Mark Bell's Power Project - Mike Israetel Debates Joel Seedman on 90° Squats vs Full Squats

Starting point is 00:00:00 Any, you know, adjustments or position that doesn't cause any inflammatory response is that 90 degree position. Power Project family, this is a power bite and a power bite is a highlight from a full length episode that we do not want you to miss. Links to the full episode are on the podcast show notes, along with special perks for all of our beautiful listeners. Enjoy. There's a few claims made in your videos. The very last actual post is where most of these come from on your Instagram. So one of the little captions or little pop-ups, I don't know how to do those on my own Insta. I'm not that TikTok savvy.

Starting point is 00:00:36 But it says that 90-degree stopping process of various kinds at 90 degrees is better for the joints. And I'd be very curious to see how you arrived at that position. Okay. For instance, I just want to say, I actually have great respect for everything you do because I've seen a lot of people post like, Hey, Mike, like jump in. And you're always very, very civil, the way you handle yourself, very similar to Ben Patrick.

Starting point is 00:01:03 So I really appreciate that because there's a lot of uh professionals in the field and you know we can disagree and all that stuff but there are some people who just go off bashing the daylights out of people calling people out you you don't do that so great respect and admiration for what you do um so even though we may have different views uh i love i love what you do man. So yeah. So one of the things there, so first off with the captions, like you have, you know, two seconds to catch people's attention. So yes, some of that is like, hey, there's not, I can't give a ton of context because it's Instagram, right? Okay. So it doesn't give me a chance to fully explain everything. I have to put up kind of like the quick thing that's going to get people's attention.

Starting point is 00:01:46 And it's not that I don't believe it. I do. But like you said, I think there's some context behind that. Correct me if I'm wrong. You are more in the bodybuilding side of things a little bit. Would you, to an extent? My own personal pursuit in training is bodybuilding. It would be comical if I did anything else looking like this.

Starting point is 00:02:07 Well, actually, I'm a tennis player. I'm like, oh, okay. But I also compete in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I do that regularly. I used to be a wrestler, and I power lifted highly unsuccessfully for a long time. I've also coached a bunch of actual real athletes like volleyball players and basketball players. So I have some background. But, yeah, mostly I just do highly unathletic jujitsu and bodybuilding, which is entirely unathletic.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Yeah, no, it's nice. Very cool. So one of the things is like for that post, that was with the quarterback, Taylor Heineke. So I was using him specifically because he's had shoulder issues mainly from when he fell on it. He separated his shoulder. And so this is just an example. He could not do any type of chest pressing unless it was – I mean, this is literally directly from his mouth when we'd be working out.

Starting point is 00:02:59 He'd be saying, like, man, if I go even this much past 90, it hurts. It hurts bad. If I stay right there much past 90, it hurts. Like it hurts bad. If I stay right there in that range, it feels totally fine. Now, that's an extreme example because he had a separated shoulder and some very high impact and trauma in there. But I have noticed this trend in other individuals. People have come in with shoulder issues or maybe even people that were, you know, apparently healthy. But I've seen where oftentimes that full range of motion becomes a problem. And over time, the position that doesn't require any, you know, adjustments or position that doesn't cause any inflammatory response is that 90 degree position. And again,

Starting point is 00:03:43 I would argue it's because that's where we have maximal motor unit recruitment, maximal cross bridging. So our ability to absorb force and keep tension off the joints is going to be best. So that's kind of my rationale for that. We've all heard that to get optimal sleep, you should cool your room down to 68 to 69 degrees, but that's not all you need to do. And that's why we've partnered with eight sleep mattresses. Now they have the pod pro and the pod Pro Cover. And the amazing technology of this mattress allows you to cool the mattress down to 55 degrees or to have it as warm as 110 degrees. But the great thing is that the temperature changes through the night based off your actual

Starting point is 00:04:17 body temperature to make sure that you get the most restful sleep possible. You fall asleep 32% faster and you move around 40% less when you're actually asleep. It's amazing. And Andrew, how can people get it? Yeah, this is amazing technology that actually changes its temperature based off of your sleep cycle. There's no other technology like it anywhere else. To take advantage of this, head over to 8sleep.com slash power project. That's E-I-G-H-T sleep.com slash power project and you guys will receive 150 off this amazing technology links to them down in the description below let's get back to this video and and so a lot of physical therapists and this is kind of a position stand in most of the

Starting point is 00:04:56 associations now as they say like probably the first thing you want to do after injury initial recovery occurs is try to expand the range of motion to as much of normal physiological range and also sort of an offshoot of that in the study of mobility and sport performance a lot of those experts tend to think that mobility which is flexibility plus strength like your ability to exert strength through the fullest range of motion possible is kind of the cornerstone athletic development so do you see yourself deviating from that sort of mainstream position for the reasons you're kind of experienced in your clinical practice? Or do you think maybe that has some merit or there's maybe some middle ground

Starting point is 00:05:30 there? What do you think about that? I think there's definitely some middle ground there because for example, I can just give you almost verbatim what I did with, I'll go back to Taylor because this is the post that we're talking about. He separated his shoulder. This is in the game playoffs against Tampa Bay last year. He fell on it, dived into the end zone. So he came back nine days later and range of motion was definitely a thing that like, hey, we had to get that back. It's not like, oh, let's keep the joint immobile

Starting point is 00:06:01 and create as much tension as possible. It's like, no, no, no. Like let's get what I would consider full range of motion. One of the exercises that I had him do was a dumbbell pullover, right? Laying on his, on his back on a bench and doing a pullover. And I believe the natural or optimal range of motion for that is actually a pretty large range of motion where he's going all the way back, back, back, back, stretching that. And we gradually open that up. Same thing with overhead movements, taking them all the way.

Starting point is 00:06:27 Because at first, you know, it came in, it's like, oh, man, that hurts. Gradually, you know, really worked on keeping the shoulders packed a little farther, a little farther, a little farther, started opening up. So it's not that I'm opposed to range of motion. I think, like you said, there's a lot of common middle ground there. I think there are certain positions, especially when we start loading it, where I would say that going too far beyond 90 is not as optimal, but, you know, there are probably scenarios where people go past that and they would be just fine. So it's not necessarily that I'm

Starting point is 00:06:55 against range of motion. I think it comes down to the position, but generally 90 degrees, I would argue is kind of where that optimal range of motion is under loaded conditions or high load, high impact scenarios. And that's kind of based on your clinical experience, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Clinical experience. And then just, you know, like we said, we went back and forth on some of the science because there's flip sides to every side of the science.

Starting point is 00:07:19 As you know, you have, you know, whether it's, you know, the ketone diet, paleo diet, whether anything we talk about in the sports industry, there's always two sides of it. One side says this, the other side says this. So I think you can look at the research and there's probably research supporting both sides, you know, what you're saying and maybe what I'm saying. helped me kind of apply what I have seen and believe in it more is just what I've seen experientially at that point and anecdotally just from working with athletes. And then when, so when folks come to your account and they're trying to look for tips, do you think it's good for them to think of it in the context of like, okay, if I'm injured or I have a history of these sorts of problems, maybe I should limit my range of motion? Or do you think everyone, for the most part, as a default, should stick to kind of the 90-degree thing and not really go any lower than that?

Starting point is 00:08:12 On something like on a bench press, I think they do need to be careful. On other exercises, even, you know, if they want to do, like, certain shoulder mobility exercises that are unloaded, those I think that's a little bit more of a gray zone. I think there will be a lot of drills in there that probably would be helpful for folks, especially after an injury. Just help to even neuromuscularly get rid of some of those inhibition signals so they can start opening up their movement. Under the loaded conditions, that's where I'm talking a bit more specifically about, especially something like the bench press, which for a lot of folks just causes issues. And, you know, a lot of individuals have pain, a lot of inflammation when they do the bench

Starting point is 00:08:56 press. And I think as a result, a lot of folks stop doing the bench press. They say, hey, I can't do anymore because it hurts. To me, I think everyone can do a bench press if they do it properly you know good shoulder and elbow position um and i have found that the 90 degree position allows uh them to do it most safely and pain-free in my experience part of the reason for the success of the slingshot is because bench pressing can wreak havoc on some people. Yeah, right. What do you think of like, this position has been, I think, very well explained recently by a gentleman that goes by the name of knees over toes guy.

Starting point is 00:09:33 And that's a hilarious thing to just pack your name to, but I think it makes some good points. And I think one of his points is that, you know, athletes that get into extreme ranges of motion and learn to slowly and carefully produce tension in those ranges can actually, to a large extent, insulate themselves from injury risk. And think about something like a sport like Nsema does, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu, you know, an athlete like him, he's in positions that are just really not all that fun and extreme ranges of motion, inverting with your legs behind your head,

Starting point is 00:10:04 getting your arms sort of broken off this way and that. And if they don't practice in those extreme ranges, there's some very good rationale to say like their actual rates of injury in those ranges that they will encounter in sport for sure, whether they like it or not, it's going to be higher. So what do you think about the idea that maybe if we prepare athletes gingerly, carefully, methodically to expand the ranges of motion until they can get into really extreme ranges and still produce force, what do you think about the idea that knees over toes guy, for example, is a good proponent of that we actually reduce the injury risk by getting into those ranges comfortably and slowly? Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if you saw this earlier, I was mentioning, we were briefly talking

Starting point is 00:10:42 about knees over toes guys, I was saying that he and I actually agree on a lot more than what we disagree on. So, um, I think the one area that you just called it out is the range of motion, uh, component that we probably have differing, uh, uh, different views on, um, a few things that I would say that one of the keys to making sure that an individual, maybe goes through more extreme range of motion, like a martial arts sport or jujitsu, or maybe even dancers or rock climbers, it's another one, wrestlers. One of the keys that I would say is, hey, you just got to practice your sport. That's one of the best ways to keep that sport specificity, that range of motion for that sport. So I'm not saying, hey, don't even, like don't even practice your sport like that.

Starting point is 00:11:26 But in my opinion, one of the best ways to prepare the body for that sport is actually practicing that sport. And if it requires large range of motion, then when they're practicing that sport, I think they obviously need to get into it. They need to be prepared for it. One of the things I would also say is that people have been getting into extreme range of motion in their respective sports for decades, no centuries, actually, or millennia.

Starting point is 00:11:53 And it was well before the dawn of the fitness industry ever came about. So it's not like we needed deep and range strength training or deep and range fitness training to get people to be able to perform deeper positions in their sports. People have been able to get into those positions for years. And I would actually argue that the ability of individuals to get into these extreme positions now is worse than it's ever been, even though we've been emphasizing this so much. So I would say that one of the best ways to make sure individuals are ready for extreme positions is make sure the muscles and the tissues are healthy in general. They're not inflamed.

Starting point is 00:12:30 The muscles are able to absorb force so that if they are caught off guard and have to get into a more extreme position, their muscles are healthy. Their tissues are healthy. They're not inflamed. Their body's not sending inhibitory signals because there's so much pain and discomfort. It's like if, you know, somebody gets put in like an arm position where, again, I'm not a martial arts expert, but if they get put into a certain position and that shoulder has been, you know, inflamed and tight from just, you know, doing excessive range of motion, maybe like on bench press for some reason, okay?

Starting point is 00:13:01 If they get put in that position, their body's probably going to shut it down even more. They're going to have no strength there. Whereas if the tissues are healthy and they get put in that position, they'll probably have better ability to absorb force. But I also understand what you're saying. It's like, Hey, we're not talking about doing so much training in that position where it produces inflammation. So, but again, I would argue that humans have been able to do these extreme positions well before the fitness era or end range training, everything about the training that I do does not take that ability, that innate inherent ability away from them. We're just adding to that by giving them a therapeutic stimulus to make sure their muscles are stronger and more resilient. Do you consider your training therapeutic and not ergogenic then? I would consider it to be both. Okay. Interesting. And then, okay, another claim real quick,

Starting point is 00:13:54 you are claiming in a few of these videos that 90 degrees is better for muscle growth. There's like a pretty decent volume of literature now that directly examines full range of motion versus partial and the full wins almost every time. There's also a considerable amount of literature on the fact that muscles, when they produce tension while being stretched, actually yield a bigger hypertrophy response than if muscles that produce an even larger amount of external load when they're not stretched. Do you think that that still confers some sort of advantage to 90 degrees? To me, it seems like if I were just analyzing, I'd say, oh yeah, a very deep stretch seems to grow more muscle. What do you think about that? Yeah, I would say the stretch with

Starting point is 00:14:31 tension is in fact, in my opinion, it's not just overload. Like you said, stretch with tension is probably the most important factor for stimulating the hypertrophy response. So I'm not opposed to stretch. I'm just opposed to excessive stretch because what I'm saying is that when you do a proper 90 degree position, the muscles are actually very stretched. Biomechanically, it may look or visually, it may not look that deep, but the muscle fibers themselves are really lengthened because we're creating so much active tension. And I'll try to adjust the screen here just for a second, but I think, Mark, you mentioned this a little bit on the bench press. Someone is doing a bench press and their shoulders are internally rotated to get

Starting point is 00:15:15 any semblance of stretch in their chest. They're going to have to keep going down and down and down and down. And finally, they may actually start to get some stretch in their pectoral fibers, but if they know how to set their back, open everything up, then by the time they're 90, in my opinion, if they're actually keeping everything fully engaged, their muscles will be maximally stretched at 90. They won't be able to go deeper unless they lose tension. So again, I'm all for the stretch. It's simply that there's a point. And I think everyone would agree that there is such a thing as too much stretch, because if we just said, Hey, stretch until you can't go anymore,

Starting point is 00:15:48 we would say a stretch before the muscle rips off the bone. We know that's not optimal. So it has to be some happy medium there. And I believe the balance of that point is at 90. That's a fair point. I mean, you kind of see this, like when we're doing an exercise, like a row, you know, some people will say, Hey, you know, pitch those elbows back as far as you could possibly get them. And now we're kind of hearing some other folks saying maybe there's a slightly different way of doing them. Maybe you can just kind of drive the elbows down and kind of do that reverse shrug type movement and you can help load the lats. Interesting, interesting points. I think you guys going back and forth here. And I think this is this is really helpful. You haven't. Do you have another question, Mike?

Starting point is 00:16:29 One more. Go for it. So a lot of the exercises you're exhibiting are what we would call in sports science unstable training. So essentially, it's intentionally generated to be the exercise is intentionally designed to be unstable. intentionally generated to be, the exercise is intentionally designed to be unstable. And what we found in unstable training in the research literature is that it fails to produce very high forces. Because of a lack of stability, high force production doesn't occur. So we kind of have this bifurcation in training where if you're going to be unstable, it might as well be in the techniques of your sport. So for example, if Nsema is practicing not getting swept, it's going to be super unstable because it's part of his technique. But when he wants to load his hips and his chest and everything to be stronger for jujitsu, it seems like the specificity principle should dictate that he gets real stable on like a pop or bench press. And then with maximum stability can exert maximum amounts of force.

Starting point is 00:17:18 So he's training a high force production in the gym, which is kind of what the gym is supposed to be for. And then like to your earlier point, the athlete does the athlete stuff and goes through all these ranges of motion and all that stability stuff. So when I see the unstable training that you're doing, my first question is kind of like, if they got more stable, wouldn't their muscles get stronger? And then we could take that new strength and put it into the sport. Because like, so for example, if I see a grappler that I have to go up against and he benches 315 on like a wobbly situation, kind of halfway up and down, look, that's a scary guy.

Starting point is 00:17:49 It takes a lot of strength to do that. But if I see a guy sink 400 plus 500 in a stable bench with a lot of power, I'm like, that guy's going to fucking kill me. And I don't want any part of that. So, you know, isn't it better to maybe get more strength when strength is optimal? Another quick example is if it was raining on your head, if the sun was shining really bright, you wouldn't be able to lift as hard. So we have gyms with ceilings and air conditioning, so that doesn't happen. And then it would also be much harder if the music was blaring or you hated the music or someone was yelling at you at 3 in the morning and you didn't go to sleep. And then it would be like, well, it's kind of a different challenge.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Well, yeah, that's a different challenge. You end up lifting less, and that challenge is less because it challenges your actual muscles and tendons less to get stronger. So don't we want to be kind of at our best foot forward, real stable and strong with barbells and dumbbells so that when we get real strong, we can transition to exhibiting that strength in that athletic context of sport. What do you think about that? Yeah, that's a great question i'm first off you're analyzing it way deeper and and more uh you know scientifically than most people do so i like that uh because oftentimes people just like ask the questions like dude are you even thinking about how you're

Starting point is 00:18:55 phrasing it um so i like that uh i think um so just real quick on that when you said if you saw you know someone benching 315 unstable, like some crazy instability variation, maybe hanging band or a ball, and then you saw another guy doing 500 for a few reps. Obviously, the guy who's doing the 500, that's like, oh man, that's this guy who can probably pack a lot of force. Personally, I would be more scared of the guy who can do both. So my argument would be not to do one or the other to have the capability to do both. But I would also say that, you know, being able to do 500 and doing that on a more frequent basis is more important than the three 15, but periodically incorporating the unstable variation. So one thing that probably goes a little bit more on notice,

Starting point is 00:19:43 are those videos on your Instagram of your guys benching and squatting to depth and deadlifting super heavy loads real stable? Because I think most, if not all of your videos seem to have some kind of instability component. Yeah. So one of the things I always say, and I need to do a better job of this on Instagram, is 80% of everything I have my athletes do, everything that I do. It focuses on the foundational movements. Okay. Now, I say this a lot, and when I post exercises, I do intentionally oftentimes go after exercises that are a little bit more eye-catching because I know that for me to reach the most population, the largest portion of the audience. Okay. And to make the biggest impact. Okay. Cause that's ultimately what I'm trying to do is how do I get people to notice things, read a little bit more and to, you know, basically take a look at what I'm doing. If I just posted deadlift squat bench, and even though we do a lot of those, and that makes up a stronger majority of my training than just unstable versions, I'd probably get a quarter

Starting point is 00:20:45 of the people looking at my things. My reach, my potential to impact people's lives with what I believe are helpful methods, it would be less. So I do try to tell people that, hey, the unstable versions should never replace the foundational movements. They're added, they're extra. The athlete has to earn the right to be able to do those before we even touch those i have a lot of athletes come to me the first few months of training they're i don't want to say they're disappointed like dude when do we get to do the stuff i see you put on instagram like hey man you got to demonstrate to me that you can do the foundational movements properly first so that's just kind of my answer now i would

Starting point is 00:21:23 argue too there are some um benefits and uh with some of the unstable training like you know for example we just take something like foot and ankle activation which i think um is very uh underrated and very important some of the unstable versions even if we go as extreme as the bosew ball which honestly probably less than one percent of everything I have my athletes do is on the BOSU ball. Okay. But I do periodically use it because I know if they can really learn to activate their feet on there and create a stable platform, even if it's just like one time out of the entire duration that I've worked with this athlete for a few years, they experienced that

Starting point is 00:21:59 one time in their, in their mind, even in their nervous systems, like, Ooh, okay. I see what you're saying. My feet have to activate like crazy in order to stay on there if they can get that one time and then we just hey that's all it needed and they can kind of see and get that to transfer into some of their other movements that's good enough for me so um i do think there is some benefit to stability training but i do think a lot of coaches overuse it it's like all this oh functional training functional functional instability. It's like, oh, it's all we do. It's like, dude, come on. You got to lift some heavy weights. You got to learn how to pack a punch. Like you said, you got to learn how to produce force. That's the most important thing. All of the biomotor capabilities in physiology are built around the foundation of strength and force production,

Starting point is 00:22:41 and there's nothing better than the foundational movement. i don't disagree with that one bit got it i totally understand yeah having a big following is important i have a tiny following and i live alone and i'm addicted to masturbation still you don't want to go my way hey hey i see you i see you on the forums masturbation addicts hey i'm not talking about masturbation, homie. It's porn. Masturbation is great, brother. I clarified that. Hey, nobody here is yelling at you about it. Stay calm. I see your forearms, though.

Starting point is 00:23:12 I see the forearm game. Oh, yeah. I don't train my forearms, baby. I know what you mean, brother. Yeah. What's with this lighting? Guys. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:19 Isn't it weird? Am I in jail? Am I at a CIA black ops facility? And they're like, all right, you can talk for half an hour. Guys, I got to get going. I got to run. We appreciate it. OK, yeah, that was fantastic from both you guys. Most people would be on both sides would be kind of unwilling. And I I force this on Joel. So, Joel, you're a savage to be able to take this on without any preparation.

Starting point is 00:23:42 Thank you so much for your time today, Mike. take this on without any preparation. Thank you so much for your time today, Mike. Like I said, Mike, even having talked with you now face-to-face like this, I have even more respect for you as a professional in the field than I already did because I saw the way you handled yourself, even just on social media.

Starting point is 00:23:56 It was nice talking with you, and I'm sure our paths will cross again. Likewise, Joel. Thank you so much. This was a super awesome and open-minded interview to take on such short notice. Nseema, always a pleasure. Mark, cut that thing off. Jesus Christ. You're going to get arrested. October 24th

Starting point is 00:24:12 we have a seminar here with Ben Patrick. Both you guys are invited. We'd love to have you guys come check it out. I'm going to check my schedule and see what the masturbation stack looks like. Nseema knows what I'm talking about. Alright. I'll see you guys later. See you later, pumpkin head.

Mark Bell's Power Project - Mike Israetel Debates Joel Seedman on 90° Squats vs Full Squats

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