Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1242: Muscle Building Secrets of Powerlifting With Dr. Jordan Shallow

Episode Date: March 5, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin speak with good friend Dr. Jordan Shallow about the value of training for powerlifting. Is powerlifting getting more mainstream in the fitness space? (2:49) The strength building carryover benefits of powerlifting. (6:04) Are deadlifts dangerous? (9:26) The biggest myths surrounding powerlifting principles. (18:25) Practicing the skill and not training the output. (21:31) Defining what going to failure is. (26:17) Women and strength training. (30:18) How to train a coach to cue the proper form. (39:30) Conventional vs Sumo deadlift. (41:47) The prerequisite exercises for the big 4 lifts. (43:54) The Squat. (45:10) The Deadlift/Bench Press. (47:30) Muscle function vs muscle action. (54:09) The Overhead Press. (57:14) What does it look like to eat for performance vs strength? (1:00:23) How you become the shape of your sport. (1:05:36) Jordan’s favorite non-powerlifting movement. (1:07:48) The Mind Pump reach. (1:10:00) Featured Guest Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc) • Instagram Website Podcast Related Links/Products Mentioned March Promotion: MAPS Powerlift ½ off! **Code “POWER50” at checkout** Visit Kion for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump TV - YouTube Mind Pump Blog GoodLife Fitness Joe Rogan Experience #1321 - Robert Oberst - YouTube Mind Pump 1200: Max Schmarzo Stop Working Out And Start Practicing – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump 1075: Dr. Stefanie Cohen – From Venezuelan National Soccer Team to 4X Bodyweight Deadlift & 22 World Records Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Robert Oberst (@robertoberst) • Instagram Max Schmarzo (ATC/CSCS/MS) (@strong_by_science) Instagram Stefanie Cohen, DPT (@steficohen) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we talk all about the muscle building secrets of powerlifting from one of our favorite powerlifter friends, Dr. Jordan Shallow, very, very smart dude. By the way, we did a video series on our YouTube channel, MindPump TV, where he goes over some really, really interesting techniques and things you should focus on

with your training. He also wrote an article for us in our blogs on MindPumpMedia.com. So in this episode, we talk about building strength, the benefits of powerlifting techniques, like what are the things that you could learn or borrow from in powerlifting that can benefit you, even if you don't powerlift.

And then of course if you are a powerlifting competitor or interested in competing, you definitely don't want to miss this episode. Now you can find Jordan Schallow, again one of the smartest dudes in the strength sports on his own podcast called Rx Radio. You can also find them on Instagram at the underscore muscle underscore doc. So the muscle doc, we love it.

And then of course, his website is predash script.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by Keon. Keon makes the best tasting coffee we've ever used at Mind Pump History. It's phenomenal, it's delicious, it's 100% organic, specialty grade coffee. It is free of pesticides, it is not stale or rancid. It's tested for funguses and molds.

It's very, very clean, again, it's delicious. If you want to try Keon and find out why we're repping a coffee, go to get keon.com. That's g-e-t-k-i-o-n.com-forestash-mime-pump. And you'll get a massive 20% off your entire purchase. Also, this month, Maps Power Lift, our newest Maps program, is 50% off. Now, this is a program that will help you get into your first powerlifting competition. Or, if you just want to get your bench press, your squat, and your deadlift to go through the roof. If you want to break records, personal records, follow this program. And again, powerlifting is a great way to work out. If you want to build muscle, of course, get strong and speed up your metabolism.

Here's how to get the 50% off discount of Maps Powerlift. Just go to mapspowerlift.com, that's MAPS P-O-W-E-R-L-I-F-T. And use the code Power50, that's P-O-W- P O W E R 5 0 no space for the discount You know one thing that I've noticed Jordan and I consider you obviously obviously know your shit But especially in the world of powerlifting you're one of the smartest Competitors out there one thing that I've noticed with powerlifting is and I followed powerlifting as a kid You know, I was a big fan of Captain Kirk and some of those Ed Cohen and all those amazing lifters back in the day.

Powerlifting used to be super, super niche and in the fitness space, and I wanna ask you this, it seems like it's getting more mainstream in the fitness space. It seems like more people are now looking to powerlifting principles, not necessarily to compete and be all hardcore about it, but because they're seeing the value in powerlifting principles for developing their body,

changing how they look. I've seen more women interested in powerlifting today than I ever did before. Am I wrong or does this seem like an accurate? Yeah, I mean, there's definitely, there's an economy to the style of lifting that resonates with a lot of people's end goals, right? Like, there's a way to, wait, I don't know,

I don't need to train in the gym for two hours. Like, if you're doing that, you won't be doing that for very long. If you're utilizing powerlifting movements as staples in your programming. So, I think it's, it's, it's definitely like this cumulative effect where social media, obviously the inception of CrossFit and the popularity of CrossFit, like 2008,

on onwards sort of brought these movements to people where maybe I like the squat bench deadlift stuff or I like the squat press deadlift stuff but I don't really like the Olympic lifting. So it's sort of like fractionated off and then people sort of just, well where do I get more of this powerlifting? It's like, well there's a bunch of weird guys

doing single-ply stuff over here. It's like, okay, these bearded men who help themselves get dressed is really kind of scary. But then you started to see commercial gyms got real wise and shout out to commercial gyms for like, I mean, I do a lot of work with a franchise in Canada called Good Life Fitness. And there's 375 clubs and you can find five, six, seven squat racks in these gyms. It's like, I remember working for the same company 10 years ago.

And it's like, maybe you had one, and they were thinking about getting rid of it to deter that guy who showed up with a suitcase and wanted to chalk. It's like, I'm going to be here for seven days. Grunting, yeah. Right? But I think just, it's definitely a complimentary skill set. Trainers are now realizing that, look, we can start to utilize these movements, and there's better education out there about how to use them effectively, we can start to get results with our clients in a more economical way and more time-sensitive way.

Arguably one of the most radical shifts that we've seen in the commercial gym, I think. Bro, you talked about 10 years ago. I mean, I've been working in gyms for, you know, shit, I was 18, so that's over 20 years, it's over two decades. And I'm gonna manage 40,000 square foot facilities, huge, huge big box gyms. You'd have one squat rack, maybe it was in the corner, dusty. If you deadlifted in the gym, which I would do sometimes, as a trainer, I would deadlift, I'd have people coming up to me, including other trainers telling me, what are you doing? That's terrible, you're going to hurt your back.

What is that exercise? Like in such a dramatic change in difference and no way women were interested in anything they had to do with powerlifting, you're talking about the exercises of powerlifting, the bench, the deadlift, and the squat. I'm talking more specifically about the concept of even training low reps and training for strength. It seems like that's just becoming much more of a thing. Are you getting more questions from like every day fitness people are like, Hey, I want

to get some of the benefits of powerlifting just so I can change how I look. Yeah, across the board, I would say I get it more from the athletic standpoint where people were afraid from, you know, I don't load the spine if you're going to be, you know, if you're going to be a football player,, you don't go overhead or bench press, if you're gonna be a quarterback, where now it's like, there's so much carryover to being able to build strength, and I think there's such an appreciation now

of the skill that comes with it, and then that's where we can start to drive lower rep range and really get changes as before. It's like, you know, it was always looked at like, almost like the fat burning zone on like, you know, when cardio machines are there to have that I do then there's like this fluid chart that's out there of like one to four reps of strength and then six to eight to twelve As I purchase me in 15 pluses endurance and like as academics you can kind of look at that be like well, you know

Not really like I don't want any of people who builds muscle off one to four reps But the thing is you have to be skillful to elicit that stimulus in those one to four reps. If your skill breaks down in some of these movements, you're splitting the atom. You do it one way, it's like you can light some stuff up and do really well in your training, you do it another way, you can blow some stuff up, and yeah, I've absolutely seen people f- themselves up deadlifting and squatting and bench pressing, and I've been a part of that. With skill breaks down, it goes the way side. So but as there's a, hopefully on the whole,

the IQ of the fitness industry is rising, with easier access to better information, people starting to respect the skill that comes with these movements, and in doing so, they start to yield a lot of the benefits that they can provide. I think part of the resurgence too, and to your point, Sal, is the results, right?

Like, I know, I remember as a trainer, probably one of the, first of all, as a trainer, most common client that comes in, middle-aged mom, overweight by 15 to 30 pounds, probably the most common person that walks. I agree, 100% come through a commercial gym. And the most common hurdle that you have to overcome

as a trainer with that client is, I don't want to lift heavy weights to make me bulky. So you would spend the first few months of trying to debunk that or to get them comfortable with that. Once I finally did and get them to, hey, we're going to do some triples. We're going to do five by five block for a while. Once you got them to do that,

the results that they saw, even if they were an experienced lifter or experienced gym goer, would blow their mind. Because they had been marketed to so long about high reps and low-rest periods and pumping type exercises. And this is the way to tone your muscles.

And this is what you wanna look like if you wanna have lean, long looking muscles. And then all of a sudden, you get this trainer who convinces him that they need to be training in strength type blocks. And they see their body morph and change more than ever. I think that is what's really starting to sell women and in general, the general population

is starting to come around and go like, oh shit, maybe this powerlifting thing isn't such a bad idea for me. Yeah, I think it started with, I want a bigger butt too. Yeah, big butts. Yeah, as soon as that started becoming popular, and it's definitely a driver. Yeah, and you get him to deadlift and squat and they're like, oh, Lord, this works. I've been to in a million donkey kickbacks and nothing happened. And you just got me deadlift for three weeks.

Jazz or size cannot produce that. No, I don't know. It totally can't. What do you think about relatively recently, Robert Obers, he's a strong man competitor. He is a strong man competitor. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, he's a friend of ours, love the guy, smart dude.

Gets on Rogan, got a lot of heat for saying that deadlifts are bad. And there's been a little bit of a, we've been hearing this a little bit in the fitness space. It's been a bit of a for saying that deadlifts are bad. And there's been a little bit of, we've been hearing this a little bit in the fitness space. It's been a bit of a debate as to whether or not deadlifts are something anybody should do, whether they're functional or not, whether they're too dangerous to do or not. What do you think about all this? And by the way, your background isn't just powerlifting,

you also have a very extensive background in just human physiology, and you do correctional exercise. You help people through pain. Yeah. So, I mean, the deadlift specifically hits home with me because, I mean, in overcoming a barrier of entry or objection, and overcoming objection with someone to deadlift, as a

chiropractor by trade, what does everyone say, oh, deadlift's are bad for your back? It's like, well, no, a little bit about the back. And then I was strengthening edition coach at Stanford University with the rugby team for multiple years. So in a sport that specific sport in general, that actually has a lot of carryover. If you think about the positions you find yourself in a rugby match, that deep hinge position, unlike most other sports, you're gonna see a great amount of carryover.

So people were putting words in his mouth. Like I don't think to give the, you know, to play devil's advocate to like the narrative that could spawn as it sort of landed on my doorstep. Like I don't think he's necessarily anything, anything bad about the deadlift per se. You're saying that a lot of people might not see a carryover. Like let's say like we're looking at life as a sport

and as coaches we are strengthening conditioning looking at life as a sport and as coaches, we are strengthening conditioning coaches for life as a sport. Does it have much carryover? Yeah, I think so. Can I have I seen drastic amounts of injury around it? Yes, but I think there's a way to pre-screen if we know like what we're looking for. Like, look, my dog doesn't know the internet exists, right?

Like, he doesn't have the instruments to perceive that as a thing. Now, unless you have an extensive strength conditioning background and a very deep understanding of the muscular physiology around muscles of the spine and surrounding the spine, you might not have the instruments to see when and where this is bad. If you can't do a bodyweight pull up in a neutral grip where you're really going to use your lats to stabilize your spine and move your body, you likely shouldn't be loading a barbell from the floor because those same lats that are going to move your own body are now going to be loaded on a medium that gives you

a much longer runway of progression to load past your body weight. So if we're trying to load on a bar extra physiologically more than we can control and within our own body weight, then yeah, that's going to leave force transfer going through discs in the spine and vertebrae when you're back. That could be potentially dangerous. But there's a ways to pre-screen for that. Again, if you don't have these instruments, it might seem like this abstract concept.

So I just think consider your sources, right? Like if you're getting your training advice from a podcast with Robert, obviously has like a lot of experience, I don't know to what degree, Rogan has exactly like every time I come on here. It's just like, so Rogan said this thing. God, it's like just pull the pin out of the grenade. Yeah, I mean, to be a little bit more diplomatic,

they're not wrong. As a chiropractor, I've seen a lot of injuries as a consequence of deadlifting, but I think how many times in the run of a day, I would say deadlifting is more functional and squatting, and I would say all power lifts are more of an expression of function rather than functional movement. So, so, if I could summarize, if I could summarize this in a very, very short phrase, because he just said it in Latin, right?

It's, no, that's okay. No, and I know I want, here's why I want to summarize it because this is how we've explained it in the past. If you can do a lift with good stability, good control, and good strength, in other words, if that lift is appropriate for your body, that is a safe lift. If you do it right, it's a safe lift. Does that summarize it effectively?

I like the lot. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot more to it. Like, of course, we assess stability, how we assess range of motion, how do we assess implications of function. But yeah, I also, the argument that I made too is that, let's say you don't have the prerequisites yet, the pursuit of that, in my opinion,

is the most valuable. Like if, and that's why I don't like statements like, oh, you shouldn't do this or trying to get people to avoid movement, figure out why. Like, yeah, if you can't do it, okay, maybe that means at this moment, you shouldn't be loading a bar and doing it right now, but that should be a major red flag in your life that I need to figure out how the fuck to do that. And aside from all my other fitness goals that I think are important, they're all going

to take a side bar and I'm going gonna put a lot of energy and effort towards getting to where I could do this movement. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, and I think that's where these lifts, like I will go on record and say that squatting isn't functional. It's not, like, and they're like, oh, like, do you sit on the toilet?

Like, I could probably pistol to a fucking toilet too, you know what I mean? Like, if you take, like, to me, gate cycle movements are functional. That's what defines us as humans. Like, if you wanna talk about muscle function, function is how muscles behave when we walk and breathe. Fight me, change my mind, right?

There's a clear distinction between these two things. Like, oh, we sit down and take a look. If you have a day that goes by, where you take more shit than you take steps, your days on this earth are numbered, right? Because that's human function is gait cycle. So it's like deadlifting is not that, but it is an expression are numbered, right? Because that's human function is gate cycle. So it's like deadlifting is not that, but it is an expression of function, right?

So like you said, like, I mean, I was strength and conditioning coach of Stanford. I dealt with 17, 18 year old kids who were incredibly athletic, but some very incredibly uncoordinated. Like they had a great acumen for their sport, but lifting was not their sport, right? Am I gonna try and snatch and clean and jerk these kids? No, if I could, then that would be a great expression

of their function, but that's not really, I'm after driving intent of like explosive power output and things like that. So for me, rather than an Olympic lift, it's like, hey, let's just do a box jump. I think we could do that. That's explosive enough to drive the intent. But in the back of my mind, I was like,

why can't these people do an Olympic lift? Well, they have no overhead mobility, okay? Okay,. But in the back of my mind, it's like, why can't these people do an Olympic level? Well, they have no overhead mobility. Okay, yeah. Then in the background of just like, we're going to box jump rather than snatch or clean and jerk. On the background, it's like, okay, we need to improve your thoracic extension. We need to limit your bias towards internal rotation. We need to strengthen, stabilize the post year's shoulder.

In the few years I had working with, I knew that they weren't going to get to the point where they're going to be progressed from box jump to snatch or clean and jerk, but that was our trajectory, that's the end goal. That is the end of the runway, right? So yeah, like you said, avoiding provocation isn't treatment. Oh, deadlift hurts, or deadlift might be bad.

It's like, we'll bolster it, reinforce, assess it, understand why and work towards that not being a thing. In my experience, one of the best things I ever did with clients, this took me a while to piece together was, okay, you can't do a squat, you can't do a deadlift, you can't do an overhead press properly. Let's figure out why let's work towards that. Sometimes I never got to that place.

Sometimes I would have a client advanced age and we never got to the point where we could load a squat or I never got to the point where I could do a barbell deadlift or a full standing overhead press. But the progress was incredible when I tried to get them to the point to be able to do those things. And sometimes I did get them to do those things. And then when they were able to do those things,

they progressed through the roof. And it was far better than the first half of my career where I would say, oh, you can't squat. Okay, we're gonna avoid that. Who cares? Here's a machine. Here's a machine. Here's a machine.

That's all we're gonna focus on. When I moved away from that, try to figure out, okay, well, why can't you do a normal standing squat? Why can't you lift something off the ground without it hurting or without you being stable? Why can't you just push something up above your head? Let's forget that out. And then when I did, man, the results,

and I'm talking about average every day. I didn't train athletes, very rarely they train athletes like you did. I wasn't training bodybuilders. I was training, you know, Mrs. Smith, you know, who's a soccer mom or, you know, John who's a business guy, you know, hasn't worked out since he was in college.

They got phenomenal results from doing, I'm talking about working them out two or three days a week at the most. Yeah, and I also think too, like with a statement like Robert Overs made on the show, like it's in front of like millions of people. And so this is something where it does resonate to us because, you know, given the risk versus reward,

there's always that risk versus reward. And, you know, who does it really apply to based off of like, you know, their prerequisites, how good does their body stabilizing? There's all these factors to that, but what it does for the most part is deter people from them pursuing something like the deadlift, which I think is something that we need to sort of nip at the butt.

Here, it's same people who are like, don't die lifting squat, they're bad for you, but you should go running. What? Running is extremely complex. Yeah, humans evolved to run, but none of us have done it ever, since we were kids. We don't run very well.

So you're going to go encourage people to go running, which has a very, very high injury rate. I think the conversation around resistance strength, especially heavy resistance strength, needs to be appropriate and accurate, which leads me to another question. Powerlifting, as it applies, or powerlifting principles, as it applies to the average person, as it applies to the person who wants to improve their fitness,

wants to build muscle, wants to get more aesthetic looking, add curves or add some muscle. What are the biggest myths that you encounter around powerlifting principles, where people come to you and say, oh no, I don't want to do any of that because I heard this that and the other? Well, yeah, I mean, to me, especially as a clinician, it's like it's based around shoulder hip and spine. Right? So you can ventrusted bad for your shoulders, squats are bad for your knees, and deadlifting is bad for your back. Right? So it's, and a lot of times they're not myths, they're not wrong.

It's just, they're these blanket statements that they hear without any context as to how to make them not true. Because look, squats are bad for your knees in the same way, protein is bad for your kidneys. It's like, if you have a pre-existing condition, or you've had like, some sort of, you know, nephrolothiocis or something, really fucked up with your kidneys, it's like,

well, yeah, slam and back 300 grams of protein a day and then crushing your pre-work out of amino acids, like, maybe not the best idea, right? If you have a blown ACL, or you have your six foot seven, and you're a starting center for an MBA team, it's like, yeah, that's a lot of sheer force. That's a huge demand and stability

based off center and mass and based support. At this current time, we should not be doing this exercise. So I think it's having that conversation and lending context to these movements and not just, I mean, not saying that they're a myth. It's like, no, these exist in absolute truth, but it's the gradation of function to get you to that endpoint.

That should always be the goal. But I really like the point you brought up is like managing expectations. I think is your best asset as a client or coach, a trainer or a clinician. If you can effectively manage and supersede, look, under promise over deliver. You don't go Michelin star on the first date? Honey, anything off the value menu. That's where you start.

We're gonna build. We're gonna build because there's high yield in these exercises. And a lot of clients will go like, or a lot of trainers will go, oh, I'm gonna take care of them from accounting, and I'm gonna back squatter, and it's like, look, we know based off of motor unit recruitment and neurological adaptations,

and just basically skill acquisition and early stages of compound movements that they're gonna put on an incredible amount of relative strength, right? But that's really not strength, right? It's efficiency, it's training, it's practicing. So if I'm a, if I'm a, like a short-sighted trainer, it's like, oh, I could get Karen to like,

double her back squat. It's like, well, yeah, because her back squat is the empty bar. And if you get her just moved properly, Karen's gonna have 90 pounds on the bar, which she started with 45. Like that's easy, but then all of a sudden you're at the end of your runway, right? You're done. What do you do?

Do you increase weight? And it's like, why don't you just start her off with like a stationary lunge? You know, guarantee she almost falls over the first wrap. Stationary lunge with two dowels in her hands, broad and her base support. So in overcoming objection around powerlifting, it's always squats bad for your knees.

Like yeah, yeah, probably. If you do this long term without prerequisite screening of stability and range of motion, that absolutely can be bad for your needs. Something you said that was really interesting is you said practice the movements. Now, the first form of resistance training to really kind of permeate mainstream was bodybuilding. And the mentality around bodybuilding training was feel the muscle, feel the burn, go to failure. The mentality with powerlifting is much more about practice the movement, perfect body building and the mentality around body building training was feel the muscle feel the burn go to failure the mentality with powerlifting is much more about practice the movement perfect the movement am I am I correct? Yeah, so how does that look when you're training? You're gonna go work out. I want to utilize these principles of powerlifting

I'm gonna go work out. What's the difference between I want to feel my quads burn and I'm gonna train with powerlifting principles Well, I mean exercise lecture number one obviously so powerlifting principles are going to be centered around the squat bench and the dead left. Now there's accessory and supplemental movements that can be thrown in as an adjunct to that to challenge muscles. It depends on where you're at on the continuum of skill acquisition. In early stages, high variation in in barbell movements is counterintuitive for the goal of actually learning the core movement.

So stick to basics, basically. Yeah, in your early stages, I mean, you wanna stay away from failure because in early stages, your failure, like there's this conversation around failure, should you train to failure, should you train to failure? Yeah. It's like, well, what system is failing?

Let's start there. Let's clearly define the parameters of failure. That'll help us with our goal setting, figure out what exactly is we're trying to achieve, right? So in early stage skill acquisition failure is technical. No one failed, you really don't know what failure is until you've been lifting for like 10 years. What a good point.

Well, because that's, I mean, it's people, it's such an ass and eye conversation. It's like, oh, don't train to failure, train to failure. Look, I can train to failure on two reps and a front squat. And that could be a huge stimulus to improve body composition

or a challenge my quads, because I'm failing in position where there's tension through the fibers of my quadriceps muscle group. Right? I'm not your form that fails. Exactly. And it's like, or, you know, there's a different failure point on 20 reps of front squats versus two reps of front squats. That's going to stimulate a different physiological response, right? And that's going to, you need to be able to curate these responses based off of the goal of your client. So, introduction of powerlifting principles, early stages, minimal

variation, higher frequency of these movements to practice the skill, making sure bar speed stays high, ensuring that they have the prerequisite range of motion, unilateral stability through lower body movements, the upper body strength through the last, the stabilized spine, and dead lefting and squatting. So there's a lot that goes to it, but say you brought someone to this starting line, where it's like, we're going to introduce barbell compound movements.

We can practice them in higher frequency because we're not training them. We're practicing skill, we're not training output. Now when we do that, and we have to look, here's where you run into an issue, it's like a lot of the USAPL and IPM, without getting too much into the political side of power lifting as a sport, and just sticking with principles, there are a lot of people, they're going to yield a great benefit from high frequency, because they're going to get so efficient,

they're going to get so good at the movements, then all of a sudden, they have to start thinking about other systems. If you're high frequency squatting for 500 pounds numerous times a week, you need to start thinking about other systems. Like if you're high frequency squatting for 500 pounds numerous times a week, you need to start switching gears, but people get so emotionally attached to a program that's given them results. They think like, look, what's got you from A to B is not gonna get you from B to C.

You need to switch, then we start to introduce the idea of muscle building. Like in early stages, it's like, hey, your technique work is just practice the day of movement. Have the range of motion, have the stability, practice the movement, higher frequency, nothing to failure, because failure is gonna be technical. Once we get to the point where that technique is acquired,

as we start to push volume and intensity ratios and approach failure, that failure is within the realm of a technically sound execution of the lift, then it's like, what's failing? My upper back is failing. My upper back is not strong enough. Where my quads aren't strong enough. Where my hand strings aren't strong enough.

Now you've gone from novice to intermediate to intermediate to advance. Now, we have to start our technique work is no longer practicing the movement. Our technique work is okay, our quads are weak. A front squat then becomes technique work for your low bar squat. Because your front squat's gonna overload your quads as a consequence, yeah, you're probably gonna get end up with bigger quads, a hack squat then becomes technique work for your low bar squat because your front squat is going to overload your quads as a consequence. Yeah, you're probably going to get

end up with bigger quads. A hack squat could be seen as like a supplemental. So here we have primary movement, the back squat, supplemental movement, the front squat, sorry, accessory movement, the front squat, supplemental movement, the hack squat, right? And then we're just challenging that. And then when I go back into a peaking phase, and start to challenge my top end strength under low volume high intensity later on in a program, oh, now my upper back turning. So, okay, I've solved for this quad part of the equation. My technique is more or less standardized and good.

It was breaking down, because maybe my hips were shooting back out of the hole because the quads weren't strong enough. I've doubled down on my efforts in training my quads, the muscle in isolation isolation and by varying degrees and with varying implements, then I go back to retest. I've PR'd my squat, but now it's starting to rear a weakness somewhere else in a different muscle group

that I used to do. You said something just now that, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it like that and I really liked that and let's go a little bit deeper into this. So we get asked a lot about training to failure. And it's something that we tend to tell the average person to avoid.

And I've never thought to explain it the way you just did, which is I think this is how I would say it to somebody. Now, you probably have no business going to failure if you can't define what's failing. Is that a fair statement? Absolutely. I mean, if you're advanced enough and you've been training long enough

and you understand the mechanics of the movement because you've practiced it for so long and you're pushing to your absolute failure and you can feel or see the breakdown because either you're filming yourself or you're that in tune with your body and you know where the breakdown is so that you can then address it through your programming and go, okay, I have a week back, that's why I failed.

Or, oh, my quads gave out, that's why. So if you can't do that, you probably have no business training to failure. Can I add one thing to that too? Because there was something else you said where you said you're practicing the movement, then you moved a muscle building. I want to stop there because I know exactly what you're saying, but I want to make sure that this is very clear for the audience. Don't get confused and think that practicing the movement doesn't build muscle.

Yeah, won't yield. And going to failure builds muscle, because practicing the movements, especially when you're in the first five years you're training, is what's going to build the most movement. Going to failure when you have no business going to failure, not only is not going to build you more muscle, probably going to hurt yourself, probably going to yield

worse results. I think about like throwing darts. Like if you're at a bar throwing darts, or like you're asleep on the couch and halfway through the afternoon and there's darts on ESPN, AID or whatever, it's like if you're throwing like, the darts is like what, 180, you got to get to 180, of 160, yeah.

I know I do, yeah. It's just like, this is usually when I'm asleep on the couch, I'm at all the day, because I don't have a real job. Serious starts, guys. Yes, big darts, guys. But it's like, the way I can conceptualize the sport from what little I've seen it in and out of my afternoon naps is like, okay, if you're say at 150 and you throw too high

of a number, you default back to the safe mode number that you're at before you threw that triple 20. That would have put you over that number, because you had to hit it on the nose. Well, that's building strength and yielding high weights to challenge muscle and create mechanical tension, metabolic stress, muscle damage. That's going to drive that high-perch-free response. You want to hit it on the head. Now, it's easier to do that if you don't have the skill to hit that 180 on the head. If you sit there and you just throw fives all day, that's higher reps. But as you get better and you get more skillful and you know where this failure point

one chance to get one shot, one opportunity. Yeah. No one's going to finish that. All right. Max Marzo did a really good job of explaining it. He would. Yeah, he articulated this really well when we were talking about that they're getting trying to get people to understand. There's still this myth that pervades the space that,

you know, more equals more results, you know, or more intense, or the harder I go means I get more results. I just, so this came to me years ago going hiking up in the hills and I would see person after person passing me up while they were running and you know being a trainer, I can't help but look at mechanics whenever people move and I'd watch them run and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's terrible. Oh my god, they're going to hurt themselves. They say, why do people run this way? And I'm like, oh, I know, because when people start running, they don't think to themselves,

I'm going to learn how to run, I'm going to learn the skill. They think I'm going to run until I get tired. I'm just going to get exhausted. That's the point of this whole thing. If more people treated resistance training as a skill versus I'm gonna go to the gym and beat myself up, we'd have much more fit bodies and far, far, far less injuries. It was the whole mentality of the whole purpose of your workout is to get sore, get tired and get sweaty versus the purpose of your workout is to learn the skill

and practice the skill of resistance strength. If you do that, if all you ever do is that, boy, you're way better off. Empowerlifting being a strength sport, I think does that very well. The other thing I think powerlifting does very well, and the reason why I think I'm seeing more women, more than ever, I've ever seen my career,

am I seeing more and more women interested, just everyday women interested in powerlifting or even competing in powerlifting, is this one thing right here. Powerlifting as a resistance training modality focuses on performance, whereas resistance training as it's been for the past 20 years has been focused on how I look.

So you've got all these women who are working out, concerned about how they look, body image issues, whatever, switching to power, I used to do this with clients. This is how I used to get my female clients to move away from the body image stuff. I say, we're not gonna worry about your weight, stop weighing yourself, don't look in the mirror,

trust me on this, all we're gonna do is focus on how strong you are. And their bodies would improve because they would move their focus away so much from body image to performance. Are you seeing a lot of that? Well, yeah, because I mean, it's a really good conversation to bring up

because it's one of the few sports that actually levels the playing field based off of genetic differences and morphological differences. Like if I had to build a powerlifter in a lab, it would look something like a female structure, right? The pelvis shape is usually is going to accommodate for a better base support. Now, if we play with the leverage game,

we get them to go sumo. We basically take out the one disadvantage that they might have is just like, women have, what does it, women have nine times more estrogen men have 15% more, to stosterone, or 15 times more to stosterone. It's like, okay, angi and receptivity higher in the upper body, females as a consequence of this, usually have less ability to scale strength than the upper body.

Sure, right, period. But wide arch and the bench press, short levers as they're on average shorter. Sumo deadlift takes out a lot of the utilization of the last. Well, here you have a sport where when we look at this Wilkes ratio, which is a rough coefficient of strength to body weight, the top five strongest people in this sport based off of Wilkes are all female. So, here all of a sudden, it's like,

you know, the 100 meter dash, I don't wanna say it, but it likely will always be the fastest person in the world, will be the fastest man in the world. But right now, the top five strongest power lifters in the world, if you went on openpowerlifting.org and you searched by Wilkes, five are going to be females. So that is a very empowering and enticing thing where, look, we're really evening the playing

field here. And there is an enormous amount. There is, it meets even since I've started my powerlifting career in the past five years. The amount of female lifters and male lifters is almost a one to one. When we go to like, you guys had Stephie on the show, she's close friend of mine. Like when we go to meet, it's like, that's the draw card.

Like, I've been lucky enough in my career to be, you know, I've seen the biggest, I was there when the flat-alas-hoff squad at 11.17. I've seen Julius Maddox break world records. There's nothing like watching Steph lift. And here you have a room full of guys who look fucking just like me. A bunch of bearded dudes sitting around like

in awe of this chick squatting like 500 pounds, who says he's 120 pounds. So it's like, there's so, it's very enticing to anyone. If anyone saw someone of their kind being praised like that, it would absolutely draw. And even more than that, again, coming from the general population in my experience, women benefit more.

Generally speaking, from the powerlifting principles, then men do because, look, when I train a male client, typically this is the conversation as we're working out. No, no, that's too much weight. No, no, your form is bad. We got to go a little lighter all the time, right? Did dudes say, oh, I could do more weight. No, you can't actually reform with women. It's always like, hey, you can lift more weight. I don't know if I want to, I don't know if I can't, I don't know whatever. Or I don't care much. I'm lifting. I just want to look a particular way. And then they have the body image issue stuff. You put them in the power

lifting principles. Get their mind off of how I look, do I look okay, what's going on, okay I'm lifting heavy, oh my God I'm so empowered, what, my metabolism's faster? Wait a minute, I'm getting leaner because I'm building more muscle. The benefits for women are tremendous, so it doesn't surprise me at all that you're seeing a one-to-one ratio

and that the women are more of a draw. Well, and now all of a sudden, even hormonally and neuroendocrine, there is a benefit. If you look at the differences between men and women in training adaptations, not only, yeah, we have the discrepancy of estrogen to testosterone, but who said that's a bad thing?

Like, estrogen's gonna help you metabolize carbs and fats. Estrogen is gonna be something that allows you to recover from women can statistically utilize higher intensity and higher volume in training than men, right? So wait, here's a sport that's going to allow us to practice a skill. You can practice a skill at a heavier, relative percentage of your strength,

and recover from it better than a man. You're going to get better at that skill than a man would be able to do. What an interesting fact that I've never heard. Yeah, well, I mean, this is why they outlive men. They, it's true. I mean, we're more inflammatory. Our bodies just react a little bit differently. Men evolve to be expendable.

If you have a society where half of the women die, that society would fail to thrive because a woman can only produce an offspring once every nine months, whereas a man can impregnate an innumerable amount of women in a short period of time. So, theoretically, you could eliminate 90% of the men, and that society would survive. So we were literally, we literally evolved to do crazy shit, kill ourselves, go to war, and evolution, take roles that dice with us, and we're either going to be crazy or brilliant, and most of us are not, you know,

less of us are in the middle. Women are just more resilient. They're just generally speaking more resilient. So when it comes to resistance training, they respond very well to high frequency. Have you, now of course, they gotta be healthy, they gotta be fit. This isn't true for everybody,

but generally speaking, when they're healthy and they do everything right, again, in my experience, when I have women trained with powerlifting principles for strength, the psychological benefit and the physical benefit, the metabolism boosting, the way that their bodies shape, like I've seen women shape and sculpt their bodies

in more favorable ways, according to them, then when they train with more bodybuilding principles or more of their traditional workout principles, I think powerlifting, it's funny because, and again, we're starting to see the tide turn a little bit, I think that's gonna be a sport or at least the principles of training. I mean, more popular with women,

than they will even be with men. Well, anatomically speaking, Jordan, do you think it's easier to actually train a female in powerlifting than an male? What would you say? So the two major anatomical principles that you worry about, not worry about, or should be aware of with females,

like just from a structure standpoint, is an increase in cue angle and an increase in carrying angle. Those are again, these are, these are principles that we can see distributed widely across men, but on the overlapping tails of these two distributions, you're going to see the people with the greatest cue angles,

which is like the angle in which your femur leaves your pelvis. So it's like women wide hips, narrower stance in the feet and knees. Is this why they have a higher rate of ACL tells in sports? Yeah, because gravity doesn't really care, right? Gravity is just gonna do one thing, right? It's gonna pull right to the heart of this place and that's gonna be however we align ourselves through it.

Now, when the problem I see with women in powerlifting and coaching and lack of understanding of these morphological differences, these differences in structure, is like, we need to understand that, look, you'll see a higher incidence of ACL rates in female soccer, right? But think of there's being a force being applied. Like, if two girls go to kick a ball and there's already an inward trajectory of their femurs. They're going to be an increase amount of force applied to that ACL, that medial menace gets to that MCL, right? But when we're dealing with axial loads, it's like, you know, this is the knees out conversation all over again.

It's like, all right, knees out as according to what? You're in your imaginary plumb line as a male coach knowing that your hips, knees, and shoulders have been in a straight line since the day you were born, right? Or this realization that, look, there's knees out and then there's knees not in based off anatomical neutral. Like this girl's MCL, ACL, medial menescus have all been formed with the inward trajectory of her femur as she goes from crawling to walking and has been, you know, managing compressive force to do to grab your whole life.

So yeah, there is a potential for if knees go in, it could be dangerous, but we need to understand that, look, we see a female's knees going in, but to her, that's neutral, right? Because her knees in are, is a resting expression of her increased Q-Ans. So that's from a morphological standpoint. It's not harder or

easier. It's just something you need to be mindful of. Like if I see two knees go in below parallel, but I'm looking at those knees in the exact same spot they are when that girl is just standing there relative to her hips. I'm not going to superimpose my experience as a, you know, a six-foot tall 270-pound born male with her experience. Like I'm trying to go inside her mind. Look, when her knees go in, it's not the same perception of me, my knee's going in, because my knees are lined up with gravity, because I'm built like a fucking pot machine, right?

Where it's like, that's where she's used to, right? And that's going to be a safe place for her to lift in. Now, if that goes too far, and I know knees go in past that anatomical neutral, yeah, we're gonna run into some issues. But just as they're running into issues, if my knees went past that anatomical neutral. Yeah, we're gonna run to some issues, but just as they're running into issues, if my knees went past my anatomical. So how do you coach a coach on how to keep,

to look at that then, right? So from what you're saying right now, it's probably more risky for a coach to look at a female and cue the knees out versus a guy, probably based, based off of what you're saying. Yeah, risky or just you're leaving, you your leaving pounds off the platform if you don't understand that principle. Okay.

They'll see that as a technical flaw where it's not a technical flaw. It's a, they're reverting to their default anatomical neutral. They just people don't see that as a thing. Now, would you say, would you look maybe to the feet pronating or not to give you a giveaway if they're going too much in? Like, what would you say? Now, you need to assess for base level function they're going too much in? Like, what would you do? No, you need to assess for base level function through muscles that stabilize the hip and

pelvis, right? It's like if you're looking at this as a squat as a means of assessment of, you know, pelvic function or hip function or pelvic stability, your hip stability, you're missing the boat. You'll never see it until it's too late, right? That's like me trying to be a marksman testing my accuracy by shooting at a target that's right in front of my face It's like no, no, we this isn't like I said this is an expression of function Right, so I'll make sure that we go through a screen and progression of

of Unilateral movements to make sure that that stability around the hip and pelvis is where it needs to be to be put under load Right, this is calibrating down range and the synology So when I bring it in close now, I know I'm going to be bulls eye every time. Because if you have to actually cue the knees are going way too far in for whoever it is you're low, you're back squatting, they shouldn't be back squatting. This is quantum physics and you're having to sit there going two plus two. It's like you need to be able to lay out stones across this river in small increments of skill acquisition.

So that should be subconscious. They know in the progression of like, I'm going to start off someone with a counterbalance squad or a goblet squad. I teach knees out then and I do requisite unilateral stability works. Okay, maybe we focus on stationary lunges and counterbalance squatting. Someone comes to me and like they're an untrained individual between 30 and 40, that's what we're start. And it's like, all right, that could be a very short

runway, boom, right there, quick. They nailed it. Everything was stationary, lunges locked in, that back hip internally rotated, ribcage stays tucked down. They can stay stable through this movement. We're sweet. Counterbalance squat, awesome. Next.

What's next? Do you think, because of the differences and general differences in anatomy, that the sumo, I mean, I know powerlifting, women generally sumo pole at a much higher rate. I see that a lot more. Then men, would you say, if the average woman's listening right now, she wants a deadlift,

she wants to get the value at a deadlifting, is it better for her to go sumo then? Or do you think conventional is the way to go? So good question. And there's a very fine line to draw from a safety standpoint here. Because we introduce more sheer force to the spine when we conventionally deadlift

because our torso is gonna be more horizontal on the ground, more parallel to the ground. Sumo deadlift is gonna allow for more upright torso. In doing so, as we get, bring our torso is gonna be more horizontal on the ground, more parallel to the ground. Sumo deadlift is gonna love for more upright torso. In doing so, as we get, bring our torso more upright, when we grab the bar and assume of stance, we don't have as much flexion in the shoulder, which is great, cause that's gonna take our lats out of it.

And we know that a female is gonna have a lesser ability to scale her upper body strength. That lat is gonna be the one muscle that connects our arm to our spine. This is gonna be how we channel force into our lower back. Just as like if I have a male client who can't do a pull-up, he's not doing a deadlift. Because we need those lots to be strong enough to buffer the least the force of our body, first and foremost, before we start loading extra physiologically on a bar.

So Sumo is favorable for women as it helps tilt the scales and minimize any advantage between gender discrepancies and hormones and neurofibretyping and muscle fibers and things like that. This is gonna give them not only an advantage in leveling the playing field, it's also gonna make it safer. Because here we have to rely less on these lats

which aren't gonna be able to scale and relative strength to body weight to stabilize our spine and more on our obliques, which is something that are gonna be more easily trained to the requisite amount of stability you would need per the body weight of that lifter. So I would say most females, if the goal is, look, you want to lift as much weight as possible and do it safely, sumo deadlifting will take the need for your lats to be a major player in spinal stability out.

They're a major muscle of the upper body, which per, you know, the neuroendocrine differences between men and women is not gonna be able to be trained as well, and then that'll help you keep safer as you lift heavier weights. I have a good question for you. You've now referenced twice that you would not have somebody deadlift until they can at least do a bodyweight pull-up as a prerequisite.

Can you take me through the major lifts and is there an exercise for each one of those that you would consider a prerequisite before you would do like a bilateral squat? Like is it a Bulgarian squat or a lunge first? Is it, do you have one for each? Yeah, so I have like a full progression for squatting and again, it's the idea of like laying those stepping stones out so people can make sure that when we test, when we use the expression of function as the

test of function, we're missing the boat, right? Like, if you were to sit down and write a test, like, study test your political science before I got into this nonsense, then one of my tests I had to write was like, this 50 page essay, right? So it's like, you study for the test and that's the practicing of like the unilateral movements and these prerequisites, but the writing of the test is something totally different. You don't get smarter by writing tests, right? You don't get better at squatting necessarily by, with a caveat, obviously the skill of

squatting comes with it, but to be able to lay out these stones for people so they can acquire these, you know, these base level primary principles, these competencies that will teach them what it feels like and what muscles to use to make sure that needs stays out. So for me, it's just easy squatting progressions are counterbalance, gobble it, front high, then low, and then proceeded by each one of those is stationary lunge, walking lunge, sprint and pose, single leg

RDL and hip air plane. Well, in that order, yeah, because it's plain specific. Like, if I need to low bar squat, right? And I do need to low bar squat. I need to make sure my hips are abducted and externally rotate. I have a broad base in my low bar squat. That's what helps me be so strong in it, right?

I'm not going to low bar squat when my feet close together. That's dumb. That's a longer range of motion that doesn't bowed well for anyone. So, but I think, look, can do I have the mobility to get into that plane? And can I stabilize with the muscles in get into that plane? And can I

stabilize with the muscles in isolation, my hip in that relative position. So a hip airplane stand on one leg and then rather than doing like leg swings, like you would, like you're warming up to go for a run, put that foot on the ground, because that's where you're going to need it when you're squatting, because that foot's going to be on the ground, then open your pelvis up to the same relative plane. McGill plane, yeah. Right? A McGill playing. Oh, what? McGill playing. Is that what it called a McGill? No, he's doing a gill.

He calls it something different. Yeah, no, this put his name on everything. This guy just can't, you can't fucking do this man. I can't just create him an opally on everything. I thought he did it first. And I'm sure people have been doing this for a long time. That's why I'm not asked not to. It's like when you guys would sign my fucking name.

It's like what do McGill? When you guys wouldn't let me call an overhead press to sell press? Yeah. That should be called something. It's like a calm down sell. Everyone has a Jordan beard right now in this room. I did a fuck off.

Oh, serious? I don't know. I'm a hip-air. Jordan Jr. Okay, so, but that's what you're talking about. I don't know. I've always been a press-set. Oh, wow.

Did you have set it as like a shallow play for that one? Yeah. We'll give you the shallow hip thrust just think a fuck off It's extremely apparently that's No, but it's it's plain specific stability. That's what you need. Yeah, it's plain specific like I when I standing up by the right Okay, dim the lights. No, okay, so I really like this So this is I think and this is really good for their listeners

because if you're listening right now and you're like, okay, these guys are starting to get me interested in the pursuit of powerlifting, but yet I'm still, maybe I'm not sure if I'm ready for it, you just listed off a series of great exercises you should do first and get good at before you're probably ready to really do like a good, heavy loaded bilateral squat. So there's the squat.

We have a great video series. You talked about the pull-up, you talked about the pull-up for the bilateral squat. So there's the squat. We have a great video series. You talked about the pull up, you talked about the pull up for the deadlift. Give me some bench press. What do you have? Bench press is an interesting one, right? Because there's an obvious difference between the bench press and the squat and the deadlift.

We're horizontal. And we have external stability from the bench. So the bench press really kind of changes the game. And it levels out the playing field, a lot in powerlifting, which is great. Like because you can be a really good bencher, but usually the mechanics and leverages that make you a good bencher. Terrible deadlift. Deadlift is like, right.

Oh, fuck the bars all the way down there. How can I bench press this deadlift somehow? So it is good in that sense, but like, I always test people like, okay, when it comes to function of the shoulder, who on this planet gets the most out of their shoulders? Who is the precipice? Who is the epipidemy of shoulder function? What would you guys say?

Like, I get a few people in mind. There's no athletes, like, I like going specific. Swimmers are up there, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think who else, because great rotation, swimming is a great one. Who else would do something like volleyball? Up there, I think. Yeah, I'm trying to think who else could great rotation. I'm swimming as a great one. Who else would do something like? Bolly ball. Up there, yeah.

I mean, you guys are on the thaw process. Baseball, right? I think Randy is like the dandy. See, out there smoke and pigeons, that's fine. So I would go to, I would go, I usually, like when I talk about this, it's usually, I'll put up a slide of Randy, that I fucking hate baseball. But when it comes to like, when I start to talk about neuroanatomy and like reflexes

in the way like the dorsal ruganglyin works, you can't have a conversation without talking about baseball. Right, like it's a boring ass sport, but there's a guy who's six, seven. It's American. Throwing 100 miles an hour, he's 60 feet away from you, but the time he throws that ball, he's 10 feet away. Yeah, it's insane.

Yeah, so it's very impressive. And when it comes to shoulder functions, like, yeah, like Julius Maddox just spent 765 in the gym the other day. Right, imagine holding that over your face. That's 10 pounds over my max squat, BT Dubs, by the way. And, but that's still not impressive as Randy throwing a hundred miles an hour, 105 miles an hour.

Right? And then another one would be a boxer, right? Like, if you're a fury just went fucking KO, the bomber, like Mike Tyson to me is usually someone that I reference a lot. And what is different about the way Randy and Tyson and Fury use their shoulders as opposed to, like say, a Julius Maddox or how we use the shoulders

in powerlifting? What's the difference? And it's connected with their hip. How dynamic the movement is? Yeah, the utilization of the scapula, right? Like Randy Johnson would be a dog shit pitcher if he kept his shoulder blades down a back. Shold blades down a back.

Just stop, just stop, just stop. Shold blades down a back. Like he'd be, so dynamic. Tyson would be, you know, he'd probably still be able to murder you, but like, he wouldn't be as effective if he didn't upwardly rotate a scapula, right? When we encourage in the bench rest, you know, shoulder blades back, shoulder blades back, shoulder blades back,

shoulder blades back, which is great. Yeah, and I think the offset, the potential, to mitigate the potential damage of isolating that dysfunctional pattern and dysfunction is like, look, that's not how we use our shoulder blades when we walk, right? That's how our shoulders work.

They integrate this thoracic rotation with this upward rotation of the scap and internal rotation and then the opposite cascade of events happens on Extension right where we extend we retract and depress them we extend the shoulder so there's there's a lot to it So I would I like an exercise like a windmill like a kettlebell windmill as as an adjunct or like a landmine press something That's gonna promote that upward rotation of the scap under load, utilize the serrated sanitary, you know, sort of unwind that reciprocal inhibition, rhomboid counteracts serratus thing.

So anything that promotes the serratus anterior, anything overhead, pull ups or gray barbell overhead, press if you have the range of motion. Love the windmill for that. And even think of it as a prerequisite to the bench. So the windmill for me is big for a few things because the prerequisite to the bench. So the windmill for me is big for a few things, because the prerequisite of proper execution is all lives and dies with rotation of the thoracic spine.

We focus a lot on this global extension, and like, oh, you wanna fix your shoulders, Leo extended up or back, gave it to that poor posture, but unilateral rotation of the thoracic spine is integral. I think the thoracic spine kind of moves through like two planes of motion that we really worry about. Like we worry about extension and we worry about rotation.

Lateral flexion not so much. But we have two dimensions at the spine. We have three dimensions at the shoulder. The serratus anterior is this gateway, this portal, this transference of force from two dimensions to three dimensions at the shoulder. So making sure that we can get adequate extension and rotation is a mobility prerequisite to training the stability of the serratus.

It's a very economical exercise because it gives you a lot of information. If someone can do this properly, they have the prerequisite extension and rotation to do so. If not, and we see over rotation of the humerus, look, your funneling force is into your rotator cuff, into this clenohumeral joint because because we're not moving properly at the throssex point. It's a very visceral experience that someone does. They go, oh, ow, yeah, ow, because that needs to move better.

And that's a whole lot of conversation about injury and pain and all that. Now, I would think that probably is very similar for the overhead press than two. I mean, I would think that the windmill would still fall on that same category. Roughly sweet, but it doesn't have the bilateral rotation, prerequisite, because like a proper win-male,

like most people do them, I don't know who teaches it, but someone's going around teaching win-males with like you open up like the one hip, and then it's almost like, have you ever seen like the old bank robbery movies, like in Oceans 11, where this is like the laser field? Yeah, there's a laser field in front of the bank vault, that's like stopping, like, oh, don't break the wire,

it'll trip the wire, so people are just like like just tilting off to the side like this. It's like, what are you doing? Hinge forward. So you can actually test how much extension and rotation you need. The people are just like sliding the hand down the seam of the pants. And just like, laterally moving away like that.

What is the meaning over this? Yeah, go look, this connect index finger to index finger, extend and rotate through the thoracic spine, and that middle figure. Getting down there is due to the rotation. Right, and then that's what I love about like some of the stability drills, and a lot of people don't really understand stability as a separate adaptation.

They just say, oh, strengthen your serratus. No, that would be like me trying to get a bigger squat by running a marathon, two totally different adaptations. The ability to exert force versus resist force is the difference between strength and stability. So it's like, if I can pick an exercise that it looks, if someone can't do this, it tells me exactly where to point with mobility drills.

Oh yeah, easy. Or if, on the contrary, to streamline my approach, if someone can do this, I don't need to waste my time stretching and rotating and foam rolling. Like, it is a moot point that will not help us improve the base level function of the serratus, then I'm not gonna waste time on it. So it's like, I love the windmill for the bench press because it tells me, well, can we

get out of this pattern that we're in? Can we integrate function of the shoulder as the bench press per definition is, quote, unquote, dysfunctional as we flex the humorous on a retracted scap, which is dysfunctional. It's so funny because the windmill's such an old, timey strength exercise that nobody did for a long time and now you're seeing more people do. What about a bent press? That was a huge lift way back in the day with strong man where they would test themselves by, you know,

like Eugene Sandow doing a bent press with 300 pounds, do you ever incorporate anything like that? As I deal, mostly online, no, but if it's part of a sport and I'm dealing with a strong man, it's like, look, if you have strong enough lats, your low back is going to be just fine. Like, people, again, it's the base level. People don't realize how much of a stabilizer lats are due there. People on the whole don't realize the difference between muscle function and muscle action, right? They only see the body building, nomenclature of origin to insertion and they don't see the global

utilization of muscles as a dual purpose to stabilize and strengthen. And that's like a muscle functions like a mouthful, but what a great point. I know, yeah. Let's rewind that one. This is the only way. There's a one. Don't worry, we always put an episode out

after your episode where we break everything out of you. Jordan Chano, there's a mouthful. There's one here. I've been called that one. No, I'm not gonna say that. No, but what a great statement. We always think about the flexing of the muscle, the building of the muscle,

thinking of that way, what about the other functions of that and how important that role is and just overall function of your body and how it moves and how it protects itself. Yeah, and then you can, I've done this, so I mean, it's shameless plug. My book's coming out later this year and a lot of that is indexing.

Look, I think when you Wikipedia something, it should say origin, insertion, innovation, arterial blood supply and function. Right? And because right now it's just as it moves from origin to insertion, how does the joint that surrounds or these muscles cross? How do they act?

Where it's like no, no, but how do these muscles act when we walk and breathe? Like I could jam my thumb into your scalines and like all of a sudden he'd be like, oh, get the fucking thumb out of there. But it's not like, if we think origin and assertion of this muscle that sort of like starts in our C spine and attaches onto our upper ribs,

it's like if I move origin to insertion, I'd be kind of like dropping my head off to the side. It will inherently be sore on most people, at least on like one side. But it's like they're not spastic, they're not, it sounds not walking around all they do in this twitchy thing. He's not moving it from origin to insertion. He's not training, he's not over-training

or over-utilizing the action. Maybe he's stressed out because he's not in Hawaii anymore. And now he's like breathing into his work. Breathing into his, yeah, work. Come on, Adam, Adam's stressing about like crazy. Let's be serious here. This is work.

But it's like the function of those scalings is to elevate the upper ribs during rest cycle, right? So it's like every month, the bicep has like an incredible function that the bicep sort of pledged a frat. It was like, oh, it's all show no go. It's like really? First thing I got hit by Chevy Suburban five years ago, shout out Santa Clara drivers.

While I was on my bicycle, I was on my fucking 10 speed. Did you break the truck? We had a bicycle here, dude. You know that. But the bicep drove. He could suit from it. Yeah. She was crying.

I threw my bike at the car with a torn labor of a bride was the best idea. You hit the wrong guy. But the first thing I did once I got my range of motion back when I started on bicep curls, because I understand the bicep's function. It's not just, you know, Phil sleeves and like, you know, pick up chicks and polo.

It's like, no, there's a huge function and every muscle has one. It's just not many people think to look into index or even more importantly to train it. Okay, so the windmill would not be for overhead press. Tell me what overhead press prerequisite is then. I would break down into range of motion. Can we move there passively?

Can we get the extension of the thrust to find the retraction and depression? I would focus more on the strength of the lower trap first. Can we actively get into this range? Strength in the lower, because a big prerequisite in training stability is having the range of motion to get in unstable positions. This whole ethos that we build around

of mobility stability strength. It's a cool tagline and a hashtag and you could trademark and look school on our website, but it's literally, that's build around of mobility stability strength. It's like, yeah, it's a cool tagline and a hashtag, and you could trademark and look school on our website, but it's literally, that's the order of operations. It's like, you need to be able to, and a lot of times, you have to do this contemporaneously, you do it all at once. It's not like we're just going to stretch someone for three weeks and then stabilize them for three weeks and then strengthen them. It's like, no, how do you integrate all this into a coherent and congruent program?

Okay, so let's pretend that this person can do a wall slide, right? Comfortably, full extension, everything, and keep their ribs from flaring. We look pretty decent. Would you go straight into overhead pressing, or is there, I mean, a pressing progression for me that I use quite frequently is start them off with a dumbbell floor press. Then the totally stabilized. Can they deal with this little bit of instability in the medium of the bar?

On the back end, I'm working on like the four functional sub components of the shoulder. Do they need thoracic extension? Do they need to train an early stage as a retraction and depression of the SCAT? Or are they late stage? Do they need to train overhead stability of the serratus? We're utilizing a windmill.

Are they inhibited or facilitated rather in internal rotation? Do they need to stretch their lats? Do they need to stretch in internal rotation? Do they need to stretch their lats? Do they need to stretch their packs? Do they need to stretch their delts? And then do they have strength or stability of the posterior shoulder? So the shoulder really breaks down

to those four subcomponents. But from a pressing progression, yeah, if I have someone who's relatively detrained and I'm trying to like work on these things on the front end and integrate this approach into an actual exercise, which I think a lot of people I go, go, go to yoga. It's like, what?

That's like, you've never had the old Christmas lights, where it's like one bulb goes out and the whole fucking strand goes. And your dad's like, look, Canadian tires, Canadian tires are old. Shout out Canada. Canadian tires around the corner, dad. Take my fucking, take my allowance

and go buy a new straightaway. Nope, we got a box of spare bulbs over here. You're gonna sit there and do the whole thing. It's like, yeah, Mary fucking Christmas to me. But it's like doing a yoga class and be like sitting there changing all those bulbs and not plugging it in. It's like, I wanna make some changes in perception

of my thoracic spine mobility, my retraction, depression of my scap, my biased towards internal rotation, then I wanna load the damn thing. I wanna plug the damn thing in to see if the changes I'm making are working, run a current through it. So I'll do that stuff on the front end, like dumbbell floor press, then put them on a bench,

a little bit more unstable. Then just go take this adjustable bench and that's the greatest training tool you have. So before I go standing overhead with a bar, I'll go flat on the floor. Minimal range of motion, unstable media, work on the back end mobility stability stuff. Next week, up on a bench, the client goes, oh, I'm on a bench now. What's going on here? What's this new shiny red ball at? They novelty icy specificity that I go 15 degree incline greater range of motion same way Great, they're getting better at the skill. They've adapted one or two weeks there They show an improvement in their ability to stabilize or an improvement in range of motion on the front end I just keep putting that thing all the way up to the 90 then we stand with it

Then I put a barbell in the hand. Oh excellent. The medium is the message Another another big thing around powerlifting a big myth, I would say revolves around diet. Now granted, I think early days powerlifting, you know, a lot of big overweight, looking people so people thought, oh powerlifting diet, there is no diet, it's just eat whatever you can or whatever. But I know that's not true nowadays. And I know that eating for performance has a lot of potential value for the average person versus just eating for aesthetics,

just eating to get lean. What does that look like now? What does it look like to eat for performance when you're looking for strength, when you're trying to build strength? Yeah, I mean, it allows you to really focus in on when and where you're getting your nutrition from. Like, you know, powerlifters back in the day,

it would just smash McDonald's and go lift, because powerlifting started with single ply. I got a West Side Barbell single multiply. Like, look, you talked to anyone who, I have a friend who's self-albert, where I thought of Florida. He's a chiropractor soon to graduate, and he's probably one of the strongest

single ply lifters in the US right now. But he has to fit his gear. Like, he has this suit. That's a certain size. It's not going to change. Right? So the myth of powerlifting and dieting really started from like, look, you're not going to fit in your squat suit. You're not going to fit in your bench shirt unless you're 315 pounds. So it was really a matter of economy and calories. Like, here you have a guy who's like, the sportsman I'm gonna pay you any money, right? They're back in the day. It's like, yeah, like Louis Simmons and Dave Tate had to eat,

you know, blend up McDonald's apple pies because like their Titan, Inzer, whatever suit they had to fit into, they needed to fit into that. So I think a lot of that stereotype came with the inception of powerlifting from its early days in multiply and single plot. But I think since, I mean, honestly, it's a Bay Area local that I would say

is probably most responsible for nutrition. And this idea of like you don't have to look like the fat powerlifter is a guy named Dan Green. So Dan was like one of my first patients. I practiced out of his gym for four years before I hit the road. He was the first one to like look like a superhero, like an action figure.

Because, and then when we bring it to general population, it's like, look, if we can eat to perform, like, let's say I give a client an extra 200 calories, but that 200 calories is going to give them the energy, they're not going to feel sluggish, they're not going to feel tired. Are they going to burn that 200 calories a gym? Maybe not. Are they going to set a framework for long term being able to like, continually make progress on this lift that they'll create a net deficit down the road? Absolutely.

So I think it went just like you just talked about structuring the psychology around your female clients. Like if you can frame it in that way, it's like, look, like here's gonna be our pre-workout meal and it's not just gonna be a carrot stick, right? Like because we need to actually show up and we need to perform, there's an objective pursuit here. In that objective pursuit, there are a lot of times

you eclipse any subjective goals that may have existed on the front end. Now is eating quote unquote healthy? Is that becoming more of a thing in power? I'm saying we're like, okay, I want to eat things that are unprocessed. I want to eat more whole natural foods, steaks, ground beef, rice, vegetables, those types of things.

Or is it really just about macros? I think no, because you can't be. Honestly, I know guys are trying to flexible to hiding. Like, to me, if I have like pop tarts before I go train, I'm gonna have to, I'll be asleep, right? That's like the old polyquin thing, like if you're insensitive, go eat some pancakes, if you're asleep in 45 minutes,

you don't eat cars for breakfast, like if you hold me nuts, thing. Like I can't be asleep. So going into a training session, I personally feel better with carbs, or with protein and fats, than my carbs are kind of later in the day, right? So if I'm to go off macros,

like I don't think a top end powerlifter can really do well off macros, because there's so much more to it. Like food is a drug, like it's gonna have an effect on your endocrine system. It's gonna have effect on your hormones. It's gonna have an effect on like your neurotransmitter levels. And you wanna talk like that's gonna matter way more.

I can crush a pop tart and then like, you know, shotgun energy drink and catch the sickest bicep pump of all time. Because I don't need to get up. Like I don't really need to get up for it. But like, do, when there's 350 kilos on your back, I can say, you, you're, you have your undivided attention. You're in the fucking room.

Like, it doesn't matter. Like, someone could be going through, like, with a gun, and you're like, yep, well, look, either way, if I don't pay attention to this, I'm probably gonna die anyways. So, I should probably focus on this. Like, it, it, it benefits you to be very receptive and be in an mindful.

Mindful, but what's gonna drive that mindfulness is a neuroendocrine environment and an environment with like your neurotransmitters that allows for that, right? They can't be foggy or sluggy. Are there any vegan power lifters? Probably not good. I don't know,gy your slug. Are there any vegan power lifters? Probably not good. I don't know.

I don't know. Like the whole view. Like I'm gonna make game changers. Oh I know, he's strong man. Yeah but no one, look you guys have been around who the fuck was mutton chops. Yeah. I was like, I'm before in my life.

I go to expose all over the world. I know some of the strongest people by first name. And they got some guy from Miss Den Bull like working out of his mom's farm. It's like, who the fuck is this guy? I thought it was being trolled. I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to walk out of the woodshed. I was like, who the fuck is this cloud?

You know, another myth about powerlifting, too, is that, you know, because you're mainly focused on the four main core lifts, is that you can't build an incredibly good looking physique. And I think that's something that is slowly getting debunked. I mean, and that because maybe the diet thing, maybe more and more starting to dial a diet, and if you're dialed to diet,

and you are a good fucking power lifter, you've probably got a pretty good looking physique too. Yeah, I mean, I think you become the shape of your sport, right? And the best power lifters right now are the guys and girls that look the best because they know that look, they've acquired the skill in order to improve their, their weak points. They need to look now back at kind of what probably got them into lifting in the first place. They need to look back at, okay, how do I really train a muscle's action? Because look, muscle gets a greater cross sectional area. That muscle by default

has a greater ability to express for it, it. Now, we need to integrate that into skill progression. But if you already have that, then it's like, look, taking off season and go through a lot of variations, train a damn bicep curl, and a lot of guys are realizing this and girls are realizing this. So, you know, they're being able to put together, you know, a structured meat prep that looks really well. And also, their power lifters year round now. Like now all of a sudden with sponsorship money and with exposure and personal brands that are built off of their ability to actually perform,

they're starting to look at it year round. Like as a competition schedule, we kinda got like our triple, our triple whatever the fucking thing in horse racing is. Like we have triple crowned. Triple crowned. Triple crowned, you come out with that. Wow. You're so racing is. Like we have triple crown, triple crown. Do you come out with that?

Wow. God, you're so cultured. So you kinda have like, just like the gamble. You have your, or a degenerative. You have your big meats and like, you know, and you know what you need to work on.

It's like my elbow starts. It's like, all right, guess what you're gonna do for 10 weeks after a meat. You're gonna train your fucking elbows. It's like what's that? Bicep curls and tricep extensions. Get in the overhead plane, get the length and position of the tricep,

get in the extended plane, get the length and position of the bicep, work through length tension relationships, worry about the stability, the end range of these muscles that won't have this drastic implication of you fucking up, you're gonna kill yourself. Like, yeah, so you can't get overhead

with your tricep extensions. Yeah, fucking use a cable. Use a cable in the early stages. I've seen you more recently in your Instagram, incorporating more and more, and probably because you're traveling a lot, but also because you meet lots of strength athletes from different modalities.

I've seen you incorporating more and more what I would consider to be classic body builder type exercises. What's your favorite, favorite non-powerlifting, just pure bodybuilding movement? Oh, haxquats gotta be up there. Cause there's a skill to everything. There's a skill to a bicep curl and the guys with the biggest arms will tell you that.

And there has to be a certain economy in my workout schedule now and with exercise selection and more importantly, and most importantly, execution. Cause it's not weird for me to be on a 30-hour flight. Right. So it's like, look, I get four days a week, I could maybe train,

cause that's what I can actually recover from. Cause I'm sitting in a fucking tin can, going 600 kilometers an hour. So a hack to me is like, because I've trained the squat to such a degree and such a volume, such an intensity, like I can't tell you how many squats I've done in my life. And how many heavy squats I've done.

Just to be able to take off the lifting shoes, take off the belt, take off the knee sleeves of the wraps, and just fucking crank it to 11 through the headphones, and just bite down and go. And just slide. Yeah, just slide. This is a 100% slide. That to me is probably the most fun

because like, it takes the fear out of it. Like, I've, in powerlifting, like, you'll get to a point where it's like, that's the main driver. It's like, get this thing, the fuck out of my hands, get this off my back. I'm just whatever I gotta do. And so to be able to, like, and it's enjoyable,

like it's very fulfilling, like it's a very, you know, to overcome a fear is very satisfying, but like, you know, just like, when you started, it was just kind of grip and rip, and there was no thought process to it. Like, I've almost come full circle. It's like, I've thought about this. I don't know if I thought about anything else. But it's like, I was 15 years old. It's all I've thought about for more than like, I'm almost half my life, just to sit on a leg press and put on unforgiving my Metallica or a Hackswatt Load the plates until I can't load plates anymore and just sit there and send it like the fucking postman like it's unreal That's my favorite by far

Always a great time with you man You're gonna be home man. Yeah, I'm I can't tell you this enough to see you succeed and do what you're doing makes us so happy because you're communicating the right stuff. So you're doing a great job and we're really, really happy that more and more people are listening to you, so keep it up, man. Well, I mean, it's you guys to thank for that.

Like, that's true, man. Like, every time you guys sucked, you wouldn't be where you're at. I guess, I guess. But, no, like, a lot of like, I mean, when I'm in the weirdest places, and I'm in some weird fucking places, already this year I've been in some,

like what I think to be in for someone who works in the fitness industry, I've been Hong Kong in Singapore, and I'll be in India later this year, and I'll be in Pakistan, like I'm all over the place. It's only the weirdest places, I know when people found me. I was in a locker room in Lebanon.

This is right before I saw you guys last. I said, no, I've seen you since Lebanon or no. I don't think you, it was right before I just kind of left. Like I've been on the road ever since. I was in a locker room in Lebanon. And it was Lebanon's real. Like it's in Middle East light, but it's a real place. It's a real place.

But it's like, you know, you're right next to Syria, like you go through security before you even go into the airport. Like you just drive through Hezbollah checkpoints. That's like, that's not the police, but they have ARs. So, when someone with an ARs does anything, you just do it. Why, dude, with sleeve tattoos? Yeah, bearded. That one, look.

But I was in a, I was in a, a change room Lebanon in this guy, like came up to me and was like, hey, like, he had this friend who spoke English and was like, oh, like, we heard of you on my apartment. What the fuck? Right after that, this dude injected a fedron into his vein. But not the same dude who listened to Mind Pop. That guy was probably listening to Mind Pop,

but I literally, this guy comes over with his friend. He didn't know who I was, but he was like, oh, sorry, I sort of bother you, but my friend doesn't speak English, but I just want to know that he's like, it's cool to see you, and he heard you and saw your stuff on mine, but I was like, oh, dude, that's dope.

And then looking over his shoulder, this guy's turnicking his shoulder with a knee wrap, like, Ray Charles. And he's like, hold on, hold on. Thank you. What wait? And this guy just fucking main lines a pic right into his, like, really?

And I was like, can you, amen? Like, can you ask your buddy who speaks, like, Arabic to ask him what he just did? And he walks over to this guy with an insulin surgery. He just went intervening. I'm like, this guy's not going to be okay for a long time. And he came over and he's like, oh no, he just injected a fedron. I was like, I'm just going to wreck him for a dream.

So it's like, the reach you guys have. Because you guys get out and you guys go around. But once you guys start to go international, you'll start'll start to realize, like, holy fuck, because you guys see the numbers, and but, you know, you'll do some of that for that. Feel it like that's different. It's, for me, it's visceral, like, holy fuck. Like, here's, I mean, you know, I'm stone-throw from Syria. I just had like four guys with ARs asking me for my passport that weren't the government.

This guy's over in the corner, banging, fucking a fedron. Like his pupils are like, you can see fucking sound. And then just to hear like, but to contrast that, like last time I was here, I told you about the Somali A, at one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco. Yeah. So here I am in Gary Danko,

having a nice fine Michelin star meal. And this guy comes over, oh, sir, drinks on us tonight. So it's like, what a contrast. Like, and so you guys, tonight. So it's like what a contrast like and so you guys I hope you guys can go out and really appreciate the reach you guys have because it's fucking insane Big shot. Well, thanks again for coming on the Thank you for listening to Mind Pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and

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