Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1530: Why Warm-Ups Are a Waste of Time

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss why traditional warm-ups are an inferior way to prepare for a workout and what you should do instead. How the guys were sold on the 10-minute warm-up as young personal trainers. (1:41)         The moment the guy's minds were blown on what a warm-up ACTUALLY does. (5:13)         Why you don’t hurt yourself from a movement you OWN. (8:28)         The importance of stretching with PURPOSE. (12:21)         The benefits and challenges of foam rolling. (15:16)         What a proper warm-up SHOULD do for you. (17:57)         The extreme value of MAPS Prime. (23:20)         Instability versus stability. The problems in the fitness space and with scientific studies. (26:46)         Don’t blame your morphology! (33:49)         Why proper priming needs a better sales pitch. (37:08)         The value and intent of the MAPS Prime Webinar. (40:49)         The beauty of priming. (42:33) Related Links/Products Mentioned       FLASH SALE: MAPS Prime 50% off till Wednesday, April 14th!! **Promo code “PRIME50OFF” at checkout         Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners!       Come learn restorative exercise from Dr. Ed Thomas, professor and physical culture historian       Is Warming Up Before A Workout Necessary? - Mind Pump Blog       Which is Best - Mobility or Stretching? - Mind Pump Blog       What to Do If Your Joints Are Hypermobile – Mind Pump Podcast       Available for Pre-Order TODAY! – The Resistance Training Revolution – Book by Sal Di Stefano       Correcting Upper Cross Syndrome to Improve Posture & Health-- Prone Cobra – MIND PUMP TV       MAPS Prime Webinar       Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube       Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned         Justin Brink DC (@dr.justinbrink)  Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is MindPump. Now, in today's episode, we talk about warm-ups and why they're a total waste of time. But don't fret, we give you a replacement, we tell you what you should do. Instead of a warmup, to reduce risk of injury and actually

get stronger and give you better results, by the way, in this episode, we reference maps prime. So if you're interested in getting it, if you don't have maps prime, we're going to give you 50% off right now. This is a flash sale. It will not last. It's only going on until Wednesday. Go to mapsprime.com. Use the code prime 50 off. That's prime 50 off with no space to get that discount. Also, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Zbiotics. Zbiotics makes genetically modified beverages that you drink before you drink alcohol to reduce the negative effects that alcohol produces. This stuff actually works by the way, just a little footnote here. The demand has been super high for Z-biotics. They're blowing

it out. They're going crazy, and they've went sold out last month. However, they are accepting pre-orders, and they have new shipments coming in very, very soon. So you can go on their website, zbiotics.com forward slash mine pump, and get a pre-order. So as soon as it comes in, you get your shipment of Zbiotics. All right, enjoy the podcast.

We've been doing this for a long time, and every so often, you get your, you just, everything you think gets flipped on its head. Yeah, but there's one thing in particular I can think about and I wonder if you guys are the same that just Just the come such a crazy complete reversal in flip Actually, let me see if you guys are saying what what's one of the biggest changes you've made in how you look at Training over the last I don't know, 15, 20 years. Oh my God, bro.

That's so vague. Can you give me, can you take me closer to where you want to go? Yeah, we're like, you did, you thought of a value of something, you did a particular thing, and then you learned something else, you're like, Oh, well, I'll tell you one of the most, okay, so I got one for you. And it's recent, right?

Okay. Relatally recent. Since the podcast. I want to see if it's the same one. Phone rolling before I work out. That was something that I didn't do. I did thought, whoa, what a huge difference this was doing and became like a ritual.

Like that's how I started every workout. I spent a good 10 to 15 minutes phone rolling before applying it to everyone of your clients after. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I know 100% guilty of that. Even up to when we started the show, when we first started the show, I was still phone rolling. It wasn't until I met Brink, Justin Brink, Dr. Brink, did he move me away from that and move me into the direction of more like mobility and priming stuff. That was the biggest switch.

Yeah, that's specific. Generally speaking, for me, it was warm-ups. My idea around warm-ups completely shifted later on in my career, right? So when I was a trained for a long time, I would get people clients and I'd have them warm-up on a little cardio, right? Get the heart rate up and warm the body up. Maybe some light type of stretching, foam rolling with another one.

Now is it true? Truth be told, it was a little bit of that, so you had an extra 10 minutes to go eat your food in the back. That guarantee that's part of it. That was the added value. I'm like, I got enough time to get a Starbucks coffee. I just keep moving.

I really think a lot of us trainers. You're calling everybody else. I am. I am. I think we all kind of justify that because when you run, when you're going client-factor back. Yeah, when you run at 8, 10 hour day, and you're hitting them all by the, on the hour.

Yeah, you're on all day. Yeah, there's no break. Nothing. There's no break. So you literally have, and sometimes you secretly are praying for a client to be late. So you have the opportunity to shovel some food down, right, or go get a coffee really quick.

So the 10 minute warmup on the elliptical or whatever. I had some clients mess that up because I would have everybody warm up on cardio. First of all, we were taught that. We were taught, get the heart rate up, warm up the body, reduces risk of injury, blah, blah, blah. We're gonna get into more sold that. We're gonna get into why that's almost completely crap, bullshit.

But we bought into it, and then, of course, like you said, Adam, it was great because it bought you 10 minutes, but then I would have clients that would ruin the whole thing, where their appointment was, let's say, a 5 p.m. They came in early. They come in early to the warm-up, so they're ready by, you know, the time that it's time to trade. I was like, ah!

You know who always did that? I don't get the time to do it. You want to know it's funny. You know what clients always did that? It time to trade. I was like, ah! You know who always did that? I don't get time to do it. You know what, clients always did that. It was not my clients that were highly motivated. It was the ones that were like the penny pinchers. And they were like, okay, I'm paying this guy $80 an hour. That means I get 60 minutes. If I spend 10 minutes on this elliptical, this is silly.

I want to squeeze everything out of this. Yes, those were the clients that were smart and would come in early. It was not the ones like, oh, I want to put the extra work in or I need to do this. It was like, I'm paying this, dude, for, I'm gonna come in here before this. Yeah, now here's where my mind started to get blown.

It was understanding what warmups really do. So what we're taught is they warm up the muscles, right? So warm tissues, more elasticity, the tissue, that kind of stuff. Yeah, warm tissues are more elastic and pliable. And they even gave me this example. They said, imagine you have a rubber band and you put it in the freezer, right? You can't stretch it out very much, it's snapped.

But if you put it in the, if you warm it up, it's much more. So I literally thought of muscles like that. I literally told people that. Yeah, that they're like rubber bands. This is actually not true. The reality is what makes the muscle pliable or not or whatever is your central nervous system. The reality is a warmup is not warming up the muscles.

It's getting the CNS to start to fire and function in a way that is beneficial. When you understand that, then you look at your warmups completely different. No one really communicated the CNS very well to me. It was an every certification, every book we had to read, but it was always a daunting chapter that I never enjoyed, and I never really learned how to apply to clients

till much later. Yes, yeah. I feel like, yeah, this is definitely an area where I adjusted my training completely as well as like addressing the feet feet and ankles too. That was one of those things that like, none of our certifications did a good job of addressing. Yeah, no, no, Billy.

Yeah, if you took, like if I took my bicep off my body, if I peeled it off and threw on the floor, it's just, it's dumb by itself. It'll have a certain amount of, you know, stretch to it. It's not, it's not doing anything, it's just sitting there. If I have a tight hamstring and I tear it out, it's not tight anymore because I tore it off my body and now it's on the floor.

It seems pretty flexible. In fact, if you talk to, so I used to train a lot of surgeons and doctors, and when people are under anesthesia, they would always comment how remarkably flexible they were, right? Cause the C and S is dampened and shut down. So what makes a muscle do anything,

whether it's be tight or contract or relax or stretch, is the central nervous system. So, to give you an example, if, let's say you go to stretch your hamstring, so you go to a toe, you go to touch your toes. And the furthest you can get initially is where your fingertips barely touch your foot. Now, if you stretch and you hold that stretch for 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes, you will find that eventually within a minute,

you'll be able to go down further past where you could go before. And now you've added, you know, three, four, five, or six inches of range of motion. Now what didn't happen was your hamstrings change. In other words, the hamstrings themselves, they didn't get longer or more elastic. No, they didn't change at all.

The difference was the central nervous system relaxed. Told the hamstrings, okay, we're okay here, we're safe, stretch, stretch, stretch. So really warmups are all about the CNS and have very little to do with muscle. Well, a lot of our limitations are a factor of what we call the overbearing mother.

It's basically limiting you for a reason because it feels like there's instability there. There's low support. That being able to channel the central nervous system to support those joints and provide that kind of stability allows you then to go even further you know, anglic. Right. And so the promise of warmups in the past was to reduce the risk of injury. So if you warm up properly, you're less likely to pull a muscle or tear a muscle or hurt your joint or whatever. That was the promise. Now, did they actually deliver maybe? Depends on how you did the warm up, but they delivered very little.

They didn't do much at all in terms of promising that delivery. In fact, there were studies that showed that the traditional ways, and I remember learning this, to traditional ways people warmed up for a long time, like static stretching, actually increased the risk of injury. Now, you might ask yourself, why is that? Why is it that static stretching before workouts

or warming up wrong is worse than not? Well, you just alluded to it, right? You said that what happens after you do a static stretch for 30 seconds, you tell the CNS tells the muscle to relax, to relax. Not protecting his muscles. That's right. It's not, it's relaxed, and then you go into a workout and potentially something like a cross fit or explosive type of a workout where you need to call upon that muscle and you want it to respond fast. And you just got that signal to say relax, calm down. That's their conflicting signals. Right.

Or the danger or the risk is that. Or you move in a range of motion, you don't own. And then you hurt yourself. So where does the injury come from? Okay, injury comes from weakness. And injuries come from weakness. Now, some people might be thinking, well, I know super strong power lifters and body builders

that hurt themselves. Yes, that's true. But they were weak at one particular point, whether it be stability or an arrange of motion that it can keep in the chain somewhere. Right, and that's where the injury happened. So what a warmup should do is improve your strength and your function. That's what reduces the risk of injury.

Not necessarily increasing range of motion or just making your body feel warm, but rather getting the central nervous system to fire more efficiently, more effectively and to be stronger because you don't hurt yourself in a movement that you own. That's the bottom line. If you own this squat, if you own the deadlift, if you own a fast twist or throwing a baseball, if you own the movement from beginning to end acceleration to deceleration, stability, the whole thing, if you own it, you're not going to get hurt.

It's when you don't own the movement that you injure yourself. So what a warm-up should do is get you closer to owning more of the movement in order to prevent injury. If you can't generate any force in whatever position you're in, you're going to leave yourself susceptible to some kind of an injury. And so to be able to work on that and be able to address those weak points in the chain is going to be crucial for, you know, work on that and be able to address those weak, weak points in the chain is going to be crucial for you to have long-term success. And this is really the only thing that makes heavy-low dangerous. It's not owning the movement.

Of course. This idea of like, oh, heavy weight, heavy squatting is bad for the knees, or it's this exercise is dangerous. It's only dangerous. It's only bad for the knees or it's this exercise is dangerous. It's only dangerous. It's only bad for the knees if you don't own that movement. You don't own that range of motion. You haven't done the prerequisites to be able to do that. Then when you load something, they're more likely to move out of that range and injure

yourself. But if you do a good job of actually priming the body and owning that movement, then you're less likely to get hurt. Look, I could squat 200 pounds very easily. Well, not hurt myself squatting 200 pounds. If I put 200 pounds on my 11 year old daughter's back, she's going to get hurt. Same weight, right? The difference is I can own that weight in that movement and she can't. So really, this is what it all boils down to. And when you realize this and you realize that the paradigm around warm-ups should be getting the central nervous system ready, also known as priming the central nervous system, then

you're going to have much less risk of injury number one, number two, you'll also have a far more effective and efficient workout. A workout that actually gets you better result. Do either of you know the history on like warmups like the whole callus that you remember like when we were kids, do you remember like PE class, getting in the line, the rows, and like the the windmill things that you would do? Like do you guys know the history? I have no idea.

I don't know what the history is. I know it's where where where where did we land on that and where did this become the kind of traditional way everybody wants. Yeah, there's there was a a few pioneers in calisthenics and Dr. Ed Thomas was one of them, but it was all with a lot of intent behind it, which kind of got lost in the weeds. I think that it just got distorted

once it made its way into schools. And they saw, I'm trying to mimic certain movements and arm circles and things, but there was no real intention behind it. It was just aimless. That's such a good point because this was something I always had a hard time communicating to clients and because it almost comes off like we're anti-stretching,

right? Well, there's value to it. Yeah, it's very similar to I feel like when we communicate cardio, right? People think we're anti-cardio because really what it is is, and I tell my clients is we have to learn to stretch with purpose. So there is a lot of value in stretching and static stretching, but knowing what you're

stretching and why you're stretching it is extremely important and when to do that. Right. And there are certain places to do a static stretch and there are certain places it doesn't belong. Right, because if you have instability within your normal range of motion, let's say you have a little bit of instability and within your squat or whatever. And then we just give you more range of motion. We just say, here you go,

which statics dressing we'll do in a short period of time, give you more range of motion, but not increasing any strength or stability, we've actually made a situation worse. What ends up happening? So statics stretching definitely has a place. It's to increase range of motion, but you need to connect to that range of motion.

And so the way we've warmed up in the past was almost a waste of time. Now, the traditional warm-ups of getting on cardio, for example, it's a little better than nothing because will that turn on your central nervous system more than just coming, driving to the gym and then walking and then starting to work out? Well, yeah, you're gonna get more of a central nervous system turn on

from walking on the treadmill, going elliptical, then you are from just going straight to the workout. A little bit more, but not a whole lot more. Well, there's definitely value in prepping the body for intense movement and intense loading of the joints. But there has to be that intent behind it. And so to be more specific to your own needs is something that hasn't been really voiced in the past. And I think that people need to really figure out, like obviously we tried to make this a lot easier in terms of just doing three movements to identify these things, but to really

understand their body more and their needs in terms of where their imbalances lie, what type of exercises will help kind of set them up better for, especially with the compound list, better performance in the gym. Right, now back to foam rolling, like what does foam rolling do? Well, foam rolling can allow you to move in ways that may be beneficial,

and that's where the benefit comes from, right? So, tread lightly here. Right, so if I do a foam roller, and that didn't fix anything, but what it might do is allow me to then do priming movements or exercises in ways that are more beneficial to my body, or at least get to them a little faster.

So foam rolling still has some value, but when I first started foam rolling, I thought that was the value, that was it. Like, oh foam roll, now I can do all these exercises. And what I ended up finding was, I got to the point where I had the foam roll. I could no longer do movements without foam rolling because I never followed it up with movements that made it. Yeah, it kept reoccurring the same pain.

Yeah, you want to make the foam rolling obsolete, essentially. If you use a foam roll or you want to get to the point where you don't need a foam roll anymore, that won't happen unless you do the proper priming in real warmup movements, which I think we'll get into. The challenge with foam rolling was that I think we misunderstood exactly what it was doing for so long. And it was one of those things that you could feel the difference. Oh, yeah, you feel it right away. And so it was really hard to kind of overcome this one also because I think I explained foam

rolling wrong for a very long time. Oh, yeah. I was under the impression that we had these adhesions like scar tissue that was built up over the muscle foam. You're like needing it like bread. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's what we had all these adhesions. This was limiting the range of motion in the muscle and you're going in with these foam rolls.

You're basically breaking those all up and then that's then allowing you to do that. And when you would take somebody, what do they feel? They feel like these knots, and then they would do it, and they would feel looser and better. So it was like, this is what it's doing. Yes, and by the way, those knots in your muscle are there, but they're not there because you have, like a tissue that's stuck or whatever, they're there because, again, the CNS is making it be there. Impressing on it just tells the CNS to relax. That's a focal point.

It is hitting it over the nose. Yeah, your CNS is telling the muscle to kind of be in this light state of tonus. And so when you press on it, you're sending a signal back to the CNS, and then the CNS says, okay, we don't need to be in this state of tonus or what kind of tricks it and cause it to relax. But the tissue itself, and you're not breaking up a... And it's what causes that. Is that just a neurological, like, over application to that area?

Your body is firing more neurons than needed at that area, and that causes the overshared. It's firing what it thinks it's needed, right? So because it's trying to protect it. It's a protective mechanism. Yes, so all this is because your body is trying to keep you from hurting yourself. So it's gonna make you tight and feel pain pain in certain way, limiting your range of motion.

So you don't do things that you don't necessarily have the stability to perform. And so this is where the problem comes in. So you got to solve the root issue. Now what warmups can do for you, if you do them properly, is definitely reduce the risk of injury in a very, very big way. But it does weigh more than that. And this is where I think where I want people to really evaluate what they're doing before their workout, the 10 minutes or 15 minutes before the workout.

A proper warmup increases your functional range of motion. This is very different. I don't care if your body allows you to squat all the way down, if you've got no stability all the way down, don't do that, right? If you go all the way, ask to grasp, you've got no stability, please don't do that because all you're gonna do is potentially hurt yourself

or probably hurt yourself, especially when you add load. What I want is functional range of motion. So you're able to go deeper, but you still own. Useable. Yes, that deeper range of motion. You guys remember the type of client that you got when you first saw this, like when you saw somebody who had like incredible range of motion,

and flexibility, but then they, when they got down in this squat, the knees went all over the place and they were all wobbly like I can remember one woman in particular. Those were difficult. She would come in. That was hard. And she would talk about a lot of pain. And so I was texting her flexibility, because back in those days, I thought, oh, it's because you're tight, right?

And she was hyper flexible, like, folder in half, sit at the way at the bottom, arms, you could touch her elbows behind her back, and I remember thinking, like, what the hell is going on? Luckily, I worked with a really, really good physical therapist and she's like, well, she's hyper, ranges emotion and no strength. She's like a baby. Like, you take a baby you can move all over the place. Super moldable, but yeah, they don't have the strength to get out of these positions. Nothing supporting it. And that's actually

one of the, that's a very high risk of injury under load. So with that person, I had to really focus on getting them to own ranges of motion before we'd move into deeper ranges of motion and make her strong and her pain went away as well. It was all about increasing strength, focus on getting them to own ranges of motion before we move into deeper ranges of motion and make her strong and her pain went away. It was all about increasing strength, her pain. Yeah, it was all about control. Those were difficult for me to deal with. Because for the majority of people, you're trying to open up ranges of motion.

You're trying to unlock because we get so locked into these certain positions because of our daily habits and rituals and whatnot. But, you know, something like that, to be able to slow down and really have and gain control and really add tension and strength. So I would apply a lot more like isometrics. I'd have them stop and really hold and squeeze. And, you know, there's ways to address that. But you really need to work on the ability to ramp up in some in this force that you need to feed

in to strengthen the movement. This was when I was really unaware of the benefits of isometrics when I first had a client like this. That was foreign to me. That's why I struggled a lot. I remember having a handful of clients early on. It's because it's not common. It's not. It's because it's not common. It's not.

It's really rare to see it and you're so used to people being tight all the time. The tight and weak is more common than loose and weak. Yeah, and to see somebody who could actually perform the full range of motion, the exercise, but just is all over the map, you're kind of like, where do I start here with this person? And I didn't understand what was happening in isometrics.

I just thought, I actually thought that was an old methodology of training and that was dead. And we've moved on from that at that point in my career and didn't really understand what you were doing on a neurological level when you're doing isometrics. And that's what that person was lacking and what they needed. So, right.

And so, and here's another thing, proper warm-up is gonna increase the amount of muscle fibers that you activate. Here's one tail, tail sign between a classic crappy warmup and a proper warmup. A classic crappy warmup might make the exercise you do next feel more comfortable, okay? Might do that.

Oh, I can get in and I feel, okay, I don't have pain in my shoulder. That's great. A proper warmup oftentimes you'll feel stronger going into the lift. In fact, when I've worked with clients and transitioned them from the old way to the superior way, all of a sudden they were hitting PRs.

They were just, their squat went up and way and their bench went up and away and their chest went up and away because we turned on the central nervous system in a very effective way. Does this turn into faster results? Absolutely. You know, this is just my figure, but I think if you do a proper warm up and priming, you

probably can squeeze out, you know, 5% more out of your results and your progress. And it doesn't sound like much. Over the course of six months in a year, that makes it pretty damn, that's like a pounds of muscle that you can be adding to your body or faster metabolism or burning more body fat or, you know, 10 more pounds on your lips. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of approaches to this that you can apply for priming, but one of my favorites is to address whatever is pulling you out of stability. So, this is why I like to go through the whole process of really finding out where those imbalances lie.

So, for example, let's say your shoulders tend to come forward quite a bit and you're going to bench press and to be able to set your body upright and to be able to have security and support instability there in the shoulder joint and really be able to retract and depress those shoulders. I'd have, you know, I'd prime with some kind of a rubber band row or something to get my muscles to respond to stabilize and support then going into like one of those compound lifts. Now, this is why I'm most proud of our Maps Prime program. Of all the things that we've created and done, I'm most proud of our Maps Prime program, of all the things that we've created and done.

I'm most proud of that program. Still to this day, all the things that, because I think this is really difficult to do. I mean, it took me years as a trainer to kind of piece all this together. And then once you kind of start to grasp it, right? So if you're listening right now, and you've maybe heard us talk about this,

you're like, okay, kind of making sense to me now. Still don't fully understand what they're talking about, the difference between warming up and priming, or maybe you're moving into like, okay, yeah, I get it. The next hurdle is, how do you figure out that specifically to you? Because what is going to prime really well for somebody else could actually be counterproductive

for another person based off of where they're weak or where they have postural issues. So knowing what to prime for either what exercises or for your body specifically was probably one of the most challenging things that we had to overcome in creating a program. And I think that is, and it's one of those things that if you don't know, you don't know. And if you never use it or applied it, it just, you do it once though the right way in your soul. Yeah. If you do it correctly one time, it's one of those things that you immediately feel it in that workout. You don't have to do, it's not like strength building muscle or strength.

You don't have to do it for long periods of time of consistency before you start to see little, it's like you should be able to do do this and that's how you should know if you're actually doing it right If you're doing it right it's you should feel that in that very next work out or in that workout Yeah, I've used this example before but I love the story because I remember getting like confused by this demonstration in the mall and then later figuring out what they were doing and being like, oh, now I know. So years ago, there was these products, you'd see them in kiosks in the mall

and they were like these bracelets or these necklace magnets. Yeah, and it was like, oh, MLB players wear these for better performance and it balances out your body and blah, blah, blah. And the kids selling it would be like, oh yeah, it totally works and I'd be like, this is, what is it? And he's like, oh, it's this new composite material or whatever is advanced blah, blah, blah. And the kids selling it would be like, oh yeah, it totally works. And I'd be like, this is, what is it? And he's like, oh, it's this new composite material

or whatever is advanced, blah blah blah. He'd say, okay, let me show you how it works. He'd say, stand on one foot and put your right arm out. So I stand on my left foot or whatever, put my right arm out. And he pushed down on my arm and then I'd kind of fall over. And they'd say, now try it with the bracelet. So immediately after he put the bracelet on me, he'd do it again.

And my balance was significantly better the second time around. I remember almost buying it, but I was like, it's magic. I was like, wait a minute, I'm not gonna get this. Anyway, later on I figured out, oh, all I did the first time was tell my CNS what to do. Second time around, I was able to have better

stability and control because I practiced it once. That's literally what happened. My CNS fired better the second time around. This guy's using this, you know, what happens to all of us as a way to sell me some, you know, some bullshit product. So this is what proper warm-ups can do for you. This is why, so in the book,

the resistance training revolution, although I wrote that as a way to really convince people, the average person, especially, to do resistance training as their primary form of exercise, if you go in the workouts that I put in the book, although I say warm up, and the reason why I say warm up is because I would have to explain priming, to people who maybe have never even done resistance training,

it says warm up, but what you're doing there is priming. What you do with every workout is two or three priming movements before you get the workout, and I know people are going to be blown away when they do them because I've seen it. A very simple thing that I've tried so hard to convey to athletes and anybody that really wants to squeeze out performance.

The more stable and secure your joints are, the more force you can output. And so what that means is you're able to apply more strength to all those movements. It's very simple. If you're listening to Justin right strength to all those movements. Yes. It's very simple. Air, if you don't, if you're listening to Justin right now, it also means more muscle. Yes.

And you're like, okay, what do you mean by that, right? So in layman's terms, your body will only allow you to exert as much force as it thinks you can safely exert, okay? Here's an example of that. Go do a barbell squat as heavy as you can, then put on a weight belt. All of a sudden, you're squatting more away, right? All the weight belt did is increase your core stability.

You sense it, you're more stable, more force coming out of your legs, right? If your bench press is stuck at 135 pounds and your body says, and it knows, a little instability that left shoulder, it's not going to let you get that much stronger. If you increase the stability of your shoulder, even if you don't do a special bench routine or, you know, all you do is increase the stability of the area that your body is sensing as a weakness, boom, all of a sudden your bench press goes up. Increasing stability allows your body to exert more force and I know, you know, studies will show that, you know, most people can't even get up to 50% of their total capacity. The body literally limits them from doing that.

Now, what do you guys have to say to the people in the, and there's some very intelligent people in the strength community that believe that all you need to do is just to practice the movement. And that is going to prime the CNS and get the body to get more force output like Justin is alluding to and build more stability and control. What do you have to say to that? Because there is some really smart guys and girls in the strength community that think this whole mobility movement and priming and doing things like that is a waste of time. All you need to do is get out of the bar balance squad more.

Well, here's the reality is you will get better at those movements the more you practice them. And so where they're coming from, you know, in terms of that makes sense practicing and applying those same movements continuously. You're teaching your body to improve every time with the mechanics of it, the technique of it. But the more, inevitably, you're going to get to a point where you're going to get so strong just in that direction where it's going to create instability. And now that instability is something that you're going to have to account for later, which

you could have simultaneously been working on with mobility to make sure that those joints still feel like they're locked in that place and have that security. Yeah, I remember earlier in the episode I said, injury comes from weakness. So let's say your stability, let's say, I'm going to make up some numbers. Let's say your stability strength score needs to be at least of a ratio of one to two to your total strength. So in other words, if your squat is three hundred pounds, your stability needs to be at a hundred and fifty pounds. Well, if I don't increase my stability strength and my squat strength goes up to four hundred,

the ratio is off. My risk of injury goes up much higher. So now getting stronger increases my risk of injury because my stability strength no longer can support it. Now, I know where these strength athletes and coaches are coming from. Yes, it's true practicing the movement does have a lot of value.

And in fact, I think after you prime, you should still do a set or two of lighter weight with your target exercise. That being said, the priming movements and mobility movements have a ton of value. In fact, a lot of these same guys and girls end up with injuries, end up on their Instagram doing these mobility movements at their therapist, then told them to do it.

I've seen I'm blowing from... Oh, all of a sudden I see, you know, so-and-so, lifter, who, you know, crapped on all of that stuff, all of a sudden doing two walks in 90s because they've hurt their back all the time. Well, even that are the invent products to create stability and support, you know,

with certain like elastic, you know, with certain like elastic, you know, shoulder things and you know, knee sleeves and everything else, you know, in order to kind of provide what they're lacking. Well, this is where there's also what is one of the problems I think in our space, right? And also with what's wrong with with studies, right? Because you know, most of these intelligent people that I'm talking about, they don't just say that, they point and they reference studies to support their argument. And my thing is this, I think if all your goal was to squat more weight or bench more weight, their argument has a lot of validity to it, you know, if that's all you care. But most people not only want that, but they also want to be able to move, left to

right really well, rotate, get all the way, sit down to pick up their child, want to be able to feel good when they're 70 years old, and also get a really strong bench and a really good squat. Sure. And I just think that that's the way that I would respond to somebody who's challenging me with that statement is because yeah, okay, you're right. If we looked at this in this very narrow box of like,

okay, all I wanna do is get good at squatting, and that's right, if I just practice squat, pass practice squat, practice squat, forget all that other bullshit. If you were to do two more sets of squats, you'd be even better at the head getting over. I haven't seen any more challenges at, though. I honestly, I still think that them doing that, but also addressing a lot of

the other abilities of articulating the joint and expressing that will provide more stability, which then helps them to generate more force. Yeah. Again, these are the same people that said training your biceps if you're a power lifter is a waste of time. Why train your biceps? You don't need your biceps if you're a power lifter is a waste of time. Why train your biceps? You don't need your biceps. Well, now a lot of them have changed the tune

because they find that strength in your biceps reduces the risk of a bicep tear. And because of the increased stability at the elbow might actually help you deadlift more weight. So I don't think it should, if you're a strength athlete, I don't think it should take over your training. Any kind of athlete, by the way, this is true for all athletes. I don't, if you're a strength athlete, I don't think it should take over your training. Any kind of athlete, by the way, this is true for all athletes.

I don't care if it's a strength athlete or you play football or baseball or whatever. Most of your training should be done in your sport, right? So if you're a strength athlete, yes. Definitely devote most of your time to training in your specific strength sport, whatever that may be. But priming properly is gonna provide you with a lot of value

at the very least reducing risk of injury. At the most, like what Justin's saying, you'll probably see some some increased or faster strength gains from doing so. And it doesn't take a lot of time. We're talking about 10 minutes, 15 minutes before your workout. What you don't want to do is this because here's what happens. When you feel pain, you're too late. And when you don't feel pain, it doesn't mean you're in the clear. There's this gap between not enough stability, no pain, no pain, no pain, and then pain. So sometimes what people do is they like, oh, my SI joint hurts. Oh, my knee hurts a little bit. They do a little bit of priming mobility. Pain gone. I'm good. No, no, no, no, no. You're just this close to pain. You just move this far.

We could go a lot further. The other thing I don't like with their argument too is that in my experience, so if you're an athlete, you're talking to specific athletes and you're talking to everybody who's already a pretty good squad or a pretty good deadlifter, then I see this applying a little more towards them.

But when I think of the general population, it was very rare. In fact, I could probably count on one population, it was very rare. In fact, I could probably count on one hand, maybe two hands in my entire career, when I asked someone to do a squat in front of me, and it was just beautiful. I mean, it was just never, never, right? It was like rarely ever. Did you ever see that? And most often, you saw a really poor recruitment pattern. You saw this excessive forward lean, these rounded shoulders, this protruding forward. They didn't even know how to activate certain areas.

Right. And so if you tell that person just to squat more, and that's why I don't like when they come out and they make statements like this or their anti-mobility, is because you just teach that, they just ingrain that bad recruitment pattern. They make it good at squatting. They make it a bad squatting. They make it good at bad squatting.

Right. And that right there is a dangerous place to go. And it also, it started to, I feel like there's a lot of people that wanna justify their awkward, weird squat or deadlift stance and movement pattern and be like, oh, it's my morphology. This because my hip socket doesn't allow me to do that. And it's like, no, it's not morphology. You know, oh, it's because my hip socket doesn't allow me to do that.

And it's like, no, it's not. There's many people that told me that they thought that they were told by somebody else that their morphology wouldn't allow them to do this narrow, this narrow stance squat because they can tell. It just didn't feel comfortable. And then I worked on their mobility, primed them correctly.

And oh, wow, wow, we can do it all of a sudden. And to me, that's very obvious that it isn't just simply, they need to practice the movement more. They've got to get themselves in a more ideal position so they can do the movement. The more force distribution. Right. How are you going to get around that if you're not in good posture?

It's going to stop where there's curvature, it's going to stop where there's a weakness in the kinetic chain. You can't get around that no matter how hard you try and work around it. Yeah, and then morphology argument, it reminds me of the whole genetic argument for weight gain and weight loss. Right, right, right.

Oh, yeah, right, right. Oh, you know, I know I'm 60 pounds overweight, but it's my genetics, you know. And no, yes, there's different genetics definitely exist. There's definitely differences between the play role. They do play a role, but there aren't genetics definitely exist. There's definitely differences between play-roll. And they play a role. They do play a role. But there aren't genetics that exist to make you obese. That didn't exist until not that long ago, right?

There are, yes, there's definitely differences in morphology, but a squat, an overhead press. That's a fundamental movement. That's a fundamental movement. It's like walking. Yes, there's more phologies, different leg lengths and different soccer for walking. But are there more falleges that exist where you can't walk? Extremely rare, right? It's extremely rare.

So, and here's a deal, regardless, if there is a situation with your morphology that makes certain movements more challenging, working on mobility and proper priming will make you make it more likely to reach your potential Right, you may have a lower potential like I don't have the muscle building potential of Ronnie Coleman, but I have my own potential and I can get closer to my potential by doing everything right I might not reach is I might not ever get the mobility of a world-class gymnast But I'll reach my upper limit of mobility by doing things right and proper priming is a part of that

So and here's a thing I want to communicate. I think it's very important And I know this is this is a selling point because I know as a young lifter if you told me you know proper priming and warming up a Reduce risk risk of injury when you're out the other side and do it I'm in my all I cared about was building more muscle. I'm in my 20s. I could care less I'm not I haven't I've never hurt it. Yeah, I'm in my, all I cared about was building more muscle. I'm in my 20s, I could care less. I'm not, I haven't, I've never hurt myself. I feel indestructible. Why, why, why needs a new sales pitch? But here's the other part of it.

And this is true. Proper priming gets you better results. You'll build more muscle. You'll activate more muscle fibers. You'll utilize exercises more effectively. You'll get more out of your squat, more out of your deadlift, more out of your presses and your rotating movements.

More strength, more longevity. More, and then of course the longevity aspect, but you have to sell that because, and it's true, because I know there's people who are like, I don't hurt, I'm fine, why would I spend, why would I waste time doing such a thing? Or just wired that way, we wait till it's broken. Yes.

We wait until we can't, I mean, I just have in this conversation with my dad last night who's getting to a place where his back is always hurting him and I'm explaining to him chronic pain and why we need to address this and work on mobility and prime your, I'm telling him, he needs to prime his body for he drives his car.

Well, you need to learn what's going on at breaking down why your low back hurts because of what's going on in your hips and the surgery you had, you gotta address that stuff. If you neglect it, eventually it's gonna shut you down. You may feel fine right now, and that's what a lot of the 20-year-olds are thinking right now, and all I care about

is getting shredded, or building muscle, and so you're right, Sal, you have to sell it different because if it's something about longevity or being healthy or joint integrity, none of that stuff appealed to me at 20-thousand. It's funny, I was just, I just did this for my dad the other day, so my dad, he's got arthritis up and down was like, I'm a tiger, none of that stuff appealed to me at 25. No, it's fun. How did that stuff with it got out? It's funny, I just did this for my dad the other day. So my dad, he's got arthritis up and down to spine. A lot of it joins.

He's been working hard labor since he was a child and long hours and all that stuff. And he never really worked on mobility or stretching. He definitely played sports, but that was about it. And so he's very stiff, right? He's prone to pain or whatever. And so I saw him the other day and he's like, my back, so tight, so hurts and my upper mid back, what do I do?

And he's expecting me to go in there and massage him. And so I said, no, let's try this prone cobra exercise. And he's like, how would an extra, why would me doing an exercise? It is more work, help. Yeah, that's not gonna make a feel better. And I said, no, trust me. So we did literally a few reps.

I had him stand up and moved around. And he's like, whoa, sooto, it feels so much better. What's going on? I'm trying to explain them how the body, the central nervous system works and all that, but that's literally what it does. And it's more of a permanent fix. If I massage them, you'd feel a little better,

but it wouldn't feel better for very long. Well, you got to know that so that, you know, back to like what I was talking about, very similar type of conversation. So they asked, there's actually specific questions. Son, can you show me some back exercises I could do for my about, a very similar type of conversation. So they asked, so his actual specific question, son, can you show me some back exercises I could do for my back as my back hurts? And then after asking a ton of questions

and getting to the bottom of, oh, the hip surgery and the lack of good rehab, and I said, it's not your back. I said, it's your lack of stability and strength in your hips that your low back is overcompensating for that. And it's not like a thing that happens right away. and strength in your hips that your low back is overcompensating for that. And it's not like a thing that happens right away.

It's that because the body is unbelievable in resilient. So you may not prime very well and you go get a squat and you may see strength gains and you may not hurt yet. But what you don't realize is because your body is not working properly together that parts of it is overcompensating for the areas that should be working and eventually that shit catches up. No, I dare anybody watching or listening to this, I dare you go to maps primewebinar.com, double dare.

Try some of the priming movements on there before you work out, okay? And then I dare you to DM me and tell me that you didn't notice a significant difference in how you felt immediately in your work out. And I dare you to tell me you didn't have a better work out. I'm ring it. It'll blow your mind. Now I want to add something to that though, because one of the other things that was really challenging

about doing this for the masses and video form was it's really hard to convey the intent, which is why we did these webinars. Yes, because in this one, this is the one with Justin, right? Justin does the prime one. I did prime pro. Yeah, so this one's myappsprimewebinar.com and he's taking Doug through and it's good

because you watch him coach Doug and you get the idea. You know what the intent is and it's much easier to understand. Yeah, you have to, so if we're trying to get connected to an area that's dormant or that we're not connected very well to, it's work. This isn't like stretching. No, you're connecting, not disconnecting. Yeah, this doesn't feel like yoga. This isn't like stretching. You're connecting, that disconnection.

Yeah, this doesn't feel like yoga. This doesn't feel like you relax and you stretch before you go workout. It's, I mean, if you do this ride a lot of times, just to sweat, your heartbeat will get going because you're trying to intensify that. You're trying to get connection and strength in this new range of motion.

And so how you do it is so important. You can't just kind of like waffle free movements. You're contracting the muscles. Yes, you know, this whole time. And so yeah, it is, it's, it's, it's work. It's real work. And you do sweat.

And, you know, that it has to be active. And that's sort of the point to this is, is we don't want to just get into these ranges of motion passively. We need to, to have that kind of tension all the way through. So we're training the body that, okay, we have access to this type of force and support

through all these different angles of the range of motion. Yeah, now for most people, a good, once you figure out what you do for your body, you're gonna spend about 10 minutes, maybe 15 at the most, but probably around 10, priming your body before your full workout. And that'll be enough to give you all the benefits that we just talked about.

Not most people. I wanna add something to that also though, okay? So, yes, that's true. But what's beautiful about priming, because it's not like strength training, you're not tearing, breaking down, and you're not gonna really,, really sore from doing this. And frequency is keen here.

So when you find a movement, so say you go through the webinar that Justin did for free and you try a couple and you notice like, maybe you notice one or two of them like, whoa, I did that. And when I went to do my bench press, I really felt a difference. My shoulders felt good. I was stronger. Do that all the time. You don't, I mean, you definitely should

and need to do it before you work out to maximize the benefits from your workout. And- They do it on your off days. Yes, do it all the time because it's a neurological thing. And the more often that you are practicing that, the more often you're teaching that pattern and that connection to get solidified and strong.

So that when you go into that workout, you don't have to spend as much time priming. And I tell you firsthand when I started working on all this after brink, I spent so much time in this area that I had to kind of let go of the like, you know, muscle guy and strength. It's just like it was all going to be mobility and really getting reconnected to my body, right? And owning these ranges of motion. Now what's cool is the more you practice it and you work at this, the less of it you actually have to do.

Right. Because then you will start to do it, just not even thinking about it. You connect much faster. Yes. You don't even have to think about it anymore. And it becomes easier when you put a lot of effort into frequently doing it. Yeah. In fact, they'll show what studies that connections

in the brain, if they're practiced often, start to become very solidified, almost like tracks in the snow. Like, yeah, it just snows, so it's totally smooth. You walk through once, you leave some footprints, but if you walk back and forth, you create this nice line, this nice connection, and so you're 100% right, Adam,

the more, it's just like anything, right? You practice it very often. Like, it might have taken you years to learn right out on the more, it's just like anything, right? You practice it very often. Like it might have taken you years to learn how to play the piano, but then you could, once you learn it, you could stop for a few years and then go pick it up. Yeah, it makes its way into your subconscious at some point. And I think it just, it takes, like, I don't know,

how many specific number of reps, but it's a whole lot. I mean, there's been the 10,000 hour rule and there's all these people that speculate on, how long it takes to actually acquire certain skills, but it definitely takes a lot of reps. Right, so again, it's maps primewebinar.com, totally free, take the course and notice the difference. Also, if you like this content, if you like our podcast,

you'll love minepumpafree.com. We have a lot of free guides and written content there. And you can get all of it for free. It costs nothing. It's a way that we like to give back to our community. You can also find all of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at MindPump Justin, me at MindPump Sal, Adam at MindPump Atom and Doug at MindPump Doug. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com.

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