Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 304 - How To Get A Bigger Back!

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

The Back Episode! On this episode the Power Project crew are gonna help you and teach you how to get a bigger back! From Deadlifts to Rows for the bro's, after this episode you'll be well on your way to getting a thick and juicy back! Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT10” at checkout for $10 off $40 or more! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject  ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject   ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

bro why you always flex on us oh am i can you just that'd be great if you could just stop you know if you can just stop that it'd be awesome my hair's on my tricep that'd be great if you just stop doing that all these old things anyway i'm not gonna name any names but i just remember we did have a guest that was like this literally that was literally the whole time that was amazing i had to like to not have to flex like this i saw him resting into the table and flexing against the table because that takes a little less energy and then going right back to flexing here it was great it wouldn't be right it wouldn't be right to mention his name nope no it wouldn't i'm having a hard time because i'm not up there so i don't know yeah yeah it's cool

one guy fart the entire time pick your poison yeah anyway okay and we're going i had some uh cinnamon toast crunch yesterday. The taste you can see. Not cinnamon toast crunch cereal, but cinnamon toast crunch from Phil's Coffee. With a little bit of heavy cream in there. And I threw in some MCT oil powder

from our boys at Perfect Keto. And I used the salted caramel flavor. Just rubbing it right in our face. Dude. Yo, why has it got to be like, well,

since, since I've never been able to experience it, like, can you tell me like how it compares? Like, is it on your hierarchy of vanilla, salted caramel? And I believe chocolate's the other one,

right? Yeah. What's, how's the hierarchy go for you? I like the salted caramel the best. Oh my God. it was damn good and vanilla works really good too yeah especially in that in that coffee that's a really i forget what the combination of the phil's coffee's things that it is but man it's good so do they have that at all phil's

locations or is that like specific to that one? Yep. They have it at all the locations. It's on the hidden menu? Yep. They got a bunch of stuff on the hidden menu. Well, how do you get it specifically? Because when I ordered it, the lady's like, do you want it the way Mark Bell gets it? I'm like, oh, what way does he get it? It's a special way.

I get it with cinnamon in the filter. And so it's like cinnamon's filtered into it and it's just – it's delicious. But that MCT oil powder is really good. As we mentioned, they got vanilla. They got chocolate. They got the salted caramel. And Perfect Keto has a lot of great products that can help you stay on your diet. I think it's really important that you just figure out whatever way you can stay on your nutrition plan, whatever nutrition plan you're following.

I think it's important that you find stuff that you can look forward to every single day to stay on the plan. Obviously, the stricter you are on the diet, the better results you're going to get. But we're also just trying to play the long game, and a lot of the products from Perfect Keto can help you stay on point, can help you stay on track. Yeah, if you guys are interested, head over to perfectketo.com slash powerproject at checkout. Enter promo code powerproject10 to get $10 off any order of $40 or more. I've been on those New York strips lately for Piedmontese. I keep switching around.

You know, I started out with the rib eyes and I went to fillets and I just, I don't know. I keep messing around with different meat that they have. And I, I love it. I actually wasn't thinking that the New York strip would be that good. Cause I don't really normally like New York strip that much, but I was wrong. It's delicious. It's tender. It's lean.

And I love it. I can't wait because my meat probe is going to be in today. Nice. Excuse me. Yeah. Which one did you get? It was one from Amazon. I was like, it's metal.

It has a little metal thing you can stick on your oven. And it's, I don't know. It's from Amazon. Is he allowed to say meat probe on the show? I think it's what it's called, right, Andrew? Meat probe? Does it make him more handsome? It might.

Every time I like, whenever I think about it, though, it reminds me of a catheter a little bit. Oh. Yeah, right? Oh, and it's sharp and yeah but anyway i'm gonna use that on the um on the tomahawk because i want to cook that thing correctly yeah just start it into your meat i'm gonna insert it yeah insert it into the meat and um just jab it right into the fattiest part of the meat so that way you know the rest

is definitely going to be cooked it's funny chef rush actually did the opposite thickest part yeah he's he did the opposite which i was like oh like then the fatty part's going to be super undercooked but anyway yeah just it's awesome you'll be like oh shit because you can just set it and then walk away and you're yeah it's totally cool and you get instructions from you set it and forget it and it's also uh Carnivore Month. Yeah. So people that are joining in, they should take advantage of the deal we got going with Piedmontese. Yeah, you guys got to head over to piedmontese.com.

That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E dot com. Check out Enter Promo Code Power Project for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 or more, you'll get free two-day shipping. Today's episode, we're going to be talking a lot about back training. And, you know, before we dive into some of the nuts and bolts of back training, it should be noted that like any heavy training of any kind is going to benefit overall growth of your body. So we've talked in previous episodes about like bicep training and tricep training. I'm sure we'll get into talking about shoulders, but when we're talking about anything really, powerlifting is a great base to help

build size, you know, overall size. People that have like 20-inch arms, that have an impressive 20-inch arm, a lot of times it's not by coincidence that squatting 3 probably benching heavy doing like rows and overhead presses a lot of a lot of movements maybe not always necessarily uh heavy as in like heavy the way a power lifter would move the weights but these barbell exercises really lend themselves to allow you to use a great amount of weight and you end up with a good stimulus as opposed to doing like machine and isolation stuff where you're going to use less weight it's a little bit more targeted and focused on uh you know flexing and concentrating on getting like a pump and those kinds of things and might be limited with the amount of weight that you can use you can even think of like um would like an overhead squat be a great exercise to build muscle well

of course it's a great exercise for fitness and it's a great exercise period um but because of the limitations on how much weight you can use it's probably not going to um allow you to look like somebody that bench presses like 600 pounds they're going to have a much different look which that might be the look you're looking for maybe you're looking to be a little bit more athletic, but we're trying to build up size and we're trying to build up some strength in our back. I don't think you need to move much further than to understand that a deadlift is going to work the entire back.

It's going to work your all the way, all the way from your fucking calves, hamstrings, your butt, your lower back, your mid back, your lats, your traps. It's the entire back of your body, including your core on the front of your body is going to get absolutely torched from doing some deadlifting. So today's episode is dedicated to talking a lot about back training. And as we mentioned in previous episodes as well, sleep is always

going to be very important. Your nutrition is always going to be very important. And if you're somebody that is into supplements and you're a believer of supplements, then that might help you with some of your goals as well. But we're not going to talk a ton about that today. We're going to mainly just talk about exercise selection, the sets, the reps, and how often. Yeah. And to the point that you were just making about, you know, doing some strength movements and not just sticking to isolation movements, that's like adding in a lot of like heavy work is when I personally saw a transformation in terms of like, I hate to use this vague word, but the thickness of my muscle in certain areas.

Because before that, I wasn't doing like, I think before I was like 18, I was doing some barbell exercises, but I wasn't doing them very heavy. I wasn't doing them to really focus on getting stronger with them. But when I focused on like a powerlifting idea of things, getting, increasing my one rep max, my ability to move heavier loads in the smaller movements was increased because I got stronger with my bigger movements. I got stronger with the deadlift. I got stronger with the penlay row and that in tandem, because I was able to be, I built stronger glutes, hamstrings, hips, and a back that helped me to move much bigger loads in terms of my one arm dumbbell rows. In terms of the hammer strength rows, I was able to move much bigger loads in terms of my one-arm dumbbell rows, in terms of the hammer strength rows.

I was able to move more weight with those movements because I was overall a stronger individual, which just led to – like I never had that type of thickness before. And within the span of like a year and a half, it's like there was a massive progression with that added in. So you don't want to just be doing like pull – like just rows and all these smaller movements. You definitely want to be doing big movements like the deadlift. And's funny when i hear people say the deadlift isn't a back movement okay maybe if you can say it's not a direct back movement but there are so many things like the back is first off doing a lot during that movement but there's so much that's involved that it's going to benefit your back in the long run even if you don't feel a massive pump in your back by doing deadlifts here's something to about too. So if you are fairly proficient at deadlifting,

then it's possible that you would need less volume in your training to get a certain response. You wouldn't need as much assistance exercises because you're getting a ton of volume, getting a ton of work in on the actual movement itself. So if you're somebody that could deadlift, say, 600 pounds, a lot of your back training is kind of taken care of from that particular workout. Maybe you did a 5x5 with 500 pounds. It's like, holy crap, man. You could probably just hit some pull-ups and maybe do a couple shrugs and head on out the door, right?

You'd probably be good to go. Now, this is where having some training knowledge can really come in and be super beneficial. You could – if you're not an advanced lifter and you're deadlifting, let's say, under 300 pounds and under, then that's when you would want to say, okay, well, when I'm done with my deadlift training for the day, I'm going to do about three or four other exercises to really target the lats and try to bring them up and make them not only bigger and stronger but also kind of like look better. So then you can start to say, okay, well, that's where things like a seated row would come in um a lap pull down you know i don't think there's a lot of people that are going to be like oh man you know to get big get great size on your back and you do a ton of lap pull downs at the same time there's a lot of people who've had a lot of success with utilizing a lap pull down um to build size strength and the overall look of your back. But if you can get what I'm saying is that when you are a lifter that lifts around 300 pounds or so,

you're not getting the same amount of work in that somebody else who's pulling 600 pounds is getting. And so you have to figure out a way, how do I make up that work? How do I close that gap down a little bit? And the way you can close that gap down is to, you're still pursuing strength, you're still trying to get stronger. But in addition to that, you're going to utilize some machines and you're going to utilize some various exercises like pull downs and seated rows and those kinds of things. And that's not to say the guy that deadlift 600 pounds isn't going to do some of those movements as well. He just is already getting a tremendous amount of volume in with

that 600 pound deadlift. Yeah. I mean, it makes a big difference. I would also say, um, one thing you want to make sure you do is we mentioned this before in our, in our other episodes on body parts, but, um, as far as exercise order, you want to start, if you're going to be adding in deadlifts or you're going to be doing something like rack pulls, which I think are pretty great for your traps and your back overall, or pen lay rows, do that at the beginning of your workout as it's going to be the most taxing movement on your back. It's going to be the thing that you need to use most of your energy for. So start off with those bigger movements and then move into your other movements. Like if you like pull-ups, because I really like doing pull-ups and weighted pull-ups. And then you can, if some

people, I personally like to split some of my back movements, it's a vertical pulling and horizontal pulling. Vertical pulling would be something like a lat pull down. Horizontal pulling would be something like your hammer strength row. Okay. You're pulling on a horizontal plane or a cable row. So I like to split things up like that because it, you'll focus on different, like different muscles in the back when you do that. But that's a very, very simple way to go about it. But again, you definitely want to have a big primary back movement on a certain day, whether it's a very heavy rack pull, whether it's doing conventional or sumo deadlifts,

whether it's doing pen lay rows, which I love pen lay rows. You want to build those movements up and build the amount of load that you can work with those movements and then move into all of your other back movements that you're going to be doing during the day. Chris Aceto really loved that hammer strength. Yeah. Yeah. Remember how he's like, that thing's a piece of crap. But he has a point. Honestly, you don't have to use any of those machines. If you only have access to a barbell and some dumbbells, there are a lot of great back movements you can do. One of my actually favorite back movements to do when I'm able to have the setup is the barbell seal row.

But that's the only one there's a good barbell seal row setup. Because it's a great movement that isolates just the back when you're pulling in that plane and you can load it up a lot. It's so difficult. Yeah. But have you ever had a good barbell C-O-Row set up? It's amazing. It's just hard to get it set up right and have the right bench where you can get a full range of motion. Yeah.

Sometimes people are stacking boxes up underneath the bench and it feels like you're going to fall off there and everything else. Another great movement for the back is also something like a pullover and then trying to find some variation of a pullover. There's kind of the old school way of utilizing a dumbbell. That works really good. I've had some success with doing a low cable pullover off the bench, but that can be a little bit weird of a setup because then the cable can be kind of like almost like hitting you in the head.

So you have to kind of like, you know, set it up kind of a specific way. But I've had some success with that. That feels pretty good. You're just like going to lay over a bench the same way you would do a regular pullover. And then if you just don't put the cable down all the way, then it won't interfere with hitting you in the head the entire time. But yeah, trying to do some variation of a pullover is a great movement too. It's kind of more of a like full range of motion exercise, something that's going to kind of stretch you out and open up your shoulders. And having, you know, your, your having full range of motion is actually going to be critical

in building a lot of back size. I think one thing that I struggle with to build my back is, you know, I worked on the front so much as a kid, I worked so much on like bench pressing that I became really tight. And so for me to do a row or a pull, I have to kind of like try to force myself into a position that my body doesn't really want to go in. So not only do I not really have strength in that area, it's just a spot that due to like lack of range of motion, my body doesn't even want to do it. And so therefore it's tougher for me to activate. So it's important for you young guys that are listening that you keep your range of motion. And you can keep your range of motion by adding in exercises that add a little stretch.

If you don't love stretching, it would be great to continue to do some stretching. But if you don't love that, then get that stretch at the bottom of a pull-up. Take your time and really let everything kind of open up. And then on something like a pullover, try to get a good really let everything kind of open up. And then on something like a pullover, try to get a good full range of motion in there on those exercises. One thing to keep in mind a lot of times, especially when you're trying to do a lot of back movements, you'll see this with a lot of lifters in general because everybody loves working chest. Everybody absolutely loves working chest. There's not one person I know that doesn't

love it. But when you overdo a lot of your pushing movements, you'll end up with that front, you know, ape like posture. Okay. Where like your, your shoulders are slumped over douchebag syndrome, douchebag syndrome, you know, sometimes like some, yeah, pretty much it's not good. But that's partially because of a lack of pulling movements, but also there's a lot of lack of rear dealt strength with a lot of these, with a lot of these movements, also there's a lot of lack of rear delt strength with a lot of these with a lot of these movements some movements like the pen lay row um and some higher horizontal pulling movements will help with that but you really want to and i know it's not a direct back movement you want to get in a lot of rear delt work like face pulls um or even you could do this

on a chest fly machine a rear delt uh fly on those machines for your rear delts. Because what that will do is that will force your shoulder into a better position where it will be – you'll start to be able to be in a better posture. Your arms will actually be by your side where they're supposed to be and not out in front of you. Exactly. And then that in itself is going to be a big aid in you being able to progress in a lot of these back movements. Because it's going to help you also be able to feel your lats more. If you're like here and you're trying to activate your lats, if your rear delts lack strength, it's really hard to pull yourself into position. But that will help out a lot, not just your posture, but your ability to do a lot of these movements

correctly. When we had Alberto Nunez here, he was saying that whenever you're doing any back exercise, he really loved to engage that rear delt first and then pull into it. And so if you can kind of visualize this for those of you that are just listening on iTunes, it's almost like you're overpushing or overshoving your shoulder forward first like you would maybe like to rack a bench press. You see like a lot of high school kids do that. They kind of overemphasize that shoulder forward position. And so you're going to kind of start there with your shoulder kind of, you know, rolled forward on purpose. Then you're going to pull it back into its socket, and then you're going to actually row.

And what that is doing is that's helping to engage the rear delt, but it's also helping to get the lat really ready to pull the weight the right way yeah and your lat like your lat will do it feels like double the amount of work and it feels like it's going to cramp up even yeah it feels pretty brutal to do them that way especially like andrew would mention this in one of our past episodes but if you do have a friend that can touch your lat a little bit if like mark was saying if you can like kind of just retract it a little bit and feel it flex, like you'll feel it flex before you row, you'll feel so much more activation in your back.

And what's a really cool thing to do, Andrew, single arm movements. Remember we were talking about that and I don't know if it was our tricep episode, but doing movements like a single arm row, a single arm, uh single arm uh row on the cable machine where you can have the handle contract your lat and pull with that lat it literally does almost feel like your lat's gonna crap but for a lot of you that have problems feeling your lats work it's gonna be one of your money makers i feel like you're gonna say something andrew what's that no i was just because like yeah when you do, if you're watching on YouTube, like, when you pull it back, you can actually do more. Because if you have both arms out, you can pull here.

When you have one, you can actually kind of pull towards, like, one side a little bit further. Yes. And get that squeeze and stretch, like, a little bit more. And it seems like right at that very, like, tip-top peak, it's like, oh, that's where the money's at. You can really only get there if you do it on one side, as far as I've been able to do. And yeah, lats were actually the first thing that I was able to actually get off of the movement and be like, oh, my gosh, that's what they're supposed to feel like. And then I couldn't stop trying to flex. I mean, it felt – it was a really good day.

I still remember that. And then I couldn't stop trying to flex. I mean, it felt – it was a really good day. Yeah. Like I still remember that. If you don't know what we're talking about by flexing your lats and you're having a really hard time trying to activate your lats, I think a really good thing to try would be try doing a dumbbell bench press. And if you could, have someone film you. Have them get over top with the camera, with the phone. Have them film you pressing the weights out. And every the camera, with the phone, have them film you pressing the weights out. And every time you press the weights out, even if you're a smaller guy

and you're not really super developed, you're going to see like under your armpit, you're going to see some muscles from the sides flare out a little bit. And the bigger the athlete, the more jacked the athlete, the more you're going to really see those lats. And that's what we're trying to like flare out. That's what we're trying to engage when we're doing some of these movements. You can feel it sometimes on some of the pressing movements. But when you're rowing, for some reason, it's hard to feel because it's like, well, now my fingers are involved. My forearms are involved.

My biceps are involved. And you're trying to really pull the weight. But I think we get distracted by like what our hands are doing, what our forearms are doing. And this is why it can sometimes be a huge benefit to use straps maybe try to use some lifting straps like i really like using the versa grips they're super easy and it's not cheating you know people are like oh it's cheating if you're a competitive power lifter and you're you know dead lifting a one rep max in the gym with straps and you're thinking that you're going to get that on the platform, you're making a, you're making a major

mistake. Like that's obviously a huge mistake. However, if you're just trying to build some lats, there's a, there's no problem with, um, with utilizing some straps at some other point. If you want to go back and work on your grip a little bit more, you can do so as needed wherever you want. But I don't, when I think about guys that use straps and when I think about like some of these people have big, strong backs, like a J color and stuff, I'm not like that guy's got such a weak grip. You know what I mean? Like those guys don't have any problem with their grip because you're still gripping the

weight. Forearms are still activated, but they're just not getting on fire but you know the smaller muscle groups that's the problem the smaller muscle groups going to wear out first yeah and we're trying to tap into our lats and so another thing i think or seaman what do you think would be a good idea for somebody who they keep hearing us talk about the lats they keep talking we keep talking about you know how to use the lats and the bench press and we're talking about you know doing a bent over row and building up a big back but what do we do for somebody that just can't feel it like they don't know what the hell they can't they can't feel the sensation of the lat should they maybe try to do something first

in the in the workout to you know get a good pump or good warm warmup in the lats, what would you recommend? So I'm going to get to the Versa, the grips thing after because there's so much there. But you want to start with like you're doing like maybe banded warmups or something very light. I like to start my workout in terms of my back workouts with pull-ups. And I know that some people may have a problem doing pull-ups, especially if like you've never done them before.

But I like to start with pull-ups because I feel a lot of my back engaging during pull-ups. So whether you want to start with maybe doing banded pull-ups, you could do some chin-ups if you'd rather do chin-ups than pull-ups. You could also do the close grip pull-ups if you have a problem doing the wider grip. There's always those handles that protrude out. I don't know if you guys are just listening to what I'm talking about, but it allows your arms to be close together when you're having pull-ups, grab a band. And you could do like a few sets of that. And then also doing some banded rows with single arms before going into the

rest of everything up a little bit. Exactly. Get a lot of reps of banded work in. It's not going to tire you out that much before you go to back movements, but it'll help. And if you really struggle with pull-ups, there's nothing wrong with just doing like one pull-up or two pull-ups. You know, rest a little bit in between. Maybe you're working another body part in between or whatever it might be. But like I've done,

I've done a lot of bench workouts in my time of, you know, I would do a bench movement. Maybe it's a warm-up for the bench. Maybe I'd bench the bar and then I'd go over and I'd do like one pull-up and then I'd go back and I'd bench 95 pounds. I go back and I do one pull-up. What that would do is it just gave me an accumulation of pull-ups during the particular workout. And I would even lower myself really, really slow. And then maybe, you know, I would progress into doing two or three. I've never been great at pull-ups, but eventually you'll work your way into being, being quite proficient at pull ups when you're mixing them in with something else and just doing, you know, don't be afraid to just do like one or two reps.

It can be a difficult exercise for a lot of people. Yeah. You don't be flailing around and moving all crazy. This is not, you know, for, for a pull up and we're trying to build the back. I'm not saying that a kipping pull up pull up doesn't have potential to build your back, but that's not really what we're looking for here. We're looking to be able to get a full range of motion, be able to squeeze the muscle just like we would on anything else. We're looking for a really controlled movement that is going to elicit the best response possible. Exactly.

And back to the VersaGrips thing. Exactly. And back to the VersaGrips thing. So the VersaGrips, the big reason why they're so damn useful is, yeah, they take away you having to grip the bar. So you don't activate your forearms or even your biceps as much, but when you're able to pull with your elbow, you're able to feel your lats much, much more. If you don't have access to VersaGrips, one thing that you could do is you could do something called the pistol grip. If you're listening, then what you want to do is like, you just want to put your finger up like you're shooting a gun or whatever, right? That pistol grip, you'd be pulling instead of pulling without or using your whole arm on the machine, you'd use those three fingers and pull in using your whole arm on the machine you use those three fingers and pull in that way that pistol grip is going to like kind of simulate versa grips even though you're still using your grip but that'll be something that'll allow you to get

more back activation out of a lot of these movements and then really just kind of lightening up your grip you're not trying to squeeze the shit out of it yeah exactly it's lightening up your grip and one thing is like i see a lot of people do this. I think this is one thing that you should pay attention to. If you think of like a hammer strength machine or even a cable machine where you're doing pulls, I see a lot of people that are like doing the whole rack or they're stacking like five plates on each side of the hammer strength machine, right? You don't need to be doing that much load.

Part of the reason why a lot of people don't feel their back is because the weight is too damn heavy. You're using their whole body. You're using your, exactly. You're using your whole body to do this movement, which you, you shouldn't be doing if you're trying to isolate your back.

Like I could put two plates on each side of the hammer strength machine and get an, like an insanely good feeling and work in my, in work in my back, even though it's really light, you don't, sometimes it's necessary to use heavy loads, which is why we talked about using those, those big movements at the beginning of your workout, but that doesn't need to be your entire workout.

So you would maybe, uh, if you were programming for somebody that wanted to have a big back, you'd maybe say, okay, you know, we're going to start out the day with some, uh, with some deadlifts and then maybe we'll progress into some like bent over rows. But I'd rather have you handling the heavier weight on the actual deadlift than to be swinging and flailing around on the bent over row. Is that kind of some of your principle? Yeah. The bent over row is a movement where I think it could be loaded a bit. You could choose to do that and that. But like on anything that's like maybe like a dumbbell one-arm row or any of the cable machines or even like things like the dumbbell seal row, those aren't movements that I'm like looking for us to do three to six reps or, you know, lower reps. I'm looking at us to be sticking between like six to 10, eight to 12, 15 to eight, like higher rep work.

But you need to be able to feel that movement in the area we're trying to work in the workout. If it's too heavy, you're not gonna, you won't feel much back activation. Yeah, you're allowing the exercise to dictate the amount of repetitions and the load, because you're like, okay, well, you're doing a seal row

and I don't need you to use 100-pound dumbbells. Seal row, we're trying to feel the lats a lot. I want you to do 12 to 15 reps. And when you start to think about a seal row, it takes out the lower back. It takes out the legs. Now we're just using our arms and we're just trying to pull with our lats. um, our arms and we're just trying to pull with our lats.

And so now you're probably thinking in the neighborhood of like, Hey, like if you're a newer lifter, 25 pounds would be a great start. And if you're a little stronger than if you can get to like 60 or so, that would be kind of cool. But like, we don't really need much more weight than that. Exactly.

Something to think about too is whatever your current training program is, you know, put it into a little bit of, put it into question and ask yourself, if you do some of the stuff that we're talking about right now, like you do the stack on your seated rows and you do 315 with a bent over row, but you kind of go crazy and have at it. The question to ask yourself is, is your back growing? You know, is it, is it, is it growing? Is the current program that you're utilizing, is it effective to make your back grow? If it is, then you're, you're, you're doing great and that's fine. But that's something to kind of look at, like what you're currently doing, if it's not really progressing you i understand we want to get excited we want to like um we want to really like you know we think we're getting after it in a better way just by being like more intense it doesn't always have to be more intense you can actually just do the exercise better doing the exercise better will get you faster results so because we're after results and we're trying to make a lot of progress, just really have that question in mind.

Like, is what I'm doing, is this really working for me? I've had a really hard time growing my back and I've had a really hard time growing my lats. One thing that helped me when I was young was to get definition in my back was boxing and punching a heavy bag. So for those of you that like lifting, but, you know, would also enjoy doing something a little different. First of all, make sure you know how to throw a punch, make sure you wrap your wrists and stuff like that. You don't want to, you know, now you're going to be, you know, killing your wrists and not being able to do anything in the gym. Right. So make sure, make sure you, make sure you have at least some

knowledge. You can even just watch some YouTube videos would probably suffice you know yeah but um that helped me a lot and a lot of that had to do with just pulling your hands back and i don't think it had as much to do with like throwing the punch i think throwing the punch might be more tricep and shoulder but pulling that punch back it also helped build up my biceps too because um well my trainer he was a mean bastard he'd he'd hit me with his mitts all the time and and holy crap, that hurt. He'd give me like a fat lip every time he'd pop me with it. He was so quick. I couldn't move out of the way in time.

But keeping your hands up and having gloves on and keeping your – your biceps are like flexed the entire time after you do that for like 20 minutes or so. It's pretty brutal. But maybe at the end of a back session, if you have access to a heavy bag, um, you know, let out, let out some, uh, let off some steam and, and, and punch the shit out of the bag and whatever technique that you can muster up. Maybe you have somebody in your gym that can show you and give you some advice. Another thing that might be beneficial is just like a rower, you know, concept to rower, um, great finisher for a workout. Um, it's going to be something that

isn't going to really add a lot of size or width or anything. But as you get leaner and as you get more developed over the years, if you've been on that rower for a while, you're going to start to see a lot of definition come out. Oh, man, the pumps that I'm getting on the after I finished rowing. It's insane. It feels like like, yeah yeah that's not going to cause growth or anything but it feels like a really good form of cardio for a lifter you can really practice rowing on the rower too i mean you can literally practice your rowing motion you can shove the shoulders forward and then you can you know uh pull the shoulders back in the into their kind of sockets into the you know and then and then you can like row and like really flex your lats every single time you're doing it and you can really like learn that's what we're trying to do is we're trying to learn as we go along we're not trying to just like work out

you know um there's there's some people that talk uh about working in you know rather than like working out like working out you're going in there and you're like i'm just gonna like blast the shit out of everything working in is when you calm down a little bit and say no you know what i'm gonna intentionally make my back bigger today i'm gonna intentionally get a little stronger today like lifting with an intent is a completely different thing than going in the gym and just like wreaking havoc although they're both fun it's it's going to be a lot more effective for you to try to calm down a little bit pull a a Michael Hearn, close your eyes, get inside the muscle, uh, you know, use a little CT Fletcher on it and say like, I'm commanding you to grow. This is this, Hey body,

this is what we're doing today. And when you, if you work out with a professional, if you work out with somebody that has been lifting for a long time, you work out with like a real bodybuilder, you're going to notice that you're on set number two of exercise number one and your shit is already in trouble. You're already got like a pump going and you're like, oh, my God, hopefully they don't recognize this. Hopefully they don't know that I'm about ready to die and we're only like a few exercises in. Hopefully they don't know that I'm about ready to die and we're only like a few exercises in because that's the – that's what you want to try to bring to the table every single time that you work out. It's not really just – it's not necessarily going in there and killing yourself, although that is one way to handle it. You can kind of be like a branch warren a little bit. But I think a position that's somewhere a little bit more in the middle between that fire of a branch worn and maybe like some of the poise of like a Jay Cutler. Something I think, like you mentioned, to keep you honest, right, and to make sure that you're getting those muscle groups activated well is to program in two second holds maybe in like your um some of your rowing

movements like your your uh cable row your dumbbell row or whatever make sure that at the end of every rep you're holding the last for two seconds and then bringing it back you don't have to like that's really keeping yourself honest that's tough yeah i love doing that because first off you will feel the end range of that movement more and then you'll make sure that you're not using such a heavy load where you're not able to control it. So it's just, it's just a little two second hold at the end, but you're going to be able to use a decent amount of weight.

Okay. But it won't be so heavy where you're now not able to actually feel that movement in your lats or in your back. It's something I program in for pretty much almost everybody i work with just because we being honest we all have the tendency of working with loads that we're too heavy with but if you do that you definitely can't use a load that you can't handle yeah that that killed me when you programmed for me recently yeah like just the two second holds like it was confusing and i had to get clarification but it was like it wasn't every set it was like after a few sets like you

know whatever like last set two second hold i was like oh okay i can do that and then i was like oh my gosh i can't do that that was really hard yeah and then also like the the holds at the top that's where like a really good training partner comes in too you know kind of help push you through the the part where you're struggling so you can squeeze and keep everything nice and tight at the very top of whatever the movement might be. But yeah, dude, those two-second holds are killer. So this is an isometric contraction. You're trying to squeeze and trying to hold. And this can be really effective for people that really have a hard time feeling their lats and activating their lats.

time feeling their lats and activating their lats you can try um what has been deemed the fat guy row which is like where you're just uh it's like i guess uh uh a horizontal uh yeah horizontal row yeah where you like lay down on the ground and you set up a uh you set up a barbell like up up uh around eye level and you like row yourself to it maybe you can pull up something of it yeah it's a inverted row and i was actually gonna like i was gonna say out of all of the uh lap movements that's probably my favorite because that was actually the first time where i i did it and i got off and i was like oh shit like this is working i'll pull it up right now but that's my favorite one so with this movement what you could do is you could just row whatever way you want to row you could have your feet just out in front of you flat or your knees could be bent. Ideally, we want to work our feet up onto a box and we want to keep a real stiff position.

We'll get a little bit more out of it, but do it whatever way you need to do it at first. I would even suggest using straps so that way there's no distractions away from your lats. Pull yourself in as much as you possibly can and then move your elbows around and just feel what feels best to you. What you're going to notice is, and this is a pro tip right here, everybody get ready. And Seema mentioned the elbows moving. The elbows moving is 100% probably the most important thing when it comes to a row. is 100% probably the most important thing when it comes to a row. And that's why a lot of times, or just back training in general,

that's why a lot of times people will kind of heave-ho the weight in position. They'll use some momentum, and we don't mind a little momentum here and there. But another thing that's immensely important is to push your shoulder blades downward. So you want the elbow in tight. You want the chest up nice and high. And you want to shove your elbows down towards the ground. If you're listening to this show right now and you just bend your arms at like 90 degrees and just shove your elbows down towards the ground like you're trying to move your shoulders away from your ears, you'll feel your lats flex. Like that's your lats flexing. you'll feel your lats flex.

Like that's your lats flexing. You're trying to almost like you're pushing your elbows down towards the floor aggressively, and you'll feel your lats open up and really, really flex. So next time you're on a seated row, you know, shove that elbow not only back behind the body, but shove it down and try to get your elbow as far away from like your ear as you can or your elbow as far away from your shoulder as you can. That's a Charles Glass special right there there that one really light you up i don't i've i there's i've probably done that once in like one workout it's nothing i've ever programmed consistently for myself so i gotta do that i gotta try that out and see how good it is a weird thing

that uh amongst the best deadlifters that i've seen i can you i can usually spot someone that can deadlift and it's not not every single time but it's i i would say it has a pretty high rate when somebody's uh ear is far away from their shoulder i know they can pull like a motherfucker because if you're built like i'm built more like a bug i'm like i'm like more up in here like this like i'm built more like the stay puff marshmallow man or something i got these short little t-rex arms going on right so for me to pull because my shoulder isn't like far away from uh my head and my neck and stuff like that it makes pulling a little harder i have to like kind of pull the weight up a little higher for my body and so therefore it's a little uh a lot of times people are distracted and they're like

oh the guy's got really long arms and it's like his arms are not really that long it's where they're inserted you know if you look at like a um probably one of the greater examples is arnold schwarzenegger he kind of has a little bit of a of a sloped shoulder which actually i think gave him a really good aesthetic look because he had kind of a sloped shoulder, which actually I think gave him a really good aesthetic look because he had kind of a sloped shoulder, but then he also had wide shoulders, and he had those massive biceps too. But he was a great deadlifter. He pulled like 730 pounds or something like that. Really?

Yeah. Damn. Damn. I didn't know that. Not bad, Arnold. Yeah, but the guys that are built up a little higher, they're going to have a little bit harder time with a deadlift. Not that they can't be good at deadlifting, but a little bit harder with a little bit harder time with a with a deadlift not that they can't be good at deadlifting but a little bit tougher of a go of it the

isometric movements though so like again back to that inverted row like pull yourself up to the bar and and try to give a hold for 10 seconds or 30 seconds really learn like where you should be and try like five try like five reps that way yeah you're going to be worked, and you're going to feel the way that your lats should be feeling during your exercises. The hard part about that inverted row, and the hard part, in my opinion, about back training is it feels like it just all of a sudden, the strength just like exits your body, and you ain't got nothing left, and you're like, what? You're like, what happened? Like I was doing so good.

You ever have that happen? It just feels like it feels like somebody like zapped your power. I haven't really had that happen as much with like a squat or a bench press or some or even like a tricep movement. But man, when the back goes, when those lats go, you're done. That used to happen to me a lot at the beginning. But like that, I think like after you just strengthen your back a lot, for me, my back is my favorite body part to work and move. I think that's partially why I don't have that much of an issue anymore.

But I know what you're talking about because it's a lot of muscles that are working. That's true. It's a lot of muscles that are working. Yeah. Is there anything that a big back doesn't help i mean you lay on your back to bench you know and so it's going to be a big stabilizer of your bench press um that's where you're putting the bar when you squat you know you're putting the bar on your back and then usually with a big strong uh back you're going to be able to deadlift usually really well.

A lot of times people that have big backs also have a good grip. It all really just kind of works together. And I think just maybe the way the human anatomy is, I guess you can overdo anything, but it almost feels like you can't overdo your back. But maybe that's just because we're bros and we work the biceps and shoulders and chest so much yeah we can't exit this without speaking on the traps traps you're gonna build up those traps yeah and what are your favorites so you know as in sema was talking about the hold you know um a two second hold or so uh on on a row it's really weird that the way the human body is set up like we're able to move stuff a lot easier than we're able to hold stuff and if you want an example of that you know try for the remainder of this

podcast try doing a wall sit good luck yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah. You're going to, you're going to want to kill yourself. You do that for like 30 seconds. And for some reason, your legs are totally burning. Yeah. Really, really difficult movement. And when it comes to, when it comes to building size, I think we sometimes forget that that is a great way to build some size. And the reason why I'm bringing it up is that, you know, when you're doing a, doing a deadlift, we're not really even trying to intentionally work the traps. But they're getting involved in the lift, I think, maybe to help protect the shoulder, maybe just to help keep a flatter back, help protect your back. And so, you know, a deadlift is a great movement for the traps. Bench pressing is a great movement for your traps because you're up on your traps and they're getting an isometric contraction contraction from that as well and squats are amazing for your

traps and obviously we have some things to kind of isolate the traps which would be you know kind of any form of like a shrug i think maybe a forgotten lift that you don't really see much anymore because people are like i think that's bad for your shoulder is like an upright row. An upright row is a great exercise. I think any exercise that you can do and it doesn't feel like it's causing any harm to you, I think it's fair game. As Nassim was pointing out in another podcast,

he was following somebody who does these crazy movements and they move in bad positions on purpose, but they're moving in and out of these bad positions with no weight. And if you're doing something like an upright row, in my opinion, I don't see how that would be negative on your body as long as you're using weights that are appropriate and nothing's hurting and you're not swinging anything around in a weird way.

But that's a great movement for building the traps as well. And you have other movements like face pulls and things like that can help build the rear delts, the traps. One movement we forgot to mention is just kind of that crisscross cable exercise where you take the handles off the cables and you just grab the little ball that's on there and you just, you, you try to, you know, grab those black balls and then you try to like, you know, pull them apart. That's a great movement.

You know what? I said that not even because of the balls. I was just like, yeah, that's a great movement. I didn't realize. So consciously. Yeah, we know why you said it. One other thing that I think y'all should like pay attention to for the traps, actually two things. We mentioned rack pulls, but heavy rack pulls, I swear, those heavy rack pulls are so good, especially if you can hold it at the top.

I actually always feel my traps working on that. A little bit of reps with that, or what do you think? I like doing higher reps with heavier rack pulls. So like this could be sets of six to ten, six to ten. But it's like that tenth rep if I'm doing sets of ten is tough. It's not – it's tough. So they're pretty heavy. And then also farmer's walks.

Yeah, because like the traps are a muscle group that first off you're going to feel a lot if you're doing heavy farmers walks but you don't have to if you can get them working through a longer period of time that'll also help them grow too like you notice a lot of strong men and individuals that have to do things like yoke walks and farmers walks and stuff like that their traps are huge there's a reason for that it's not just because of all the other movements that they're doing, but it's because of all those holding movements that they're having to do. One minute time under tension or something like that. Yep.

A hauling ass through a farmer's carry. Yeah. Yeah. So heavy farmer's walks are like, honestly, one of my favorites for traps, even though, yeah, they're my favorites, like specifically for traps. Yeah. Farmer's carries, yoke walks. even though yeah they're my favorites like specifically for traps yeah farmers carries yoke walks i mean any any sort of like thing that you have to that's going to be weight bearing on

your body like you know that you're holding in your hands or that you're holding on your back it's going to help uh it's going to help build up your traps one thing to make sure when you do them because a lot of people i'll see them do them and they'll kind of just let it hang. Right. The intention of doing that is to like retract and hold, like feel you're going to feel your traps in place. You're going to retract your scapula a bit. You want to be aligned. You don't want to just let the dumbbells hang and swing. You're supposed to be stabilized.

And that stabilizing is going to activate your traps. It's going to activate your lats and all those other groups that are supposed to be working during that movement well that makes sense because i was going to say like i feel it way more in my traps when i lean forward just a little bit i think maybe that kind of lines everything up or allows me to squeeze a little bit in a different way maybe or maybe it's working something else or i don't know but i just know when i lean forward a little bit it burns like hell yeah maybe when you're leaning forward other things are you're activating yeah you could even do something like you know you could do a few reps uh you know of of shrugs before you uh decide to go walk on your um on your farmer's carry and you could do it with like a trap bar you could do it with a you know whatever whatever style you

want to do you can use uh you know a strongman implements or you can just use uh some dumbbells again to kind of you know reiterate some of these points on this um you know some key factors with your back training is really make sure that you're moving your elbows you want to try to take your elbow through as much of a full range of motion as possible and And really when it comes to like rowing, make sure you're pulling that elbow back behind the body. That's a big reason on why with most back movements, we don't mind if there's like a little body English in there because sometimes you have to swing to get a little momentum just to pull the elbow back a little bit more. That'll be really effective in a lot of your training. And then also, you know, try to push that elbow downward towards the floor on any sort of the, on any, you know, seated row and movements like that.

Give that inverted row a shot. A lot of people aren't very strong when it comes to pull-ups. A lot of people struggle with those. If you struggle with those, an inverted row is going to be something that could help you later on progress into being able to do pull-ups more efficiently. And then just as we said with like the bicep training, the tricep training, like most of the training we do is fairly similar. There's a lot of different ways to start out your workout. you can try to get a lot of blood flow into the muscle and you can try to get a little bit of a pump because you can, you know, uh, feel,

feel like you're, I guess, pre fatiguing the muscle for the workout. But the most of the time, what we like to do is we like to start with the big movements, the compound exercises, and you would be in like a five to five to eight rep range, maybe about three sets or so. And then you would progress into doing kind of more assistance type movements for 10 to 12 reps. And then you would kind of finish out with something like a 15 to 20 rep range. About how many sets do you think we should do for back?

And about how many different exercises do you think? So it can range. But in the last episode on on biceps i mentioned oh god someone got me on this i mentioned 14 i can't wait to hire that guy i was all jumbled um i mentioned way too many sets per uh per day per workout yeah per week i guess right yeah per week but pretty much you want to be doing you can do anywhere between i I believe seven to 12, uh, sets or yeah, seven to 12, um, sets per body part on the, on that exercise per day. So I'd say you could choose like five different back exercises. I personally would choose five. It could be starting with like, let's give an example, Penn lay row. If you're doing, you could do deadlift, deadlift slash Penlay row slash

whatever rack pull, right? You could do that for three to four sets moving into, I personally, I don't even count, honestly, I don't even count pull-ups as a back movement. I count pull-ups as something that you're just doing. So if you want to get good at pull-ups, I honestly wouldn't count that into your total volume. I would just say you want to aim to do 30 pull-ups on that day, whether it's weighted or not. But whether you do pull-ups or not, then you can move into like a dumbbell seal row. And then you can move into a dumbbell seal row to a lat pull-down. And then you can move to a seated row, which would be another horizontal and then you could lastly i really like this movement it's a upright um it's an upright cable lat pull down from the side yeah those are tough i don't know if you guys have ever done those but those are really good on the lats like you could feel

those really well for sitting on like a bench or something you could be sitting on a bench you could be on your knees okay um but it's an upright seated lat pull down and for each of those exercises i think i just mentioned, uh, four different exercises. You could do three sets for each if you want, but generally I like to do the much higher rep work at the very end. So for that single arm movements and generally for single arm movements, I like to do much higher reps. So that would maybe be the movement that you would choose to do 15 to 20 reps on.

Uh, and the other movements you can work through 12 to 15, eight to 10, eight to 12, whatever. How many times a week do you like to do pull-ups? I have a pull-up bar at home, so I'm doing them pretty much every day. But if you're running a program, I would say do them at minimum twice a week. I honestly think you should do them. I just think that there's such a good movement to do overall that I would program them in even on days that you're not working the back. Just a body weight exercise. Just a body weight exercise. I really like, I mean, you've seen me doing this in the gym. I really like doing like a movement that I'll just do bump out a set of like eight to 10 pull-ups, do another movement, bump out more pull-ups. I just really think that's a really good skill

movement just to maintain, not even for your back, even though they're going to help your back. I just think it's very beneficial to be able to pull your body weight up. And then actual back training with that given workout, you'd probably maybe do that like once every five days, twice a week, something like that. Twice a week, yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, when you're pursuing all this stuff, you know, if you if you start to mix and match all the different workouts that we're laying out, you're going to kill yourself because it's going to be too much. So this one in particular is like back focus. But if you mix this back training in with the bicep training in with the tricep training, you might find yourself pretty exhausted and kind of overdoing it because there's only so much your elbows can handle. There's only so much our bodies can handle. So this is specific towards trying to grow a bigger back. How do you feel about posing? Do you think it's important for people to kind of mess around with

some posing a little bit? What about like posing in between sets and stuff like that? I think there was actually something that came out that showed that i don't know who did it um but posing like the specific muscle group or let's say you do a set of chest you know dumbbell chest press and then you flex your chest or you you keep blood in there and then you go on to your next set although you might work with a little bit less volume since you haven't allowed it to fully rest, it has been shown to potentially help it grow over time. So I haven't done that a crazy amount, but it can be pretty beneficial. And I think it could be, this is just a total idea, I don't know because I haven't had anybody do this, but I think it could be really good for individuals who struggle with keeping that muscle group active, especially when people say, I don't feel my biceps. If you do something like

a typical dumbbell bicep curl, and then maybe for, you don't have to do it on your whole rest period, but for maybe 20 seconds out of that rest period, you flex your biceps and you kind of keep blood in there and then you do it for 20 seconds, 25 seconds. And then after about a minute, you go on to your next set. I think that that could help you maintain, I guess, maintain a feeling of that muscle group as you're going through all of your sets. Some people, though, like I have no doubt that it is beneficial. I just personally don't do that that much. Right.

It's definitely eye opening. Right. just personally don't do that that much right it's definitely eye-opening right like before the past couple of weeks i'd never tried to pose or flex or really do anything and then all of a sudden i tried and it's like uh i don't sweat too much during my workout but once i started flexing and trying to pose dude i was just like drenched in sweat it's really hard and it's like i said it's eye-opening i think it's important for people to know how to flex whether you're doing it mixed in with your workout you know doesn't matter a ton i don't think but um like if if you're having a hard time and you're like man i my triceps are a lagging body part

i think you should work on flexing them i think you should work on figuring out a way to um you don't need like a full-on posing routine or anything like that but if you're having a hard time activating the lats um it would be good for you to learn how to flex that you should have control you know as you're trying to build a body you should have good control over um i mean eventually you would like to be able to like flex your christmas tree and flex your hamstrings and flex your calves and flex. You should be able to flex all these things, your forearm, your bicep. It's a really weird thing that none of this ever gets taught and no one ever really explores this. You would feel like – I mean once I started doing a little bit of bodybuilding, I was kind of confused.

I was like, man, I did a lot of sports and like even like track. Like no one ever – like I just track, like no one ever, like I just sprinted, but no one ever taught me how to flex my hamstring. Like that seems backwards. I'd rather like having a good understanding of like, oh, okay, that's the back of my leg flexing. Oh, that's the muscle that every time I kick towards the ground and propel myself forward, that's kind of the main muscle group involved in that.

Oh, okay. And that's my hip flexor. Okay. That's my core. And I can kind of feel all these different things in that oh okay and that's my hip flexor okay that's my core and i can kind of feel all these different things like flexing and posing but no no one ever talks about it no one ever teaches it you know what on that except for in bodybuilding yeah no man um now that you mentioned it i've never really just thought about i've never thought about that because like when you said flex your christmas tree i started flexing just the middle of my back i was like wait up yeah like i can i can literally just like flex right there and that'll start

moving right felt me up seriously but like so i think it it would be really beneficial especially if you're newer to lifting yo like really don't just focus on lifting heavy weight. It's, it's so huge focus on feeling the muscle group. You're trying to work with that movement on that day, working, um, not just volume, not just, not just weight, try and feel it working because overall you'll be able to get away with more in the long run with lighter load. Like when you see Michael Hearn train, right? He's not all like he can can lift a hell a hell amount of load if he wants to but he can get a lot out of light load that most people would think is pussy weight right and yeah he when we lift it with him he he kills us because he's like no i'm trying to do it this way and we're like holy shit yeah and the way he's using is just it's absolutely insane like

the weird deadlift you remember the deadlifts where he was coming up and kind of shrugging a little bit? Anyone that like is like, oh, that's not the right way to deadlift, you know? But you don't really know what he's doing there. You're not that advanced. Yeah. You have to try to experience some of it yourself. If you want a bigger chest, you should know how to flex it. If you want bigger biceps, you should know how to flex them if you want i think flexing the biceps is is fairly common so

i think most dudes like that lift they get into flexing their biceps a little bit here and there just show off or for whatever reason but um i just think it's a great it's a great practice and if you feel weird doing it in a gym then uh maybe just, you know, practice it in your mirror here and there. Like, you know, we have the advantage of having YouTube. It might be weird to watch other men pose in underwear, but you can learn a little bit more about it. It's not weird. You can, you know, pick up some good tips.

And then when you're back in the gym, you can get more out of it. I think there's definitely something to be said about the amount of muscle activation that you could tap into once you learn how to flex oh yeah but if you don't ever learn how to flex and i don't know if you're gonna be able to tap into the muscle uh as much as you might like yeah anything over there andrew no i just i i really do love uh working out the back and i've seen somebody on instagram they were talking like it was um it was pretty funny because they were like oh do you have a sore back? Get a stronger back.

Like, you know, does it hurt when you sit for a long time? Get a stronger back. You know, and they just kind of list out a bunch of things. Get a stronger back. And I just responded like, oh, what happens if you wake up with a stiff back in the morning? Like, what do you do? And it's like, okay, obviously, it's get a stronger back. And it's true.

Like, you know, stronger core, stronger back. Like, it just it just helps everything not just in the gym but outside of the gym like you hear people that say like they can't stand for a prolonged amount of time because their back hurts they can't sit for a long time because their back hurts even though the you know sitting down is not that great but also standing for a very long time is not great either yeah but not being able to do either without being in a ton of pain, that's important. So I think everybody can, can,

uh, get a lot of benefit from just growing a stronger back, especially as we get older, you know? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay.

One last thing. Cause I, um, if you're new to lifting and you were listening to this episode and we were mentioning like training back twice a week, if you need a a lifting you don't need to train your back twice a week for those volumes you could do it once a week at like eight to ten sets for that workout you will progress a lot off of that right don't go to moving that twice a week on that yet because you don't need to yet it's when you've really tapped that out that you can then increase your frequency

and increase your volume so don't just don't move into doing too much too quickly is all I'm saying. Yeah, and also too, if you're going to try some of the stuff we mentioned today, try it for 12 weeks and then go back to once a week again. You're going to need to switch things up a little bit. Yeah. Andrew, where can people find you? At IamAndrewZ on Instagram. And then make sure you guys are following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Twitter,

LinkedIn. We're on Twitch. We're on YouTube. We're on Facebook. We're all over the place. Uh, you can't hide from us. There's nowhere to hide.

There's no excuses. Uh, tell a friend about us, rate review on iTunes. And, um, yeah, like I said,

if you, if there's one thing that you found, uh, value out of today's episode, share it with your gym partner. Share it with your partner partner. Share it with somebody because a lot more people need to be listening to this podcast. Nsema, where are you at? Nsema E. Yang on Instagram and YouTube.

At Nsema Yin Yang at Twitter and TikTok. How about you? At Mark Smiley Bell, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube. Strength is never weak. This week is never strength. Catch y'all later.