Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 152: Variable Resistance, Plyometrics, Super Sets & Heavy Negatives

Episode Date: September 21, 2015

Adam is at the Olympia so Sal and Justin decide to nerd-out about how to maximize growth and performance in the gym. They go into detail about variable resistance, plyometrics, super sets, heavy negatives and stability training. Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpradio.com. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and please rate and review the show.

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. Are we hot? Oh, I'm hot. Very hot. So... It's uncomfortable sometimes when Doug says stuff like that.

It is. So, uh... God, sad. I'm a little bit sad. Why are you sad? Adam's not here. Yeah. Adam's not here. Why be sad about that? I mean, you can talk a lot more now. Well, sometimes you know when I get nervous and he holds my hand, it makes me feel, you know, comfortable. Yeah, you guys have this, like, love seat here together. We sit together. We sit together and that's when I see you at your best. I'm so I'm sad, but I'm also a little excited because Doug is going to be on the episode with us today.

What's up Douglas? How you guys doing? He'll be limited to answering questions and we'll cut him off. Yeah, right when he starts talking, we'll just cut him off. I get to say too. No, you know what I was trying to say. Got him in. Okay, anyway, so we're talking about.

So basically, dude, so yesterday, you guys see my squat workout, what I did? Yeah, that was pretty impressive. Yeah, I see, I'm pretty motivated right now to get my legs to grow. We've noticed that. More, yeah, because. Because you're out, you're out 100% to destroy

all that shafers standing for. Yeah. Yeah. The mantra going on in here. He's a hard worker, he's been training hard. I was at Gold's and we just happened to show up at the same time, which is always kind of awkward. You run into someone, you kind of want to see him but you kind of don't because I don't want him

to see my secret training technique. So I'm watching him work out and the dude was squatting for like 45 minutes. Like that's all he did was squat. And he was doing good squats Yeah, and he's getting stronger. So I'm like all right I can see you just walking by and like thinking like Dude I totally so while he was squat I was doing all kinds of funny things. I was making fart noises

I poked him in the butt a little bit, you know. And, but he stays focused. He's like sad. He stayed super focused. And that's not out of his norm. It might have squeezed out an extra rep or two when he did that. Okay. But, so yesterday, so what I've been doing is I've been incorporating inclusion.

You know, at next time you should do, you just get right behind him and start spotting him, even though he didn't want to be spotted. He just read the spot. Just give him the hug spot. Yeah. Yeah. Use give him the hug spot. Yeah. Use the third hook.

Yeah. So. Yes. Sink the hooks. Yeah, you got to sure you're locked in. Doug remembers that when I used to train. I remember Doug when I used to. Yes, I couldn't wait for squat day.

Doug was always like, Doug was always like, Sal, this is weird. I don't think I'm supposed to be. You guys are supposed to do it You guys are a very intimate relationship. And that would always be like, Shut up, Doug, I'm the perfect, you hired me, right? Fuckin' do it. That's right, why?

Why do I always have to wear one of these unitards? It was like, it was like a weird, it was like a weird like Charles Manson kind of relationship. Like he's kinda, I broke him down and then built him back up. Back up, and he just feel like, you get a full gain and then you get deep power. Terram, right down. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, right down. Yeah.

So anyway, by the way, personal trainer's listening, it's a great technique. It's your client's great results. Yes. So I've been doing a collusion and then yesterday, what I did that I totally forgot about. I haven't done for, I don't know, a couple of months. But again, I saw Adam squatting.

And my goal basically is this. Let's say it's scale of zero to 10 in terms of how crazy your legs look, right? Zero means you have shitty legs. 10 is like, fuck, your legs look crazy, right? I need to stay at least five points ahead of, excuse me if I add them. So, so he's moving up nice.

What do you think? Is that a four now? Is that a four now? No, I think he's gonna argue. No, he's doing good. Come on. So I was motivated, I think he's gonna argue. No, he's doing good. He's doing good. So I was motivated. So I used some variable resistance yesterday.

Yes, variable resistance. This is a great topic. I think that we should kind of dive into. Dude, we need to. You know, I do not think that we've even touched on this before. No, and it's good because I don't see a lot of bodybuilders and physique competitors do this. No, and it's good because I don't see a lot of bodybuilders and physique competitors do this.

No, why would they? Because all they want to do is just, you know, rep, rep, rep, rep, everything out. Yeah. And wear belts and, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, you know, wear wrist wraps, you know, squeams. But I will predict right now that you will start to see

in the next five years, you're going to start to see more and more stage presentation athletes utilizing these techniques, because not only do they make you stronger, they build more muscle. And anything that builds more muscle, eventually we'll get adopted by people who need to build. Well, it's because now you can break it down

into more incremental versions of force, right, or load. And it helps you to kind of transition a lot of times into the next platform of strength. And so, you know, as you grow, well, as you get stronger, you grow, right. And so your body's adapting to that new standard. And to make it into that new standard, this is a great tool in your toolbox to use to sort of segue. So if you think of it more like, well, what are your other options otherwise, right? So just add little bits of more weight

and you have these little five pounders or sometimes you see these little tiny like, almost like the magnet weight. The magnet like little tiny discs, to kind of like gradually like the magnet way to the magnet like built any discs, you know, to kind of like gradually increase the load and there's other elements like it's let's say variable resistance we're

talking about bands. Yeah, let's start with bands. Let's start with bands. Okay, so now you used it basically over the rack, right, to help assist. Right. Yeah.

As far as you're getting depth and now assisting in the lift, so you could add more load onto the bar so you could feel a heavier load on your back. Well, so here's how it kind of breaks down. So when people hear bands, I'm not using the band by itself. But here's what a band does that weights don't do. When I'm doing a squat with, you know, weight on my back, that way, I'm not using the band by itself. But here's what a band does that weights don't do. When I'm doing a squat with, you know, weight on my back, that weight stays the same from the bottom to the top. My strength isn't the same though, from the bottom to the top.

My strength is weakest at the bottom and strongest at the top. This is why you see a lot of morons in the gym going down four inches in their squat. Because there's your strength curve. That's your strength curve and they don't want to go down low because as anybody who squats knows, you go down low, you're weaker at the bottom. So the awesome thing about a band is a band is not the same resistance all the way through.

The harder you stretch a band, or the further you stretch a band, the harder it pulls. Yeah, the more elastic energy you're promoting that's gonna help assist basically lifting the weight back on the way back up. Yes, so what I did was as I had, I personally worked up to some heavy singles. So I had 445 pounds on the bar.

And what I did is I got the band, I attached it to both sides of the bar. So one end on one side, one end to the other side. But I swung it over the top of the squat rack. So that it's pulling up on the weight. Now what happens when I unwrap the weight and I come back and I squat down at the top of the weight at the top where I'm standing, it's pulling, I'm just going to throw out numbers, it's pulling, let's say, 20 pounds.

So at the top, I'm holding 425. But then as I squat down into the hole, it might pull as much as 70 pounds or 50 pounds. So it's giving me more help where I need it, and it's making the way heavier where I'm stronger. So what happens is you're able to train, you're able to push, you know, max yourself out or get close to it within your natural strength curve. And this, the adaptation you get from it's fucking awesome. I mean, it's great.

And when you're stuck in a plateau, utilizing a technique like this is a great way to bust pass it. I mean, the feel is amazing. I get down to that low part of the squat. Because it's natural. It feels great. Yeah, it's because, well, that too,

and it helps to alleviate a lot of stress on the joints. Yes. So that's the one thing, like, you notice right away, like that amount of weight really stresses you out. It applies, all that force has to go somewhere. When you're in a compromised position, let's say the bottom of your squat, that force gets alleviated somewhat when you put that rubber band over there to help give you that elastic

energy to come up out of the squat. So really, it's just a great transitional technique then to now you can sort of gradually add more weight. Your body is getting accustomed to more weight in the stronger points of your lift, which naturally you can sort of promote that progression after that, after you train that way. Yeah, and I've used, I don't know, Doug, did we ever do any type of burial,

but I think I have, I had to use chains. Yeah, we use chains, we use bands for squats, bench and for dead lifts, and dead lifts to me were particularly interesting. What, why was it interesting? Because it really required you to get back. Oh, because I attached them at a different angle. That's a good point.

And by the way, Doug, if you have any questions on what we're talking about, because you know quite a bit, but sometimes after the episodes you ask us questions, you can ask them here, because I think your questions are, because you've been a part of this for so long, you're gonna have some good questions

that we might not even think of. But yeah, so the other good thing with bands is that you can attach them at different angles. So what Doug was talking about with a deadlift is when you're pulling up the weight of a deadlift, you're kind of, you're pulling it up, but you're also trying to pull it back, right? You wanna keep the weight close to your body.

Well, one thing you could do is you could use a lighter weight, attach bands away from you so that when you're pulling up, the band is trying to pull the bar, not just pull the bar down, but pull the bar away from your body. So you're having to really kind of pull back and lean back. Yeah, you're training your body to promote that, you know, lifting process. Yes. You know, and so that's one way to, so if you break it down in terms of each one of those

components of the lift, right? So there's ways that you can enhance maybe weak points. Exactly. So if that's something that, you know, you know, will benefit your lift and the bars getting away from you or whatever, like obviously that's going to be a great technique to, you know, emphasize. And so that's why, you know, if you're stuck in a rut or, you know, you really wanna enhance like

what you already have going on, like you really have to break down the lift and have somebody give you the proper cues of like what they see, your body doing in the lift, you know, where those weak points are. So if you wanna go over, maybe like, so that, that might be part of the first process is part of the pull off the ground, right? And then, you know, the next part, you know,

we're looking at the knees, we're looking at the lockout, we're looking, you know, all the way up to the back. So each phase of that, like, you can adjust bands accordingly to kind of help structure that, right? You can, I mean, lockout tends to be the, for most people, the part where they tend to feel weakest,

at least with a conventional deadlift, and that's where the hands on the outside legs, you'll feel like your sticking point will be about six inches off the floor. Right, so that's where I would, I put, so some platforms, they have like a handle that sticks up, and so I'm able to attach bands over, So some platforms, they have like a handle that sticks up. And so I'm able to attach bands over like the outside of the bar on both sides.

And so now I'm pulling it straight up and then that last bit, you know, I really have to fight to lock it out. To get that lock out. To get the lock out. So that's one method I use. Yeah, bench press is a great one too. I'll get a band and I'll attach the band

on either side of the bar and under the bench that I'm using to, you know, that I'm benching from. So when I press it up, it's exponentially more difficult at the top working on the lockout portion. And I'm, you know, because again, for me for bench press, I'm strong. I'm very strong at the bottom. It's a lockout where I tend to have issues. Yours might be the opposite in which you might attach the bar, then in that case, to the very top.

Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, if I'm putting rubber bands on the top and it's gonna help me in the bottom part of them with the lift for sure. So yeah, you just structure it that way. And by the way, this is totally backed by science. Completely backed by studies. They've done studies on this and they found that people that incorporate

this type of variable resistance with traditional resistance training perform better, build more muscle and are stronger than people who just do the traditional resistance training. This is interesting because when you look at bodybuilding and physique type presentation sports, they borrow a lot from different types of strength sports. And this is going to be one of those things. I think we're going to start seeing. Chains, you've actually seen, we've actually seen some chains being used by bodybuilders. I think part of it is because chains look cool so they'll do photo shoots. They'll have these big ass,

heavy chains that they're lifting. But part of it is because they work and a chain is very similar. So yeah, it's similar, but it feels different. Yeah, it feels different because here's a thing. Like, so at the bottom, let's, let's talk about the bench, for instance, you want to have an excess of the chain already on the ground. Okay, and so what's going on is as you lift, so it's lighter at the bottom. Right, so to paint the picture, you've got chains hanging off, big, heavy chains,

30, 40 pounds, 20 pounds, whatever, hanging off each end of the bar down to the floor. And what Justin is saying is that when you're at the bottom of the bench press, when you bring the bar down to your chest, most of the chains on the floor. Right. So your weight is light. Right.

So it lightens up. And as you push up, because each link, you know, it's going to weigh X amount. And as you go, it's forcing you, it's forcing more load on the way up of your lockout, basically. So then, yeah, so then you're able to get stronger with your lockout and it helps to kind of lighten it up a bit

so you can put more load on the bar. Now, Justin, when would you incorporate some of these type of techniques for clients? I mean, you're very performance oriented. Yeah. So when would an athlete utilize this kind of stuff? Well, after I've established a good strength base. So you wouldn't do this with a beginner?

No, no, no. Okay. No. I mean, yeah. And I know that like you said, it has a sexy component to it, just like anything else in this industry. You know what I'm saying? It's sexy. That's just it. Like, there's certain sexy component to it, just like anything else in this industry. Chain of things are sexy. That's just it.

There's certain sexy things that people are just like, whoa, let's do that and focus on this. But if you're really doing it for the performance element that it provides, that comes later. So that's something like where, if I'm having an issue with progressed progression, right? So I need to get some kind of new stimulus,

some new element in the programming that will help them to catapult into the next level. So this is one of those things that I play with, either with the bands or chains, or tempo, or like we talk about all these other variables we use as far as like acute variables in the programming. But this is one of those things that like, it's just, it's great too because if I'm thinking too about plyometrics, which we'll probably go into later in this podcast,

I want to alleviate some of the stress on the joints, but then have the kind of explosive work that I want out of the muscle. And so if I can do that by adding rubber bands or something like that at a strategic location or anchor point to alleviate, say, stress in the knees if I'm doing a squat jump. That's awesome. That's something now that I can work on being more explosive and all that and I can add, I can add weight to it, but also, you know, keep it safe on the joint. Well, actually, here's another way you can use bands from a correctional standpoint. I'll give you a great example. Here's the wrong way to use a band or in this particular case, somebody was using a small, like a small fisiobal,

but a really small one, like the size of a soccer ball. Lady was squatting. I saw a trainer actually do this. Lady was squatting and her knees would add duck. What that means is her knees would cave in, okay, they'd come into each other while the lady was squatting. This is a common muscle imbalance, you'll see.

So what does this trainer do? He puts a rubber ball between your legs to keep them straight. This is the wrong way to use a tool like that because she's gonna be squeezing against them all and getting worse. She's already adducting. Why the fuck do you want her to?

Because this squeeze and add up and focus on that. Because this ass hat thought, I'm gonna keep her legs straight by placing a ball in between her legs. I keep some straight instead of, yeah. Right. No, no, this is the... Promoting the same recruitment pattern. Idiot, yeah.

So the way you would actually fix your knees from traveling in to each other while squatting is you don't put something in between your legs. You put something around your legs and press out against it as you squat. So another way to use bands. If you find your knees doing funny things, like I have a client, I got a gentleman I've been training for a while now, and we had a really, really big imbalance between the right and left side. And what would happen is once we'd go heavy, as he would go low, his hips would shoot to the right, and his left knee would come out to the left.

And it was anytime we'd started to go particularly heavy for him. So what I did is I attached a band around his waist and I attached it to the left side, excuse me, to the right side of the cage and I attached a band around his left knee to the left side of the cage. And so as he squatted, he had to maintain tension on the band with his hips by pulling him out to the left

and pulling the knee into the right. And as we did these squats this way, we correct his form, take the bands off weeks later and now he can squat. Right, and the same thing along those lines, but then I would have just work on the corrective strengthening. So I would put the band attached like that and then we'd work on the abduction.

Of course. So you build that strength in order to offset somewhat, you know, what, you know, to compensate for that. Of course. So, but yeah, you know, that's a smart way to do that and then still have them squat and have good form. That's what I'm trying to do.

I was trying to teach that that exercise too is his body and his brain within a particular way. But these are all advanced, you know, somewhat advanced techniques, but, you know, use them. I mean, you're listening to what we're saying here. You know, get those bands out, bring them to the gym. A lot of our listeners are pretty much on that status, you know, they're getting to that point where now,

you know, they need something else. They need something to kind of catapult them into the next level. So I will say, you know, bands and chains have very different feel. A chains, chains are more grinding. They're more, I find chains to be more stressful on the body and bands to be more recuperative on the body

when you add them to the bar. So based upon how you feel, if I'm feeling especially strong and I just wanna push myself harder. I'll use a chain. If I'm feeling like, I don't know if I'm, I feel strong, but I feel like I should probably take a little easier on my joints, but I want to kind of overload myself a little bit than I'll use bands.

Yeah. Well, it's the most natural because like bands are, or like they emulate that strength curve. And they're just smooth. Yeah. It's the most smooth kind of sensation with that. Anything, there hasn't been anything else other than maybe a mechanized version of that. You know, that's an invention that, you know, nobody really has done it in a solid way yet.

But that basically, you know, it makes such a difference. Like, it's such a, it's something that, like, people need to consider for sure. It,. It bands really help to enhance you and get you to the next level. Now I got a question for Justin because I know a lot of times when Adam's here, you don't get a lot of airtime. Yeah. And apparently we're not funny anymore when it's just you and me. Dude, so we went to the... Let's talk about poop jokes and farts and stuff., so we went to the let's talk about like poop jokes and Farts, dude, we went to we went to some event we went to some event and I'm not gonna call this person out

I know I know she's listening and She meet she's she's meet us. I think that's the first time she's ever met me in Justin if I'm not mistaken probably or second And she comes up to us. I swore to guys like the third sentence out of her mouth She says like a couple things. Hey, how you doing? Nice to meet you. Third sentence out of her mouth. Yeah, the show without Adam was really fucking boring. Like this is exactly what she says to us.

Yeah, no, he's boring. I'm like, uh, well, man. We're just gonna walk over here. Talk to someone else. I'm gonna go get a taco. So anyway, let's continue on with this boring episode. Yeah, let's let's bore everyone to death To death so everyone to death

Damn it. I'm gonna fucking bore you today. Hey Doug. I want you to send some of these clips of Justin singing to You know, American Idol. Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever because I think we've got some voice We got something on here. There you go. I'd probably be known for my voice and not my body. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's gonna be hard, Justin. It's, it's, it is hard, if you know what I mean. It's very hard.

So what's, I want to ask you about this, because you're a performance guy. Yep. So how long do you last in bed, and I'm just kidding. What? Oh, I want you to explain play with metrics. Yeah. We have not talked about play with each other. we have not talked about play on metrics at all.

We have not talked about play on metrics. We have not really talked about conditioning. None of the stuff. This is all irrelevant on our part. It is, and I'm gonna be honest, I am not super well versed in play on metrics. Okay. And I know it sounds like I talk a lot about everything,

but I don't talk about things I don't know a lot about because I don't wanna come don't talk about things I don't know a lot about because I don't wanna come across as being a blowhard or pompous or all the things I am. So, check, check, check. So, tell us about plyometrics. How, first of all, what do they do? What do they benefit?

Okay, so I don't use them. Okay, here's one of my pet peeves. People that do plyometrics primarily for conditioning, which is very popular and sensationalized because of CrossFit and because of all these things because they're hard, right? And so, everybody wants to do burpees, everybody wants to do these squat jumps and they want to do box jumps and they're using it for conditioning. What do you mean by conditioning? Conditioning means like they're doing them to fatigue. To fatigue just to wear you out.

Yeah. And that's my issue because I don't use them right? No. No, I don't use them that way at all. I mean, granted I was guilty of that at some point, just because, just because it's it's people like that. They like you know New exercises and they want to try they see someone so doing this But then it was like no, you know, this is this is power now power We're talking about explosive movement and we're talking about ground forces and we're talking about

Driving into the ground exploding through getting a like a really fast twitch response and that means less time on the ground, exploding through, getting a really fast twitch response. And that means less time on the ground. And so with plyometrics, that's what we're trying to train for. We're trying to train for this, this, is it safe to say speed of contraction or speed of force? Right. Okay. So speed of forces. It makes perfect sense that doing it to fatigue is literally is retarded. Yeah, stupid You if you if you try to because you can't you're not gonna be able to generate lots of power No, it gets sloppy. So you just end up doing just getting tired. It's that's it You just you just end up looking like one of those I'm just gonna hammer cross it because I have to it's's like, you know, this is like, they've converted,

they've taken extrapolated all these concepts from athletics and, you know, gymnastics and blah, blah, everything crossed the board. And just done them to fatigue. And just do everything to fatigue. And it's so frustrating. So let me explain, let me use another analogy because people might be having trouble understanding this.

Okay. If you're lifting weights to build muscle and strength, the best way to do it, and I'm going to use a very general explanation, the best way to do it is to do straight sets. I do a set of 10 reps, I rest. I do a set of 10 reps, I rest. This is common knowledge now. Now, if I do bench press to fatigue,

or I'm working my chest to fatigue, then I'm doing bench press and I'm going straight to pushups and I'm going straight to a ball throw. Right. You're cutting out your intervals of rest. Yeah, I'm doing a circuit. Right. I'm getting really tired and I'm sweating my ass off, but I'm not going to build lots of strength and muscle.

And why would you want to do that? Mainly to cut fat. Right. Just burn calories. Yeah, burn calories. Right. So, and not even cut fat because we also know that it's trained strategically with resistance training, you'll burn more body fat in the long term by building muscle and getting stronger. So that's an example there.

Now with plyometrics, same thing. If you want to build, increase your power, your speed of contraction, your power off the ground or whatever, then it needs to be used in a specific way. If you do it to fatigue, then all you're gonna get is endurance. Am I accurate? Yeah, exactly. Okay.

That's exactly like what you're promoting. So you're promoting endurance. Endurance, like in muscle endurance, in terms of like for some reason, like I guess this is where that whole metcon Thing came from with the cross it was like they're they're conditioning is more based off of like, you know muscle Yeah muscle endurance which it's fine if your goal is is muscle endurance, but I'll I'll tell you something right now straight up There's a better there's better ways to get muscle endurance and to do plyometrics to fatigue. Right. It's safer ways.

Well, and that's just the thing. It's not, it's, here's a thing. Okay, so there's tears of training, right? You know, there's stability, there's... Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training.

Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. Tears of training. into max strength phase, you work your way up this totem pole up to get to power, okay?

Power is at the pinnacle. Power is something that now we're taking what we've built as our foundation and we're trying to recruit that as quickly as possible and use it. Now would you say it's safe to say then that power is really should only be reserved for either really advanced clients or Athletes. Yes, otherwise don't waste your time with it. Yes, and this is this is the difference

This is one of the things I'm highlighting right now as I'm as I'm Writing this program out to in addition to the maps program because the maps Provides, you know, everything you need for foundation. It provides a strength that provides, you know, the, the periodization, you know, hypertrophy, which hypertrophy is great even for athletes. For everybody. You know, it's for anybody. However, you know, there is an element of power in coordination and just that, that overall recruitment that you need quickly, right?

So you have to train the body differently to get that. And that's very specific to athletes and people who want to perform at that level. Right. And the other thing is too, like as you do that, there's more rest period, you know, involved. There's more. So give me an example of a plyometric, like I want to use the box, do the box jump. How would someone use it to build, to increase their power? So if I'm just going to focus on the actual mechanics and the movement of it, I'm focusing on one rap at a time, I'm just driving down as hard as I can and exploding my way through it.

So you'll do that one big jump. That one big jump. And then are you resting and waiting to, before you do the next one to perfect it? Yeah. That's what I do, you know, to start, right? And so, yeah, really, really, if I get into variations of that, I could do, I could do, it would be less of a box jump. It'd be more of like a, like a frog jump or not a frog jump. One of the explosive squat jumps in place. What I'm focusing on is just keeping less time on the ground as possible.

I'm trying to get the response that I need to rebound those forces and power me back up as quickly as possible. So it's the same thing. You know, why somebody is faster than somebody else when they're running is because the amount of steps they took and the amount of time their feet were on the ground was less. Well, this is important because strength definitely contributes to speed. However, you will find, I could get 10 guys that can out squat 10 sprinters

and they're not gonna come close to how fast they are. So it's really, there's a lot of factors coming to play. But here's a question I have because we have a lot of listeners who are really primarily interested in changing the way they look and getting stronger, more of the traditional type stuff. Can plyometrics be utilized? Do you think to enhance muscle building?

And of course, we're talking about people who are advanced. You can, okay. Yeah, I think people could benefit from it. It really intensifies it near a muscular connection, right? Very good. Yeah, so you're just stimulating that pathway at a very high rate. And so this is something that, you know, anybody could benefit from that if now you take that into the strength phase and you're going to get that response, probably I'm assuming a lot quicker.

And, you know, the way you get through that connection builds, maybe you have, you know, a better recruitment pattern going into it. Now, you get stronger, and then you kind of build your way back into that response. Now, I'm using that strength that I've built at a really accelerated pace. So, it's like, you know, slow and fast pace. Now, I do recall reading about how people would use plyometrics as a superset to a strength move. So in other words, they would do, let's say I'm doing, I'm gonna do a bench press. I would go five jump pushups,

not to fatigue, just boom, boom, boom, boom, explode and then go right to the bench press. And I believe the theory was that you were able to access more muscle fibers and get more of that central nervous system adaptation. Yeah, is that you're trying to tap into the central nervous system adaptation? Yeah, okay. Yeah, you're trying to channel that, you know, into your strength. So you would do before the strength lift Not after again, because then you'd be fatigued, right? You would be totally okay. Yeah, well exactly and that's that's one of the biggest Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that's one of the biggest issues I have is that fatigue,

you don't want fatigue as a component into your power exercise. And especially when we're talking about barbell, you know, Olympic lifts, things like that. That was always my big problem. Oh, you don't want to go into that fatigue. No, you don't do a bad idea. No, you do Olympic lifts and fatigue-based programming.

It's just that you're, you are, you're not just asking for trouble, you're begging for trouble. You're literally like praying to the injury gods and saying, you can kind of get away with being fatigue going into strength, base training or hypertrophy, but you just cannot do that in power.

Because, I mean, the demand alone to create the movement that you need at that fast of a pace requires everything to work simultaneously at 100% and so now if you if you have fatigue you're not at 100% right so that response is going to be nil right what's the point what are you trying to do? So this is an interesting, so I'm gonna try experimenting a little bit with some plyometric stuff, and so I'll be consulting with you a little bit,

because I wanna see what it does for me in terms of my traditional strength, and in terms of building any additional muscle, because I have historically, I've done plyometric type training in the past when I used to compete in like a training in jiu-jitsu and in judo Mm-hmm I would throw it in here and there, but I was never it was never something that I

Truly incorporated that was unique. Yeah, but yeah You've got now three three pretty advanced techniques that you you can utilize as part of your training You've got bands chains plyometrics, right? Is there anything else Justin you can think of that might be something? I'm thinking supersets. In my mind, and this is a little bit more bodybuilding-ish, but supersets can be utilized in really unique effective ways. One of my favorite ways we've talked about this before, but to use a superset is to increase

the mind and muscle connection. Adam will like that. He loves that word. Bring him back the mind and muscle connection. Adam will like that. We just love that word. Bring him back. Mind and muscle connection. Of a muscle that you have a particularly tough time feeling during exercises. So like, I'll use a really common example. The lats.

A lot of people, especially beginners and intermediates, just don't feel their lats. When they do pull ups, pull downs, rows, or any other back exercise, they just have trouble feeling their lats. And I personally can remember the very first time I got a pump in my lats. It was years after I started training. Oh, same here. I mean, it was weird.

And it was weird. It was weird, like, oh, shit, my lats, that's what they are. So one way that I've done this with clients to help them get that connection to the lats is I'll do an isolation movement first, straight to a compound movement. So that's the supersets called the pre-exhaust supersets. So an example we'll stick with the back or the lats again is I'll have them do either a dumbbell pullover or a straight arm pulldown. Get the lats fatigued and they go straight to a pulldown, a pullup, or a row.

We're now utilizing other muscles, but they can feel the lats. They're already fatigued. They can feel them contracting. Now, you use the pullover because you're also combining it with the triceps as part of that. That way, you can not fatigue the pairing of the bicep. You can do it that way or there's also very effective pullover machines at the gym where the pad is under your elbow

and it almost takes out, it kind of de-emphasizes the triceps in that. But yeah, I'm not trying to use the biceps. You know, same thing with chest. If I wanna, if I wanna get that mind and muscle connection in my chest, I would do a fly. Yeah, to a bench press. To a bench press. I with chest. If I want to get that mind and muscle connection to my chest, I would do a fly. Yeah, to a man to a bench. I got this is all in phase three of the math program. By the way, this is what that's all stuff that's in there. Now the side effect of this is the pump is ridiculous. It's stupid. You get such a silly pump.

You get like doing this hard to move. Here's another good one. Okay. Here's the common one that I have people do is I'll have them do like a sissy squat or a leg extension straight to a squat to get their quads all pumped and crazy. But the mind of muscle connection that's missing for a lot of people is usually the hamstrings when they squat. Very few people will feel the hamstrings. So what I'll have someone do sometimes is I'll have someone do a hamstring exercise, an isolation movement like a leg curl or a very very light, you know, bridge out on a physical ball or leg curl on a physical ball, straight to a barbell squat. However, you got to be very careful to make sure you sit back because if the hamstrings get too

fatigued, you start to move too far forward in your squat. And then all of a sudden, people like my hamstrings got pumped from doing squats, which is for a lot of people who's rare when they do squats, they don't get a pump and they're sick. I would do something similar, but for the most part, well, a lot of people that I've trained with the squat too, they feel quads initially, it's very anterior. And so I try to do something similar to that, but more glute-based, right? So that way I can kind of focus the attention a little bit more in that area. And then do an isolating, glute exercise and then throw them over onto the squat.

Exactly. And of course you got to make sure your form is like. Which was a lot of times like a lateral two band or walk or something like that. Bands are great, man. It just fires them up. Bands are great. That's one of the reasons why I originally recommended people use bands for the trigger sessions. And for those of you that aren't familiar with the MAPS program, a trigger session is a very, very light muscle stimulating

session, it lasts about five to eight minutes, that you might do several times a day on your off days. They're not intense, they're designed. You don't want to do it 100% of fatigue. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's super light. All you're trying to do is get a little pump, a little burn, but you're just sending the signal to the muscle and kind of boosting what happened the day before when you did your heavy workout. But the reason why I tell people to use bands, aside from the fact that they're convenient, is that bands don't damage muscle very much because of that variable resistance.

So that's a benefit that they have. It's not a detriment. Now, your whole workout is bands, you're not gonna build much muscle. But if you add them to your regular routine, it will change things up and it doesn't damage you that much. That's the best part. One of the problems I have a lot of times

with programs that throw lots of new techniques in is that you're limited by your body's ability to recover. So you can't just throw a bunch of shit at your program, be like, oh, I'm gonna do plyometrics, I'm gonna do heavy negatives, I'm gonna do slow negatives, I'm gonna do all these different things. And then try and split it all up

like you're hitting this opposite group, even though everything simultaneously is working together. Right. And then you're screwed because your body, your body can't repair in time. Right. But bands, because they don't really damage you, you can add them to a routine,

and you'll get more muscle stimulation than you will damage. And it's not much, but when you add it to your regular routine, it becomes like a turbo boost. Right. Yeah, it charges you going into, you know, in the next day. Oh, I noticed a big difference when, you know, Doug, we talked about this so many times when we were first testing out some of these theories, you know, a few years ago. I mean, what do you notice when you don't do your trigger sessions?

Well, for one, I'm just not growing as fast. It's wild, right? Yeah. Bring it in the trigger sessions on those off days really does give you that extra boost. Yeah, it's like, do you notice, and I notice one of the first, also, a fat burning effect from it.

Oh yeah. Absolutely. And you don't burn many calories doing it, it's light. So the only theory I have is that you must be just, really sending those signals to the body. Anabolic, baby. Well, one of the things we were doing before, we don't so much anymore,

is call them anabolic triggering sessions. That's actually the first, the full name. The full name is anabolic triggering sessions. ATS. And it's another way to get that anabolic signal to your body on those off days. So if you're anabolic more, what's gonna happen? Yeah, you're gonna burn more fat,

you're gonna build more muscle. Yeah, so bands are fantastic for that. By the way, maps is available at mindpumpradio.com. Just want to say that before I forgot. One other thing, Justin, negatives, I just brought that up. Oh, right, right. Negative, so eccentric training.

Heavy negatives. I have yet to find a way to be able to utilize this without workout partners. That's the only thing I can think about. That's the bad part about it. But do you have any techniques, or? I mean, yeah, like you said, partners is a good idea because you don't wanna take on that.

You're gonna get yourself stuck, right? You don't want that. I mean, as much as you want to do negatives with bands, it's kind of weird and kind of productive. Yeah, it doesn't work. In my opinion, I've seen guys try and do that and duplicate, not having to work out partner with you. And you know, there's some machines,

maybe you could get away with it, and I'm not a big, you know, proponent of machines at all. Like, I never do it. I've seen one, I've seen one type of machine, and then I don't see them at any gyms I work out at anymore. So, but basically the muscles, there's three types of contractions. There's the shortening of the muscle

that's when you're flexing. And then the lengthening when you're lowering the weight, and then of course when you hold the weight, you're much stronger lowering the weight than you are with things. Which concentric, isometric, eccentric, yeah, those are. And you can lower a lot more weight than you are with things. Which concentric, isometric, ecentric, etc. And you can lower a lot more weight than you can lift

and you can take advantage of this by putting a really heavy load and just lowering the weight. Now by yourself, the only way I've ever been able to do this by myself, because what you would do with a partner is you would, you would have them take weight, you would have them take weight. So what you would do is you take a heavy ass weight,

let's say I'm gonna squat, and let's say I have three hundred and 25 pounds on. I'll lower down into the bottom of the squat, and then my workout partners would take the weight off, some weight off, and then I'll come up, then they'll add the weight, and then I go down, and then they'll take weight off, and I come up. So you'll need two workout partners.

The only way I've ever been able to do this on my own is with heavy singles. And the what I would do is I would, I'd set the safeties in a squat rack so that the bar I can lower the bar down to the bottom and leave them on the safety. Oh yeah, you got safeties. Yeah, that's a good idea. So what I'll do is I'll walk out with a super ass heavy weight that I know I can't lift that I can't lift for one, but I know I can lower. And I'll back out of the cage, and then I'll go down really slow and control with heavy ass weight until I hit the safeties,

and then I'll leave what the safety's there, and then I'll kind of crawl out. That's the only way I've been able to use the same thing with a bench press. Yeah, you know what else I was thinking? Like, I mean, there's ways that if I'm doing a power move and I need to work on specific elements of it, right? So I wanna break down this lift into multiple items.

For instance, if I'm doing a power clean, one of the first things I want to focus on is my angles and how I'm pulling it off the ground properly. The next thing is the pulling part of it. So I'm trying to get this like really quick response that I'm driving my feet into the ground and then pulling. And so we call this like the high pull. So I'm pulling it up high up towards my chin. And that's that that's that initial bit you need to to really focus on pounding and pulling is as quickly as possible. Pounding and pulling.

Yeah, man. It sounds like a gang bag. It's a god. All right. Yeah. You must have gone on Doug's history. I'm just getting to the computer. So, but yeah, so then you get into like, you know, the catch.

And what is the catch? And like, you know, how can I break that down? You know, in like, front loaded spots. I am so glad you're bringing this up because people who lift weights to look a certain way, you know, physique, bodybuilder, or presentation. They would never even have thought of this. No, life.

They break down workouts based on how they look. Athletes and performance-based individuals break down lifts. They break down lifts into components and segments. The same way a bodybuilder would break down the body into body parts. Let me tell you why that would benefit. Let me break down why that would benefit, why each side would benefit each other. If you're an athlete, a lifting athlete, you're breaking down your lifts, but you're not focusing on perhaps how you look in terms of muscle development.

There might be something to be gained by saying, you know what, it's weird I'm doing those bench press, but I noticed my upper chest seems really undeveloped, even though my bench press is strong, I'm gonna try developing my upper chest and see what happens, and they might get some more strength out of it. On the flip side, the physique presentation athlete,

or somebody just focused on how they look, let me tell you something, when you perfect those big gross motor movements, when you perfect a squat and you break it down and I'm weakest at the bottom. So I'm going to find a way to get stronger at the bottom by pausing at the bottom or by using a band or by doing a heavy negative or whatever. You're going to build more muscle. You're just your body's going to build more muscle.

So it behooves you. I love that word. Yeah. It behooves you. I love that word. Yeah. Behooves. Behooves. It behooves you to break down your workout, not just in body parts and how you look, but break down your lifts. Break those lifts down, master them, train certain lifts, not all of them. You know, if you're not an athlete, a competitor in terms of performance, don't do this on everything. but pick your big lifts, like your bench, your deadlift, your squat,

your overhead press, break those down. Break them down into segments, find out your weaknesses, get stronger in those weaknesses, and the portion of the lift, or your lockout at the bottom, your stability, your grip, whatever. Yeah, now you just brought up another one. Maximize those and watch the muscle you built from it.

Yeah, whatever you bring up. Oh, just brought up another one. Maximize those and watch the muscle you built from it. Yeah, what do I bring up? Oh, you brought up stability. Yeah, this is something else we don't ever talk about here because that's not... Well, what is stability? Explain that because... Stability, it's just a way to overcome an unstable and balanced environment. So whether it's from you know, from me standing

on one leg or or standing on an uneven surface or having, having like other forces that you have to account for. So why is that important in terms of athletics? Because guess what? People are going to try and push you over. Yeah, nothing's linear. Nothing's linear. Absolutely. It's so, it's so much more complex. Now, would it be safe to say just in that stability, just to get down to the basic, would be like being able to balance a weight above my head, just hold it up there and balance it. Is that a form of stability? Yeah. Okay. So it could totally benefit everybody. Yeah. Well, that's why we we're bigger fans of free weights, right? Yeah. because you're still training your body to

account for these gravitational forces and these ways of controlling and manipulating and and using the weights You know and being able to to keep form and keep your body in supported. So really it's about it's about supporting your body in movement. Okay, that's what stability is. So for those of you who think we're advocating doing squats on a fisioball with all that. Yeah, you know, that's taking it too far. Yeah, that's that's going too far. Yeah. But I'll give you an, you know, I've seen lots of people who can bench press a heavy weight, but the weight is all over the place. And they should lighten the load and focus on

being able to do the weight in a stable way because you're gonna build more muscle doing it that way. Then you are just all over the place. Actually, when I train young athletes, this is such an issue. Like they'll lift a super lightweight that they can lift, but their arm is freaking all over the place and it, you know, looks like they, you know, they have a-

Yeah, they need that, well, yeah. They need that, that weight to sort of weigh them down and keep them in check too. Yeah, at times, yeah. No, those are all important components, so, um, that's it, man. I'm glad we covered some of this stuff. Yeah.

I feel so vindicated. Justin, talk about it. Yes, what, guys? He knows a lot of shit. Yeah, I this stuff. Yeah, I feel so vindicated. Justin talked about, yes what guys. He knows a lot of shit. Yeah, I know stuff and it's not just all about biceps and fucking abs and hey look at my quads. It's like hey, let's use our muscles now. Oh, hey dude, you got big ass quads bro. I want you to post a picture of those fucking gams that you got there. I'll let my turtle know out of it. Oh, yeah. Your legs, bro.

Listen, just your legs. Hey, start peeing like that, those. Oh, out the bottom of the pit. Yeah, like that's so gangster. Yeah, I got to feed them. So listen, if you're a, please, if you like our show, subscribe to it. And don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes.

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