Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1740: Do These Exercises Hurt? Do These Instead!

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin provide solutions to those who are unable to do the most effective exercises. How every exercise is valuable when applied appropriately. (3:04) Do These Exercises Hurt? Do These Instead! (6:39) #1 – Deadlift. (13:19) If this exercise hurts you, do a single-leg deadlift instead. (16:45) What mobility exercises should I focus on? (19:36) #2 – Squat. (21:35) If this exercise hurts you, do a split stance exercise instead. (22:03) Mobility exercises to focus on. (26:16) #3 – Overhead Press. (29:20) If this exercise hurts you, do an overhead or a rack carry instead. (29:50) Mobility exercises to focus on. (34:36) #4 – Bench Press. (36:22) If this exercise hurts you, do an incline dumbbell press instead. (37:14) Mobility exercises to focus on. (39:11) #5 – Dips. (40:04) If this exercise hurts you, do a close-grip bench or incline press instead. (41:16) Mobility exercises to focus on. (41:44) Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion (#1): NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS SPECIAL BUNDLE OFFERS January Promotion (#2): MAPS Anabolic 50% off **Code “JANUARY50” at checkout** Visit Blinkist for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! GROW Your GLUTES with a SINGLE LEG DEADLIFT! - Mind Pump TV Build An Amazing Midsection with the Side Wood Chop – Mind Pump TV How to do a PROPER Plank – Mind Pump TV The McGill Hip Airplane Follow Along Hip Mobility Flow Workout – Mind Pump TV How To Goblet Squat - FREE Squat Like A PRO Guide – Mind Pump TV The Only Way You Should Be Doing Bulgarian Split Squats! (BUTT GROWTH) - Mind Pump TV MAPS Prime Pro Webinar MAPS Prime Webinar Improve Your Overhead Press & Build Your Shoulders with Unilateral Kettlebell Carries – Mind Pump TV Z Press to take Your Shoulder Development to the Next Level – Mind Pump TV How To Incline Dumbbell Press - The Right Way! (GROW YOUR CHEST) - Mind Pump TV Fix Your Shoulder Pain (SHORT & LONG TERM FIX!!) | MIND PUMP TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

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 Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about some of the best exercises you can do, but you know, maybe you can't do them because they hurt you.

They hurt your shoulders or your back or your knees. I'm talking about common, popular, super effective exercises like dead lifts and squats and overhead presses, bench presses. What if you can't do them because you hurt? Is there something you can replace them with that will give you similar progress and gains? And also, what can you do so you can finally do those great exercises.

That's basically what today's episode is about. Now, this episode is brought to you by one of our new sponsors, Blinkist. Now, check this out. This is really cool. This is kind of a cool hack, right? So if you love information, you love learning new things, find it hard to focus on one full book at a time or even have the

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So you get more knowledge in less time. Again, it's blinkist.com forward slash Mind Pump, B-L-I-K, excuse me, B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com forward slash Mind Pump. Go check them out. One more thing, it's the last day for the biggest maps, workout programs, sale, ever in Mind Pump history. It's a huge one. So this was a big one.

What we did is we put together three bundles and in each bundle are multiple workout programs that work together that essentially give you nine months of exercise programming. I'll plan it out. So Sats, wraps, exercises, video demos, everything set up for you, everything included in three bundles. The first bundles for beginners,

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just do one, just to test this out, see if we really know what we're talking about. Do maps in a ball, it's the flagship maps program. That one's 50% off, you can get that at mapsred.com with the code January 50, that's January 50, no space for that 50% off discount. All right, so I think we've established through our thousands of podcasts that there's some exercises

that are just extremely valuable and other exercises, well, I'd say this, all exercise valuable when applied appropriately, but generally speaking, they're not all equal, right? Some exercises just, they just give you a huge bang for your buck and others maybe not so much in terms of muscle building and fat loss and metabolism boosting

and functional applications, all that stuff. So I'm gonna come out with a rating system. I was just gonna say, when you put it out there, Justin's not really doing anything, go through it like this. I'm really doing it, you guys. I mean, I'm just sitting here, total of my thumbs.

You see, you know what I mean? It's just to make a running list of every exercise ever done. Just if you color code all the exercise that exists. I love doing that stuff. I love the audience that suggestions like that. It was absurdly fucking take months to do for like no return. Can you put them in alphabetical order? Do this for us.

And color code them all. No, so okay, so and we know like, like, for example, the squat, right? It's like such a valuable exercise, and as a trainer, I saw so much from the squat, one exercise for so many clients, and I could literally say that it's as good as the next five exercises combined type of deal, right? So, very valuable, but here's the challenge.

People here, let's talk about some of these exercises. They know that they're valuable. They go and try them, or maybe they've done them before and they just can't do them anymore because of pain. They hurt, and that's a valuable, I guess, for lack of a better term excuse, right? I don't squat, I don't deadlift, I don't whatever, because it hurts my body.

So, you know, what should I do? What do I do instead? Well, I think this is a good opportunity to address this idea too. When we talk about like deep squatting, squatting, deadlifting movements that we think everybody should include or work towards in the routine, the important part of that statement is the work towards. Because the reality is, when I go back and I think of all the people that I've trained over the years There's many clients that couldn't do deadlift or squat or overhead press correctly early on and I wasn't doing those movements with them Now the important part was I get them

I assess if they can do it they can't do it It doesn't mean I go oh check that off or never doing that again Here's some exercise we can do it, they can't do it. It doesn't mean I go, oh, check that off. We're never doing that again. Here's some exercise we can do. Instead of that, it is, okay, temporarily, we're gonna do these movements. We're gonna work our way back to those very impactful exercises that have a lot of value.

That's just it. You get this from a lot of physicians too. Like if you talk about any kind of pain or limitation that you have, we'll avoid doing those exercises. And that's the end of the conversation. Yeah, you have to understand that there's certain types of human movement that I guess we could label as foundational,

right? In other words, your body's supposed to move these ways. And in rare circumstances, they can't, because of maybe some genetic reasons, or maybe you had an injury that did fundamentally change your anatomy. But for the most part, you should be able to do certain types of movements. For example, you should be able to walk.

So imagine if you went to the doctor and like, oh my God, walking kind of hurts my knee and the doctor says, stop walking. Don't do it anymore. Yeah, we're not gonna have you walking anymore. I'm sponsored by a rascal scooter. Yeah, exactly. So, and now here's the challenge, right?

Okay, I can't do those. Well, can I do something instead that A will get me to be able to do that at some point, but B won't have me losing my gains or at least, you know, have me still moving in the right direction. That's the question, right? Right. So let me get this clear. So the idea of this episode is let's pick, you know, these, you know, four, five or six, whatever movements that are common where people have pain, give them a alternative of what we would replace that with temporarily, and then also mobility, corrective stuff to address it, to work towards getting there. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. And talk about some of the most common reasons why people can't do some of these movements. So of course, there's always a wide individual variance, but generally speaking, when I would train, you know, I've trained personally hundreds of clients and thousands if you count by proxy, right, with the trainers that work for me and the gyms that I've managed and a lot of stuff.

And you see very common trends, like I would say, you know, there's like 80% of the reason why most people can't squat or deadlift or these few things, right? There's always the exceptions to the rule, and we can't speak to individuals because we're doing a podcast or a show, but we're gonna be able to hit most people,

I think, who are kinda in this category. And what you don't wanna do is this. I remember this as a kid. I remember, it is before I really became a good trainer, I remember I would go to the gym and I was lucky that I got influenced by some really good strength athletes as a young lifter. And it made a huge impact on my physique

and eventually how I started training people. But I was a kid in the gym, 16, 17, doing dead lifts and squats and overhead presses and stuff like that. And every once in a while, I would get the older guy come up to me and say, oh, I used to, I used to squat. I can't do that anymore because my knees are bad. You should probably stop doing that.

Or I used to dead lift and my back, just I can't do it anymore. You should probably stop doing that. And I remember thinking, well, that's weird. It's exercise. Like it's something that's supposed to make you stronger and feel better. Yeah.

You must have been doing it in a way that wasn't either right or that wasn't right for your body or using a weight that you couldn't handle or whatever. I remember even thinking that as a kid because I thought that's very strange. Why couldn't I be able to do this as I got older? I'm making myself healthier. It made no sense to me.

Didn't make any sense to me at all. Well, not only that, but let's say you are somebody who can't do some of these movements because of injury or whatever the reason being, there's tremendous value in the pursuit. Like, let's pretend I get a client. This is happened, too. I get somebody who we never ended up deadlifting. Yep. Or we never ended up squatting.

Yep. But that was the goal. Was to get to that place and the pursuit of that goal and the things that I was doing as a trainer with that client to help them get to be able to do a squat or a deadlift has so much value. Yeah, because you got far. Right. And we improved so many things along the way, even though we may have never got to a place

where I loaded the barbell and did a back barbell squat or whatever, I didn't get there, but the stuff that we accomplished on the way there was so valuable to that person. So I think that's the lesson when you're having a conversation around squatting deadlifting and you've been told by a doctor that, oh, you shouldn't do it or you've heard, oh, it's so risky, so you avoid it or you you've tried it, and you noticed your knees hurt, or your low back hurt, or your neck hurt, or your shoulders hurt, and so you avoid it, and saying don't completely avoid it,

maybe we temporarily avoid doing that specific movement, but the end goal should be, okay, this is a very fundamental movement that either hurts me or I can't do, so instead of just saying, I'm never gonna do it again, how about I work towards building a program and doing movements and exercises that may get me back to that place

to be able to do that again? Look at it as a weakness that you're gonna build up strength towards and be solid in that going forward. So it's something that you have to really work on identifying the root. Like where's the weakness lie? Where's the instability lie?

And so it just takes a little more effort to go through the process of rebuilding that back up so everything communicates well and everything supports as it should because we're looking at it as dysfunction. We're looking at it as something that is part of the movement that is not firing correctly. Something isn't doing its job properly. So we go back, we kind of dissect it,

and we look and we find out, okay, for me, so if we talk about our first one that we have here is the deadlift. So this was a big one for me because it's one that I've battled in terms of like having back issues with, and I did injure myself a bit by shifting the weight just ever so gradually, but with a lot of weight on it. It affected my QL. So this is something I had to keep building my way back towards being able to put substantial

weight on there. But that process has helped to identify certain things in dysfunction that I need to address with my hips, having asymmetry and having bit of an imbalance. And so this is something I need to constantly think about and work on strengthening. Totally. And before we even get deep into deadlift,

it's one more point I wanna make that's really important. And I literally had this thought, and I knew this, but I had this thought again over the weekend. I went hiking with my wife, and there's this trail that we go on, and there's this part where there's like this pond, and so I picked up some rocks, and I was skipping them, and I was whipping these rocks to skip it across this pond, and my shoulder

was getting a little sore. And I remember as a kid, man, I, you know, as a 13, 14, 15, I could throw really hard. I just was able to throw a very, I remember my uncle who was a collegiate baseball player. I remember him saying, man, you got a good arm on you. I cannot throw at all like I used to.

Why? Because I stopped doing it, right? The old term, use it or lose it, is very, very, very true. Like, if right now, you stop walking completely, and you go do leg strengthening exercise, but you don't walk, you never walk. Wait five, 10 years, go try to walk, you've lost a lot of that skill of something

that you were born to do. So when you don't do the exercise, you lose it. Everybody's got a picture of themselves playing with toys when they were a two-year-old you know, you were born to do. Listen, so when you don't do the exercise, you lose it. Everybody's got a picture of themselves playing with toys when they were a two-year-old in the squatting position. Like, at one point in your life, you were doing that. And at one point in your life, you lost it.

It just happened gradually over time that a lot of people don't even realize it's sneaking up on them. You just stop doing it. You stop doing it and you lose it like you said. Yeah, so you don't want to avoid these movements completely. Like we're saying, you want stop doing it. You stop doing it and you lose it like you said. Yeah, so you don't wanna avoid these movements completely, like we're saying, you wanna go back to be able to do it because the longer you go without doing them,

the harder it is to get yourself to be able to do them again and you don't wanna lose some of these skills. Now you brought the deadlift. It is a foundational movement. Lifting something up off the floor is probably one of the most fundamental, you know. You can encounter that a lot. Yeah, like, yeah, even now,

even in our super sedentary lives, you still have to go down and pick something up like a deadlift. I pick up my kids and I play with them. I move boxes, I have to move the couch, you know, you pick up your dog or a bag of dog food. That deadlift, that type of motion is very, very fundamental. So it's important that you be able to deadlift

and you strengthen that movement and it's a common one that people say they can't do and usually it has to do with the fact that they're back, right, it hurts my back in a way that's not right. Well, I think there's, okay, there's a little bit more here too, right? And I remember, I clearly remember this when I went from somebody who, because I didn't train the deadlift or the squat that, that often when I first started training, it was, I avoided it, um, like many people do.

And one of the biggest takeaways that I noticed I did was I, when I started to train, when I started to train squats and deadlifts more religiously, I would notice when I do something, and it could be something as simple as like picking a kid up or lifting the couch up, because I started to train that hinge pattern for so long inside the gym, I had that pattern when I went to pick the couch up

or I went to pick the kid up. I didn't round the, yeah, it happened automatically because I trained it in the gym that when I hinge over, I load the hips to grasping, even if it's something like, and what you see is in normal behaviors or patterns for people that don't train that movement, you just round at the back.

If you just drop something on the floor and you tell someone to pick it up, very few people, few people hinge at the hip to go grab it. They just round the back and think over, and when it's really light, they don't think anything of it, like it's. Very people, few people hinge at the hip to go grab it. They just round the back and think over. And when it's really light, they don't think anything of it. Like it's no big deal. But all it takes is that weight or just being slightly out of line when you do it. And then you hurt yourself and training those movements in the gym. That's why it translates because I know people hear you saying that sometimes they're like, well, I still, I've been, I pick up couch stuff

or I've leaned over, but pay attention to how you do it. When you grab something, everybody's watching or listening right now, think of the next time you pick up bag of dog food or groceries or anything with, any weight at all off the ground, stop yourself in the middle of it. Next time, if you're listening right now and you're cleaning a house, do something like,

pay attention to how you bend over. Do you bend over properly? Do you load the hips to pick something up or do you just round at the back and do that? And that's what's setting you are. And this is why these movements are so important is if you train it in the gym and it becomes a common practice,

then it becomes... It's hard wired. Yeah, it's hard wired and you don't even have to think about anymore. It's just what you naturally do when you go to grab something out in the real world. You know, you reminded me of as a kid, I remember my dad and his cousins got the stir bike and my dad was kind of showing off or whatever and fell. It was going like 30 miles an hour.

Flies off, I remember as a kid getting freaked out and my dad rolled like four or five times and then stood up. He was totally fine. He did a judo roll. My dad was a competitive judo player in Italy. And he got up and everybody's like, oh my god, he had some scratches, but that was about it. And he goes, man, he's like, it's ingrained.

He goes, when I went over, I just went right into my... Right, he probably tucked his head and then just let himself roll. 100% versus freaking out and fight it. Yeah, placing his hands on front could have broke his wrist or whatever. All right, so let's go back to the deadlift. And most commonly people will have pain in their low back.

Here's a great exercise to do instead of the deadlift. It's very similar. And that's a single leg deadlift. Most people who's back bothers them when they do, unless you have a bad injury, but I'm talking about chronic pain, like, oh, it kind of bothers when I do deadlifts, if it's really sore, doesn't feel good. Single leg deadlifts, usually you could do, first off, the load is way lighter.

You got to slow down, balance is involved. So you're automatically trying to stabilize and it's a very similar movement. And if you get stronger in the single leg deadlift, there's a very strong chance it'll carry over to your traditional deadlift. In the biggest disconnect, a lot of times is this like very subtle shift. And this is something that with a single

leg deadlift, you can really hone in on that anti-rotation in the hips. And so if you really slow down and put a lot of intent in that exercise, this is one of those things that this is the root of a lot of the problems that are leading into low back inflammation and not feeling like you can handle like that kind of. Yeah, by the way, a lot of these exercises that you're gonna see that we replace the exercise with until you can get back to it, right? They're similar enough to the exercise

you're replacing it with that you don't lose a ton of the gains, the strength, and stuff. Oh, and arguably, I mean, I would make the case that this one is, I mean, this to me is a, regardless if you can or can't deadlift, this is a movement that I do. I do this. I went in single-layed deadlift. Yeah, I just think this, I just think this belongs in everybody's routine. It's, you know, I brought up the other day on the show, a movement that it was actually when we were making fun of like the, the multiple movements in one and I actually was calling myself out that there's a movement that

I've told my client that, hey, we move on, you don't ever see me again and you know, don't lose this ability to step up, to hinge over and to touch your toe. And part of that movement is that's a single like deadlift. I mean, a single like toe touch is essentially a single like deadlift. And part of why that is is that that's the that hips stability and strength that you get from balancing on one leg and then hinging the hips is so important to keeping your low back strong and supported as you age that I think this movement belongs in every routine regardless if you can or cannot deadlift.

But if you can't, this is an obvious go to single leg deadlift and get there. And I like to do it with dumbbells. In fact, or your body weight. So if you've never done it before, try just doing it. Just your body weight at first and get good at the at the movement and stabilizing without falling over. A lot of people will do one or two reps and have tip over. So yeah, get good at balancing through, say, 10 reps of single-lake toe touches. And then once you've got the stability there, then load it maybe with some light dumbbells.

And that's a movement I think should be in everybody's repertoire. Now, there could be a lot of reasons why your lower back bothers you when you're deadlift, but the most common reasons have to do with some kind of a hip and core weakness or imbalance. So I would focus on hip mobility. I like different versions of 90, 90s for that.

It's one of my favorite kind of general hip mobility type of drill. And there's different versions of this, but I find them to be very, very effective. And then work on strengthening your core. In particular, cable chops are really good, and bracing exercises like proper planks. They can really help you with your deadlift because oblique imbalances, you tend to see issues that contribute to like QL type problems, right?

And then core stability. Can you brace and stabilize your core? And so planks done properly, right? Where you kind of tuck the table and really breaks the core, that can really help solve some of these issues. Because like I said, nine out of 10 times, it's either a core or a hip issue. That's causing that low back pain with the deadlift.

One of the reasons why I really like the assisted McGill planes is because you get a little bit of both of that, right? So you get the stability component in there, you get some core in there, and you get some strength as you rotate over. So that's a good one to add there. By the way, it's a good opportunity to tell our audience, especially if you're new to the podcast, that anytime we talk about movements, one of the first things that you should do if you're trying to figure out what we're talking about is literally just to go to YouTube and put in mind pump and then the movement that we're saying. And even're trying to figure out what we're talking about, it's literally just to go to YouTube

and put in MindPump and then the movement that we're saying. And even if it's general, like we're saying hip mobility, if you literally went MindPump, hip mobility, you'd see like all these videos that we've done related that, you'd see the 1990, you'd probably see the Miguel Plan, you'd see some of these movements. So a lot of people don't realize how big the library is that we've made for all the exercises that we talk about. So if you're hearing this and you don't realize how big the library is that we've made for all the exercises that we talk about.

So if you're hearing this and you don't know or you've heard us talk about a movement and you're not sure what that is, try searching on there first and you should find it. Now the next exercise is the good old squat. Many people refer to it as the king of all exercises. I would agree it's probably, it's definitely up there. Tremendous muscle strength gains, metabolism boosting gains in studies that show positive hormone responses squats, crush every exercise, great for performance general powers. Just a phenomenal exercise. But let's say squat your knee hurts. That's a common area. People, well, my knees bother me or maybe my lower back bother me. Here are some movements you can do to replace the squat. And again, what you'll notice is these movements

are similar enough to the squat to where there's a lot of carryover. Any split stance type squat, like a stationary lunge, or even a goblet squat, or a Bulgarian split stance squat? Phenomenal. What you'll notice by the way when you do a split stance, here, okay, so we call them lunges, that's the most popular name, right, lunges.

It's actually a squat, and it's called a split-stand squat. If you look at the front leg of a lunge, it's doing what most of the work. It's doing exactly what you would do in a squat. So now you're still doing a squatting movement with that front leg, but most people who have issues with squats can still do those split-stand exercise. I think it's a very viable alternative.

And while you're in the process of getting back to. Well, I like that you put a goblets quad in there too because many times the limiting factor is the ankle mobility and be able to stay upright in the goblets quad forces. So when in that plus you sort of to train somebody to get used to that pattern and depth that they may not do before they may not be able to do So I like the combination of if this person does as a hard time squatting And even heels elevated like you didn't put that on there But I think that a goblet squat with the heels elevated if the ankles the limiting fact right at which it's gonna be for a lot of people

There's very few more common ones right It's almost it's almost guaranteed that most people have a hard time squatting, have limited ankle mobility. It's rare that I find somebody doesn't have some sort of limiting factor with their ankle. So doing the heels elevated goblet squat in conjunction with Bulgarian split squats would be my reminiscence. Well, and I like that.

We didn't say specifically single leg squat because there's so much balance and Stability that you have to fight through with that which is fine that that could be a focus on its own But to have a split stance you get that same effect But you have a little more stable position But you're now you're isolating one side to the left or one side to the right now You can actually see a visible difference between the two where you might need to bring one up in terms of strength. There may be some weaknesses there to address. What a great point and conversation

to be had. Okay, we just had deadlift. We all agreed that the single leg deadlift would be great here. But then we go into squat and we know and says single squat. If your ankle mobility doesn't let you do a bilateral squat, you do a single leg squat. That's right, a lot. Not to mention a pistol squat, single leg squat is very, very difficult. Like a single leg toe touch is real. I could take an eight year old client and they can do a single leg toe touch.

Or I could get them to that relatively easy. But a pistol squat, a single leg squat, the strength required. And look at the income mobility. Look how much mobility is for sure. That's number one. Number two is, let. And look at the income mobility. The income mobility is for sure. That's number one. Number two is, let's say you had good income mobility, trying to get somebody out of the bottom position

of a pistol squat. And then what ends up happening is they cheat their way out and then we end up just creating bad patterns. So I'm glad you brought that up, Justin, because maybe the obvious to a young trainer would be like, oh, okay, single-leg deadlift, so then single-leg squat is kind of the obvious. No, if your back bothers you with dead lifts, a single-leg deadlift, oh, okay, single leg deadlift, so then single leg squat is kind of the obvious. No, if your back bothers you with deadlifts,

a single leg deadlift, probably is okay. If your knees bother you with a squat, they're gonna really bother you with a single leg squat. That's right. So that's why we're not, because it needs to travel substantially. Yes.

Further forward. That's right. Further forward, you need more ankle mobility with a single leg squat, then you do a traditional squat. This mortes, that's a lot of load for that particular exercise. Split stance allows you to do that, requires less ankle mobility with a single leg squat, then you do a traditional squat. This mortes, that's a lot of load for that particular exercise. Split stance allows you to do that,

requires less ankle mobility. You need less ankle mobility for a split stance squat. It's easier on the knee, it's easier on the back, and it still mirrors the movement enough to where you're gonna get similar gains. And I wanna add one to this, and this is really just, if you really need

to regress, like squats are very painful for you. And you want to still get some good activity in the legs. And so I would throw in like a sled pushes and sled pulls in there as well, just to be able to get your client's muscle contraction in volume and really start to slowly build that. Yeah, sled drives are one of the safest, super effective exercises that I can think about. So that's a great point. And as far as mobility stuff,

it's ankles and hips, right? Yep, yeah, ankles and, which by the way, if you resonated with you when Sal said, your knees hurt when you squat, which is probably one of the most common things you hear from squat, it's not the way, if you resonated with you when Sal said your knees hurt when you squat, which is probably one of the most common things you hear from squat, it's not the knees, it's normally ankles and hips. At a 10 times, I say that in a half, at a 10 times. That's even coming from somebody who had knee surgery or has quote unquote bad knees.

It's the issue is actually happening from the lack of ankle mobility or the lack of hip and strength in your hip that is causing the stress. Yeah, think about it this way, right? The knee just flexes and extends, right? So it just flexes and extends. But boy, the ankle can move in all kinds of different directions and soak in the hip. That's right.

So when there's an instability issue there, the knee which can't bend laterally, it can't rotate, which the hip and the ankle can both do. It's going where you're directing it. Yeah, the knee is like straining to try to stay together while the hip and the ankle are not doing their job. So even if you have knee issues, right?

So I'll have people DM me and say, yeah, but my MRI showed that I have, you know, patellar, congemalacia, or I had to have this, and it's like that was still often caused by the ankle hip fix that. And I've had people who've come in with knee issues, we fixed the ankle, many people, fixed the ankle and hip issues.

The knee pain is, is completely... That's why I wanted to say that, and that's why I said nine and a half out of 10, because there's someone listening right now who has been told they have bad knees, or their knees hurt, and they think that it's the knee that is limiting them from squatting and it's not. I don't care what you've done to it.

99% of the time, if you address your ankle and your hip mobility and strength and you get good mobility, good strength and control in those two joints, this one ends up, ends up not, because the muscles should be taking care. When you squat, the knees shouldn't be taking any of the stress. Yeah, there's ten ligaments should not be bearing the load. You have ligaments that prevent your knee from bending laterally.

You should not be placing so much stress on your knee laterally that it's the ligaments that are preventing it from bending laterally, right? It's the muscle that does that, the muscle around it and it's stable. If it goes to the ligaments, eventually those ligaments are going to hurt and maybe even tear. So that's the reason. Enchomobility, combat stretch, one of my favorites. Very basic, very simple, great for improving Enchomobility. We have videos on our YouTube channel for that. We talked about hit mobility. I still like the 1990 for that. By the way, what's the website for the free webinar on mobility that we did? Is it prime pro? Yeah, prime pro webinar and maps prime webinar.

Okay, so prime pro webinar.com and then maps prime webinar.com both free webinars, both lots of mobility movements, all of which you're going to hear in this episode. You can go on all of them are related to this. Yeah, you can go on there and just follow, and literally it's just an ad-em teaching them. So you'll actually have some of the best coaches in the business teaching you had to do these because mobility movements are quite specific in how they should be applied. So if you just look at pictures,

you will not, I promise you won't do them right. There's an intent that's definitely involved. All right, overhead press. Another common exercise that people say they can't do. Oftentimes the issue with the overhead press has to do with the shoulder. It hurts my shoulder. If I push anything overhead, I feel like there's this impinging pain or I feel pain in the back. Most common areas are in the front of the shoulder, down the side or in the back. And of course people avoid this incredibly amazing exercise. And by the way, you should be able to push things up above your head.

So this is again, another fundamental movement. I love overhead carries for this. I love giving clients something to hold the arms length, by the way, if they're not that strong, it could be the lightest thing ever, but just have them or nothing. I've actually done this with clients too. I'll have them just straighten the arm out as well as they can stabilize and then try to walk while keeping the arm totally straight next to their head. That stabilization really helped later on. It was a great way to, I guess, supplement. This actually addresses a lot of,

well, with a lot of my clients having something overhead was the most unstable feeling that they had of any exercise and would want to bring the weight down almost immediately. And so now we're keeping it up overhead and teaching your body how to brace properly. So that way it doesn't create a problem for your lower back, a problem for your shoulders. And to be able to then figure out to how to pack that shoulder, how to build even more stability around the support system with weight

over your head. It's so valuable because now, when your body gets to that point where you get full extension, you're very comfortable familiar with that position. This has to be the most common, I would say. Right? I mean, I think that, and I think that's just because of all the things we're talking about, even like squatting and deadlifting, like people naturally hinge over, squat down, get

up, you get in out of your car, you get in out of the table, the toilet, there's so many things that you're forced to somewhat squat. There's not a lot of things in life that forces you to fully extend. Yeah, fully extend up over your head. I mean, it's not very common. The closest is what? Putting away dishes that come to mind for me like the average person.

Oh, I guarantee if you took 20 people over the age of 45, at least, and this is over 45, as it gets older, the percentage of yeah, I bet you 50% of them can not get full extension above their head where they're by and extra year. And this is the most different. And this is the most different. Construction jobs maybe.

Yeah, right. That's about it. This is probably the most difficult for me still today. And I think it's just because of that, it says we don't do a lot of things where we're fully extended like that. I would add to this the Z press. Well, the Z press is definitely focusing on that full extension. Yeah, I just, that movement, I know people are probably tired of hearing me talk

about on the show, but I can't help myself when I find something that blows my mind on, like, and that was a movement that got introduced to me way later. Like, you just started doing that like five years ago. Yeah, it wasn't that long ago that I got introduced to that, and it's now become this movement that I teach and I it's so impactful that I Actually would probably never teach an overhead press first I would always teach a Z press first To help them get that stability that full extension down and the ability to tighten their core up in that full extension

Stabilize like I would teach that all first before I even moved to an old man to do this over again and start training like that 100% Right would be the first thing that I would address and because of the fact that you know a lot of A lot of the imbalances and a lot of the compensations lie when you're like getting your full body involved now your your legs Wanted like add a little English to it, you want to use a large little back. Yeah, and so it's just sort of, you know, this bad pattern goes all the way up the kinetic chain, whereas now you kind of eliminate

that as being a source of stability and you really have to focus in on your core's ability to brace properly, which is everything. Yeah, now another carry, so I talked about the overhead carry, is a rack carry. And the rack carry is when you're holding the weight here at the shoulder, so you can either do this with dumbbells and let's like this kind of supinated position here,

like an oral press, or with a kettlebell, where it's sitting here, but you have to support it with the strength of your shoulder, and you hold it, you stay unstable, and you walk, and what it does, it's an isometric movement for the bottom of an overhead press, and the reason why I put that there is the other isometric movement for the bottom of an overhead press, and the reason why I put that there is the other reason lots of people can't do an overhead press

properly isn't the top, but at the bottom rather, they are hurts when they get too low, and so you see people do these kind of short type of presses, and that full range of motion is really important. Well, and a lot of times, too, they were taught to only go like that 90 degree and then extension from there. And so this is very unfamiliar to keep weight in close to the body like that and be able to create that spiral line press, which actually follows a more functional line for the shoulder to go with. And so that to the other point of that is to maintain healthy rotator cuts. Yeah.

And health, the supporting cast. So to incorporate rotation with your shoulder because it's a vital function of the shoulder is imperative. Well, to that point, that's why the mobility movements that I would do to compliments would be something like hand-couple rotations. Hand-couple rotations. Hand-couple rotation, it takes you through the fullest range

of motion of the shoulder. It's everything. Yeah. And it addresses the rotator cuff like you're saying. And I think it's the ultimate, you know, one-stop shop, like priming movement for the shoulders. So that would be one. And then maybe our zone one test, like the wall press, I think is phenomenal.

Those two would probably be what I would do in conjunction with the Z press and then the at carries and rack carries you're talking about. And then you could do a very and although this is incomplete, I think this still has some value, just some external rotation, which is very simple. You can literally hold a band between your arms and rotate out with your elbows at your side or do one arm with the band with the arm is kind of rotating out with your elbow at your side to strengthen some of those rotator cuff muscles that you're talking about, those external rotators,

because that one tends to be weak in people. By the way, I think we should address, because I know the next thing that we get to episodes like this is the follow up of, well, how much, and what time, and people want this prescription of a, when you're doing mobility stuff to address an imbalance or work on a stronger connection, like you can't do too much practice of

Like these are not you aren't left where you're going into it with the idea of like trying to max out or damaging Yeah, this isn't you know do 20 reps with like 30 second rest between and then do it again It's this is not like that. It's practice these practice these movements get good at it practices as much as you can Don't think about doing it intensely. Think about trying to do it perfectly. With intent. Yeah. It is to be perfect in the movement.

Yeah, here's a good rule of thumb. In the morning and night, spend 10 minutes on doing some of this stuff. The ones that really... Realize it. That you need the most help with, and you'll see really rapid progress if you do it that way. All right, so the next one is the bench press. Right? Everybody's favorite exercise to do on Mondays in the big champs. Yeah. rapid progress if you do it that way. All right, so the next one is the bench press, right? Everybody's favorite exercise to do on Mondays

in the big champs. And typically, when people can't bench press, it's usually the shoulder that bothers them. And quite often, it's the front of the shoulder that they'll feel. Now, I want you to, this is quite common. Pain in the front of the shoulder oftentimes has to do with the bicep tendon

that runs along the front of the shoulder. Now, it's not that you're necessarily your bicep is at fault here, but rather the position of your shoulder, lackus stability is causing undue stress on that bicep tendon that runs over. So when you're pressing with heavy weight, you start to have some issues. And often this comes from an imbalance between the muscles that push and the muscles that pull. So you've got, got bench all the time, but your rows aren't so great and you don't have what's called good scapular retraction

where your shoulders come back. So we'll get to some of the correctional exercise. Here's a good thing you can replace the bench press with, just a good old incline dumbbell press. For most people, it's not an issue. For the exact reasons that you said, too. I've loved this was also something that happened for me later on in my career, like always I struggled

with teaching a client. If you've never done bench press before, as basic of a movement as that may seem, many people struggle with it, more so now than ever too, because we're so forth. It's way more technical than it looks. It is. And the average eye that's, and even the young trainer,

when I would look at someone doing a bench press It would look like it doesn't look bad. It's pushing it up. Yeah, it's hard to see it unless you know exactly what you're looking for and Very few people Retract and depress their shoulders before they bench press. I mean that don't know they're doing you see great Obviously all people that bench press well or like competitors, you'll see that. You'll see the way they get into a bench press. They get themselves all wedged in. They have that kind of nice little arch

in their low back and their shoulders are really retract into press before they go into pressing. What I love about the incline dumbbell press is it naturally puts you in that position. So even if a client doesn't do very well with being able to activate those muscles and get themselves in that position. Naturally, gravity is on your chest.

That's right. Gravity is going to kind of do that because you're at a 45 degree bench and you're holding these dumbbells, it kind of naturally sinks the shoulder blades down, down and back like you want. And so I just find it as an easier move, like we talked about the Z-Press,

going back, knowing what I know now, if I were to start all over as a trainer, I probably would very, very, very few times when I start a client ever on a barbell bench press, I would almost always now start on an incline dumbbell press to get technique down first before I progress to the ball. That was the second half of my career. The first half was like benching, benching. And the second half was like, no, no, no, we're gonna get really good at the incline, incline dumbbells, and then we'll graduate to the patterns, and then we can build off of that.

Yeah, now here's a hack, by the way, if the front of your shoulder hurts you, and it is indeed the bicep tendon, try this out before you do incline dumbbell presses. Do a static bicep stretch for about 30 seconds on each arm, and then go do your pressing. Now it's not a fix, but what it does do is it'll leave you eight some of the pain, allow you to press with better points. Well, perfect scenario would be stretch and then go to your pressing. Now it's not a fix, but what it does do is it alleviates some of the pain

and allow you to press with that a point. Well, perfect scenario would be stretch and then do row. Row. Well, that's the best way to do it. So yeah, perfect thing would be to stretch rows. That's right, stretch the bicep 10 and then go right into some rubber band rows or just do some light barbell rows,

just to pop the upper. It's a good time to get your shoulder blade sat in a good position. Yes, work on that upper mid back area. By the way, just because you row, doesn't mean you're working on the upper back area. If you're rowing with your shoulders forward, it's a lat row.

You might as well do a pull-up. You want to pull the shoulders back and down while you're doing the row, strengthen those mid back muscles. That's what's going to keep your shoulder healthy for when you do bench presses and you go back to doing bench presses, I should say. All right, the next exercise.

I know Adam, you want to add this, I think you're absolutely right. And that's dips. Most people, I don't say most, I'd say a majority of people have a small majority, have trouble with dips. It hurts their shoulders. Yeah, I think it's just, I think there, it goes back to what we were talking about with, you know, range of motion and shoulders and the ability to pull the shoulder blades back. I think that we're in this fixed forward type position all the time. And then you ask somebody to go into a dip position and it's like the, you're pulling and stretching on that.

And I think that just it's painful for a lot of people. And so they avoid it. You also see some people that they, they don't have that range of motion and then they go and do something where they load the dips or things like that. And then you, they tear or hurt themselves. So this was a common one. It was common that I would get somebody who wanted your dips,

but then every time they did dips, they would feel the stress in their shoulders when they try and get down. That's the most common I've saw was just like the protracted shoulder where we're trying to now also dip down and we really should be more expansive with our chest and dips and to get the full advantage of it. But yeah, that was always a big common one because then it would go right, direct it into

the shoulder and it would be create pain immediately. Totally. Close grip, bench press or close grip, incline press, even better. And when I say close grip, by the way, I know some people are like, put your hands all the way together. No, your wrists don't really bend that well that way. It's like shoulder width. Do about a shoulder width bench press, keeping your elbows relatively tucked. And that is a great substitute for dips. We'll still train your triceps, still train your shoulders.

It's close enough to dips where you won't lose a lot of your performance from dips, but it does train a lot of the similar muscles. And the issues with the dips is almost always having to do with the shoulders. It's shoulder mobility, lack of rotation, lack of stability, handcuffs with rotation. It's like a really good, general overall shoulder mobility exercise that will also help with this.

Yeah, to figure out where to grow, like everybody wants to know where to grab the bar. And that's the wrong question because we're all, there's wider, more narrow, and like so, the way I would tell a client is I'd have them pinch their elbows next to their ribcage and then get their forearm straight. Like you, so you're, so you're a forearm grip.

Yeah, there's your grip. Yeah, so that's where you grab the bar. It's not, look at the bar and go, oh, where do I grab it for close grip? And she'll grab here, she'll grab here, she'll grab here. It's like, no, take your elbows, pinch them right by your side. And I'm looking for that nice 90 degree bend. And it looks, it's all perpendicular to my body.

That's where I want to grab the bar. I think that's the best play. And then that's all you're thinking about as you come down the close grip, is you're keeping the elbows tucked in close because we're focusing on tricep and it's not a close grip bench press for your chest. We're keeping elbows in tight by your side and focusing on the tricep.

All wall circles are great too. I really like that. Never done those before. I learned them from Justin. We now have it in some of our programs. The wall gives you feedback. It allows you to move through this full range of motion. You're externally rotating, internally rotating.

You're extending and depressing. It's a really good full range of motion kind of intrinsic tension exercise, meaning there's no external tension, so it's very safe. There's nothing pushing against you that's going to cause you to injure yourself, and you can see measurable results when you practice it regularly. Like you'll see literally if you practice this for five or ten minutes today tomorrow if you practice again, you'll notice a little bit of an improvement. That's how fast you're providing the full potential. You can achieve in terms of how much range of motion

your shoulders capable of. It's really kind of crazy. And you don't realize that until you actually put yourself in that position where you test it. And again, this is another one of those exercises you really want to take your time with and be gradual. If you don't have that range of motion yet, you back off a bit. The next time you do it, guarantee you're going to go a little further. Yeah. So the all these movements that we just went over, if any of them ring a bell for

you that you avoid because of aches and pains or someone told you you shouldn't do it, use the movements, especially the mobility stuff, and practice. And practice is much easier. And for the time being, replace them with the exercise that we provide you. That's the idea. Replace someone, if there's a program that has them, you can't do them, the movements we gave,

that's what you replace with. And then the rest of the week, you're trending, corporate it as much as you can. Just go light and practice and work on technique and get good at it. Yes, and again, those sites, they're free webinars so the free classes taught by Adam and Justin, there's no catch, nothing like you just go on there

and watch them, it's primeprowebinar.com. And then the other one is mapsprimewebinar.com. The difference is the mapsprimewebinar.com is taught by Justin. He takes you through a few compass tests, we're called compass tests that help you identify your own imbalances. And the one Adam takes you through is a little more in depth. There's no tests, but he takes you through all the major joints of the body and shows you

some phenomenal mobility movements. And he coaches you through doing them. So you really figure out how to do them well. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness going again. They're over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness going again, they're free. MindPumpFree.com. You can also find all of us on Instagram.

So Justin is at MindPump Justin. I'm at MindPump Sal and Adam is at MindPump Adam. 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

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