I'll show okay don't do this and and
I'll I'll feel it for days after. So,
unless I'm intentionally trying to show
a mistake, if I were to do something
dumb, like if I were to try to uh
attempt a muscle up again, which I've
done, um that could go from feeling so
good right now to back to feeling awful
and it could be for a long period of
time. So, I'm very careful in terms of
the things that I do engage in and don't
do. And when you had that failed throw
to third base, did you sublux as well or
was the torn labum a totally separate
injury that resulted from presumably
subluxations elsewhere in your life?
>> Uh, no, no, no. I had no I never had any
other shoulder issues my whole life. It
was literally that's
>> So that labreum you think came from that
as well?
>> Oh, from that from that tear. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz when you try
to throw it that hard, that quick
velocity, you can you can get a slap
tear from from just that one extreme
effort that was overreaching by
everything I had, you know, basically
adrenaline try driving me to not look
stupid. I did have a nice like uh
punchline to that story. I don't know if
I shared this one last that la last
time, but I was I was subsequently
challenged. This goes to show you how
how dumb I can be with that mentality of
of an athlete. Uh the following year, uh
we're we're at home plate and we're
looking at first base. Now, that looks
very close. I don't care even if you're
sitting in the stands, this doesn't look
that far, but that's 30 yards. And so I
said, "Isn't it crazy how like how
quarterbacks who throw the ball like 60
yards in the air is like that's a huge
fe. They talk about how incredible it
is." I said, "That's 30. That's half the
distance right there. You could throw
this on a regular pass." So, knowing
what I did the previous year, another
player stepped up and challenged me to
see if I could throw a football 60
yards. So, 60 yards. 60 yards. How did
you go from 30 to 60?
>> Cuz I said it was it's only half the
distance to this accomplishment of 60
yards. That's so like I could do that my
eyes closed right now.
>> You can see how I can I can tend to put
myself in in horrible situations
quickly. But I I was then challenged to
do that. and we got out of spring
training, went to Miami where we opened
up our season and of course there's a
football field there. So we played on a
on a converted football field back
before they moved into the new stadium
and uh they walked off 60 yards for me.
This time it wasn't just one player. The
whole team gathered around. Everybody's
there and I had they had someone pace
out 60 yards and I had the football. I
crow hopped a few times. I threw it I I
threw it 60 yards. though when we were
at
>> some redemption
>> some redemption when I got to
>> sorry this is only one year after you've
torn the rotator cuff in the labor
>> and this is what's so great about this
story
>> is not that I threw it 60 yards which by
the way I was handed $1,000 in cash
shortly thereafter so they they they did
they did uh you know uh hold up to their
end of the bargain what's interesting
about that is the only difference was
the plane that you're throwing in you
know when you're a baseball player and
you're throwing and you're out here,
there's so much stress on the shoulder
and the rotator cuff from here. When
you're in this position here, like a
football player,
you there's so much less stress. You're
putting your body into what we call the
scapular plane. You got a lot of triceps
that are helping this, you know, this
this this movement. It feels completely
differently. I don't have the pain and
stress in my shoulder when I throw from
there. So, how is it that one person not
only destroys their shoulder doing the
other thing, but does something that
somebody from the outside would be
looking at is the same thing. Oh, he's
throwing again.
>> But it's not. It's a completely
different throw.
>> Now, pardon my ignorance, Jeff, but I
understand why a pitcher would be out
here because they often want to put spin
on the ball. But if you're the
outfielder and you don't need to put
spin on the ball and you're just going
for distance, why wouldn't you mimic the
quarterback's mechanics? Probably a good
question, but I think that you're able
to get more torque from out here.
Obviously, that's because you have that
longer distance in the arm. So, you're
able to throw that ball further and
faster. Uh, with a football, usually
your targets aren't as far down the
field. And when they are, your your your
desire is going to be to arc them and
lead them. It's more timing than
anything. I think when you're trying to
throw for maximum velocity, you're going
to want to rely on that longer arc of of
movement. And when you're an outfielder,
ball's got to get there fast. You got to
throw the guy out at second base, third
base, like I tried, you know, or home.
So to get maximum velocity, you're going
to probably want to be out out there
mechanically in and a and a a football
player can they can they can do it with
a strong arm in distances of 20 or 30
yards, 15 yards, 10 yards. But when
you're throwing long and deep, usually
got so much arc that you don't have to
have as much of that speed, but just the
arm strength to get it out there. when
you look at some of the the greats,
right, who like so let's take Bo Jackson
as an example and and obviously for you
and I I mean that's like we we can
remember every single play he ever had.
I realize that there were some people
maybe too young to remember what it was
like to watch Bo Jackson, but
>> but one never got the impression that Bo
was got that way through training. Like
he literally just seemed like he I don't
know was somehow born knowing how to do
what he did. Is that because his natural
innate talent was around the mechanics
of throwing or do you think that there
are innate differences in the structure
of the rotator cuff that would enable
him to get away with a a higher torqued
position? I think that the idea that
athletes are born is not entirely
accurate and I also think that athletes
are made is not entirely accurate. I
don't think that people who are
unathletic can achieve the highest
levels of athleticism simply by spending
the 20,000 hours, right? And and vice
versa. So when you look at a guy like Bo
Jackson with these outliers as just
tremendous athletes, they are always
going to have
characteristics that make them the
outlier. They're going to have higher
percentage of type two fibers. are going
to have because we have a lot of muscles
where we have distribution of type one
and type two slow twitch fast twitch
they're going to be a lot more twitchy
is what we say um they're going to have
stronger
mind muscle connection so when they go
to do something the reason why it looks
so easy when they pick something up for
the first time is that the coordination
cap requirements that are that are tough
for a lot of us even just getting on a
bike and trying to coordinate that they
they pick these things up so easily most
of all because I think they have great
neuromuscular efficiency. They can do
what they're telling their muscles to
do. And I believe they have amazing
propriception, which is another
perception of your body's ability, your
body's position in space, or really what
your joints position is in space that a
lot of us have to learn and practice and
get good at. They have inherently great
propriceptive
intelligence. I think we when you can
put all those things together and then
you have someone who's actually very
fast because speed isn't something
everybody has either. When they're fast,
when they're explosive, twitchy, as I
said, strong, now you're able to do
things and and again, when you could
pick these skills up so quickly, you're
able to do things that look almost
effortless that others would would would
require a lot of effort to even make it
look like they're they're they're doing
it right, let alone doing it at the
level that they're doing it. So, I mean,
Bo Jackson, he he was a
once-in-a-lifetime athlete. He really
was. He was uh it's just amazing how
short his career was because of injury.
And that's another thing. No matter who
you are, you might you might recover
faster because of some of the things we
talked about, but injury is injury,
right? any injury can happen to anybody
at any time, especially in a contact
sport like that where
>> but his was such a freak injury too.
Awful.
>> And um again, you don't see that injury
a lot, right? Like if you said, "Oh, it
was a you know, it was a an ACL or
something like that." you'd say, "Yeah,
yeah, you know, that's a pretty" But,
but to to have the avascular necrosis of
a hip that you know, comes out of I
mean, it's just
>> even like even not knowing cuz I
remember actually when that happened and
>> you know, he went down, he got injured,
and what it could have been at that time
could have been a bunch of different
things, but when it was determined,
okay, it's a hip fracture. But then to
then to heal that way and to heal him
properly and then he develops avascular
necrosis. That's just sort of tragic
especially as a sports fan to see like
that have to happen to him because it
could have healed normally but it it
just didn't. And so that's that's that's
somewhat tragic. Um, uh, one of my best
friends from the Mets, uh, David Wright,
amazingly talented all-star, perennial
all-star, he was fielding a ground ball,
um, at third base, coming in and, uh,
Carlos Lee, big, they called him like
the Cabayo or something like big, big
guy, came down the line and and collided
with him and he broke his back. He had a
uh um a transverse uh fracture of his
lumbar spine. It healed improperly. It
basically healed with a lot of bony spur
formation. Now he gets a lot of
compression on the on the the uh the
nerves there. Fel feels like a hamstring
injury the following year because he's
getting burning down the leg, but it's
not the hamstring that's causing the
problem. And ultimately that that led to
ultimately to his retirement or to him
not being able to play the game that he
was. He was he was a shorefire Hall of
Famer. Shorefire Hall of Famer. And he
from a freak accident that just
continued to cascade in terms of its its
uh healing going g going wrong basically
took him out of the game early. So some
of the greatest athletes we've ever seen
uh can still be brought down by injuries
and and it's tragic when it happens
because it has so much.
>> So when you see athletes that combine
the best of both worlds, which is to say
they they have the skill to be allstars,
But then they also end up having the
career longevity to to realize that
dream. And obviously I I can't think of
a greater example than Tom Brady.
>> Sure.
>> Um who, you know, it always annoys the
hell out of me when people talk about
his lack of athleticism. I mean, it's
the dumbest thing I've ever heard,
right? Like guy's a better athlete than
anyone you've ever seen. Okay, so let's
forget that. Um, but again, what also
allows Tom to go down in history as the
greatest football player in the history
of the sport is that he played so long.
Yeah. And that he did so relatively
injury-free. I mean, he had an ACL
injury that didn't derail him at all.
Missed a year. And
>> so when you when you think about
something like that, now Tom is one of
the most deliberate people in the world
when it comes to how he thinks about
conditioning his body. Um, and one of
the things he talks about a lot is is
pliability.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. and he talks about how at least
at his position it's less important how
strong he is. It's more important about
it's more important how pliable he is.
How trainable do you think that is
across the board? I think it's I think
it's trainable. I think it's it's
basically sometimes avoiding some of the
things that take away pliability. So, if
you're focused on just strength and just
building as big muscles as you possibly
can, then you're going to be trading off
some of the elasticity of that muscle.
So being able to build to a certain
point or try to create as much growth as
possible to a point where you're still
able to functionally use that muscle and
to have the elasticity in that. So that
means you still have to work on your
flexibility. You still have to work your
mobility. I I hate the term muscle bound
because it just sounds like such a a
cliche from the old days, but that is
really essentially what's happening.
when you become muscle bound, you're not
also working in the elements of
flexibility and mobility. And I think
Tom Brady has always done that. He's
never been worried about being Mr.
Olympia, you know, it wasn't his
physique that was leading his success on
the field. It was
>> But it's it it hasn't been for any
quarterback. And yet, it still strikes
me that there's something Tom is doing
different than all the other
quarterbacks, right? Or most of them. I
mean, to me, when I think of Tom Brady,
and I've actually heard this from some
players, that he is the epitome of, and
this is a great because this segus into
anything we're talking about later on in
fitness, consistency. He is the epitome
of consistency. Consistency is the key
that unlocks every single door when it
comes to physical performance or just
overall health and longevity. If you can
stay consistent with what you do, then
you're going to have a lot more
resilience to injury. You're going to
have that uh ability to focus on the
things you know you need to focus on.
And even if you don't like them, I don't
like stretching. I hate stretching, but
being able to show up and continue to do
that, that's the consistency part of it.
He, I'm sure, had so many things that he
did in his preparation that weren't his
favorite things, but it was never a
negotiable of him not doing them. So to
me, I think his superstardom and and his
legendary status comes from his
consistency in doing even the things
that he didn't really want to do. I
think what happens to a lot of people
and even a lot of athletes is that they
tend to they tend to narrow down to the
areas that they like the best or they
they they perform at well. And you're
never going to be as good as you can be
if you always focus on the things you do
well. You have to focus on the things
you don't do well at to sort of round
out and fill in those gaps so that
you're able to create an an end product
that is more
fortified than than not.
>> And that's really a lesson that goes far
beyond trying to be the best player in
the history of the NFL. That's kind of
true for all of us. And you know, you've
heard me talk about this a lot is I do
want everybody to think of themselves as
an athlete. Yeah. And then the sport is
it's not football and it's not, you
know, tennis or necessarily anything
like that. It's just life. Life is a
sport. Um, you know, luckily it's not as
demanding a sport as as being on a
football field, but it's still a sport.
Um, it's a sport where you get to define
the rules. You get to define the uh
objective of the game. Um,
>> but but if you treat it like that and
then you start to adopt an athletes
mindset, the athletes mindset says
there's a distinction between training
and exercise. Training has specificity.
training has sometimes doing things I
don't want to do. Um it means creating a
wellbalanced and structured program and
and again I want to talk about all these
things with you today. Um so let's start
with the idea of
transitions and stages in life. M
>> so um
I'm sure you feel the same way I do, but
like we're half the men we used to be
already and we're we're we're we're not
even there, right? Like
>> being reminded every day.
>> Yeah. And so sometimes people um
I've people have, you know, I've said
this to people in there. They're like, I
don't know what you're talking about.
Like I feel amazing and I'm your age.
And I'm like, it's that's great. I'm
very happy for you that you do, but it's
also you didn't do half of what I did
when I was younger. Like you were sort
of a fat out of shape
>> bump on a log until two years ago. And
so that's why at 55 you feel better than
you did at 53. And that's great. I am
nothing makes me happier than seeing
somebody who's never done anything their
whole life and they're now finding their
own. That's great. But there's another
subset of people like you and I who have
been insanely active our whole lives and
we're still doing fine, but if we're
being brutally honest, we're a fraction
of what we used to be. We don't have the
recovery, we don't have the speed, we
don't have any of those things. So
knowing and understanding the
inevitability of some decline, how how
should people who have been active their
whole life, who are showing up in their
40s and their 50s and their 60s with the
I don't want to say inevitable, but the
very probable wear and tear that came
from doing dumb things when you were
young and experiencing a decline because
you're starting from a higher place. How
do you think about coaching these people
such that they get to 90 and they can
still do everything they want to do? And
by the way, do it at the level of what
we would think of as a fit 65year-old.
That's a good question. Um, first of
all, I think you have to
do what we've done, which is come to the
realization that it isn't exactly like
it was when we were younger. Because
some people will fight that. They'll
fight the fact that things have changed.
still fight the fact that
it might require a longer warm-up than
you used to do, right? Or I used to be
able to do this and it and it did. I
didn't need to um you know, like for
instance, I'll say I used to be able to
do just one quick warm-up set before
getting into my working sets. So, why
can't I do it now? Like I think we fight
that for a while. I did fight it for a
while for sure. Like in probably in the
last 3 to four years was my transition
period to starting to realize and see
some of these changes. And what was the
signal for you that you needed to do
that?
>> More achiness in the morning when I
would wake up from training. Like I'm
okay. I'm accustomed to feeling sore
when I wake up the next day. I think
that's that makes me feel alive. I have
the soreness I'm talking about is not
joint soreness. I'm talking about muscle
soreness. I know I worked a muscle two
days ago or a day ago.
But when it starts to get to be more
joint feel and joint related, I know
that I'm maybe not allowing myself to
recover enough or I'm doing too much at
too quick of a pace or I'm not preparing
myself to do whatever I am doing. And
therefore, I think that's the part of
the warm-up that I wasn't really doing
enough of. And you just have to be
honest with yourself and say, "Hey, what
am I not doing that I could try that is
going to potentially change whatever it
is I'm feeling?" I I think you're going
to feel something though and that is
going to be your sign as to where you
should where you should start and that
for me is usually in the form of like
either that joint soreness like I said
or too much fatigue you know waking up
fatigued maybe even irritability at
things that wouldn't have made you
irritated before. um these are signs
that you might want to start looking
into your recovery and from the recovery
standpoint the the two factors of that
are what is the actual work you're doing
and then what are you doing to prepare
to do that work
>> so sorry in that second category Jeff so
so just make sure understand that the
first category is what are the
activities I'm doing to recover and then
the second is how am I eating sleeping
all the other things that go into
>> what is the actual workout that you're
doing what is the training look like
that you're doing so the training itself
could be problematic because it could be
too much volume. It could be or or what
am I doing to prepare myself and that
does that does occur not just in terms
of the warm-up or right before the
workout but your eating, your nutrition,
your sleep, the other elements that will
go into recovery. And
I'm sure we're going to find all of us
will find one or two or five areas that
we're probably not doing the things that
we could or should that might make us
feel better. And I say might because I
don't believe that there's one
recommendation for people when it comes
to preparing to do something or
recovering from what they're doing
that's going to work for everybody. I
think we are we have to conduct our own
experiment on ourselves and see what the
the end result is. How do you feel after
doing whatever it is that you're doing?
So try something different. For me, I
actually tried to utilize bands before
training. So, I I could take my bands
out and work on warming up my rotator
cuff or doing some of the movement
patterns I'm going to be doing that day,
but just doing with bands. And I always
say that the beauty about bands is that
they're perfect for warming up because
they stretch as you're able to do more,
right? So, they have that builtin
capacity to handle more, as you can give
more. So, if you're just doing the first
few repetitions with bands and you're
just kind of feeling creaky or you're
not really warm warmed up yet as you're
able to do more, they can handle more.
They can absorb more of what you can
handle. So, I I like the fact that uh
bands can be used to warm up. And it's
something that I started doing just
individually. I'm not saying that
everyone should run out and try bands,
but it is a good recommendation. And
when you do that, you warm up your
joints. The muscles actually get more
prepared to do what they're going to do.
Now, even if I handle the same loads
that I did in a workout without that
warm-up,
my joints are more ready to handle it
propreceptively, my joints can feel what
I'm about to do because I just did
something similar to that and that
motion. And then I actually can get into
using the weights in a which provide a
different source of tension, right? The
weights are going to be differently felt
than the bands will. I'm more prepared
to handle that. The joints are more
prepared. And as I said before, that
muscle up, all it takes is one bad
repetition to make this shoulder go from
100 back to zero again. So you can
imagine the accumulation of however many
repetitions you're going to do in a
workout, illprepared or not prepared
well enough, can pile up and start to
have some negative consequences. So I
think that's what people have to do.
They need to come to grips with the fact
that not everything is going to remain
the same. am I I I've mentioned before
that I've always had great eyesight
after I had them fixed with LASIC but
I've had great near vision and uh I last
two or three years I struggle every time
I pick up a something to read a pill
bottle or anything it's very difficult
to read and it frustrates the hell out
of me because I didn't do anything to
merit that type of decline nothing I I
I'm very consistent with what I do in
all aspects of my life so that is simply
just an age related decline that has
nothing to do with anything that I'm
doing to cause that acceleration of
that. I take care of my eyes, have
regular eye visits. It's something else
that's causing that. I have to
understand that that is going to come
from age. What are you going to do about
it?
>> Yeah. No, it certainly will. when you
think about this transition from your
40s to your 50s to your 60s. Um, and I
focus on that not because there aren't
people listening to us who are 20 or 30,
but I I do think that um that there's
there's a huge cycle between that 40,
50, 60, so I want to kind of focus there
for a moment. Um,
>> what do you think is the most prudent
strategy for reducing risk? Is it uh and
I'm just going to limit this to
resistance training for the moment. Is
it
>> reducing overall volume? So, if I said
to you, you know, Jeff, when I was in my
30s and and early 40s, I would be doing
25 sets per body part in the gym. Should
I be taking that down to 10 to 15 sets?
Is it um reducing absolute weight and
therefore increasing reps a little bit?
So, hey, I've always trained at 1 to two
rep in reserve. Um, and I'm going to
continue to train at two rep in reserve,
but that weight is actually coming down.
What it's taking me to get to one to two
ri is a lower and lower weight as I age.
Um, is it other is it frequency of
training? The number of times I'll, you
know, how many days that go in between
training muscle groups? How do you think
about all the potential levers a person
can pull um to still maximize their
performance while minimizing the risk of
injury?
>> That is that is the that is the essence
of what we try to do, right? That is
what we have to master. So there's a
couple parts to this. So first thing
I'll give you the short answer of those
three options. I want volume to come
down. I want productive repetitions to
go up. I want
repetitions to actually mean something.
And when I do that, that means the
intensity is going to go up. So, you'll
have to train harder. But I will save a
lot of the junk volume that I believe
just winds up wearing and tearing and c
creating an accumulation of wear and
tear. That's not only not necessary, but
again, it's ultimately unproductive.
So we have to look at it though starting
from this concept of reps and reserve
and whether or not you actually
prescribe to the exact reps and reserve
specifications of hey one ri or two IR
some people don't train that way but
they think
>> can you explain I I rattled it off
quickly but I want to make sure
everybody knows what I mean.
>> Sure. So so reps in reserve is
essentially a measure of how hard let's
say you've taken a set. So, a zero reps
in reserve is you've taken that set to
full mechanical failure where you cannot
lift that weight anymore in good form.
An a one R would basically mean that if
you were to do a grind or if you were
willing to grind out one more
repetition, you probably have one more
repetition in you. Two to three R is
essentially where you know you've got
another one or two left in the tank, but
it's still difficult, but you're
stopping at that point. Nobody that was
watching you from the outside would
visibly really be able to tell that
you've reached your maximum. Four I rir
or more to me already starts to become
junk volume. And it's exasperated by the
fact
>> outside of a warm-up set.
>> Yeah. outside of a warm-up. It's just is
exasperated by the fact that
we
as a whole, and I'm talking about even
some trainers themselves, we don't fully
appreciate or have the internal scaling
tuned in to measure what real effort is.
And that's for a variety of reasons. I
would guess that we undersshoot what
we're capable of doing by one to two to
three repetitions often. So when you
don't have this measurement of zero,
what zero means, then everything else is
very difficult to gauge, especially if
you don't have a lot of training
experience to be able to to to be able
to feel the nuance difference between a
one or a two or a two and a three. So to
me, what I want people to do is to start
at almost every opportunity training as
close to mechanical failure as possible.
Now, there's a few things that get in
the way here. There's psychological
failure. Psychological failure is not
necessarily I can't mechanically lift or
make my muscles contract to lift this
weight again. is I don't really feel
like doing another repetition cuz the
discomfort that's caused by this
repetition is something I'm not really
willing to put up with. That's the
difference that there's a big difference
between that and what your muscle can
actually do. So when we push ourselves
past psychological failure, then we get
into what we call form failure. And form
failure is where things start to you
might the the speed of the repetition
might go down. I'm okay with that. I
actually advocate for slower repetitions
anyway, but the speed might go down a
little bit. The form might get a little
loose in terms of like a little bit of
cheating, but that's okay, too, because
as long as you're you're properly
stabilizing your your body when you're
doing you don't look like you're
performing a different exercise, that's
that's still okay, acceptable. What's
not okay is joint pain. If you feel
joint pain in any in any step of the
way, you should stop because you're
probably not even training the muscle at
that point anymore. You're obviously
putting the joints in in in the middle
and then
uh allowing yourself to just push to
that point where the exercise can't
physically be completed, where the where
the where the exercise you're doing in a
bench press, you can't move the weights
anymore. That's where you stop. And
that's where I believe people need to
get themselves to do more often. And
most of us either have that calibration
that's not calibrated correctly. So
we're not gauging that effort correctly.
Even if it looks like we're doing the
right things and we're accumulating the
right volumes like you said on paper,
the the signal is not there. The
intensity is not there. You need to get
to to a point where you can objectively
say, well, the signal is here because I
can't move this weight anymore. And the
more you do that, you can take away a
lot of those sets. And so, even though
it might be counterproductive to think,
well, what if by training harder, I'm
going to apply more stress to my body
and make it harder for me to recover.
No, you're actually because you're
applying less of that junk volume. And
certainly, in terms of joints, less of
that wear and tear. Cuz even just
raising my arm up here every single time
is another, as I say, rotation on the
tire. At some point, the tires on that
car have to get changed. you're going to
run out of rotations on the tire. Why
waste them in a repetition that is
completely nonproductive for you
mentioned building muscle? Because that
is what we're trying to do in this case.
We're training for hypertrophy. So, if
you're not pushing yourself to a point
where you can stimulate those high
threshold fibers, the ones that can
grow, then what are we doing? What what
do we We're not accumulating anything
that's going to build strength or
hypertrophy. So therefore, we're not
building that resilience that we're
trying to build. So objectively getting
you to do more of your sets, too. Good
form failure. Not talking about ugly
repetitions and and and losing stability
of your body while you're doing it. I'm
talking about good form failure. Then
you can bring down those repetitions in
in those sets quite a bit to get rid of
bit a lot of that volume and through the
increased intensity have a way better
outcome. So for certain exercises um
it's safe and relatively straightforward
to determine a zero RIIR. And to your
point and I agree with you completely
this is exactly the thing
>> we explain to our patients is
>> uh especially people who are new to
resistance training and we're we're
trying to you know build these habits in
them is um
>> you can't know what one or two RI is
until you know what zero is. You have to
fail. And so I want you to start to
learn what failure looks like. Now, it's
really, again, it's safe and
straightforward to learn what um what
failure is if you're doing an overhead,
you know, tricep extension.
>> Uh cuz the cost of failure is really
low, especially if you're doing it on a
cable pulley or something like that.
Okay.
>> But how how do we map that out to
somebody who's doing front squats or
back squats? So, when we're talking
about the big compound lifts, especially
especially if you're trying to train for
strength where your rep range is going
to be lower, I I don't believe training
all the way till failure is is the the
the way to go. I think saving one
repetition there, maximum two
repetition.
>> Well, I'm just saying to learn what one
or two Yeah. to learn when you want to
teach them what one or two ri do they
have to, you know, how do you how does
someone figure that out in a squat? So
obviously with the right setup, you can
put somebody in a in a rack and have the
the safety pins there. And you can even
have them squat to a box so they have a
little bit of the assuredness of knowing
that they're not going to bottom out.
They can get to a box. So there's I
think there's things we could do to
manipulate that. A deadlift. One of the
things we do oftentimes is elevate the
the bar either through a trap bar so the
handles are elevated or put the place on
>> just just to be able to give them a
little bit more security and knowing
that when I do fail here then it will
feel like I'm in a safe secure position
and you could always strip away the pads
at that point or you can take away the
box. But again, in those big compound
lifts, it's not really even necessary to
do that to go all the way to failure to
see those benefits. You can take it that
one rep shot because again, remember I
said that that the zero ri is really
truly that maximum last rep that is
going to look like a grinder to people
and doing these things on those front
squat or other lifts can become a recipe
for disaster.
>> That's a sport. It's called
powerlifting.
>> Right. Exactly. It's it's not necessary
when we're talking about those
exercises. But something like a lat pull
down like you said or or or a barbell
curl, like I say, a barbell curl,
there's nothing safer in the world. When
you're when you're going to fail, you
could simply just release it from your
body. I'm not saying I'm not advocating
to throw the weights around the gym, but
it's in front of you and it's going to
safely go down to the ground or to the
floor, to the bench, whatever's in front
of you. You don't have to worry about
that. It's not like you're getting
crushed under the weight in a bench
press. So, I I gauge a lot of the train
to failure uh or absolute failure
recommendations based upon the
environment of the exercise you're
performing and how safe it is to
actually do that. Cuz there's no benefit
where the that you're going to gain
that's going to outweigh the risk that
could come from a poorly performed
repetition with a a weight that's
already in a fatigued state where you're
handling a weight in a fatigue state
already. Now, I know from all of my time
training that there are just certain
days when I'm not able to push as hard
as other days. And this is not just true
in the weight room, it's true on the
bike, it's true in the pool. So, it's
true with cardio, it's true with
resistance. And I've long wondered why,
right? And and so what what is it that
allows me on some days to push so much
harder? And why are there some days
where there's almost like a built-in
governor?
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and and it just says, "I'm not going
to let you go past this threshold of
pain today." And and I I'll be honest
with you, that is something that
>> I've probably noticed a little more of
lately than I noticed in my 30s and my
early 40s. I mean in my even up into my
early 40s I had almost a supernatural
ability to do what I called burn the
matches every single day and I would do
this very
>> strange thing even on a recovery day if
I was out for a recovery ride I would
still always do a four or five minute
allout hill climb at the end of an even
an easy swim I would still do an allout
set for you know 400 yards or 300 yards
or something and uh today there's no
there are many days when I could never
do that. So, do you think that's a
consequence of aging? Do you think
that's a consequence of stress in life
or other things [snorts]
that you know just the the the body can
only manage so many things and if you're
if you have too much stress in your life
about work and kids and things like
that, you just can't bring all of your
energy to a workout. I mean, what what
do you think is driving that? And and I
guess I'll I'll add one final question
which is really the question at hand
which is how can an individual
understand are they at psychological
limit or mechanical limit.
>> Those are definitely the two biggest
contributors of the psychological and
mechanical factors. However,
psychological could be driven by your
recovery. Your mechanical could be
driven by your recovery. whether you're
getting a good enough sleep that night,
whether you are undergoing stress
outside the gym in your life. These
these factors chip away and they chip
away at your ability to tap into that
next level. I think they don't chip away
at your ability to show up cuz that's
just part of your habit at that point.
They chip away at your ability to tap
into that next level of intensity to
train and do what you're saying, burn
the matches because
>> that does take a reserve, right? That
you're tapping into reserves there. And
if the reserves are already tapped out
because of these other stresses or your
again lack of sleep and other factors
that lead to poor nutrition that lead to
the the the the feeling that you're
having, then that's going to prevent you
from tapping in. I think what
contributes more to that though, and it
and it it sucks because it's sort of the
inevitable part of what we're dealing
with, but it is the aging contribution.
We know that as we age, obviously, we're
losing type 2 muscle fibers. we're we're
we're getting weaker. We're we're losing
the muscle mass itself. So things that
used to be achievable with less effort
because of the higher levels of strength
in the higher distribution and
proportion of type 2 fibers that's
that's starting to to physically go
away. So things that you used to be able
to do are going to become more
challenging. Now we try to like push
through that and say, "Okay, I got to
just push push harder." But then we have
the hormonal contributions to that too
that make pushing harder and doing
harder things more easy. That is
starting to get challenged too as we get
older. So we start to get a a decrease
in the in the the hormones, the male
hormones that are driving. And women see
the same the same effects here too.
they're getting a a decrease in their
hormones that provide that level of
effort and also the the the hormones
that help to regulate stress and help to
regulate sleep and help us to have
undisturbed sleep. These are all
starting to get disturbed as we get
older. And I think that whole picture
makes it more difficult to do the things
that we used to do. Let's stay on this
sort of uh physique hypertrophy side of
things for for a while and let's um
let's take kind of a nuanced look at
muscle and muscle group specifically uh
head to toe and I want to talk about
kind of the the most common
misconceptions, the biggest mistakes
people are making and maybe what the
greatest unlocks are for folks who have
been frustrated in lack of gains in
these areas. Um, and whenever possible
or whenever you feel that it it adds
value, you know, feel free to
distinguish between male and female.
Okay. But I also kind of assume at the
end of the day, male and female training
um, has to be pretty similar, right? I
mean, the same principles of progressive
overload apply. So, I don't know if that
even makes sense as a valid question. I
also realize that of course men and
women sometimes have different goals,
you know, um with respect to what they
want physique-wise, but but anyway, feel
free to handle that part in any way you
choose. So, um what would you where
would you say we're starting at the top?
Shoulders, traps, like
>> Sure. shoulders.
>> Okay. So, what are um so you got
somebody like me with salmon shoulders?
They don't really bulge out at all. If I
if I And by the way, I'm taking notes
for myself. So, um what are the biggest
mistakes people make? And when people
want to beef up their shoulders, what
should they be doing? What are they
doing wrong?
>> The shoulders are a three-headed muscle.
Posterior deltoid, middle deltoid, and
front deltoid. So, people do take an
approach where they try to choose
exercises that will focus more on one
head versus the other. There's a lot of
people who say that the front delt
doesn't need to be trained because it
gets a lot of work in pressing and
overhead pressing. It depends on how
detailed you want to get or how
specified you want to get in terms of
building up shoulder development, but
it's a head of the deltoid. It's a
muscle and and it needs to be trained.
So, I think if you were to try to
develop optimal size of your shoulders,
you're going to want to choose exercises
that do focus on each one of the heads
of the delt individually and then with
with the most attention. You're not
going to isolate one versus the other,
but with the most attention. And then
you're going to want to make sure you're
still doing your compound lift, which is
always part of every muscle we're going
to talk about, like what's the compound
lift you can do where you have other
muscles assisting that work. So you can
push that muscle to and through its
failure point like we talked about. So
for me, it starts with a vertical
pressing movement of some sort to be
able to do some vertical pressing, which
is really a point of contention for some
people because that's going to be
orthopedically one of the things that
hurts the most. But there's always some
modification to that that I believe you
should be able to do.
>> And sorry, let's just say, why is the
vertical press so important to you? Is
it because it's getting all three heads
simultaneously?
>> It gets all three heads simultaneously.
It's one it's a functional requirement
of life to be able to lift our arms up
overhead. I'm not saying that we have to
lift our arms up overhead with with
weight in our hands, 40, 50, 80 lbs,
whatever we're doing. But if you want to
put a suitcase into
>> I just witnessed it as we were flying
here. You know, someone trying to lift
their suitcase. I was wondering if I had
to step in and jump in and help cuz it
looked like a struggle to get it up into
that overhead bin.
You need to be able to handle weight
overhead. And so I also think that it it
also uses full range of motion to do
that. We never want to forego full range
of motion. Full range of motion is is
the is the nutrient to the joint. So, if
we only stuck with movements that worked
the front, middle, and rear delts, we
could theoretically stay below shoulder
level our entire training session. I
want to see you get your arm up
overhead. So, we're getting that
shoulder through its full range of
motion, the joint itself through its
full range of motion. It's not always
about just the muscle itself. It's about
the joint that you're trying to train
around to get the full function that
we're looking for. Now, someone like
you, Jeff, with some arthritis already
in your right shoulder. Um, let's just
assume you had a little bit of AC
arthritis as well. So, now I do have
some of that.
>> So, there you go. So, what are the
modifications you make? How do you
safely accommodate that motion? And
because obviously, you know, gosh, I
mean, back when I was a kid in high
school, we were doing it behind the
head. I don't think people are doing
that anymore, are they? Most people are
doing an overhead press in front, I
assume.
>> I don't know if they've been watching
me. I hope not. No, but they're they're
uh I I and it's not this is the thing
that people get they get a little bit
disturbed by if I say this or if I throw
an exercise I say into my iron
graveyard. It's not because I'm I I want
to have an issue with the exercise. It's
that I know I can give you an exercise
that will give you the same benefits at
the risk. Yeah. I I
>> What's the point?
>> Right. We should just make that
disclaimer now because I can already see
the hate comments coming in,
>> which is cuz there is always going to be
at least a hundred people on planet
Earth that love every single exercise
and have a great argument for why you
should be doing back squats on a piano
standing on one leg with an elephant
strapped to your testicles. Like, and
anybody who says that's a dumb idea
>> is an is a total poser.
>> Yeah. Totally
>> right. And it's like, no, you're right.
That's if you can do that without
getting injured, you should absolutely
do.
>> That's my answer to that is like if
that's if that's what you do and again
go go back to what we mentioned before.
If you can feel a greater stimulus that
way, no, that's the best way I feel my
middle delts were, then do it. I'm not
saying don't do it, but I have to make
recommendations for people that I think
are largely appropriate for the majority
of people. And I don't think that that
exercise is going to give people this
superior benefit that I can't get from
just simply getting your elbows out in
front of your body and doing the press
from in front of you. And for me
specifically,
I can do things like a landmine press
where I can get my elbows out even a
little bit further in front of my body.
So tell folks how you do a landmine
press.
>> A landmine press is essentially you take
a barbell, put it into a corner of a
room if you're training at home. Put a
towel there so you're not ruining the
the the corner of your room, but you
basically put the uh empty bar corner in
in the corner. You put you load up your
weight on the front [snorts] side of the
barbell. You put two hands on that end
of the barbell and you're pressing up
and away from your body like that. All
you're doing there is is taking away
some of the verticality of the exercise.
Again, going straight up is going to
require the most range of motion at the
shoulder. And people that have
orthopedic issues might find that all of
that range of motion is tough to
tolerate right now. So, when you put it
out in front of your body, you're
cutting down that angle by about 45°.
>> And you want you'd want people doing
this symmetrically, uh, meaning not off
to one side, straight up and down the
>> I I love I love asymmetric loading. I
love that, too. Oh, yeah. I love that.
>> So, you'll do one arm.
>> You could do that, too. Yeah,
absolutely. I could do them up and over.
You know, there's I I I I love to do
things that are a little bit more
challenging
>> in the multiple planes when we can, but
if we're starting out and we're trying
to get somebody to actually just feel
this motion, definitely I would have
them start right center chest and push
up and out. But you're basically cutting
down some of that overhead requirement,
some of the range of motion requirement,
which is going to make the exercise feel
a little bit more tolerable. You're
also, as I mentioned earlier, you're
getting a little bit more tricep
involvement the closer those elbows get
in because you're getting more flexion
at the elbow, so they have to extend.
So, you're getting some assistance from
triceps on your way to being able to do
your shoulders,
which is I think a good point to point
out here that like
any injury you're dealing with is not a
mandate to completely rest. It's not
it's a it's a mandate to choose safer,
more appropriately loaded and progressed
exercises. That's your that's the that's
the requirement here not to completely
rest because resting in and of itself
actually contributes to more of the
dysfunction. Time is one part of
recovery but the loading of the tissues
themselves is another promoter of
recovery. So when you remove that load
entirely things start to go wrong and at
an accelerated pace. So what you want to
be able to do is find the exercise
modification that you can do and then
you progress. you add more weight to
that or you start to step closer to this
landmine so that your positioning is now
a little bit more vertical and then to
the point where you can actually press
overhead vertically and it's not going
to always be limited potentially if you
follow the right progression. There's um
there's an analogy I use if you thought
of a of a of an injury to a certain
joint or or or painful exercise like
this overhead press, it's it shouldn't
be looked at as a city shutdown. It's
just a single row closure for now.
That's it. Like we can take that
overhead press that I can't do. You're
let's say the just the dumbbells
overhead and then we reroute it and we
do this land mine press instead. Okay,
great. We didn't shut the whole city
down to do this. Now, let's just say
though that all of those are harmful at
the moment. They all hurt. And I use
pain as the guidance. Pain of joint pain
as the guidance. Then we take the back
roads and we do something completely
different like a like a row. Because if
I row, I'm not training my overhead
pressing at this point, but I'm putting
the shoulder through range of motion.
I'm going into extension at the
shoulder. I'm bathing that that
synenovial fluid into that joint. I'm
helping to promote recovery. These
little steps along the way, though they
might look remedial, are part of the
overall progression back to function.
So, when we talk about again this lamb
press, don't think that you're married
to this exercise for the rest of your
life. understand it's a step in the way
to being able to overhead press. I think
that's what people do a lot of times is
they just they they they feel like
they're not able to do the thing. So
therefore don't do any of it or you know
choose something completely different
that's that's that's not going to
provide the same stimulus that that
we're looking for. And we talked about
that with squats a little bit the last
time we were here like just doesn't feel
right for you. But there's other things
you could do to maybe progress yourself
to the point where squats would feel
right again. Um, but for overhead
pressing, I need that and I and I need
to have that as my compound movement.
How whatever form it might take,
whatever step in the progression it
might take.
>> In the hierarchy of barbell straight in
front of you to dumbbells is the idea
that with dumbbells, look, I'm going to
allow you to take a little less pressure
off the AC joint by bringing them more
midline. The more midline you're going,
you're approximating the landmine. So
for you personally with your shoulder
history,
>> are you using a barbell or are you using
dumbbells?
>> I use barbells infrequently maybe 20% of
the time and again sometimes because I
want to retest my abilities to see how
how close I've come to being able to use
them painfree again. And I can I can use
them pain free. Now one of my best
modifications when you're doing a
barbell press if you have shoulder
issues is to narrow up the grip because
the narrower the grip is you can see the
elbows follow. So, as I start to narrow
my grip, I my elbows will follow. The
elbows start to bring obviously a change
in shoulder alignment with it. So, now
I'm back into sort of that that scapular
plane and I'm able to press from there.
So, that's one modification I'll make.
If I use the barbell, I will almost
always opt for dumbbells. Uh, one of my
favorite things to do with dumbbells is
to simply do one at a time. So, you
mentioned the asymmetrical. I love being
able to do one dumbbell at a time. I can
handle more weight that way. So that's
back to that idea of increasing the
stimulus, increasing the intensity. I
can increase the intensity,
improve the the mechanics of the
exercise on the joint because I can take
that one dumbbell, push it up and
overhead, and then stack the joints. I
talk a lot about joint stacking, wrist
over elbow, over shoulder, and have that
good stability from underneath. When I'm
pressing from out here, we don't get
that same level of stacking. So if you
have any instability type injuries like
a labum tear, you're not going to feel
as comfortable out there unsupported as
you are with everything stacked on top
of each other. So I like to do that
variation of the exercise. Um it also
feels like some exercises are just more
fun. It feels fun to be able seated or
standing.
>> Standing. Standing. I like to do as many
as I can standing. as many things as I
can standing because even for a for a a
shoulder exercise again if I'm
advocating not trying to always go so
light and again increasing some of the
weight you're using here then I like the
fact that I can have my legs to rely on
if I need a little bit of that extra
cheat to push myself through to those
higher intensity repetitions. Um I'm not
saying that you always have to do them
with cheat or with a push press, but you
could you they're there if you need
them. Otherwise, you could simply do
them as a strict rep, but still standing
is just a more athletic
>> position for for people to be in. I
think that has the best carryover.
>> So, what I'm hearing you say is if you
only have time for one deltoid exercise,
it should be the overhead press because
it is the it's the compound movement
that hits all three heads.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> Yeah, I I believe so. So now if if you
could add a second or a third movement,
presumably you're not going to want to
bang on the anterior portion again
because you're getting enough of that
through presses. Are you going to want
to do something for the lateral head or
the posterior head?
>> Yeah. So either either of those other
two options. Again, I I think I I I
agree with your with your question there
entirely in that that would that would
be the third choice. The front delt
would be the third choice of the three.
But I think if back to what I said
originally, if you were trying to
maximize hypertrophy of the shoulder,
you you can still do front delt
exercises. Again, there's a lot of fear
around doing them.
>> Can I ask a silly question? You know,
when you see somebody who's and this
again is both male and female both tend
to prioritize having a nice sort of
separation. Um is that visually created
by the lateral delt or the anterior
delt? So that's where I think the the
front delta is a little a little
underappreciated because I think it does
create that if you're talking about the
visual aesthetic of it that separation
between the chest and the and the
deltoid because you're getting that line
that comes in on the on and the anterior
part of the shoulder. But when you're
looking at that that roundedness of the
shoulder that is almost entirely coming
from the middle delt. You're not even
really seeing the rear delt there. the
the visual benefits of the rear delt is
when someone turns to the side and then
you see whether they have a rounded
shoulder there or whether they have like
an emptiness to to their shirts in the
back side of their shoulder there. But
the rear delt is one of the most
functionally important for maintaining
proper balance of the joint itself. So,
I think as a physical therapist, my next
answer should be the rear deltar because
I know the exercises that go to training
that are going to have a lot of other
benefits to you posturally and again
maintaining joint health for the long
run. But if you're talking about
strictly aesthetics and what you wanted
to do to have a better appearance when
looked at from the front, then it's
going to be the middle delt.
>> All right. So, what's a middle delta
exercise?
>> Any lateral [clears throat] raise is
good. I do like the cable lateral raise
a lot because it it's got tension
throughout the exercise for a longer
portion of the range of motion. If we do
a lateral raise with our arms at our
side, the exercise has basically very
zero tension at the bottom and it starts
to rise up as I raise the dumbbell up.
But with the lateral raise of the cable,
I have first of all, I have a stretch
tension on the delt itself in that
starting position. And as soon as I
start to pull, I'm already getting
higher levels of tension in the middle
delt. And they are maintained as long as
you sort of manipulate your body or your
arm position in space as you go. We're
always trying to get when we when we use
cables, this perpendicularity between
the cable and that moving structure. So,
if I have my arm here, it's my forearm
that's really the moving structure that
I'm that I'm focused on. How how long
can I maintain this relationship of the
cable in my forearm and this
perpendicular alignment? If I can do
that and pull up again, I I sort of
manipulate my arm in space to to feel
where that is, then I'm going to feel
that middle delt working at a high level
throughout almost the entire range of
motion. For people who are just
listening to us and not watching us, you
you're doing kind of a cable uh it's
raise is almost the wrong word. You're
basically doing a cable movement across
your body
>> like a rowing.
>> Yeah. Because you don't need gravity
when you have the cable. So yeah, you're
doing an across the body kind of row. Um
and by the way, what we'll do in the
show notes for this podcast
>> is um we'll link to videos you've made
on each of these because that'll
actually make it really productive for
people to go and see like, okay, that's
exactly what he means. Um, okay. So, the
advant and by the way, I have no
affiliation with the company, but I have
become completely enamored with and
obsessed with Voltra. Have you uh have
you been using this thing?
>> No.
>> Do you know what I'm talking about? It's
kind of electromagnetic. I really really
like it.
>> Oh, yeah. What have you been using it
for?
>> Um, so one of my patients gave gave it
to me. I loved it. I actually bought a
second one. So, now you can do, you
know, you can pair them and kind of use
them. I use it for a lot of things right
now. um where you can manipulate the uh
separate tensions. Eccentric tension.
>> Yep. You that that's the first thing
that I fell in love with was the
manipulation of concentric and eccentric
tension. Um
>> it's frankly I mean just a space saving
device. Like I've got one of those big
freeotion things I'm selling it. I've
got all these other things I'm just
getting rid of because it just replaces
them. Frankly, if I didn't already have
a lat pull down machine, I'd get rid of
that thing, too, because you can do pull
downs on this thing. Um, you can do belt
squats with this thing. I mean, all you
need is a really good rack and this
device because it clips into
>> Yeah, we we had one in the gym for a
while is by a um a companyo who had uh
lent the the piece to me. I I we were
able to do some really cool things with
it, but it it was hard for me to to to
show them to people on YouTube because
nobody had nobody had the machine and
nobody could do it, you know. But as far
as like geeking out on the stuff myself,
I I I love that. I mean, I love the the
ability to change the the like I like
when we can increase the eccentric load
even more than we can, you know,
concentrically because our bodies are
able obviously to handle a lot more
eentrically than we can concentrically.
So, if you can take a a load that you
can handle concentrically, but then
double that load eentrically, you're
getting challenged in a big way. And
I've been so interested in which
exercises I have more eccentric strength
than others, like you know, and it might
just be a function of the absolute
weight, but but it's been amazing to me
on some areas where having a a big
eccentric load is manageable and in
others where the eccentric addition
above concentric can't be that much. It
can only be like 10 or 15%. So yeah,
look, I I think I'm scratching the
surface of how to use this thing, but I
am enjoying that.
>> There's a million things you can do with
those. Like they even have the different
modes of uh uh the elastic. You can make
it feel like a band or [snorts]
>> like a chain.
>> Right. Right. Right. Like a chain where
it go increases. Yeah. So I mean it's
really it's really cool stuff. It's
definitely for the the the nerdier types
like ourselves who like to do this. But
>> as long as we know how to use and apply
it with the people who see us, then they
can benefit, too.
>> Okay. So that's your that's your go-to
middle delt. Um, obviously the rear delt
is is something you already alluded to
where you could be doing a row, you
could be doing like a, you know, you
could be face down on a bench doing a
lateral raise or something like that.
What would be your kind of number one
go-to rear rear delt?
>> So, this is interesting because I I
believe that though a a smaller muscle
group and though one that doesn't often
get trained directly because we get it
get it definitely gets skipped the most
out of the three of the of the delts by
most people. Not saying everybody.
>> So, so number one skipping is leg day.
Number two skipping is rear delt.
>> Rear delt day. Yeah. It it doesn't get
the love it should. But again, as a
physical therapist, I know its
importance and more than just looking a
certain way. I at the same time believe
that it doesn't get loaded anywhere near
what is capable of being loaded or or it
doesn't get subjected to the stresses
that most
are when they do actually don't skip the
day. actually do the exercises, they're
not loading it enough. So, for me, the
most effective way to hit the lo the the
the rear delt and hit it with a lot of
weight is a seated cable row. And we do
the seated cable row with wide elbows.
So, you have your elbows lifted up away
from your sides. And your goal is to
drive the elbows back behind your body.
And all you have to do is just simply,
you could even do it sitting in your
chair. If you drive your elbows back
behind your body in a row, you'll feel
that that rear delt really really uh
contract strongly. Well, with a with a
row like that, we can utilize good
weights and we're getting good
assistance from the other upper back
muscles and from the lats to do the
exercise. But the rear delts will feel
the brunt of that load. If especially
you're focused on, this is where I think
sometimes it's never just the movement.
It's it's it's not just A to Z. It's A
through Z. When you do a movement, I
don't ever want people to just look at
an exercise say, I see he's going from
here to here on this row, just moving
those elbows back. How are you moving it
back? If you focus on driving it with
your rear delts and contracting your
rear delts as you pull, you'll feel less
on the lats. You'll feel less of the
contribution from the other areas that
are contributing but not dominating.
It's easy to let the muscles that are
usually dominating that movement, like
the lats, come in and dominate. But if I
focus on that rear delt doing the the
move, which relies on the knowledge of
knowing the rear delts are going to pull
the elbows back behind the body, right?
That's part of this whole why these
shorts versus long videos h we have
problems because I want you to not just
see the exercise, but understand why
this works. When you understand it's the
moving of the elbows back into extension
behind the body that drives the rear
delts, then you know why that exercise
could work and you could actively work
to to make that movement recruit more of
the of the rear delts when you do it.
And your and your load is going to be
significantly more than you'd ever use
if you were doing a like a an IY or a T,
which a lot of people will do if they
say, "I'm going to do some rear rear
delt work." Nothing against those
exercises. They're fine, but those are
light work for a muscle group that can
definitely handle more. Again, for
people who aren't able to watch us, one
of the things that you did that I think
stands out is um is the elevation with
which you're doing it, right? So, the
higher those arms you So, you're almost
pulling to your face.
>> Yeah. Uh upper chest. Upper chest. Yeah.
The elbows the elbows are going to drift
away from your sides around 45° or maybe
up to 60° or so. They're going to drift
up up away from your sides.
>> Yeah. So, if you're just doing a normal
narrow grip cable row, you're not
getting exercise you're not getting
enough for your
>> del that's how you that is how again
this is why I love exercise so much
because that is how you shift the focus.
It's still the same exercise. It's still
it's still a it's still a row. It's
still a seated row, but if my elbows are
driven tight to my sides and I ducted
tightly against my sides, I'm going to
get more lats. If I allow my elbows to
drift, I shift it away from the lats
into the upper back and rear delt. So,
movement is not enough to describe what
you're doing. It's it's it's it's the
muscles that contribute and how you do
the exercise that determines the effect
you get.
>> Should we say anything then about the
anterior delt as a dedicated activity or
have we kind of hit it?
>> It's simple enough. As I said, if if if
aesthetics were your goal and you wanted
to build the ideal shoulders that way, I
would still do a front delt exercise,
something as simple as a front dumbbell
raise could do the job. Or a cable
stretch raise because I can hold on to
the cable, step away from the machine a
little bit. My arm is now behind my body
to start. So, I'm getting a good front
stretch on the front delt to start and
then I can rise from there. So you could
also do this in an incline position.
Sitting on an incline bench, maybe 60°
or 70°ree incline. You sit there, your
el your your arms will be behind your
body just because of the positioning of
the incline bench to start. So you have
a little bit of a stretch on the front
delt before you go into your front
raise.
>> Any injury considerations with that?
>> Uh in terms of
>> Are there any people whose shoulders are
going to hurt with that pre-stretch?
>> No, I don't think so. No, I think that's
a that's a pretty safe position to be
in. I mean, just getting back behind I
think a lot of us don't do enough of
that. Actually, we don't get behind our
body enough. Um, and that's a good safe
position of the shoulder because you're
not in an elevated position. More more
problems with the shoulder come when
it's elevated than when it's down at
your side. any of the the impingement
type issues or things that you feel that
are uncomfortable come more when you get
past this area they call it of a painful
arc which is beyond 60 degrees of
elevation and abduction into like the
120° or you know past shoulder level and
then of course when you get towards
terminal range of motion that stuff can
become more problematic but positions of
the shoulder down with your arm at your
side don't tend to be aggravating
>> and when you're starting from that
presets position and lifting how and
you're let's say you're at that 60°ree
incline how high do you need to lift
just arm parallel to the ground.
>> Parallel to the ground. Yep. Yep.
>> All right. So, that's that's pretty good
on on delt and everything you just
described. I mean, are you how many sets
are you thinking make? How many working
sets meaning one to two riing sets?
>> Yeah.
>> For total, right? So, and that's that's
key because without the intensity
indicator there, you know, it it's going
to vary completely. So I given that I'm
a big believer in the intensity being
near near failure at failure. Um you're
looking at 8 to 10 sets in a week is
needed. Some people separate those
depending upon what split they're
following. But I mean if you're doing
just let's say a a traditional bro split
we call it where you're just doing one
muscle group at a time.
>> When you're in when you've hit eight
highintensity sets across
>> all those the exercises.
>> You can mix them up. You don't have to
do them all each week cuz there's
>> no no you can vary. I mean again you I I
like to always include the compound and
then I would might I might shift the
focus between the rear delt and middle
deltically if I if I was limited to time
or volume.
>> Okay. Um where do you want to go next?
You want to talk about go down the arm
or talk chest and back?
>> Let's go uh let's go down the arms.
>> Okay. So let's uh let's hit the triceps.
>> Okay. Um
>> so there's again three heads of these
bad boys.
>> Three heads here again. So you don't
have to be as specific here because
really there's one differentiator
between the long head, the tricep and
the other two heads, the lateral and
medial head. All three of them extend
the elbow. So they straighten the elbow
out. The long head because it has an
attachment that crosses the shoulder
joint onto the scapula is affected by
positioning of the arm itself, the
shoulder itself. So, when you put your
arm up overhead, you're putting that
long head in a more stretch position to
start the exercise. When you put that
arm back behind your body and extend
your elbow, you're having an effect on
the the degree of contraction of that
long head because you're getting a more
complete contraction if your arm is back
behind your body. So, what I always
recommend is though there's three heads,
I really like to see you do a good
compound exercise that just focuses on
extending the elbow,
do an exercise that places tension or
higher amount of tension on the long
head in that stretched position. and do
an exercise that places more tension on
that long head or takes advantage of the
fact that the long head could be in a
position of greater contraction with the
arm back behind the body. So those are
my three real staples or requirements.
The compound exercise is not as big or
as important to me in terms of well
let's do something like a bench press
where I'm getting assistance like a
close grip bench press where I'm getting
assistance from the chest and shoulders
too. I think you can still do a heavy
lying tricep extension as your compound
exercise and you're also checking off
that box of the stretching of the of the
triceps long head at the same time.
That's my favorite exercise for a number
of reasons.
>> So laying on the bench, um you've got a
bar. You could use an easy grip or
regular straight bar, but that could be
harder on people's wrists.
>> Okay. But you would prefer a bar to
dumbbells.
>> Dumbbells are okay. Um I don't mind
dumbbells at I use dumbbells a lot
myself, but people sometimes can feel it
to be a little awkward because they
can't ever time the dumbbells right in
terms of extension.
>> So again, the technical term for what
you just described, right, would be
hummeral extension or extension of the
arm. Yeah. And so
how much do you need to get enough long
head pre-stretch? Do are you doing that
with So again, for people listening, I'm
trying not to use my hands that much. If
I'm laying on the on the ground and I
bring my arms up to my humorris up to
perpendicular to the ground, is that
enough stretch or does it need to be
really opening the axilla up?
>> Yeah, you have to open up those armpits
for sure. You got to get your body
>> to a position where I'd say
>> so if you're laying on your back and
your arm was directly pointed to the
ceiling, you would be at a 90°,
[clears throat]
right? So, I'd say you're you're going
to want to be at least 120° or so more.
You go another 30° back behind your
head. A nice ballpark area for that is
that your arm is sort of approximating
towards your ear. Yeah.
>> Right. So, your bicep is sort of getting
close to your ear.
>> So, this is the workhorse of the tricep.
>> I I believe this is the best exercise
you can do. Like it because it could be
loaded up really well. Again, I like the
the compound nature here comes from the
fact that the lats can assist you in
coming back to the top. So, if you have
a little bit of getting a little bit
fatigued, you always have that lat that
can actually pull and kick in and and
help to pull that arm back up towards
the top in the of the extension. Um,
matter of fact, there's a great exercise
that utilizes that on purpose. It's
called a PJR pullover where you're just
taking a dumbbell, in this case, two
hands on the dumbbell, allowing it to go
back into what would traditionally look
like an old Arnold pullover. Y, but you
let the elbows bend.
>> So, they bend at the bottom. Now, you
got that good stretch on the long head
of the triceps. You extend first to get
the momentum going. Use the triceps to
extend the elbows and then you continue
it by using your lats to drive the
dumbbell up to the top.
>> If you compare this exercise to an
overhead tricep extension,
>> right, where you can easily be starting
in the same position, but when we're
doing the overhead tricep extension, our
humorous stays generally fixed,
>> right?
>> And so you're saying with a dumbbell?
>> No, with a cable. I'm sorry. With a
cable. So,
how do you compare those two? Do you
prefer the lying one, or would you do
them both and just say, "I'm going to
use much more weight in the lying down
one because I'm getting lat to help me
lift it back to a perpendicular 90°
position."
>> Yeah, I don't I don't like that exercise
performed that way very much because I
think that again, we talked about that
perpendicularity of the cable and and
the moving segment that that is lost
pretty quickly in that exercise. They
become pretty parallel pretty quickly.
So, you lose a lot of the tension. What
I advise when people do that push away
type exercise is to get the arms up
overhead in a higher position. So if
you're using a rope, when you pull down,
you can see that that's pretty
perpendicular there. And as you come to
the top, the rope is still sort of
perpendicular to the forearm to a
greater degree. You'll feel it much more
in the tricep throughout the entire
exercise. As long as you are
>> doing it from a higher arm position
throughout. When you start to lean
forward and do that, again, you can see
like as I'm leaning forward, I can the
the the cable is going to be right about
here, almost in line with my form, and
you're going to lose some of that
tension. The dumbbell variation, which
is what I thought you were asking about,
the [clears throat] dumbbell overhead
variation where you have two hands on
one dumbbell and extend overhead, that
one doesn't get it, that one gets more
elbow flexion, but it doesn't get as
much of that shoulder flexion up over
behind the behind the body relatively.
So it could become
less. You could feel it less in the
triceps for that reason. But it does
create some internal rotation of the uh
of the shoulder to grab the dumbbell in
that position, that could be very
uncomfortable for some people. The more
you can get your elbows out in front of
your body, right? externally rotating
your shoulders and getting your hands
sort of, you know, to to almost to to to
squeeze the dumbbell and your elbows
almost to pinch together. That will
alleviate some of that shoulder
discomfort. But you can manage that by
simply taking an incline bench and
performing it on an incline bench cuz
now your arms don't have to be back like
they would in a vertical position here
all the way to here. I could be in an
incin bench and get that level of
extension at the elbow but not have to
have this arm as high on my next, you
know, on my body as I as I have to. And
then so it it feels more comfortable to
people. And when you're in this vertical
position, again, you have weight, you're
bearing the weight of gravity completely
and you're in a fully you're you're
going to have to have the most range of
motion at the shoulder to do that than
you would in a we talked about 120
degrees on the long version. So there's
less of that overhead range of motion
that's required.
in the lying version of that.
>> Okay. So, clearly you've established
what the workhorse is on that one. Lying
tricep extension with a bar ideally. Um,
what would be the, for lack of a better
word, the accessory or additional tricep
activities you would add to that?
>> Yeah. So, then if we wanted just the one
that hits the the medial lateral head,
the function of just extending the
elbow, I I still love a classic tricep
push down. I don't care if you do ropes,
if you do a straight bar, whatever seems
to be most comfortable. What are the
pros and cons of each?
>> Um, I think it it depends on uh people's
health of their wrist. Some people might
find that the the rope gives the wrist a
little bit of a break, whereas if you
have the bar, you have two two hands on
a fixed bar. Um,
>> because of that, if you have some
immobility issues in your wrist, then
what happens is the shoulders actually
do get affected by that. the position of
the shoulders, the position of the
elbows gets affected. Because if I can't
grab onto a straight bar because I I
lack the ability to get a fully
flattened wrist, then what happens is
your elbows will flare. Your shoulders
will internally rotate. So now all of a
sudden, you're doing your push downs
from what I call this jackhammer
position, which is like this, cuz I
can't get there. So I have to do this.
When I do that, now all of a sudden I'm
pushing down. if I have a straight bar a
lot with my chest, I basically turn this
into a a straight bar dip, right? And so
I'm taking a lot of the focus away from
the triceps.
>> So is there a difference um between if
you're doing let's just say you're doing
it with a single arm to make life easy,
right? So you're doing a pull down or a
press down, I'm sorry, where your uh
palm is uh facing, you know, laterally.
I'm trying to be descriptive for folks
not watching, but you're sort of coming
down this way versus turning the palm to
the floor this way. If assuming your
wrist can accommodate both, does it have
any bearing on the tricep provided the
arm is in the same the upper arm is in
the same spot.
>> If the upper arm is in the same spot,
no. Okay. No. And what and and that's
where there's some controversy around
because people I've actually talked
about the the underhand tricep push down
that people can do and there are
benefits to the underhand tricep push
down if you are not you have to be
conscious about what's happening to the
rest of your anatomy. We're not just
we're not just a a disconnected arm. We
have multiple joints here. So what I'm
saying is that when people do this
underhand grip, what happens is the
elbows will tend to become more
approximated to the body. And then what
that will do is it will actually give
you a chance to stay in this closer
position and get into a deeper position
back behind your body to get that long
head into a more contracted state.
Whereas if I'm here and my elbows are
out in front of me, I can't I almost get
blocked by the bar. I can't really get
back to that position. So it's a it's a
subtle difference. But again, when we
talk about training like an athlete,
again, I always say that the reason why
we we say that is because athletes would
care about the subtle differences
because it matters. And when you're
looking for every edge, when you're
looking for every possible
nuance that might contribute to a better
exercise, you need to consider these
things. So, the arm position gets
affected by that wrist position. And so
if you are able to get into that
position more effectively because of the
change in wrist position, then you might
want to consider that too. The different
the the trade-off there is it's a weaker
wrist position, so you can't handle as
much weight as you could when your palms
are on top of that bar. So trade-off,
but again, tension is the language that
muscles speak, not necessarily.
>> Exactly. And and and even though you
have less weight, if you're able to get
the elbow behind you and get that huge
amount of stretch, a little bit more
stimulation on the long headed to the
other two you're getting just from the
from the extension itself at the elbow.
So
that that is again this dance that we
play between well a little less tension
but more effective contraction. So I
feel you know what is the end result.
It's all going to factor into the to
that tension that language the muscles
are are speaking to determine how much
of an effect you're feeling.
>> Okay. What other exercise would you
consider a very important one for
someone who is struggling to add mass or
strength to the upper arm?
>> Yeah. So, this is another controversial
one, but it's it's just uh uh it's it's
it's true. You need you would need to do
an exercise that would get that that
long head in its fully shortened
position. So, something that contracts
that elbow with your arm behind your
body. So, we're talking about some form
of a tricep kickback. You could do it
with a cable. You could do it with
dumbbells. You could do it on an incline
bench face down, but the long head of
the triceps will be it in its fully
contracted state when you are able to
get full wrist uh or full elbow
extension and shoulder extension at the
same time. And that is one of the only
exercises that allows you to do that
other than some of these push down
variations I've talked about um where
you can get a straightened elbow and get
your elbow positioned back behind you a
little bit. You could do that on a push
down if you had a long rope, right? A
long rope that you could position your
arms behind your body and we call it a
drag push down where you're actually
dragging your hands down your body. So
when you finish, your hands will be on
the side of your legs. Your elbows will
be back behind your body. You'll have
the same type of effect there. But not
everybody has a rope long enough to pull
that off. A regular gym rope won't cut
it. If you attach two ropes, you could
possibly do that. Before we move on to
bicep,
do you maybe we can talk about this
after or before, but um benefits and
cons to supersetting tricep with bicep
with deltoid? You know, how do you think
about the entire complex? Because it's
not uncommon for somebody to say, I'm
going to do arms on a day.
>> Yeah.
>> And that might just be delt uh bicep
tricep if they're going to do chest and
back on another day.
>> Um so, how do you think about the
trade-offs of that? All that does is
really affect your overall volumes for
the week and how you're distributing
your volumes for the week. It doesn't um
it wouldn't impact my exercise
selection, I don't think, on triceps if
I was still train if I was training
biceps in the same day, unless I had
some kind of a um orthopedic issue where
the accumulation of multiple positions
from these different exercises is is
causing me to feel more joint soreness.
Again, if we're choosing the right
exercises, it shouldn't be doing that
anyway. So, if that's not the case, I um
I don't I don't have any objection to
people doing biceps and triceps
together. They tend to look at them as
two smaller muscle groups that because
they're antagonistic to each other, it
feels good to train them on a day. While
you're fatiguing one, you're not
necessarily fatiguing the other. So, it
feels fresh on both sides of that.
People that do triceps at the end of
shoulders or chest, it's another good
thing to do when you're talking about
maximizing recovery because all those
pushing muscles that have a similar
function are going in the same day. So
that when I come back the next day, if
I'm doing pulling like biceps and upper
back and back, then I'm getting a
complete reprieve of those muscles. And
if I go do legs the next day, I'm
getting a reprieve of two days of rest
before I come back to them again. So
that's really the consideration is how
it impacts recovery. But from an
individual exercise selection, my
choices wouldn't change on the triceps
if I trained them with biceps. If I did
train them with something that was doing
a similar function like chest and
shoulders, then I might decide on how I
want to change exercises up like there
the bench press we know is going to act
as a secondary compound to the to the
triceps or it's going to help the
triceps.
>> So let's say you did that split. You
said I'm going to do chest, shoulder,
tricep is one day, back, bicep is
another day. You would still start
presumably with your chest exercises
because
>> it's the biggest compound movement and
you would move probably from chest to
shoulder towards
>> unless again it depends on how
aesthetically driven somebody is and
what they're trying to accomplish here.
If they had weaker triceps or weaker
development of their triceps,
>> you might want to prioritize your
triceps first and go do your triceps
training first when you're most fresh
and then come back and do the others as
if they weren't of high of as high a
priority. For those of us with puny
biceps, what are we doing wrong? What
are the most common mistakes people make
and how do they fix it?
>> So, when it comes to biceps,
I believe the number one stimulus for
bicep growth is the eentric overload of
the biceps. the fact that especially
when we're talking about most of the of
these pulling muscles, the eccentric is
going to be the part where you're
lowering the weight under
a slower tempo, trying to accentuate the
stretching tension that we get in
addition to the fact that the weight
itself is applying tension. So, we're
getting tension two separate ways. We
could do that with a heavier barbell
curl. We could do a cheek curl where
you're actually, yeah, you do some
repetitions that are as strict as you
can, but you get a little bit loose on
the form to get the weight up and then
you have to really fight the weight on
the way down. You will always be
stronger on that way down than you are
on the way up. So, if you never really
do that and tap into some of the
cheating of the concentric to get up,
then you're never really going to apply
the same level of eentric overload that
you can. So, I like doing the the the
barbell curl with a with a cheat.
Chin-ups are one of my favorite ways to
eentrically challenge the the biceps.
So, if I get up there and lower myself
down, I could change the exercise to be
a little bit more focused on the biceps
by just opening the angle a little bit,
the chin up. A lot of people times
people will do a chin-up and they'll
pull until their biceps are touching
their forearms, right? And that's going
to get a lot of lat engagement. But if I
can just open the angle and get my body
a little further away from the bar, now
I've shifted some of that focus to the
biceps. And I want to u again handle
those eccentric repetitions as slowly
uh as painfully in a good way as
possible. I I I
was always a fan of doing chin-ups and
trying to challenge myself to hold on to
the bar for as long as I can. I used to
win the flexed arm hang every year at
field day because I used to like
basically work at it in in in you know
the off seasonason of field day but I I
I was like determined to win that every
year but I I enjoy trying to hang and
hold myself in a flex.
>> What did it take to get the top mark? I
I remember this
>> guy. I bet you I was around 45 seconds
to a minute I was able to do it for like
I think that was what the the winning
requirement was. Uh which is still tough
now. I usually do them only in a in a
fatigue state though. So at the end of a
workout is a great way for me to
>> and remind me I it's that's like taking
me back to third grade. You What was the
You had to keep your chin above the bar.
>> Chin above the bar. Yeah. Get up there,
chin above the bar and just, you know,
hold for as long as possible. Now I
extend it past that though. So now what
I'll do is it's it's not just chin below
the bar. I keep going until my feet hit
the floor. So as long as I can go for a
set is is what I'll do. But again, I I
like to do that as a finisher at the end
of what I'm doing. Um, not as the
primary source. But any type of
eccentric overload is a is great. And
again, when it comes to biceps, where is
the risk? If I'm on a chin-up bar, I
simply let myself go and my feet hit the
floor. If I have a a barbell and it's
going down, it's going to accelerate
faster. I put it on the bench or
wherever I have to put it back in the
rack. It's not like the stress that we
have when we are doing a a bench press
of some sort where the weight's coming
down on top of us or a squat when the
weight's coming down on top of us. We
have such a a safety net when we do
these exercises that not utilizing them
is a big opportunity missed.
>> Now, what about hitting different parts
of the bicep? the um how about for
example like a preacher curl y
>> versus an incline bench with arm you
know behind you curl like what are the
trade-offs
>> the short head long head is the
differentiator here and um the two heads
of the bicep are the short head and long
head. The long head
>> gets its name because its attachment is
higher in the shoulder. It's actually
part is it's attaching inside the
shoulder joint to that labreum. Um and
then the the the short head has a
attachment that's lower. So the long
head is going to be better hit because
again it's crossing that shoulder joint
with things that place it on stretch by
getting it back behind the body which is
the incline uh dumbbell curl that you
mentioned. The incline position when my
arms are hanging is going to put them
back behind the body a little bit and it
gives you that slight pre-stretch on the
on the exercise. is that slight
pre-stretch is supposed to allow for a
a better recruitment of the muscle
fibers to the to the exercise, but it
also I believe this main driver is it
just gives that second level of of
tension, that second that second source
of tension beyond just the dumbbells
itself. You're getting a stretching
tension on top of the the dumbbells
themselves. So, an incline dumbbell
press is is good. That could become a
little bit irritating to people that
have um shoulder issues though if they
if they go too if they go too low on
that. If they go to a position that's
>> you would incline at what 60 or 45
>> 45 might be a little on the edge there.
I say 60° is more comfortable for me. Um
and then the the short head is really
again just flexing the elbow, getting
your arms out in front of your body.
>> So that's the preacher curl. curl. Um,
cable curls, just just a standard cable
curl. The uh traditional barbell curl
would would would hit more of the of the
short head. And then there's also this
concept of what you see is what you
train. So when you're looking in the
mirror, if your arms are rotated
outwards and you can see the inner
portion of your bicep more, that would
be that's your short head. This portion
you see on the inside is the short head.
That would be working more of the short
head. So I have an exercise variation we
call the no money curl. So I have no
money. Like my hands are out here at the
side. I got nothing. Right? Your
external rotation of the arms there.
Curling from that position there is
going to work more of that short head.
When I have my arms internally rotated
more and curling from that position like
I would from a drag curl, anything like
a ganda drag curl, then I'm seeing more
of that outer portion of the bicep
visibly in the mirror. Then I'm going to
be working more of that of that long
head also. So it's that's another
indicator of how you can differentiate
between the exercises.
>> Now for someone who's not, you know, a
bodybuilder or really in the minutia of
trying to differentiate is bicep one of
those things where as long as you are
adhering to really good principles of
eccentric loading, getting something on
long head and short head, you know,
exact arm position might not matter.
It's get the volume right, get the
stimulus right, and go.
>> Yeah. I I I think for most of these
muscle groups that like if people did
even just these basics and they're just
trying to make sure that they're
checking off the boxes of actually doing
some exercises for biceps, shoulders,
chest, all these muscles we're going to
talk about. They're going to see amazing
results from them. Arnold was famous for
having his uh his golden six, right?
Just having six exercises that you can
do that are going to essentially provide
the biggest bang for their buck. You
worry about progressively overloading on
them and getting stronger. they're gonna
they're gonna create a a a good physique
at the end of the day. But the nuances I
think help a lot when it comes to
training around and navigating around
injuries or or or limitations because
again back to what we said in the
beginning, if you have the understanding
of where you can go when they when you
do hit one of these roadblocks or
closures, then you have the rerouting
possibilities. And if you don't
understand what's part of making up that
movement, you don't have the ability to
do that so freely.
>> And would you put bicep and tricep in
the same category as delt where you're
talking about 8 to 10 working sets per
week to make gains or do you need a
little more?
>> I don't think you need a little more. I
think you could you could if anything
you could get away with less. I mean, as
long as they're high high effort taken
to failure sets. I mean, they're a
smaller muscle group. They don't need as
much. and they're going to get u they're
definitely going to get additional
benefits from the other compound
movements that you do. When you're
training chest, you're going to be
training your biceps. When you're
training uh triceps, when you're
training your uh back, you're going to
be training your biceps. So, you're
going to get some additional volume in
anyway in their accessory role.
>> What are your favorite forearm exercises
that aren't obviously getting all the
work already with bicep and stuff like
that? forearms. I think it's it's rather
boring when it comes to forearms because
if you look at the the wrist function
side of forearms, meaning the extending
and flexing of the wrist, you can get a
lot done with two basic exercises. Just
simple barbell wrist curls or barbell
wrist extensions or or dumbbell wrist
extensions, dumbbell curls or cable. You
can do the same thing. Whichever
position or whichever device you want to
use, you can do that. We extend the
benefits beyond that to the form itself.
we can move our forearm in space and and
still work forearm muscles. So the
brachiialis is a muscle that we the
brachioraiialis is a muscle that crosses
from the upper arm down to the forearm
itself that we can get with reverse
curls and exercises we can load more
heavily but it is a big muscle that
sticks out and provides a lot of forearm
development. So just limiting it to
wrist curls and wrist action is not
enough to train your forearm. You can
get even more into the minutia when you
start to do radial deviation,
alternation, and pronation, supernation,
and those are all amazing movements. And
I like to just resist them all with
bands. I've actually done a video where
I show you how to do all those movements
with just bands.
>> And again, it's it's it's something that
can match your
ability level based on just how much
resistance or how far away you step from
the anchoring point.
I do like one other functional type
exercise which we used to do in baseball
a lot. It's just a a roll of some sort.
So an over under roll. You could take
just a barbell itself and roll forward
until you fatigue and then you roll
backwards fatigue. All that's doing is
basically the rolling forward is
essentially creating wrist uh wrist
flexion and getting the flexors and the
rolling backwards of the bars getting
wrist extension training the extensors
on the back of the forearm. And you're
doing that on the ground
>> just with a standing in space with a
barbell in my hand just rolling over
that barbell until you can't do it
anymore. We've we've shown before a more
elaborate version which is really pretty
cool. But you take a a band and you wrap
it around the edge of a barbell that's
in a rack and you take that band and
then anchor it to a kettle bell, right?
Or a dumbbell. You just tie it around
the kettle bell or dumbbell. You have
that. And now what you do is you you
roll over the top of that end of the
barbell until you lift that kettle bell
weight all the way to the top. And then
more importantly, you unroll it just as
slowly and under control because what it
wants to do is just go right back down
to the ground. So you have to unroll it
very slowly and go back down to the
ground. So it's another way to like
almost gify forearm training because
again forearm training can be pretty
boring and straightforward but
effective.
>> Okay, let's go to everybody's favorite.
Let's talk PEX. PEX International Chess
Day every day. Uh
>> I was talking to a buddy of mine
yesterday and I hadn't talked to him in
a while and and um you know this is he's
a really serious guy when it comes to
his training and I was like all right
what's new in your workouts man? And he
goes chest day every day.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Which of course is he's being facitious
but but it was the fact that that was
his joke of course.
>> I mean it's it's it is a centerpiece on
the torso. So I think when people that
and abs right. So when people see
themselves in the mirror every day, that
is the thing that catches their eye
first. So I think that's why it gets so
much attention. Um, when it comes to to
the chest, there's two major
requirements here. You want to get some
type of pressing movement, and you want
to get some type of movement that
adducts or brings the arm across the
chest. So
when it comes to the pressing movements,
you have options of obviously barbells,
dumbbells, machines. They're all going
to do pretty much the same thing in
terms of the movement itself, but how it
feels can be drastically different. And
this is where when you have shoulder
issues, and I can speak from experience
here, some of them are going to feel a
lot more uncomfortable than others.
when I was going through that period of
inflammation in that joint, which was
long after, by the way, long after the
uh the injury itself, I had kind of
reagravated that injury in demonstrating
some of these bad exercises to do early
on on my channel. Um I
uh couldn't do any pressing. I could not
do any pressing at all. There wasn't a
pressing variation that I could find
that was comfortable for me. So, I did
all of my work through the adduction
crossover type exercise, taking a cable,
grabbing onto the handle, and then
crossing my arm over my body. I think
the ability to pull the cable in with
your bicep to kind of get it going or or
know you have that option takes away
some of the instability that might come
from having your arm way out in front of
you and uh that that long moment arm
that could be placed on the chest. So, I
found that [snorts] to be a good
rerouting option, you know, for for me.
Um, I was able to after doing those
exercises get to back to the point where
I could press. But when it comes to the
press itself, incline, flat, decline, if
I had to choose one, I' i'd say uh
incline because most people have a
weaker development of their upper chest
relative to their lower chest or middle
chest. So, an incline bench press will
cover the the weakest point of
development and still do a really good
job of hitting the rest of your chest.
Um, but I think dumbbells give people
with any issues the most opportunity to
train painfree. And if you still have
pain when you train with dumbbells, slow
it down. The slowing of the dumbbell,
especially during the eccentric portion
of it, is going to give your joint the
opportunity to feel safe and overcome
any instability that might be causing
some of your pain. So, I believe that a
lot of times even though there's
structural problems in the shoulder,
when you combine structural issues with
instability, they feel really
vulnerable. Those structures feel very,
very vulnerable. So when you can provide
stability mostly just by slowing the
pace down, then that structure itself
could feel a lot more supported and safe
and it doesn't cause the the pain and
discomfort that it would. And you're
able to get into those fine-tuned
positions we talked about before where
you know it feels good there.
>> Yeah. You can sort of bring the elbows
down a little bit and so you're at a
you're at an angle that's uh maybe
doesn't allow for the maximum. I mean,
you're you're using more tricep
potentially, but you're also taking more
stress off the AC joint.
>> Yeah. And it it feels like something
that's that is overall um
>> but it's interesting that you would
preferentially say, look, if you've only
got time for one pressing movement, make
it the incline over the flat and then
let's get you over doing flies or cables
or something as well. Okay. So, that's a
that's probably a common mistake people
make is maybe spending a
disproportionate or too much time
pressing and not enough time using the
adduction.
>> Definitely. And I think that the the
pressing should you should not
overexaggerate the angle of your press
though when you're doing the incline
bench. I like to keep it around 30° or
so. The higher you start to go, the more
you start to shift that focus into the
shoulders and that front delt again. So
I I I think 30° is 45° would be the
maximum for me, but 30° is where I like
to train from on that incline.
>> And then let's talk a little bit about
different ways that one can do
adduction. You obviously referred to
cables. Uh, of course all of us grew up
watching Arie do flies. Um,
>> you know, it looks like there's a lot of
risk on the shoulder with just a heavy
fly on a bench.
>> I hate that exercise. So, I I I I've
thrown that one in in my iron graveyard,
too. And again, only because
>> I cannot wait to see the comments of
people who are just so angry that you've
said that.
>> I'm so Look, it they say it's
fear-mongering. I'm not fear-mongering.
I'm saying I hate the exercise and I'm
recommending people do the alternative
because the alternative can give you
many of the same benefits without the
risk. The anterior shoulder capsule is
quite vulnerable in that position
period. Like you have a weight in your
hands and they'll argue just use lighter
weights. What if I want to use weights
that are somewhat heavier cuz I want to
challenge myself more eentrically? Well,
I could take the exercise down to the
floor. I'm still doing the fly. You like
the fly? I'll do the fly. I'll do it
down on the floor. Now I have
>> But
>> can you get as much stretch when you're
on the floor?
>> You can't get as much. But again,
where's it? We're doing these little
trade-offs back and forth. If I wanted
to get a little bit more stretch, I
could stand up and go do a cable
crossover.
>> Yeah.
>> And because I can position myself
differently in a cable crossover and I
could get my arms in in a in a slot that
are more comfortable for me. And because
I can control some of that that that
vulnerability to stretch because I can
utilize the biceps to offload that in
any way by by engaging them or not in
that back position, then I have a safer
exercise option that still most
importantly gives me the adduction and
also gives me better resistance through
more range of motion of adduction. If I
take a dumbbell fly and I pull it to the
top, once I get to the top, I don't have
much much resisted adduction anymore. If
I have my cables and I pull them, I
could go to midline and still go past
midline and still get more of that
effect.
>> So, do you remember the old Nautilus
machine? You'll never see these things
anymore, but I feel like they were some
of the best machines ever engineered,
but this machine that was just a fly
machine. Um, it had, uh, round bolsters
that, and I'm sure other companies make
it besides Nautilus, but, it allowed you
to do a fly with your arms at 90 degrees
and so you could actually load this
thing up to the ends of the earth and
your shoulders didn't hurt. Whereas
today, you go into most gyms, the fly
machine is a handle
>> and it's only slightly you you just
can't go that heavy.
>> Yeah. I
>> Why the difference? because I think
people didn't it didn't they didn't take
to that machine as much because they
didn't feel that big stretch as much.
And what happens a lot of times is when
you extend your arm out even you know
the elbow out you start to involve other
muscles that get subjected to stretch
that get perceived to be stretch itself
like on the pec itself because as long
the only thing that's going to dictate
the the stretch on the pec is the
position of the humorous relative to the
body. So if I get to here, whether I'm
here, whether I'm here is not really
affecting the stretch of the of the
chest.
>> But you feel the bicep stretch when
you're
>> feel other muscles start to get
involved. The coral brigalis, you start
to feel other things get involved that
give the perception of more stretch.
>> And when that happens, people feel like,
I like this exercise more cuz I can feel
this stretching me more. Um, again, it's
the unsupported nature of that that I
don't like as much. when we're when
we're doing that cable crossover,
it may seem unsupported, but it is
supported because the stacks are going
to engage at some point depending upon
how far away I get. So, I I know I've
got that bottomed out position depending
upon how far away from the machine I get
or how how much
>> do you like to cable fly with single arm
or double?
>> I uh It's actually a good question. I I
like them both. I like them both when
I'm really trying to focus on one side
um is is when I'm trying to get like a
really good contraction on that side. if
I'm just trying to move heavier weight
that I want to grab them both together
and make sure I do that. What I always
advise people against when doing that
exercise is is like leaning too too much
in that cuz they'll lean in as they do
it and basically that promotes the
rounding of the shoulder. They'll get
too much dominance of the shoulder to do
it. I always say as you're pressing le
you want to lean back almost want to
stand upright so your chest is out in
front of the movement and doing the
majority of the work and not your
shoulders tending to round out and
dominate the movement. Um, but I don't
um I I I don't care what direction you
go there. You can go uh straight across
midline. You could go high to low. When
you go from this position, from a higher
uh grip position down towards a lower
grip position, you're going to work more
of your lower chest because basically
simulating more of a dip. And then if
you go from a lower hand position to
start and a higher hand position at the
finish, then you're simulating more of
that that upper the the orientation of
the upper pec fibers. you're you're
mirroring their direction more so you
hit those more effectively. But that's
again that's more of a weak point.
>> Would you say like 50/50 split if you're
going to spend if you're going to do 10
to 12 working sets of pec, would you say
half of that should be pressing, half of
that should be fly?
>> I I think that's fair. Yeah. Yeah.
>> You mentioned dips. Where do they belong
in our toolkit for triceps and and lower
pec?
>> I like dips. I I know that people find
them to be somewhat of a or they they
believe them to be somewhat of a risky
exercise, but I think if they're done
responsibly through reasonable ranges of
motion, not extreme ranges of motion.
I've seen recommendations of people
saying to get really really low and
people just things change when you when
you're fatigued, right? So when you
start to get like more and more fatigue
than a set, even something that started
out that seemed to be a a good safe
exercise can become unsafe because of
the of the fatigue. The dip is one of
those exercises that can become more and
more unsafe because of fatigue because
all of your body weight is being
basically
sunken downward as you're trying to hold
and push yourself back up. But as it
sinks down, it's putting more and more
internal rotation onto your shoulder.
But if you're aware of that as a
negative feedback point, like that is
something you're trying to avoid, then
you you stop yourself in that range of
motion higher than the point that
becomes vulnerable. And if you start to
perceive that your fatigue is overcoming
your ability to control yourself in that
range of motion, then you stop the set.
So I think there's ways that you can do
that exercise. You could also put a band
there and do an assisted dip. So, you're
just basically hanging it over the the
the handles and you're putting your
knees on top. There's a lot of things
you can do, but I I don't like to avoid
the exercise entirely because I think
it's one of the best ways to stimulate,
especially the lower chest with that
good stretch from the uh from the bottom
position.
>> So, what are So, you're basically using
depth and range of motion to manage
because again, you're the perfect
candidate of somebody who shouldn't like
that exercise with your torn
>> lab. Yeah, always I use I use depth uh
depth and control of of the of that
depth when I do try to get a little bit
more into a stretch position. I feel
like how how stable can I keep my body
position. One of my big keys I say is to
be able to drive your shoulders down.
You want your shoulders away from your
ears. If you start to feel that your
shoulders are riding up towards your
ears or you feel like you're shrugging,
you don't have control anymore. You
should at any point in time be able to
keep your shoulders depressed and have
that distance between your shoulders and
ears as a as a check and form check
regards to your your stability of in
control of your shoulders in those
bottom positions. Then when I get to the
top too, same thing because when you get
to the top, it's going to want to like
your whole body weight is going to want
to sink you down into that shrugged
position. You want to actually actively
drive your your elbows down and show and
unshrug the shoulders. But the the dip
would fall into the pressing category as
would a push-up, right? Any of these
where you're just pushing your arms out
down overhead, like in terms of a chest
activation, it's usually the push-up,
the dip, and the bench press as your
main pushing options. The only the
adduction exercises are going to be the
ones that cross that arm across midline.
>> Do you want to do back next or abs? I
mean, stay on the front of the body or
>> uh just stay with the abs.
Um
they say uh that most of the ab work is
done in the kitchen.
>> That is so true. [laughter]
>> I mean you strengthening the abs and
getting aesthetically pleasing abs is
really two different things too. Um, I
think that
when we look at the contributions of
nutrition and whatever ab exercises
you're doing, it's this is nutrition
99 times out of 100 is is the is is what
is responsible for what you're seeing.
Nutrition is going to control your body
fat levels, period. What you see when
you get rid of that body fat is
determined by your dedication to ab
training. I do not believe that doing
the compounds is enough for your abs. I
I've never believed that. I think that
there's so many other things that your
abs are responsible for in terms of
motions and and and um and and movement
patterns. You're not doing that all from
a a series of compound exercises. Matter
of fact, in the compounds, their role is
mostly just to stabilize. They're not
creating rotation. They're not
preventing rotation. Sometimes they're
preventing rotation, but they're
certainly not creating rotation. They're
not creating rotation under load. So,
how do we do that? So,
the exercises that you pick once you get
your body fat levels low enough should
hit these major functions. My major
functions when it comes to abs are their
ability to create top down movement,
which means pulling my rib cage towards
my pelvis because the flexion of the
spine is really the main responsibility
of the movement of the abs. Okay? Their
stabilization requirements are huge, but
there's no movement going on there. So
the flexion of the spine is is coming
from top down movements, bottom up
movements where the pelvis is moving
towards the the rib cage itself. Any
type of reverse crunch. The same two
things but done with rotation. So it's
now not just top down but it's top down
and rotating. So we call it top down
rotation. Bottom up with rotation. So
anything where you're bottom you're turn
pulling that that pelvis up but rotating
at the same time or twisting. Then we
have the obliques themselves that are
going to be feeding right into with the,
you know, working in conjunction with
the abs. And then sort of mid-range
movements where both the rib cage and
the pelvis and and move towards each
other at the same time. So those are
like V-ups and exercises that do that.
how you do these. Anything done on the
floor is generally going to be easier,
generally going to be easier than if you
were to perform them hanging from a bar
because we have more of our body weight
being subjected to gravity that we have
to lift. Anything like a a leg raise
done from the floor is a hell of a lot
easier than a leg raise done from a bar.
>> How do you do top down with on a bar?
>> You want to do it on a bar, you would do
a you would do more like a if you're
going to do it with weight, you're going
to do a cable like a crunch pull down.
Got it. Okay.
>> Yeah. And how does one think about their
portfolio when they think about all
those things? So obviously the easiest
top down is a crunch and then crunch
with rotation is top down with rotation,
leg up from the floor with rotation,
hanging leg raise with rotation. Um
that's you're basically picking from
those. How are you defining sets and
reps for this funky muscle group? I
believe it's it's hard to to define sets
and reps for people when it comes to ab
work because a couple things. Number
one, we all can do different amounts.
More so,
>> we do a better job of
creating good quality contractions when
we're not just focused on a number,
right? Like if I say, "Hey, I I just
want you to like and if I really just
wanted you to get a good ab workout, I'd
really just focus on getting slower,
meaningful, concentrated contractions on
the abs because it's too easy to involve
the hip flexors. It's too easy to
involve momentum." And we get so lost in
the ability to say, "Yep, 30, 35, 40 of
what? 40 of what? 40 of of waist." Like
there was nothing that actually was very
productive there. So, I'd rather see you
either just do it until you can't do
them anymore. So, just train the
exercise to failure, whatever that is,
and know that you've done them slowly
and and concertedly so you're doing the
right thing for the you're trying to
develop. Or I'd like to see you just do
them for like a series of of um specific
amount of time, but focus on rotating
through them as fast as possible. So, I
might not get complete fatigue from the
132 bout that I'm doing, but knowing
that I'm going to go into the
immediately to the next one
>> mechanically
offset. So, it's a little bit like so I
can still do it even if I'm fatigued
from the other one. Right? There's
always a a mechanical drop down effect
that's happening. So, I can still keep
doing exercise. But knowing that the end
result of this will be at the end of
these six minutes, 7 minutes, whatever,
I'm going to be toast, right? And I can
do that if I shift the focus a little
bit around the abs, you know, from the
top down movement to the bottom up to
moving those those focuses around is
going to allow me to keep going for 30
second intervals with very little rest
periods in between that at the end of it
all will have a cumulative effect. So,
those are the two ways that I usually
like to do it. And um I've got plenty of
workouts where I've posted where I do it
in followalong fashion, where I do it
like where I just program it and tell
you what to do. But there's a lot of
variety within those because it's the
movement pattern that's most important.
The exercise itself isn't as important.
It's the ones that you tend to to feel
the most and feel the best contraction
on or the ones I try to push people
towards.
>> And what would be your favorite pure
rotation exercise? If you're going to
pick one pure rotation exercise, would
it be um you know knee up like one knee
up, one knee down with a a cross body
cable or something like how you know
what do you
>> So I like any type of we we call them
sledgehammers where you just basically
take two hands on a on a cable and
you're trying to to um rotate. What I
also like from those is when you get out
to that position having to hold them and
then step out even further, right?
Especially if you're doing with bands.
>> And you would prefer You want to see
that standing? You want to see that in a
split stance or
>> standing? Yeah, standing. Well, I mean
this this could be done. This is
standing. This is just a squared up
stance. Standing. Um, if we wanted to
get really powerful with it, I could
split your stance a little bit more
because now I'm focused on driving as
much power from the ground up. And I
could do that, too. And those are
explosively performed, but still under
control, right? Everything that I say is
explosive is still under control because
it's not enough to just get yourself out
into that position, but to control it on
the way back always. So, I like to do
any of those variations. Again, we could
do them even uh isomemmetrically where
if I have the the the let's say again
band in my hand and it's out in front of
my body, I can jump out even further
laterally which is going to increase the
tension on the band and want to whip
myself back and to rotate towards the
anchor point. Don't let it. You just you
stick you keep your body face straight
ahead. So you're you're undergoing like
these spontaneously increased
rotational demands or these isometric
rotational demands. And that's a great
way to is that's a really good athletic
way to train because a you're on your
feet but because we do get subjected to
so many
>> spontaneous
forces that that try yeah try to change
body position and we don't we don't
allow it. Some people that have a hard
time being able to do this well you
might have seen it before. They'll take
a um a physio ball and they'll hug the
fidget ball with a cable.
>> So, they're doing the the rotation with
a great way to go for beginners, too,
because they they feel like, okay, I'm
hugging and I'm moving as a unit. I'm
not just like moving my hands in space
because a lot of the tendency if you're
just doing these band exercises for
beginners is to try to move with their
hands only. I want you to think of your
hands being united with your with your
belly button and core and you're moving
it as a unit because that's how you're
actually going to kind of train the core
itself. So if you find that your arms
are independently moving, lock them up
with that physio ball and that sort of
helps to to to to do that.
>> All right, let's talk about Dorian Yates
and the back. Um,
again, not withstanding the fact that
like a bodybuilder will break this down
into every possible angle of the back,
but if we're just talking about this
through the lens of normal people who
are going to throw 8 to 12 sets per week
at the entirety of their back inclusive
of, you know, traps, romboids, lats, the
whole thing. Um, even even the lower
muscles, spiny muscles. How would you
how would you create a protocol? And
again, always for the person who is
saying, "Look, I want to I want I want
more of a Vshape, you know, I want to I
want to I want to sort of taper down
here a little bit. I have to get my my
lats bigger." What are the what are the
mistakes and how do we need to train?
>> The back is obviously made up of a lot
of muscles and it's a big area. The the
most effective way I think to look at it
programmatically is to think vertical
pulling, horizontal pulling, low back
specific, upper back focus, right? upper
back scap scapular type uh retraction
work. So the upper
back work pulling versus the either the
vertical or horizontal pulling is mostly
dictated again by the positioning of
those elbows like we referenced earlier
like the the the more those elbows drift
during like say a seated row and they
drift higher the more you're going to
get into that extension of the arm as
the main focus. So, you're going to get
more of this the midbacks, rhomboids,
uh, upper traps, mid traps, that that's
going to be tapped into the most when
you allow the elbows to drift. If you do
a a a row, which should be a basic
compound exercise to perform, then
you're going to get more of the lats. If
you're doing that with a tighter arm
position, the issue with the row could
be that someone with a low back issues
or weakness might find that any
freestanding row position could be
challenging where they start to fatigue
more in the low back prior to their
lats. In that case, the chest supported
row done face down on an incline bench
gives you the option to continue to
overload your lats as you start to build
up your your low back strength. I don't
ever recommend you do chest supported
rowing and that's where you stay. I
think everyone should be able to row
under load from a standing position. And
so you just have to like work your way
up to the point where you can do that.
That's where the low back strengthening
comes in. Like, okay, so you're working
your way up from your chest supported
row to your standing barbell row
variation, but at the same time, you're
working on your low back, right? You got
to ch you got to strengthen your low low
back. And there's a lot of a lot of ways
to do that. Um, I like classic
hyperextensions, you know, over a physio
ball. I like reverse hyperextensions.
There's two my favorite ways to do that.
I like, uh, Superman type exercises
where you're laying flat on the ground
and you're raising your your thighs off
the ground the same time that you're
raising your arms up because then we
could stimulate some of that upper back
muscles, too. But like those are the
things that look a little uh rehabish,
but at the same time they're only
looking rehabish because they're
exercises that you never do and they're
exercises that target smaller areas
relative to their larger neighbors.
>> And just like let's go through the
superman as an example. So if you're
doing that, how what constitutes a
working set?
>> Failure. So again, what I
>> how many reps, how long a hold, how do
you think about it? So again, these
anything where especially these
corrective type exercises because I I
say corrective like you're correcting a
weak low back in this case. So these
corrective exercises, they should always
be done with a the mentality of really
good high quality repetitions. So like I
hate when we say do a set of 15 of
these. I'd rather you think of that as
doing 15 sets of one, right? I want you
to feel every single one of those
purposely in the low back. And also in a
superman, you're trying to teach the low
back to be supported by the glutes. One
of the biggest reasons why we get low
back issues is because the glutes are
not doing their job to basically support
the pelvis from below. And so it's
causing the low back to have to take on
more of the brunt of that. So the low
back gets overworked. If you can do the
exercise where you squeeze, in this case
the superman, squeeze your your glutes
together first, get that stability, then
lift off the ground and get into this
extension, then you're going to feel it
differently, but you're going to feel it
properly. So, doing enough of those um
in this one, like 15 sets of one
mentality, we'll start to get that
neuromuscular re-education that's that's
lost, right? It's not so much about
being able to overcome huge loads there.
It's about being able to train the
muscle neuromuscularly to start to
respond more effectively. So, I think
when you start to do some of those
exercises and work them in, and I work
them into regular back day, like it's
it's just part of it's like it's the
end, but it's the part like it's just no
less important than the heavier vertical
puller push exercises.
>> I see. So, we're going to hit lower back
primarily through the horizontal and
vertical stuff. So, for example, a
seated unsupported cable row when you're
going heavy, your lower back has to do a
lot of work if you're doing a standing
row.
>> More so on the standing row. Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, that's where you're getting
lower back, but then you'll finish it
with the superman's
>> with the with the direct workout. Yeah.
Got it. Yeah. And and and not and try
not to be
>> try not to be bored with them thinking
that there's something remedial. They're
they're just as important as the other
exercises because they help to connect
those weak links that are probably
taking away some of the cap capacity you
have on the bigger exercises cuz they
are the weak link.
>> Again, going back to the the kind of
workh horses of this are the vertical
and horizontal pulling. But the key is
if you're doing this for the purpose of
your lats, keep the elbows in.
>> Elbows are going to be tighter. Yeah.
>> So, you do not need wide grip activity
here. You don't need a wide grip lat
pull down. Like if you used to think,
>> well, I want a Vshape. I should be
grabbing the thing out as far as
possible, but really you don't need to.
>> No, the the the wider the grip actually
you're you start to shift the focus to
the a muscle called the Terry's major,
which is they call it the lat helper.
So, it does functionally very much the
same, but the angle of the hands being
that far out actually shifts more of the
load away from the lats to the tererry's
major. So, again, aesthetically, it's
something that a bodybuilder would want.
it's going to actually support the the
overall appearance of what you're seeing
back there. But functionally for 99% of
us, it you don't need to go that wide to
do that. And you and you're probably
just inviting some awkwardness to the
shoulder joint that you might feel the
repercussions of down the road.
>> Okay. And then upper back and scap
specifically, what are sort of your
favorite activities?
>> I mean, my favorite is the face pull. I
talk about the face pull all the time.
Um,
I like the face pull because it isn't
necessarily just
corrective in nature. It could actually
be loaded up enough to cause hypertrophy
of the rear delt, the mid traps, the
rhomboids, the rear delt. It's like it's
got a lot of it's got a lot of benefits.
>> Tell people how you like to do it. You
doing with a rope, you're standing in
front of the cable machine.
>> So, it's definitely become a lot more
popular since since I've talked about it
for many years, which I love seeing. I
see people literally do it in the gym
now. But there's two ways to to do it.
The first thing is
you really should attach two gym ropes
to the to the device to be able to do
this properly. When you do one like the
regular gym rope that we see in all the
gyms,
it's not long enough to get the the
elbows open enough to a 90° angle.
What's going to happen is your elbows
are going to be bent in this position.
The bending of the elbows once you add
weight starts to drive what? Starts to
drive your hands forward and your
shoulder into internal rotation. So if I
can get my hands wider, it's still going
to promote internal rotation, but I wind
up being able to get into a stronger
position here and work external
rotation. Like I have a target to go
towards external rotation. I can't here
with the short rope. I can't. So by
attaching the two ropes, now I have
enough length in each hand. And then
what I try to do is again get a good
stable base. I don't usually perform
these out of um a split stance. I
usually do them out of a squared up feet
even with each other stance. And the
reason why I do that is I think it's a
good place to a good way to limit the
amount of load that you're using there.
So I don't while I think you can go a
little heavier here, I don't think you
should be loading these up so heavy that
like you're relying on a split stance to
get so much stability that you can pull
that that weight back. Um, so it gives
you a nice top end when you can't
balance yourself anymore and you're
being pulled forward on the exercise
because you're you're doing too much. So
now we use the um the pulling of the
hands as the guideline. So I want I
don't want to just pull the elbows back
cuz I might let the hands lag behind. To
get external rotation at the shoulder, I
need to drive with the back of my hands.
So, if I can think about opening my
elbows up or opening my chest up,
squeezing those scapular muscles
together, and then pulling my hands
back, that's how you want to perform the
face pull. At the end of it, you want to
have almost looks like you're doing a
double bicep flex for someone who's
looking at you from the front or the
back. You have those 90°ree angles and
you're pulling straight, you know,
straight back. At that point, there's
one other little tweak that I think is
amazing if people can handle it is you
then from this position, not only you
increasing your tension and time under
tension in that spot, but you raise your
arms up overhead. So, what you're doing
there is in this peak contracted
position. Now, you're raising your arms
up and that starts to get into the lower
traps. So, lower traps have a lot of
control and and function when you raise
up overhead and that and the shoulders
shoulder blades are rotating. They
provide good stability there. So, you're
adding one other element to the exercise
at a very little extra cost. And it just
simply requires a raising and then a
lowering of the hands back again to
where they started. And then you let the
the uh the the weights go back to the
beginning position. So, you're just
basically adding one additional raise at
the end peak position and then let the
arm go back. So, it's basically a face
pull and press.
>> Okay. And again, it's really you're
you're really overlapping rear delt here
as well, correct? I mean, you're you're
hitting that rear delt again. Um, is
that an argument for doing delts on the
same day you do back or it gets a little
>> I do that a lot. I do that I I I look at
upper back and um and delts as having a
lot of shared functions. Um, so I think
that you can you can pair them up if
you're trying to do the agonist muscles
working together.
>> All right, let's talk about legs in any
way you see fit. Do you want to talk
about uh quads, hamstrings, or you want
to talk about everything from the knee
to the hips as one and let's just go
through it?
>> No, I think we I think you split them
up. I think what you know I think of
them sort of as anterior, posterior. Um
but even within that, I think there's
exercises that that that will stress the
hamstrings from
uh a lengthened position and those that
stretch them or stress them from a a
knee flexed position. And
anteriorly, I mean, I think when we're
talking about the quads, we have a lot
of different options um from squatting
that that will do a great job. The
squatting will hit the posterior chain,
too. So,
let's start with with a with anterior.
If you if you were to do the anterior
and you wanted a more quad focused
option, then there's a couple things
that you could do. Number one, you can
carry the weight more anteriorly. So
that's why we have the front squat,
>> cyclist squats,
>> you know. Um
>> that gives us a chance to, you know,
direct some of the load a little bit
more effectively towards the towards the
quads. I love the front squat. You have
to be okay with the fact that you're not
going to be able to handle as much
weight there. But again, that's almost
irrelevant when we're talking about at
the end of the day, it's the tension the
muscle feels. It's not the actual weight
that's on the side of the barbell or
dumbbells.
>> So that gives you that chance. A goblet
squat would be another option for that.
Um, the transition between the two is a
belt squat because that that weight gets
directed more directly downward. I love
the bell squat because it doesn't
require the the the loading on the back
for people that don't have the strength
to support that. Um, and I have an
exercise that I like to do which is a
squat variation called the Spanish
squat. And you basically take a a band
and you put it around the back of your
knees.
Take your pair of D, usually done with
dumbbells, you back away from the band.
So, it's already if you were to let the
band pull you, it's already pulling your
knees into flexion, right? It's trying
to drive you into flexion. The only way
to get that that band or to to to get
into the proper position is to drive
your knees back against the resistance
of that band. So, you're getting really
resisted terminal knee extension. Now,
you have your dumbbells at your at your
sides. You reach down to the ground, you
pick them up. Now, you squat down. As
you squat down, obviously your knees are
flexing. You get down to the bottom of
the squat and you can go pretty as heavy
as you can hold the dumbbells here. So
you can go 60s, 80s, hundreds, whatever
you can hold. As you come back up to the
top, you get toward that last 20° or so,
you have to drive your knees up against
the the resistance of that band to get
that fully extended knee. It's basically
taking the elements of a leg extension,
but because you're doing it in a closed
chain way with your feet in contact with
the ground, it it's brutal, but it's a
great combination of an exercise. takes
a regular squat and it adds an element
of uh of resisted knee extension at the
end. That's just amazing. Um I like
doing that. If people um are limited by
their grip strength, right? They're not
able to load heavy enough because they
can't hold that that weight, then that
may not be a great option for them. But
a lot of times they're overcoming that
because of the added resistance of the
band. Like that makes it so difficult.
Um, I also have taken um to Bulgarian
split squats as a favorite of mine
because I know that I can effectively
hit the quads more one leg at a time,
uh, which is another benefit.
>> So, when you're doing a Bulgarian or
rear foot elevated, you're fatiguing in
the front of your leg more than the back
of your leg
>> if you maintain your upright posture.
So, the big cue there is to maintain as
tall of a of a chest position as you
can. A lot of times what we'll do is
we'll go down into the exercise and and
angle forward. Right? As we angle
forward, that is going to quickly and
significantly shift the load to your
posterior chain to the glutes and of
course the quads too, but more so to the
glutes as you as you start to lean
forward more. If you maintain an
exaggerated and not not in in a in a
harmful way, but an exaggerated way your
upright posture, just don't allow
yourself to sink forward, then you're
going to hit the quads very strongly in
that. Same thing with a reverse lunge.
Absolutely. One of my favorite exercises
for posterior, anterior, um, depending
upon how much angle of my torso I allow.
>> Okay. It's funny because we're kind of
talking legs in general anyway, but
there's
>> no I think I think it's it's I it's
impossible for me to think about legs as
anterior posterior. I just think of legs
as legs. And the the the balance shifts
a little bit between
>> I mean how I how am I lifting my heels?
Am I not lifting my heels? And
>> yeah, and you don't hear me talk much
about like if we if my exercise
favorites were the leg extension, you
might hear me speak a little bit more
like like that. But anteriorly, I know I
can shift the focus by positioning the
body differently in space. But, but I
don't have a lot of go-to specific, hey,
quads. I'm really focused on the quads
here, cuz I don't do a lot of leg
extensions. I don't I they're not a
great exercise. Uh, personally, for me,
for my knees, given my history of knee
issues, and for a lot of people, they
don't feel so great. If you can do the
exercise and there are no issues with
with pain, it it's it's the equivalent
of a concentration curl for the for the
for the biceps.
>> If somebody is saying, you know, my legs
are just so skinny, I really just want
to put some muscle mass on my legs.
>> What are you saying? Is this where, hey,
we got to go up to 16 sets working in a
day and I want you to focus just on the
compound lifts or like what what guiding
principles do you give that person who's
who's trying to put some muscle on their
legs? definitely have to go you have to
go heavy enough. I think that a lot of
times people don't go heavy enough with
their leg training. Um and I think that
legs respond a little bit more to higher
slightly higher volumes. So I think
rather than potentially
doing more and more in one day, which
you really start to
you know how fast you can you can you
can tap out when it comes to leg
training. it'd be better to probably
just schedule a second session in the
week volume-wise, increasing the the
number of sessions that you're training
legs. So, that's where these options of
being able to shift the focus a little
bit around anterior, posterior, um,
gives you some flexibility and not doing
the same exact workout twice, but it
gives you a chance to to train your legs
and stimulate them twice so you have
more more opportunity. But um being able
to build bigger legs, I mean, some of us
are just never going to be able to build
them as big as others cuz it tends to be
one of those areas like the calves that
are just genetically
um I call them calves or cals, you know,
like it's and I'm a cal for sure, but
like the the the leg leg growth and size
and strength and power even from the
athletes like it's it's it's it's quite
often times something you're born with.
And um but not that you can't improve it
all, but that's something that's heavily
in uh influenced by genetics.
>> So what we want to have is a good
rotation of movements
>> and basically say, look, if I'm going to
just try to do it all in one day, I'm
going to get 12 to 14 16 sets working
for legs on a given day. I'm going to
pick and choose from these exercises and
I'm not necessarily doing the same
workout every time.
>> Yeah, definitely not. You don't you
don't have to do the same workout every
time. there. Again, even just between if
I had to choose between
reverse barbell or dumbbell lunges and
Bulgarian split squats, both similar in
that you wouldn't do those two on the
same day necessarily.
>> Um, I don't need to because the
positioning of the legs is is is similar
enough that I don't necessarily need to
do that. One's more dynamic than the
other. So, I I factor that in when I
think about programming. Like the the
lunge is is going to be more dynamic.
Um, whereas you're more fixed in the in
the Bulgarian split squat. Um, but I'd
want to have something that I wasn't
potentially being limited by balance or
coordination so that that every time I
train my legs, it was some sort of a
squared up, balanced out squat,
two-footed squat.
>> I mean, the problem I have with with
training legs, which I enjoy, I really,
for whatever reason, I've always enjoyed
it since I was, you know, very young. Um
there's just too much to do because in
addition to all of the exercises you
just went through which are important
for strength hypertrophy, there are all
these sort of unsexy things that we have
to do as well. Like we've got to get all
that glute me training in. We've got to
make sure we get the adductors working.
And they're not really adding size, but
they are adding time to the workout.
Yeah. Um, so how do you how do you think
about making sure people are doing a lot
of the lateral movement with the legs?
Um, like really dumb looking things,
curtsy squats and things like you just
you got to kind of do those things the
same way that we talked about the low
back being the stuff that it can be
relegated towards the end of the workout
requiring less of your energy, but it's
still part of the workout and it's no
less important. As a matter of fact,
it's just as important for me. That is
the the glute me training. it is the the
fact that we don't get um a lot of
frontal plane stimulus from the bigger
more popular exercises. All the ones we
just mentioned lunging and split
squatting and squatting are all sagittal
plane exercises. So unless we are
lunging laterally or if we're
>> like aostic
>> or aostic we could do um that
>> but that's not going to give you much
hypertrophy, right?
>> Uh no no I mean well it depends. is I
mean it depends on how how
>> um an outcastic I mean if you're getting
deep into that squat and you're and
you're yeah I mean again it's that same
tension equation like as long as the
tension is high enough and you're
overcoming it and fatiguing because of
it and reaching failure because of it
then you're you're going to gain
benefits in hypertrophy but the ones
that I think about for glute medius like
I have um a series of exercises where we
do hip bumps against the wall all you're
doing is letting yourself drop down to
this one's a little bit hard to
describe, but you're essentially
standing close to a wall. You're uh
you're standing on your outside leg. So,
not the inside leg. The inside leg is
just lifted off the floor.
>> You're letting your hips get lazy. I say
you're letting your hips drop out to the
side straight in the frontal plane.
You're just letting it kind away from
the wall. And then from there, all
you're going to do is just drive
yourself back to where because at that
point, your pelvis is going to be tilted
towards the wall. You're going to drive
yourself to a level pelvis. That's
coming strictly from the glute medius
and abducting the the hip in to get into
that position.
>> And sorry, what do you call that
exercise?
>> Uh I call it just a hip hip drop or a
hip bump. And that is um you'll feel
that very quickly and you'll realize how
weak you are in that plane even if you
are a heavy squatter because if you're
not totally different, right? If you're
not doing it, you're not doing it. those
muscles aren't really as active nearly
as active in that position as they are
when you're doing a regular squat. So,
these are humbling exercises, but
they're no less important to do. You
need to get over the fact that like,
okay, I'm pretty weak here. Um, we had
some of the best athletes in the world I
would have do these exercises or even um
we would test people by having them uh
get on their stomach and essentially
bend their knees and then I would rotate
their leg in or out. Right? So they're
from that I'm using their leg as a
fulcrum and I'm basically rotating it
out. the the degree to which I can
control that leg in space when I tell
them don't let me move it is is crazy
because like they have
>> so they just don't have the external
>> rotation strength. No, none. I mean and
we're talking about
>> best athletes in the world.
>> Yes. And seriously powerful people
because they don't train that enough.
You could actually train that motion
specifically by literally getting a band
anchored to something stable and then
putting yourself in that position on
your stomach and rotating against that
resistance. like you can work it. Is it
goofy looking? Yeah. I mean, if you're
doing that in a gym, it would be goofy
looking. Would you feel like
self-conscious because it's hard to do
and you can't even imagine why you can't
make your leg move like that? Sure. But
it doesn't it doesn't negate how
important it still is. And when we're
talking about people with low back
issues or hip pain, like these become a
factor cuz it matters. It matters
getting those weak muscles to become
more imbalanced with the other dominant
muscles is going to provide more
stability for that joint and then take
some of the load and stress off the
muscles that are trying to do too much
like the low back.
>> Okay. Now, again, I'm I'm keeping this
deliberately away from the recovery side
because there's so much more we could
talk about on how to stabilize a knee
and things like that, but I'm trying to
keep this to the aesthetic. Um, let's
finish it up with with calves. So, two
big muscles, but what are the principles
around training calves? Again, we're
talking about those of us who are don't
have these genetically perfect calves
you see on uh the odd
>> Yeah.
>> specimen.
>> Um, so the the there you mentioned two
muscles. So, there's the gastrochemus
and the solius.
>> The
gastro is one that that crosses the
knee. That's again there's this there's
these muscles, right? we talked about
before the triceps, you know, some of
these that cross those joints, it
crosses the knee and the solius does
not. So, how you train them can
determine is is determined by the
position of the body when you do it. So,
that to to hit the gastro most
effectively, you're doing them from
these straight knee positioned exercises
like a standing calf raise or toes in,
toes out, whatever that variation might
be. To do uh the soius, you wouldn't
necessarily need to have that knee
straight. You could have a knee bent. So
any of those seated calf raises are
going to do that. Um, the biggest thing
that I think I've advocated for when it
comes to calf training is the removal of
the ballistic element of the exercise
because the calves, the Achilles is so
accustomed to handling the ballistic
transition from foot on the ground,
midfoot absorbing those forces and then
locking up and propelling you into the
next step. Right? that's so good at
handling those quick transitions.
>> I just don't think from an anatomic
perspective we appreciate how remarkable
that part of our body is.
>> Oh, the Oh gosh.
>> Like the the ability of the foot,
Achilles, calf complex to navigate us
through the world. It is in many ways
sort of heartbreaking when you come
across somebody who's
never taken advantage of it.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. They've never run. they've never
jumped. Um, and they're now in mid late
life and they're shuffling around and
that Achilles has, you know, atrophied
away. Those muscles are not reactive
anymore. The tendon doesn't have the
supple nature to to do all those things.
And yet you realize we were all born
with the capacity to do something as
dramatic as a as a broad jump or sprint
or jump off a box. like what was like
the forces that are required
>> to to me it's the timing too. The timing
is so precise. You're you're basically
asking your foot from the moment it hits
the ground the midfoot which is just a
series of bones in there, right? That
are all sort of aligned to to become
adaptable to the surface. So they loosen
they literally loosen they loosen
through that through that active
pronation of the of the ankle complex
and the foot complex. So, as it starts
to hit the ground, you're getting this
loosening of those of those bones so
that you can adapt to the surface. They
call it a mobile adapter function of the
foot. So, you can adapt because maybe
the ground's rocky or you're on a hill,
you're running, you can't just be rigid.
So, it gets into that position and then
it has to be able to within a moment's
notice if you're running especially be
able to as it's being brought back
behind you again into extension quickly
shift from being mobile and loose from
to be able to absorb the forces there
and not just jolt your entire knee and
hip joint to then becoming rigid and
locked up to become basically a propulse
propulsion techn.
So it happens in a in in micros
secondsonds to be able to go from this
to this to this to this completely
opposite functions. And if it doesn't
handle it well and it stays a mobile
adapter for too long when you go to
propel yourself, you don't have that
rigidness to to to basically lever your
body off the ground. Now you're going to
rely too much on the structures in there
to try to do that. That's where you
start to get patellar to plan fascitis.
You start to get Achilles tendonitis.
all these things start to go wrong. Same
thing if you don't have a good enough
adapter to the surface, then every step
you take becomes too jolting to all
those joints up that kinetic chain.
They're going to have to absorb the
force that the foot couldn't. It's it is
it is definitely remarkable.
>> And so with all of that said, we could
do an entire podcast on just how you do
that. Fortunately, we've done a bunch of
content on that. But now coming back to
this main principle, you're saying,
look, if you want those muscles, the
solius and the gastro to get bigger,
>> you can't let the the body cheat its way
out of doing what it's so good at, which
is what it was designed
>> designed for. So you need to So I I
think the if there's a hack to to calf
training, it's to try to turn off that
responsibility of the Achilles tendon so
that it's not trying to jump in and
ballistically do what it does, but it
forces the muscles to almost
inefficiently temporarily because that's
what we're trying to do is
inefficiently, you know, stretch them so
they can grow is it makes them do more
of the work. So you go into a a bottomed
out position, you stay there for 4
seconds, right? And then you start to
come out of that position. And you do it
slow and controlled. You don't try to
explode out out of that position because
you can quickly turn back to those that
that tendon and elasticity to do the
job. I'm talking about making the
muscles inefficiently have to slowly
contract and and drive your body out of
that position. And doing it one leg at a
time tends to allow for the overload
that people don't get when they're just
doing these two-legged exercises. So if
you don't have external load from a
machine or a calf raise or something
like that, you can do it more
effectively one leg at a time. But the
biggest key is is to lower yourself
slowly, stay down in that position for 4
seconds and then kind of drive yourself
up out of that over a slower
graded pace than just explosively
getting out of that position. And that's
the same thing whether you're doing the
whether you're doing the seated calf
raise, focus more on solius, or whether
you're doing the standing calf raise.
You know, there's so much literature on
this and I've seen it and it's it's it's
very interesting that shows that again
if you're just training for hypertrophy
and and and and strength and not sort of
injury recovery, um I've seen different
things that say range of motion doesn't
matter as much as people think it does
or it's the bottom half versus the top
half of the range of motion. Any any
thoughts on that
>> for hypertrophy?
>> Yeah.
>> Uh yeah, so I I I think that all of that
content got like a little weward in the
last, you know, year or so. um to to the
point where I was seeing recommendations
of of avoiding the concentric on
exercises like just you know working on
the um the stretch position that sort of
terminal position of the exercise and
you know the contracted position didn't
matter as much and like I you'll never
first of all it didn't sound right to me
back then and I think research is
starting to already prove that not to be
the case but it doesn't none of that
makes sense to me as a physical
therapist because I know from a function
perspective 100% and like and ultimately
even hypertrophy is going to still
require normal functioning to to to
maximize the that muscle. So I think
that you want to apply like I think that
where that all came from is that
stretching a muscle is another form of
stimulus. It's another form of tension.
The weight itself provides that tension.
When you stretch the muscle, you're
adding a second form of tension. To
believe that stretching positions of
exercises cause better results is not a
surprise because it's providing more
accumulated tension. But to think that
that would mean okay, let's just hang
out in this position and and let's not
focus on this other this other range of
motion requirement certainly not for
strength. But even for hypertrophy, I
don't think it really adds up or makes
too much too much sense.
>> What about a volume perspective on the
calves? They're kind of an unusual
muscle in that they're being used a lot
throughout the day every day. Um, is
there a an argument that you you can't
just train them once a week if you want
to make gains?
>> I actually think that's true. I think
that they're similar almost to the abs
in a way and that the abs are also
highly responsible for postural
stability and they're working very
often, not under high lows, but they're
working very often. So, I think that
when it comes to the calves, they're
used to handling very high loads.
They're they're they're they're carrying
your own body weight around one leg at a
time for many many steps in a day.
Subjecting them to more of this focused
inefficient hypertrophy work more than
once a week is is certainly worthwhile.
Probably two to three times a week,
maybe even four times a week. It's like
it's like again like abs. You don't have
to do it for a long period of time.
Couple sets, you know, just do it
focused and and get it done. I I don't
think for ab training, I don't spend
more than I hate to say it like six
minute abs, but like five to 10 minutes,
you're done. You don't need to do a
whole hell of a lot, but you do you need
consistently. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> Um not to not to create rage bait, but
can you give me some of the uh the other
graveyard exercises? We've talked about
a couple. what would be you've actually
got a great video on this which we'll
link to but just to give people a
precursor for what goes on the and again
we'll frame it as not that these are
absolutes right just for the people
who's who can't work in gray these are
things that for most people
>> the juice isn't you're not getting
enough juice out of the squeeze your
your risk of injury is going up
disproportionate to the gains and you
might be able to get somewhere between
90 and 100% of these gains doing
something at far lower risk. That's what
we're talking about.
>> That's the that's the whole premise and
and I believe that you're always going
to find the person who says um I've done
these my whole life and nothing happened
to me. Well, you know, my my response to
him is always
>> and my grandmother smoked her entire
life and didn't die of lung cancer. That
doesn't mean that everybody should
smoke. That's the way to think about
that.
>> My answer sometimes if I want to if I
want to um get them a little irritated,
I said yet. [laughter] I've been doing
it my whole life. Well, it hasn't done
it yet. Who knows? because I'm pointing
to the parts of the exercise that are
just not biomechanically
>> ideal and therefore just like the
exercise I described before where you as
you especially you start to add fatigue
into the equation they increase the risk
that you're going to break form enough
to potentially cause issues. I um in
that regard I I don't I hate the upright
row. I mean, I I I have no problem
expressing my hatred for that exercise.
It is the dumbest single exercise that
was ever created simply because
I can fix it by just changing one
position of the elbow and the wrist.
That's it. And you and you can still
have your upright row, but just let's
call it something different. Let's call
it a high pull. Because the upright row
is essentially relying on the fact that
you're going to pull this barbell or
dumbbells as high as you can towards
your chin. Lead with your elbows. Get as
high as you can, which I can't even do
because of these shoulders of mine, but
get as high as you can with your elbows
to the point where they and some people
you've probably seen them, they look
like their elbows almost vertical.
Right. Exactly. You do a much better job
than me of doing the wrong thing. But I
I I [laughter]
basically think that
not only are you getting into this
extreme position, but you're loading it.
So I'm What am I loading? I'm loading
internal rotation. I'm driving this arm,
this shoulder into internal rotation
under load and elevation. when all I
have to do is just lead with the the
wrists rather and keep the elbows down
and I'm still pulling high and I'm still
getting up into this position. I'm still
getting abduction of the shoulder which
is why you feel it in the shoulders. I'm
still getting trap work which is what
you're going to feel when you do the um
the upright row also. And all I've done
was just change one position that
doesn't sacrifice any of the benefit of
the exercise. It sacrifices none of the
benefits. So, if you ever wanted to heat
me up and talk about one exercise that
belongs in the graveyard, that's the one
that will always be in the graveyard for
me. And there really is not a defense of
it. If you've done it and you like it
and you haven't gotten injured with it,
then keep doing it. But why would you
not at least consider an alternative
that I think sacrifices, you said, maybe
90% of the value. This still has 100% of
the value without the risk. So, why
wouldn't you why wouldn't you you try
that? So, that's one. these behind the
neck positions that we talked about
um of the press, overhead press, lap
pull down, but there's some but there
there's leeway there. Like some people
feel it more I think when they do it
behind the neck for whatever reason.
>> Depends what it means though.
>> You know what I mean? Like as you said
earlier, like
>> you might feel it in terms of a stretch
more when you're doing a deep fly off a
bench. Be careful what you're feeling.
Like yes, of course you feel it more.
you're going to feel more of a stretch
in the lower bicep, but that's not why
we're doing the exercise. So, so, so I
always I always wonder when people say,
"I feel it more if they feel it more
where they should feel it more."
>> Another guy, you mentioned Dorian Yates.
I used to uh watch Lee Haney a lot.
Remember Lee Haney? So, Lee Haney had a
shrug that he did behind his back.
>> Oh, I remember this.
>> Right. And he called it Haney shrugs.
And he says, and they asked him, "Why do
you do it behind your back?" He says,
"Where are the muscles? They're back
there, aren't they?" So, it's like, you
know, okay,
>> but when you're an eight time Mr.
Olympia, whatever he is, I think you can
get away with saying anything,
>> right? And, you know, along the same
lines of the of the barbell positioning
for a front squat versus a squat, I I
understand what he's talking about, but
I I do think that there's this feel
element that comes into play there. So,
if you do the behind the neck pull down,
you can safen that up a little bit by
just allowing the elbows to not flare
back when you're doing it, but let them
drift a little bit more towards the
front. I could still pull behind my
head, but have my elbows drifted more
towards that scapular plane. So, there's
some modifications I can make that would
make that exercise better. It's not
necessarily a horrible graveyard
exercise, but with this modific
especially with this modification, but
again, for some for many or for most,
why not pull to the front? I think
you're going to get a better pull when
you pull to the front anyway, you're
going to get a a better engagement of
the muscles you're trying to build. Uh,
same thing with the overhead press. You
could press more safely there. um you
can actually get the elbows out in front
of you even when doing that which would
allow you to do that. But personally, I
feel like the press from the front just
feels better for for me and for most. Um
what else? Um
I think I have this uh dumbbell side
bends in my in my graveyard. I mean,
that's just a kind of a pointless
exercise. It's just basically you're
riding the seesaw by yourself up and
down. And uh no additional benefit. You
can you can you're going to more
effectively train the obliques with
rotational work every day than you are
with just straight side bending. They
have a function of of side bending, but
they're they're going to be way more
effectively targeted and trained with
rotational work than they are with that.
So, that one's in my graveyard. There's
not there's not many more. The fly we
talked about was in was in the
graveyard. There's not many more,
honestly. Um,
I am I might get the criticism from from
now and again of of of like
of creating this graveyard for certain
exercises, but I think more than
anything else, I'm I'm adaptable to most
things because I think that as we talked
about earlier, like my biggest asset is
my ability to to take an exercise and
figure out ways to adapt it to become
something someone can do even in the
face of discomfort at that moment
because I know how important it is to
continue to stress tissues and not
immobilize them or not completely get
away from them. The fastest way to slow
recovery from an injury is to not do
something for it. You want to be able to
still stretch those tissues. Time time
is not the only thing that heals
injuries. time and and the the stress
that this particular stresses of those
tissue structures is what's really
important. Mechanical mechanical stress
is super important to that recovery
process. Well, Jeeoff, this was a super
interesting conversation. Um, it's
actually given me a lot of ideas for
things I want to tweak and modify in my
training. Um, I suspect it will be for
others. Like I said, we're going to put
together in the show notes videos from
your archives that will actually
demonstrate all these exercises. So, my
hope is that people can go right to that
and sort of become their own trainers
basically, right? It's like, how do I
formulate my own workouts here? So,
anyway, as always, so much fun sitting
down with you, Jeff. Really appreciate
it.
>> Appreciate you having me on.
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