Barbell Shrugged - The Numbers Don’t Lie, Strength-Balance Testing – with Dr. Ryan Summers - Active Life Radio #15

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Do you know how much should you back squat if you can deadlift 300 pounds?   What about how much you should front squat if you back squat 200 pounds?   How about this… do you know your 6-rep max strict press on your right arm compared to your left? Or how many 1-arm high pulls you can perform with 33% of your body weight on your right arm compared to your left?   If you are scratching your head wondering why we are even asking these questions, listen up! In this episode we’re talking to Dr. Ryan Summers about how a small bias, repeated over and over, could be the reason you are still getting that annoying [insert body part] pain that hasn’t gone away. Plus, Dr. Ryan gives you his top 6 tests to easily assess your strength-balance right from your own gym.    About Our Guest: Dr. Ryan Summers is a Physical Therapist, co-owner if Pure Physio and a staff member at ActiveLife. As a DPT, 1-on-1 Coach and ActiveLife seminar staff member he has worked with hundreds of people to get them out of pain without going to the doctor or missing the gym.    Minute Breakdown:   7:26 - But my upper trap overactive! 15:40 - How a small miscalculation can lead to pain 22:00 - Why stamina before strength? 34:20 - Balance, not bias -- that’s the goal here 44:48 - The 6 tests to assess your strength-balance   Connect with us:   To work with an Active Life Coach like Dr. Ryan head to: http://activeliferx.com/shrugged   Find Dr. Ryan at @dr.ryan.summers  Find Dr. Sean at @DrSeanPastuch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/alr-summers2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

What's up everybody welcome back to active life radio on the shrunk collective network. My name is Dr. Sean Pestooge. I'm your host and today's guest is Dr. Ryan Summers. Ryan is a one-on-one coach with us at active life and today Ryan and I are going to cover some of the key aspects of strength balance for you. The idea that if you deadlifted 200 pounds and backsquatted 300 pounds, probably is very clearly to you a problem. I'll repeat that. If you could deadlift 200 pounds and you could back squat 300 pounds, you realize something is probably off. At Active Life, we've broken down some of the most important balance numbers for strength. How much should you squat if you can deadlift 300 pounds? How much should you be able to front squat if you can back squat 200 pounds?

How much weight should you be able to high pull if you can do 10 pull-ups at 150 pounds? These questions and so many more are questions that we have the answers to that we're going to share on this podcast. In fact, we're going to break down how you can start to build to the appropriate strength balance numbers yourself. It's a pretty valuable show. This is the kind of stuff that we do for clients over a two-week assessment period. You're going to get it in about an hour. Another thing about this show today is that if strength balance turns out to not be your issue, that's fine. We want you to reach out to us. Send me a DM at ActiveLifeRx. Send us an email, drshawn at ActiveLifeRx.com. Whatever. We want to help you. We want to help you figure out if the answer is simple

and you can do it yourself or if you need to be working with us one-on-one. And we'll be honest, we still turn away over 30% of people who reach out. Because if we don't think we can help you faster than you think you can help yourself, we don't want your money. That being said, there is someplace I'd like you to send some of your money. That's to our sponsor, Organifi. O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com. Organifi is the shit. I love the gold drink before bed. You know how you guys have that ritual like, but first coffee. I get it. It's cool. You enjoy it. But last, the gold drink. Organifi's gold drink is my go-to every single night. Unless if I'm totally off of my, uh, self-care schedule, in which case I forget. But when I'm on my game, I drink Organifi gold drink before bed because it's anti-inflammatory properties

because it tastes great. And because it's kind of like that ritual that helps me to relax. Most of all, by the way, though, because it tastes great. Let's be honest. If it tastes like crap, I wouldn't drink it. So Organifi's Gold Drink helps me get to bed at night and gives me the peace of mind that my body is getting the nutrients necessary to reduce inflammation and recover during the time when it is most valuable to recover. Makes sense to me. Head to organifi.com and use the code shrugged at checkout to save yourself 20% on this beautiful, tasty drink from the gods. A little bit of powder, drop it in some hot water, stir it up, sip it, send me a thank you letter.

I'm going to get you to the show now. Let's get you out of back pain. All right, Dr. Ryan Summers, welcome back to the Active Life Radio on the Shrugged Collective Podcast, my man. Thank you, Dr. Sean. I'm glad to be here. It's a mouthful to say that. It's a lot of words. There's a lot of words. Yeah, so today what I want to talk to you about is how people listening to this show

today can start to help themselves get out of pain without going to the doctor or missing the gym. What we know is that most people who deal with aches, pains in their knees, shoulders, back, or whatever, are going through mobility drills and stretching and resting and all these different things, you know, knee sleeves, weight belts, wrist strap, all the stuff, and they're not getting the results. And what I want to do is be able to help them understand how we navigate strength balance and how they can figure out if that might be the

issue that they have. An important topic. Yeah. So I think it's the conundrum that people always fall into where they don't really know what's wrong and what to do to address it. And I think as we always talk about relating back to the hierarchy is we always want to make sure we're assessing the right things. We're finding the low hanging fruit. And at the bottom of that hierarchy is always going to be our flexibility and mobility. But if then if that checks out, then what's the next layer with that? What are we looking at in terms of why is someone having some sort of pain or dysfunction? And a big piece of that hierarchy is strength balance and strength ratios. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's get started by you talking a little bit about how you know, first and foremost, when someone who we're working with is not dealing with a flexibility or a mobility issue,

but instead is dealing with a strength balance issue. So the way that we would identify that is obviously we're very thorough in our assessment. But let's say someone, we take them through an assessment and they kind of check all the boxes with that. They have full flexibility. They have full mobility. And one thing that I always want to make sure that we're emphasizing is that when we're looking at something as such a strength or really with anything, we're never going to say you're having shoulder pain because of something, because it's immobile, because it has, it's lacking flexibility or because your right side is stronger than your left. But when we're looking at strength testing specifically,

what it does is it gives us objective data. It gives us numbers for now we can take that piece of information. And we say that the numbers don't lie. You did a single arm shoulder press with 65 pounds for five reps on your right side and nine reps on your left side. Now, that's not to say that's exactly why you're having pain, but now it gives us something tangible that we can grab onto. And we frequently work with people who they want answers. And we're always talking about this process of uncertainty to where they don't know why they're feeling these symptoms.

They don't know why they're feeling run down. They don't know why they can't perform in these workouts where there's overhead pressing or downward pulling. So we can give them something tangible and objective for them to grasp onto. It now creates a buy-in. It now allows them to kind of center, it allows us to center our plans around something tangible and find that low-hanging fruit and now relate it back to why they're feeling these symptoms and sensations. So that's the way we like to layer in strength balance testing. Strength testing is the way to kind of give us some objective feedback and see if that matches up to the subjective complaints of I'm feeling my tightness here.

I'm feeling back pain when I do this. Okay. Do the numbers match up? Yes or no. And that's how we start to create these plans and solutions for the clients that we work with. So I think a lot of people are familiar with the concept of strength balance, but they're familiar with it from the angle of my infraspinatus is weak. My upper trap is overactive. My lower trap is underactive. I'm internally rotated. I have lower cross, upper cross syndrome, whatever. How is what we're describing different than that? I think those are pieces of it. I think we always want to be looking, yes, like anatomically, you know, what are the muscles doing? Is the posterior rotator cuff on the shoulder activating? Yes or no. But again, those are things that are very hard to measure. It's very hard to put a number on that type of strength. It's one, it's not very reliable.

And then when we're looking at what the research tells us, sometimes that's not really correlated with pain. Again, with the way a muscle activates, I'm never going to be thinking, oh, well, you're having shoulder pain because your infraspinatus is underactive. So the way we're looking at it is how do we move functionally in the CrossFit space, in the functional space and in the running, whatever it might be? How does the athlete move dynamically when they're performing these activities that they're going to be performing four, five, six, seven days a week?

Well, wait, before you get into that, why aren't we looking at it from the perspective that you just described? You said the research says that there might be no correlation with a week in for spinatus, but the research might also show that there's no correlation with being able to do eight step-ups on the left and two on the right and having low back pain. So why do that and not the other? Because it doesn't give us the biggest piece of information. Because if we're looking at something like an overhead press, there's more to it than just the infraspinatus working versus the supraspinatus versus the teres major, etc, etc. What we want to do is find something that is, again, measurable, that is subjective. And now that can give us a piece of biggest piece of information in terms of how that's going to be

completed. You know, not just in a controlled environment where someone's lying on a plinth or a table and feeling how that's moving. Again, that might feel different from what I'm feeling versus how you're feeling versus someone else. It's how now we can apply that to the movements that they're going to be doing specifically in that space, in my personal belief and opinion. Yeah. So I want to make sure that people understand what we're talking about here. We understand that you might have a weak infraspinatus. We understand that your lats might be overactive.

We understand that your upper traps might be upper active. It's not that we don't care. We're more interested in why. We're more interested in what does that look like functionally when you go to use your body. And we're more interested in, okay, what structures are underutilized? The usual reason why structures are going to be underutilized is because they're A, injured, which is really not that common, believe it or not, or B, they've been underdeveloped. So we don't look to develop a muscle in isolation. Instead, we look to develop that muscle in the pattern that you're going to need to use it and recruit it.

Thereby, the muscle gets stronger and so does the pattern instead of just the muscle in space. Carry on. So the way that we would look at that is again from a movement standpoint where we look upward pulling versus upward pressing push versus pull in addition to that we're going to look at right versus left strength versus stamina and that's how we start to take these ratios and again looking okay yes maybe this is underdeveloped versus overdeveloped but if we're starting to see a tendency and we're starting to see a continuing pattern, then that now starts to allow us to deep dive and find those pieces of the puzzle and find ones that are a little bit bigger versus little. And now that's how we start to

prioritize the plans that we're creating. So again, relating back to kind of anatomically, yes, something might be stronger or weaker than the other, but that doesn't mean that someone is now going to use those muscles or use their nervous system to activate or be underactive and now apply that to the way they're going to be moving in the gym setting. So you were talking about upward pulling versus downward pulling, pressing on the left versus pressing on the right. Can you walk people through exactly what that means when they start? So when we bring a new one-on-one client on, what are you doing with them? And why would you be assessing, for example, their left shoulder if they have a low back complaint? What's the point of that?

Because what that tells us is, again, what we're trying to look for is tendencies, tendencies in movement, tendencies in strength, tendencies and over-training patterns versus under-training patterns. And what we frequently see is, you know, again, if we're talking specifically about the CrossFit functional space is that most people are going to be really good at overhead pressing because it's a movement that is commonly programmed a lot into the functional space. If you're looking at most template-based programs, there's a lot of overhead pressing versus if we're looking at upward pulling, that's not something you're going to see as frequently. Even with our Olympic lifters that we work with, a lot of times it's

something that's underutilized in terms of tempo and intensity and how they're going to be using their whole body versus just their shoulders. So even though if we identify that the shoulders aren't doing something that they're supposed to be doing, again, if there's an imbalance versus that upward pulling versus that downward pulling, upward pressing versus upward rotation, whatever we're thinking from the shoulder, something from the lower body could be driving those tendencies and those adaptations. So can you give them an example of how that would look, for example, in the open. They just went through 20 point, whatever it was, 20.2. By the time that this is listened to, the open might even be completely over. But in 20.2, there were dumbbell thrusters, right? How does that look downstream if somebody has a pressing deficiency on the left as compared to on the right?

Well, again, something that we were talking about last night as it was released is, you know, even though dumbbells have been around for three or four years now, it's still a movement that a lot of people- In CrossFit. In CrossFit, sorry. Well, when was the first dumbbell workout? I think it was like 2016, 2017. I think it was 16. 16. So anyway, it's been around for a few years in CrossFit, but it's still a movement compared to barbell thrusters that a lot of people are still inefficient with because now you're taking a barbell, which has two hands on it. So we're now again, we're looking from a right versus left strength discrepancy that can be

cleaned up when you're holding on with two hands with a barbell versus now with a dumbbell where it's single arm. Sometimes that's where we start to see this sorts of things. And for 20.2, where it's a 20 minute workout, we were watching people, a couple of people last night, and you're starting to see that when they're coming out of the bottom, that squat driving out of the thruster over at pressing, there's a little bit of a lean because that right side is pressing a little bit more than the left. So that's how we would start to look down. Okay. Maybe it is because the right side is stronger and they're taking that path of least resistance, or it could be because that right side is stronger and they're taking that path of least resistance, or it could be because that right leg is stronger. And now when they're driving out on the bottom of that squat,

again, they're taking the path of least resistance. So that right side is driving a little bit harder. It's a little bit less fatigued. So now they're starting to compensate driving to the left. And it looks like the right shoulder is stronger. But again, if we're looking, we could all be seeing something different. But if we were able to break it out and look at the numbers and identify that with their front rack step-up test, they took 95 pounds for a ride and did eight reps on the right side versus three on their left. Now we can start to peel back the layers of why that's looking the way that it looks compared to the numbers and being objective with that information.

And so this is why we break things down to the most basic function. Because when you look at something like an overhead squat, it could look beautiful because somebody is a phenomenal compensator. It could look terrible, but the reason that you think it looks terrible could be the wrong reason. You know, you could think that they're diving forward because their ankles are limited, but they could be diving forward because they're just way, way, way stronger in a hinge pattern than they are in a squat pattern. And if we don't break it down joint by joint, movement by movement, then we find ourselves in a situation where we're guessing. And that takes longer to solve problems, it's more frustrating, and it's much less objective. So what are the ramifications, Ryanyan of somebody doing thrusters for example with dumbbells

and ending up favoring the right side because they just they press faster through the right leg and all the stuff gets thrown towards the left and they end up leaning to their left the right arm is higher all that kind of stuff what's who cares well it matters because now you're looking at something that, again, if you're taking a small piece that can now be applied for the next week, month, years, we don't want to be using something that's being overworked over and over again. So if we can use the analogy of let's imagine the front tire of your car is a little bit out of alignment. Not a big deal if you're taking your car and driving it to your local gas station two miles down the road but now that little bit of alignment now you're taking your car me here in cleveland driving across country seattle something's going to start where someone something's going to start breaking down over time so yeah even though maybe i only did if i did my front rack step up test and I did

eight reps on my right leg and six or seven on my left side, not a huge deal in the acute setting. And we're looking at it from just today and getting through that workout. And that's what always the goal is. Well, I got through that workout for today. I made it. I survived that workout for today, but that's not the goal. Right. I forget where I heard it. I made it. I survived that workout for today. But that's not the goal. Right. I forget where I heard it. I think it was on a podcast with someone who's the, I feel like it might've been on the Brute Strength Podcast, but whatever, not necessary. Someone in the military was talking about navigating. And they said, if they started traveling from New York to San Francisco, they were off by like one tenth of one degree by the time they got to San Francisco they'd actually be in San Diego

that's the that small of a miscalculation could end you up on the wrong side of the biggest state well the third biggest state in the country. With the body, if we're using the shoulder a little bit more than we're supposed to, you're not going to feel it the first time. You're not going to feel it the second time. You're not going to feel it the 30th or the 50th time necessarily. But what happens is eventually when you get yourself all the way to the other coast, you have this what we call insidious pain, which means I don't know where this came from. It's just annoying and new and random, frustrating.

You ask the person, what, has anything changed? Like, I have no idea. I didn't fall down the steps. I didn't land on it. It just started coming out of nowhere. Exactly. Insidious. Yep.

And so this is how that happens and people are always like no it's not an overuse injury like i haven't used it more recently it's no you haven't used it more recently you've used it too much for a long time and not compared to you know like let me let me back up a step when people think overuse i think that they think what we think of, Ryan, as acute overuse, meaning, yeah, I did way too much this weekend. Overuse can mean that you used the wrong structures to do the right thing for too long. So now the muscle that's not supposed to do that thing did that thing a thousand times over the course of three years. And on the other side, things were functioning properly.

So you didn't use your shoulder that way. And now the shoulder that's been used wrong has an overuse injury. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So I want you guys who are listening to understand that that's the definition of overuse I want you to think about. For example, think about yourself doing a squat and the first thing you do is shoot your knees forward. You're going to get overuse injuries at your knee that you wouldn't get if you squatted the same number of reps properly. That's an overuse injury. And if your left knee shoots

forward further than your right, you might only end up with an overuse injury on your left, even though you did the same thing technically on both sides. Ryan's nodding. You can't see him nodding through the podcast. But so the point is we want you guys to understand that there's more to overuse. There's more to injury than this muscle is doing this and that muscle is doing that and you did too much this weekend. That's your take-home message from that. So, Ryan, let's get back to strength balance and how we test it. We test people in various different rep ranges. Can you get into that a little bit? So essentially when we're laying out our strength balance testing,

what people always think is they're always looking at one rep max tests. And we find that we don't get as good of information from those tests as we would if we were to do something like a five to 12 rep range. So the way that we typically layered in is we, we give someone the instructions of finding something that they can move for about five reps using that load, that weight, and now I'm doing a max set for that for people who are oftentimes having chronic issues.

They're a little bit more unwilling to load that barbell a little bit heavier. And so what we find is that gives us information if they were to take a 135 pound deadlift and want to do it for 24 reps versus taking that same barbell and loading it up for 350 pounds and doing a one rep max, because that tells us that their, their willingness to move their willingness to add volume or load them to their body isn't there because now they've started to, to become, I guess, fearful of that sort of movement of that load. So we always try to find something that's five to 12, 12 reps for that weight. And that gives us the most tangible information. And so what we also like to do is we also, we like to set standards for the upper body and for the lower body.

We then base all those different movements off of that movement, and that gives us the best information on how things are looking from a balanced standpoint, from a percentage standpoint, and essentially try to find the quote-unquote perfect strength ratios for the athlete that's in front of us. Yeah, so what we do is we'll look to see, like Ryan was saying, 5 to 12 rep max with a given weight that you should be able to do at least five reps with, but no more than 12. We want to find a happy medium there. Then that number, we can do a calculation and guesstimate your one rep max. What we then do with that is we say, okay, let's see what you can do with 50%

of what would be your predicted one rep max. The reason that we're doing that is we're now testing two different rep ranges to determine which rep range is the most deficient. Are you the most deficient in a strength range or in an endurance range? Because we're not going to go ahead and start building strength on top of a structure that can't handle the volume of endurance training. So everything that we're doing when we're working with somebody on strength balance is going to happen from a hierarchy, from a very, very intentional decision-making tree.

And what I want to do when we get back from break, Ryan, is I want to talk to you about the importance of building stamina prior to building strength. So let's take a short break and then we'll be right back. What's up shrug nation. Are you enjoying this episode? I bet you are. I'm going to keep this brief. We'll get you right back to the show in a moment. In the meantime, if you're interested in anything that we're doing at active life, make sure that you head to active life, rx.com slash shrug. You want to be a better coach. You want to help your clients better.

You want to get out of pain, but you don't want to go to the doctor or miss the gym. Activeliferx.com slash shrugged. That's where you need to be. We'll see you when you get there. Turn pro. Here we go back to the episode.

All right, Ryan. So why stamina before strength? In my opinion, stamina more often than not, sometimes it's not that way. More often than not, we're going to be looking at stamina versus strength because what we want to make sure the athlete is able to do is handle load when under fatigue and handle load in situations where their body has become more e-resilient to the loads that are being placed on it. E-resilient meaning not resilient. Meaning not resilient. So what we call this type of testing is tension testing.

So what we essentially do is we, again, like you said, we take% of one rep max, and we have someone do 20 reps at that weight. And what we're looking at is their strength versus their stamina. So if someone was to take that same weight, and then not be able to get back into a position of mobility that we set as a baseline, if they were to take a step back from that bar and take a certain amount of breaths, that tells us that their system is not willing to receive the load of what they just placed on their body. And when taking something that's 50% one rep max, that's something that we should all be able to handle relatively easy for 20 reps. So 20 reps with a slower eccentric, faster concentric.

So this isn't, yeah, this is not for time. This is not for speed or high intensity by any means. I'm sorry, I didn't hear. Did you talk about the breath that we asked people to take thereafter? I didn't go into details. I can't. So essentially, as we take a step back from the bar, the amount of breaths should be six breaths or less within the 20 seconds after you finish that

set of testing so to reiterate all that i want you guys to be able to picture yourself doing it you step up to a barbell it's 50 of your predicted one rep max and we ask you to do whatever exercise it is for 20 reps with a slower eccentric faster concentric that's a slower eccentric, faster concentric. That's a slower down, faster up. When you're done with that set, we're going to ask you to try to control your breathing. So it's not just natural breathing. We want you to try to control your breathing. If, when you're trying to control your breathing, you take seven or more breaths in the first 20 seconds after you re-rack the weight.

We believe your system is too stressed to move on, meaning we want to build stamina in that rep range. Or your breathing mechanics aren't where they need to be to handle that load and handle that intensity. Great call. I'm glad you added that. A lot of people are not breathing properly when they train. So that's step one. Step two, let's say you do that and your breath work is fine.

You can complete the reps. You put the weight away. Well, then what that tells us is that your bigger issue is most likely in heavier weights and that's where we're going to focus. Yes. Awesome. So the way that we would essentially look at that, if we're using analogies, thinking of your body as like a cup and the water filling up the cup is low that's being placed on

our body. So someone who's not able to take that 20 reps and pass those benchmarks that we just laid out, that's essentially someone having a shot glass as a body. They're not going to be as willing to receive the load and the water being placed on their bodies. So the way that we would address this client, we would identify, okay, how much load can they handle? We would take some of the water and dip it out of that cup. And then moving forward, we would identify the path that we would have to take to start building that cup bigger and bigger and bigger so that they can handle more load. But someone who had failed that type of path that we would have to take to start building that cup bigger and bigger and bigger so that they can handle more load. But someone who had failed that type of test that we just laid out, that tells us that their body is not willing to handle again, the load or the water being placed on it, or it's going to continue to break down. And more often than not, someone who's lacking that stamina when they're doing longer type workouts, something like 20.2, that's 20 minutes. That's the type of client and athlete you're going to start to see break down in the last 10 minutes of that workout, last five minutes

of that workout, because they're lacking the resiliency. They're going to be very unwilling to take those dumbbells off the ground at 15 minutes. They're going to lack the stamina and the overall just resiliency to load that we're looking for when we're starting to progress them back under the high intensity high type high load type movements and volume and the interesting thing about that is that we've also seen i mean i'm talking about olympic level olympic weightlifters who have broken down in their training because they don't have the base level stamina to do a three-hour session and then to have an afternoon session on the same day. So I'm talking about people who have won medals in the Olympics,

who we have worked with, who are Olympic weightlifters, whose coaches tell them you're never going to do anything more than six reps in a set. We've had them go back down to 40%, 30% of their one-rep max and bang out sets of 20 at a slower down, faster up tempo, working on their breath, working on their ability to be durable and to be able to withstand that kind of volume. And I think it's important to iterate that it's sometimes not just physical manifestations of pain. Like you said, it could be emotional pain. So our facility here locally, we share a wall with a lifting facility. So that's pure. That's just to give you guys a heads up. Ryan

is talking about pure physio, which is where his physical therapy clinic in Cleveland, Ohio is. If you're near Cleveland, Ohio, by near, I mean, within a four hour drive. We work with a lot of Olympic weightlifters like you're talking about. And sometimes those Friday sessions, if you would compare that to like a Monday, those are going to be the ones that are just filled with emotional, just, I guess, fight. They're going to be the ones that, again, like you said, at the end of that three hour session, people are going to be crying. They're going to be not wanting to push through it because at the end, you're taking the accumulative workload and volume of that week, physical, emotional, work stress, fighting with your spouse, having children that won't sleep.

And now you get to Friday, and that's where it's going to start to show up. So it's not just having the resiliency and the stamina to fight the physical training and the weightlifting that you're going to be doing, but also just the cumulative workload of life. And that's, again, kind of relating back to the cup. We're talking about load versus capacity. It's not just the stuff in the gym. It's everything that's going to be continuing to kind of pile up in that cup and eventually start to overflow. I'm going to take us on an offshoot. The best weightlifting coach I ever met, unfortunately, he's passed away but one of the things he talked to us about when we first met

he trained in the Ukraine his roommates when he was a competitive weightlifter were Nikolai Pissarenko if you guys know the name I believe that was his first name was Nikolai but we're talking about Titans for whom they changed weight classes because they knew drugs were so rampant when these guys were doing it that they didn't want those records to stand anymore.

And they knew no one would break them. So he comes in and the first day I meet him with this guy, he's like, let me tell you something. It's not that Americans aren't using steroids. It's that they're using them wrong. And I'll tell you how I got to this because you were talking about people crying on Friday. And that's essentially when they need to deload, right? Like it's time to stop. You've been doing too much.

So he's talking about, look, it's not that Americans don't do steroids. Don't let yourself be fooled. They're using them. The thing is they're using them wrong. In Europe, Russia, and China, when they're using steroids, what they do, and you guys will all relate to this, even if you don't use steroids like me and like Ryan. If you train hard enough, it comes a day that you wake up and you're just like, oh, I don't want to do anything today. Olympic weightlifters are training about four times as much as you if not more and heavy all the time their nervous system is under load so i ask him i'm like when do i like when do i take a

deload because i was training on a system he had me on he's like as soon as you feel like you have the flu you're gonna take a deload like i want to have the flu he's like yeah we're gonna tax your nervous system until you feel like you have the flu like okay fine like i fucking need to train that way where am i going but um so i did and um it worked extremely well and he's like so here's what happens americans take steroids because they think it's gonna you know move them faster it's gonna get them bigger and stronger and all that stuff and they're right. But steroids are used for who when they go to the hospital? Sick people.

People who are sick, right? In Europe, Russia, Asia, they train until they make themselves sick. And then instead of taking a deload, they take steroids. So when they're all crying in the gym, that's what sparked my memories. Like when they're all crying in the gym, that's when their coach is going to dose them up with the steroids so that they can have a better recovery. And then they train through it. And that was their deload. Instead of actually having to stop, they just go on the sauce.

He's like, in America, they do it right from Jump Street and end up with pimples on their back and knee pain. So that's like the true definition of maximum recoverable volume. I guess. If the steroids just continue to redline you and you can't push back, that's interesting. That's what he said, yeah. I mean, I believe that that's what they do over there. I don't know anything about over here. Sure.

Speaking of Russian training, I just saw UFC fighter Khabib. Dude. Oh, wait. They're swimming against the tide? Yeah. They said the water was like 20 degrees or something. I don't know. Dude's an animal.

That's stuff that they do all the time over there. Kids are hanging out in their underwear in 10 degrees and fighting polar bears and wrestling bears and stuff it seems like a weird place i've never been either i don't it's not on my list to go travel to either so let's get back i'm a badass i guess you gotta rush to the train i think you can be a badass without going to dagestan no look into it oh google how to be a badass pablo tasolino see his opinions on that is that the kettlebell guy yeah the rkc guy yeah all right back on topic off the steroids back on the strength balance so how do like i mean we're never going to get somebody the perfect perfect perfect strength balance and i think that to think that we need to is is to misunderstand the purpose of what we're doing

right we're not looking to get somebody to have perfect squat to deadlift ratio which by the way for every 100 pounds of deadlift 80 pounds of squat uh for every 80 pounds of squat 85 pounds of front well for every 100 pounds of squat 85 pounds of front squat for every 100 pounds of squat, 85 pounds of front, well, for every 100 pounds of squat, 85 pounds of front squat. For every 100 pounds of front squat, 85 pounds of overhead squat. For every pound of overhead squat, the same number of pounds for power clean. Nice. There you go. From memory. Crushed it. Crushed it. So we know we're not going to get people to 100% of that. So what's the point of even aiming for getting close to that kind of thing if there's going to be a deviation and people are okay with a deviation? Where is the line for tolerable deviation?

Well, first off, these numbers that have been created, this is based off of cumulative research and looking at over the years and working with our clients who, when we put them in these, these again, quote unquote, perfect strength ratios, this is where we found they optimize the most efficiently or they perform the most efficiently and they're optimized from a, a, um, overall longevity and just how they feel. And again, in terms of recovery, how they continue to perform week after week. So again, there is no perfect, no perfect framework that we're always trying to put someone into this nice, pretty little box. We're all, we're not refrigerators, right? We all adapt and evolve and we continue to grow. I'll tell you this. One of the first guys who ever came out and flew to New York for an appointment that blew my mind, this guy flew out from Finland and his name was Johan. And I remember he came out and like what what like what made you fly out from Finland to New York he's like my friends call me the refrigerator like what do you mean he's like

I have so little mobility my friends say I'm like a refrigerator I can just do one thing I open I close I open I close I open I close so maybe we are refrigerators. Well, sorry, this is just a side tangent, but this is something where people come in and they want to label themselves as these like machines that never adapted at all. It's like, well, you know, my, my hip capsule is tight and it'll never change. My, my back is herniated. It's always going to be that way. My, you know, I have stenosis, whatever it might be. And they fail to appreciate that we're not going to be the same person we are today six years from now. And essentially,

we don't just change a plug in the human body the way you would a refrigerator. We don't change a spark plug. We don't change the light and then there we're good to go. It doesn't work that way. And it's for good reason. We don't want to be that. We don't always have to want to replace things. And so we're trying to think of these perfect strength ratios. It's not, here's the way it's supposed to look. You don't have a mechanic come in and say, go through his checklist and say, replace this, replace this. But at the same time, we're always appreciating that when we're looking at these numbers, there is a meaning to it. And there is a relationship between how we want to continue to move and how we want to handle load. And we want to push load and pull load. And so that when we're taking these accumulative training volumes,

it doesn't become something that again, we're taking, we don't want the water to continue to go down the path of least resistance and wear one side out. And now the other side continues not getting attention to love. And we want to look at from a bias standpoint, the stronger we are one movement pattern versus the other. That's the one we're always going to preference again, when we're taking training volumes and when we're taking movements, we want to make sure that we're utilizing the body that way that it's adapted

to and the way that it's built so that we don't start to bias one thing versus the other and start to run the risk of having these long-term irritations and pains and chronic disabilities that we are seeing still a lot of, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we're always going to see it. I mean, because I think that, um, there's too much ego in training. I think people get into training for ego reasons, which is totally understandable. I mean, we, I did. I'm still, I still train largely for ego. Let's just call it what it is. You don't bench press for another reason, you know? So, um, I think that people will just, they'll continue to sacrifice their body for their ego and there will always be a

need for people to help them save their bodies from themselves and we'll be there for it. That being said, I believe that there is a healthy balance that can be struck between the ego and healthy physiology. So that's essentially our goal is always to continue trying to find that balance and find the why of what the client is looking for and give them what they need. Yeah, I mean, look, here's the thing. People who are listening to this, they're into it, and I like it. The reason why we do what we do, the reason why we're currently helping gyms

to make more money as a gym by helping their clients get out of pain without going to the doctor, missing the gym, is because we recognize that we can't help everybody as a company, right? I mean, our ambitions are to replace physical therapy for active populations who didn't need to be in the physical therapist's office in the first place so that physical therapy can become more valuable, so that coaches can become more valuable, so that we can humanize the doctor, professionalize the coach, empower the individual. So our job is to be able to appreciate the role that the ego plays and not to try to repress it and tell somebody to stop being so egotistical. It's no. Everyone trains because they're searching

for a feeling. We want to help them get that feeling in a way that doesn't sabotage their body. Searching for something, searching for a performance stimulus of standing on top of a podium, searching for a paycheck, which is still a very reasonable motivator to want to do well in the gym. Yeah, and standing on top of the podium,

I mean, that's, I believe at least, and you may agree, you may disagree, is a symptom of what they would believe the necessary formula is to get something else. I need to stand on top of a podium to get X done. More sex, more money, more security, more safety. That's where I think it all comes from. You know, if my friends are going to love me, I have to win. If girls are going to think I'm worth having sex with, I better be jacked.

I want mommy and daddy to be proud of me. Yeah. I mean, look, these are real things. And we talk about these things. And this is why I think the work that we're doing is so important is because we're not just lining up a bunch of numbers and saying, here, have at it. We just had a world-class Olympic weightlifter reach out to us. And we're not going to announce who he is yet just because we're waiting to make sure it's a good marriage. But one of the things that he talked about wanting from us most was he's like i just i'm so into the mindset that you guys talk about i'm so into the mindset that you guys exude all

the time that it's about more than just lifting a barbell and like it's like my whole life i've been chasing numbers and i still want to chase numbers but i want to chase numbers for the right reason and i need your help to do that. So it's cool. That's what I'm looking at the numbers. The reason why they're so important and powerful is because they are unbiased. And yes, we talk about emotions. Yes, we talk about feelings. We talk about the psychological toll that training can have on us. We talk about what we call the biopsychosocial model of pain and why we're feeling these different things, but it keeps things balanced. Again, balance, relatively speaking, it keeps things balanced in the end of the spectrum so that we don't go too far down that hole and we can still take the numbers. And when we look at both ends of the spectrum, are we

feeling the ways that we're feeling? Are we having plateaus in our performance for certain reasons? Are we not pulling heavy from the floor the way we're back squatting?, are we having plateaus in our performance for certain reasons? Are, are we not pulling heavy from the floor the way we're back squatting? Why are we, why are we having these things in our training? Why, rather than just guessing and throwing things against the wall and hoping that something sticks, now we can use the numbers that kind of give us a little bit more objective, tangible biases and information. Now we can layer in and create that foundation rather than building the skyscraper on something that is shoddy and that potentially comes collapsing

back down. It gives us a foundation. It gives us a starting point. For sure. I mean, building a skyscraper, I think like 50% of the time is spent building a foundation. And it's the idea of like that Chinese bamboo plant that spends five years growing down before it grows up and once it starts growing up it goes like 60 feet in five months or whatever i made that up so if you're a botanist you know feel free to send me the truth yeah shoot me a dm at dr sean pastuch on instagram um but yeah i mean like it's it's it's like bumpers on a bowling alley like are we looking to make you the perfect strength ratio no it's it's not important but we want you to understand and have more control and more certainty over the way that you're feeling and the way that you're performing and then at least if you have the information we can leave the decision to you

about what you need to do. And I want to be cautious and I want to remind everybody who's listening to this. Strength balance is our third rung of five on our hierarchy of needs to make sure that an athlete is taken care of appropriately. There's flexibility first, then there's mobility, then there's strength balance, then there's work to recovery ratio, and then there's skill. And frankly, we could add more to the hierarchy if we really wanted to. Those are generally specific terms, all of them. And they all work together. We're not separating them, you know, identifying them as something that's different from one another. They all kind of

work together. Right. I feel like it's like the um the old what they call the food pyramid that we're eventually gonna have to change the shape of it and turn it into a plate or some shit that's probably what we're gonna have to do turn into a plate do i have to call michelle obama for that or can i just do it is that still a thing i don't know still making people i don't know i don't know i don't know what she's doing these days i haven't i haven't called her recently um but okay i mean i want to, I want to kind of tie this thing up and give people something that they can do. So if you were talking to the average gym goer, and they're like, yeah, I get it. Look, but I'm not looking to work with you guys one

on one right now. I just want to kind of help myself get out of pain. What would be six tests that you would have them do to very easily understand their strength balance issues? I would probably lay it out three upper body, three lower body. I would do something like a single arm strict press where you're taking a weight on the right side, pressing it overhead. Again, finding a weight that you think you can move for about five reps, find that load, and then go all out max effort looking for something between five and 12 reps. Single arm strict press right versus left, I would do a single arm high pull right versus left. And that would probably just do a wide grip

pull up. Just taking strict pull up again, faster up slower down tempo looking for max reps like that. So just just just to be clear, if you were to do that, I would also choose the same three movements. So single arm strict press on the left, single arm strict press on the right, single arm high pull on the left, single arm high pull on the right, and strict pull-ups. In all reps, slower up, I mean, slower down, faster up. And the weights that would be ideal, that would line you up would be 33% of your body weight for the high pull on each side, 33% of the weight of body weight for the shoulder press on each side, and all reps would be the same. Let's just say, for example, you did 10 pull-ups at 150 pounds. You would get 10 high pulls on the left with 50 pounds.

You would get 10 high pulls on the right with 50 pounds. You would get 10 high pulls on the right with 50 pounds. You would get 10 shoulder presses on the left with 50 pounds. You get 10 shoulder presses on the right with 50 pounds. Yeah? Okay. And then what we like to tell people is if you're more than 20% off on any of those, you're at risk. If you're more than 30% off on any of those, you're at serious risk.

If you're more than 50% off on any of those, you're at serious risk. If you're more than 50% off, you're probably experiencing performance and or pain issues every single day. And you need to talk to somebody about that. No, you need to talk to us about that. Yes. Okay, lower body. Lower body, I would start with the deadlift.

And then we're looking at, again, same thing like the pull-ups with the upper body. We're going to base everything off the deadlift for the lower body so that's essentially going to be eight or that's essentially going to be 100 double overhand i would do double overhand i would not do um a switch grip i would not do hook grip i would do double overhand because now that's going to give us more information on your grip strength as well carry on from the deadlift i would take whatever load you use for the deadlift again we're looking for 5 to 12 reps i would take 80 of that load and i would do the same thing for back squat with that

load so you deadlifted 300 pounds 300 pounds and you got you got 10 reps 10 reps take 240 pounds now back squat and so essentially what you're looking for is 10 reps with 240 pounds of back squat that's full all the way down all the way up faster up slower down simple correct assuming that you pass all the movement screens and you have that range of motion got it right from there if we were looking for one more test i would probably do like a one-on-farmer carry um we could also do we could also do like a front rack step upup, taking now 33% of that deadlift weight that you used, single leg front rack step-up. But I would probably buy us towards a one-on-farmer carry. I think that's more functional.

It can give us some more information. Interesting. Taking 50% of your deadlift. So if we use 300 pounds, you're taking 150 pounds. And we're using 10 meters as one rep for how far you carry that load, right and left. Right. So, yes, you heard him right. That's far and that's heavy.

And if it sounds really heavy and really far to you, it's because you're not doing it enough. I would probably bias towards the step-up just to see if they have a unilateral or a bilateral squat issue. But I love what you're doing there too. And here's the thing, guys. There are so many variations that you can do. If you want to take the grip strength out of it, feel free to use straps and use the same straps on your farmer's carry. So all of the criticism that, oh, well, then it's not really a hinge test because it's kind of a grip test. Well, then wear straps. And then now if you still can't carry that same load, it tells you it's not

a grip issue. It's just more of a midline stability issue. If you still can't pull the weight up off the floor, you're lacking the strength. Now, if you can't carry that load, now you're lacking the midline and that contralateral side strength to keep you upright when you're walking with that load. Correct. That's a whole different conversation, but we should get into that sometime, of why you can still use straps in the gym and not be an asshole that cheats, as people would say you are. We can do that.

The other thing is if your back squat looks like a deadlift or a good morning, do a front squat instead. It will stop you from bending forward. It will keep more of a true squat pattern. And instead of it being 80%, it will be 67% of your deadlift. Yep. Those are the six or seven that I would start with. And then we can go deeper into that to give us more information. All right. You'll know what you need to do because the weight that you can't do at the percentage you're supposed to do it is the exercise you most need to improve or if you can do the weight for all of them the one that you have the least number of reps on is the exercise you need to improve and if it's a unilateral issue

let's say you on the high pulls are able to do four reps on the left and 10 reps on the right well then you need to work more on the left than you do on the right. So perhaps adding an extra set and we always set the weight for the weaker arm or the weaker leg. Dr. Ryan, it's been a breeze. Loved it, man. Another great combo. Another great combo. Talk numbers all day. It's not my thing, but you did a good job of it.

Awesome. Thank you. Dr. Ryan Summers, where are they finding you? You can find me on my personal Instagram at dr.ryan.summers. As we talked quickly about, you can also follow our Pure Physio page at pure-physio on Instagram as well. We post cool stuff, seemingly cool stuff. Some people tell us it's cool. Some people find it annoying, but you can go there

and follow us anytime. If you find it annoying, just don't follow. Yeah, don't do that. There is a button that you can click. Yeah, don't be a fucking troll. It's unnecessary.

All right, and you guys can find me at DrSeanPastude. You can find all of our stuff at Active Life RX, Active Life Professional. Only go to Active Life Professional if you are a fitness professional. Have yourself an awesome day and turn pro. That's going to be a wrap for this

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