Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1867: Ten Advanced Next-Level Workout Techniques

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover ten advanced techniques that can kick-start your results in the gym. One of the MOST challenging things in fitness is to continue progressing when you are ALREADY advanced! (2:04)   Ten Advanced Next-Level Workout Techniques.   #1 - Supersets (pre-exhaust, compound, antagonist). (6:44) #2 – Training to failure. (10:48) #3 - Partial reps. (18:05) #4 – Rest/pause. (21:44) #5 - Intraset stretching (24:17) #6 – Drop sets. (26:48) #7 – Super slow motion. (30:42) #8 - Isometric holds. (34:21) #9 – 10 x 10. (36:10) #10 – Forced reps. (40:22) Related Links/Products Mentioned MP Hormones July Promotion: RGB Bundle or MAPS Suspension 50% off! **Promo code JULY50 at checkout** The 20-Minute Full Body Superset Workout That Hits Everything (TRY THIS) - Mind Pump TV How To Do PRE-EXHAUST SUPERSETS with Sal Di Stefano How To Use Supersets For Maximum Muscle Gain - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1820: How To Choose The Perfect Workout Partner 3 Tips for Better Muscle Growth – Mind Pump Blog Critical Mass: The Positions-Of-Flexion Approach to Explosive Muscle Growth How To Use Cluster Sets To Push Your Intensity (MUSCLE BUILDING TOOL) - Mind Pump TV Use Intra-Set Stretching for the BEST Hamstring Workout | Ben Pakulski – Mind Pump TV How to Use Intra-Set Stretching for the BEST Bicep Workout | Ben Pakulski – Mind Pump TV When to Use Drop Sets & Supersets in Your Training – Mind Pump Podcast Super Slow Mind Pump #1632: The Truth About German Volume Training Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Ben Pakulski (@bpakfitness)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop 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 advanced, next level training techniques. You've been working out for a while. Your body has plateaued. Try one or two or next level training techniques. You've been working out for a while, your body has plateaued, try one or two

or more of these techniques. Do them right, and you'll see your body progress. Again, also this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, mphormones.com. So if you suspect you may have a hormone imbalance, you'd like hormone replacement therapy, testosterone, optimize your hormone levels to build more muscle, more body fat, improve your health,

go to mphormones.com, set up an appointment with real doctors so they could do an assessment and help put you on the right protocol to maximize muscle and fat loss and sleep and libido and overall quality of life. Now, we are running a sale this month on some of our workout programs, which are all written out program for you with videos and demos and other stuff.

Here's what is going on. We have the RGB bundle that is 50% off. So the bundle includes three of our most popular workout programs, maps andabolic, maps performance and maps aesthetic. There's also a bunch of free other stuff that comes along with that bundle. That whole bundle is 50% off. We're also running a sale on an individual workout program.

So if you just want one workout program, we put maps suspension on sale. This is a suspension trainer program. So all you need is a suspension trainer. You don't need anything else. And you can train your entire body to build muscle and burn body fat and improve your overall fitness. So that program is also 50% off. So if you're interested in either one of those, go to maps fitnessproducts.com and then use the code July 50, that's July 50, no space for that discount. One of the most challenging things to do in fitness

is to continue progressing when you're already advanced. Well, in today's episode, we're gonna talk about some advanced training techniques that can take your body to the next level. I'm excited for this one because I don't know how often you guys get a chance to look at comments on YouTube and there's one in particular that we get,

kind of often, that it bothers me. And that is that there's this presumption. And it's always somebody that probably doesn't listen to the show consistently, that will comment on YouTube that like, oh yeah, they're cool, they're for beginners. You see that one? You see that, we get that quite a bit. Like the content that we they're for beginners. You see that one? You see that? We get that quite a bit. Like the content that we provide is for beginners.

Well, let's be honest. We talk a lot to the everyday average person for shrimp. That's our mission because this is the people that need the most help, but we're not beginners. Yeah, right. And I think that that's the part of the thing that we're finding a little insulting is because by any means, I don't think any of you

would consider yourself a beginner lifter. No. And I think that we share a lot of our mistakes along the way and our personal journeys. And I think that there's a lot of people that I would consider advanced, super advanced that could learn a lot from some of the things that we share that we learned along the way. Totally. And also, I think too much emphasis is put on advanced training techniques. That's right. In the fitness space, because the confusion is, well, if that's an advanced

technique, then that means it's going to make me progress faster. No, it's, it needs to be appropriate for your body. So what are advanced techniques appropriate for? Well, people who are advanced, have you been consistent for multiple years? Are you fit? Do you eat right? Are you kind of hitting all the, you know, all the checkpoints and being doing so consistently? That's when some of this stuff makes sense. This doesn't, what we're about to say, I would never apply to somebody who hasn't been working out for at least a year or two consistent, you know, weekend and week out, who doesn't have a good diet, who doesn't sleep well. I would never apply these because not only would they be inappropriate, but they'd actually set someone back. But if you are advanced and you are doing those things, then these techniques can become quite

valuable. Well, that's what I really like this too, because you've listed 11 of these techniques that I know we have been asked about individually before. What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And maybe because we haven't dedicated a whole episode to one of these one of these one techniques. And the normally the follow up question is we start instead of telling them what we think about this one specific technique,

we go, well, what have you been doing? How long have you been training? What is your diet? We start asking all the other big rock questions that are going to help that person more than this one advanced technique that they're curious about because they probably saw some other YouTube person or social media person posting about how beneficial it is

when in reality all of these techniques that we're gonna go over I would still consider them even as awesome and great all of them are is so small in comparison to the big things that we continue to take talk about. And I think that's where we get this wrap of word for beginners. And it's like, you know many like long time lifters need to hear that message. Yes. Because in and by the way, I'm just as guilty. Like 10 years into my career, I would consider myself pretty advanced by that time. And I'm still falling into the same trap

of doing a lot of these techniques way too much because they're advanced and they're different. Well, this is stuff that we nerd out on every now and then in our workouts and we experiment with it and we have fun with it because the foundations already been established over the last few decades and it's like, this is where you get a new stimulus. So I have it maybe made me progress in a while and I don't programming and I want to add

something to kind of spice it up. It's great. There's advanced techniques out there that are very valuable. Yeah. Now, to be clear, these techniques, you kind of said this little Adam, these techniques are only going to be effective if you use them judiciously. These techniques are not effective if you use them regularly. They will quickly tip your body into overtraining,

very quickly result in your body, not adapting, but rather just trying to heal all the time. The reason why I'm saying that is because if you're the appropriate person to apply these techniques, when you do, you will see a spike in progress. You will see strength go up all of a sudden, faster than it has been, or muscle go up, all of a sudden all of a sudden faster than it has been or muscle go up, all of a sudden better or more so than it has been.

And the tendency is to be like, oh my God, keep doing this. Yeah, it gets addictive. Yeah, no, it'll work in a short period of time and then not only will stop working, but you'll actually start going backwards. So be very careful with using these or should I say judiciously,

I think is the best term I can use. So the first one, this is an advanced technique. Now you can program it into workouts where somebody's intermediate and do it very intelligently, but it's somewhat an advanced technique and I'd say, all the ones we're gonna talk about, this one probably could be used more under regular,

now not regular basis, but more in a regular basis than a lot of the other ones. And that's supersetting. Supersetting refers to just to make it real basic, combining two exercises together in one set, okay? But there's different ways to use supersets. One way to use a superset is to do what's called a pre-exhaust superset.

And a pre-exhaust is where you're trying to exhaust the target muscle with an isolation exercise before moving on to a compound exercise that hits that same muscle. Remember, isolation exercises use a single joint. Compound lifts use more than one joint. So a good example of a pre-exhaust would be peck deck or cable flies to pre-exhaust the chest and then you go straight to bench press. The bench press uses now the shoulders and triceps so you can squeeze out more reps but you pre-exhausted the chest with the flies first.

Another one would be a compound superset. This is a very basic one where you're just doing two compound lifts and then the third one is antagonist. You're working opposing muscle groups in a superset. Now the way I personally like to use this is, and how do I integrate it into my training, but then also don't overuse it, is I like this type of a technique for time. When you're pairing exercise together, typically the workout is gonna be shorter.

You don't need the full 50 minutes because you're not getting these, because you're getting two, and I would categorize triceps in here even though I know you didn't list that off. But you need three exercises. That's right, super sets and triceps are techniques that I love to intermittently put into my routine.

And instead of like programming it like, oh, I haven't done triceps in a long time or super sets, I'm gonna put it in tomorrow. I go, oh, today, and here's a a great example like by the time we finish this podcast and I have calls you have calls I'm not gonna get a full 50 minute workout in I'll probably get like more like a 30 I will utilize probably Super sets and or triceps in that workout so I feel like I get a good full workout in a compressed amount of time. Yeah, so to me I Like doing it like that.

Although I know some people program it and it's in them, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're super consistent and you always get an hour in the gym, that never gets ready. And I know you're probably the most consistent with always having an hour. I'm kind of not like that. I'm a little more free flowing with my workout time and inconsistent when it lands. And I'm like, okay, today's gonna be a shorter day. So that's how I'm gonna utilize that technique. Well, you talk about like, can I be married to something?

This is one of those, I believe you introduced me to this. And I didn't even really utilize this in my training because I was all so focused on just pure strength, you know, almost five by five type of a protocol where I was like training back in the day. And so I started to get more into hypertrophy, but then like using super setting was just like, man, it would just pump up my muscles like I had never felt before.

So even just feeling the pump was new to me. And so that just became one of those things where I found myself using that for like every workout for like the next like two years. And it was just too much and it just lost its effect But yeah, it's just one of those it's a new stimulus. It's something that you could totally Apply for your in that kind of situation where you've just been stuck with strength training for a long time Yeah, phase three of maps at a ballacuse is a lot of supersets Mo mainly pre-exhaust supersets one of my favorites is like a straight arm pull down or pull over to a pull up or pull down

Crazy lap pump and then a super set that I use regularly for time is buys and tries by the end of my workout Typically, I'll work my arms and I'm not really I'm not trying to get my arms any bigger I like the way my arms look whatever so I'm not always focused on you know Your new ways to make a big it's really it's a time thing, like you said. So I'll go buy his tries and that just makes the time go by much faster. All right, the next advanced training technique, which a lot of people do right out the gates, either because they think they'll harder

they work out the better, or because they heard that they have to train this way or get muscles to respond, which is both false, is training to failure. Training to failure means that you lift the weight until you can no longer lift it again with good form. Or some people think it means you literally fail during the set where you have to drop the weight.

That is a very, very high intensity technique. If you never train to failure and you're consistent in advance, you throw in some failure sets here and there there and you will see this really rapid spike and strength but you continue training a failure and you see that drop way off. So this is one that I abused for a really long time. And I think it's because of what we've talked about before where you change something up and then all of a sudden you see great results from it. I remember when I first started to introduce failure training and I was working out with a workout partner

and I did, I saw big strength gains and so I quickly became married to that technique and it became a staple, it became for years after that that like every exercise I trained to failure. And there's a lot of studies that you've seen out there that support how valuable, like, how increasing the intensity in training to failure for muscle growth. And so I remember I had read that and seen that. And so all it did was confirm my bias. I already had this bias of like, oh, it works so good. My body changed. And then you see these studies that come out that say, like, oh, failure training will help boost your gains. And it was like, oh, I'm sold. This is how

I'm training all of time. But that wasn't the complete picture and I didn't get the complete picture until I was older. And realized like, oh my God, I had been overtraining myself for so long and that's why I've been stuck at this plateau for so many years and simply scaling back and then going to a technique of two in the tank actually catapulted my gains again when I do that.

And then now when I failure train, it's really rare. It's maybe, you know, the occasional, like, maybe I've been training really consistently through one of our programs and I'm like, in maps at a bulk or something, and I just want to see where my squat strength is or my deadly strength, because I haven't tested a PR out of a while. Yeah, and I'll interrupt my training like that just a day,

I just feel good, right? I've been consistently seeing this progress and I'm like, oh, that just a day I just feel good, right? I've been consistently seeing this progress and I'm like, oh, I'm getting stronger. I feel good. It's like, oh, let's get after it this day. Let's train to failure in this workout coming up. But it's so rare now that I train that way because I find that I see more negative effects from me pushing to failure than I saw see the positive benefits. I feel like most avid lifters or like athletes, especially fallen to this trap of, you know,

really going for that failure mentality when they go into workouts. I mean, this is really why a lot of, you know, gym partners are like, you know, your gym buddy, like you need a, you need a spotter at that point. Cause you're going to fail. Cause you're going to failure all the time. And like this, I got in that trap where I was always like, you know, your gym buddy, like, you needed a spotter at that point. Cause you're going to feel it all the time. And like, I got in that trebros, always like, I needed a spotter for especially the big compound lifts

cause it was like, I had to just exert as much effort as possible. And really, literally couldn't get the last rep out cause that's how I thought, you know, I was gonna be successful with it. And it, you know, You hit a ceiling with that. Yes, you're going to get some great progress and gains, but not only that, you're just going to put some stress on the joints and at a certain inevitable point, you're going to set yourself

back because of an injury or a hiccup. I'm convinced those are the guys that are leaving those comments to that are still stuck in that face because that's what I would have thought about us when I was still stuck in that face of training because I thought like, I was sold at that point in my career that like the importance of intensity, every workout needs to be that way. And that's the type of people I was listening to. And also if you train consistently

and then you go to failure, you see fast gains in a short period of time. So your soul, that happened to me as a kid. I first started working out high volume, you know, classic Arnold Schwarzenegger style workouts. Then a book I well didn't come out I had come out before but I have found a book called heavy duty which was written by Mike Manser as and it was coached by Arthur Jones of the inventor of Nautilus equipment and he made the argument He was it was very compelling argument that

Intensity is what turns on the muscle building switch. Okay. And we don't know exactly what intensity is required. We know it's high intensity. So go to failure because you're for sure going to hit it if you fail. Right. And then he said, but you know it stresses the body. So let's cut the volume way down. And so he advocated for one set to failure. That's it, one so weak, one set to failure, the per body part. Well, I went from 20 sets per body part to one set to failure, and I saw crazy gains in like five or six weeks. Right, right, right.

And that was it, I was sold. Now, my body stopped responding after five or six weeks. But of course, like a hard-headed teenage kid, I just stuck to it. Maybe I'm not doing it hard enough. Yeah, exactly what happened. But if you utilize this properly, a short period of time, you do get very, very quick gains.

Another value of training to failure, if you never do it, or you haven't a long time, is it gives you a good basis of judging your two reps left in the tank. I noticed this with myself. I almost never trained to failure. But then when I do, I'll do like a rep and I'll be like, oh my god, two more and I'm gonna fail.

And then I'll do this two and be like, oh, I think I have more. And then I'll keep going and be like, oh my God, it was so much further than I thought. But once I hit that, now I have a better gauge of the right answer. A great point. And this is something I had to like remind myself of just especially for young lifters or people like coming up and really trying to figure out their gauge

of what their capacity is. Like you have to be able to stretch a bit first so you know where that line is, you know, to be able to get maximize your potential. And so yeah, it is, you have to kind of know where that line is in order to back off just a bit to keep progressing. I found it really valuable with my female clients. So it was more common for me that when I had a male client, I had to pull weight off the bar and say, hey, we're not ready for that. We don't need to do that yet. Let's work on technique. And it was more common with my female clients, right? I think you can do more. Like you look, you look really controlled and good there. Let's add more. And so getting my female

clients to push to actual failure, not a lot of my female clients had done that before and they saw huge change in gains from that. Where a lot of guys, I just think that it's a macho thing. Like it's, by 17 going into the gym, I was already like, I already had a buddy spotting four percent in the bench press. You know what I'm saying? I already was doing that because I wanted to show

how much weight I could move, right? At that age where women don't tend, they don't care about that as much. saying like I already was doing that because I wanted to show how much weight I could move, right? At that age where, you know, women don't tend, they don't care about that as much. And they're, they're, they care more about taking care of themselves, not getting hurt. And so they kind of lean on, on the more cautious side. Well, that's the whole myth that, you know, lifting heavy would make you bulky. That's right. So they're afraid, right?

Totally. So there's a combination of both those things going on. So I saw great results of getting my female clients actually push them and encourage them to like, hey, let's try and do some singles or doubles. Like you've never pushed your body before or have seen like how much can you really do? Like have you ever tried this squat and then actually failed at it? Like not a lot of my female clients could say yes, they had done that before. And so getting them to do that, it would really catapult the results. Now the next one are is called partial reps. Partial reps are just like they sound. You do

your traditional full range of motion. Then you get to the point where you know, you're not going to be able to do another full range of motion rep. So then you do like a partial rep, either a quarter rep or a half rep, to be able to continue to stress the muscle. So to give an example, it would be like, if I did a bench press and I had, let's say 200 pounds in the bar and I did 10 reps and the 10th rep was a struggle and I'm like, there's no way I could do another rep.

Well, then what I would do is maybe three or four of these little short reps just to squeeze out more. This is a very advanced high intensity technique, and you sparingly it does tend to lead to some pretty crazy gains. Be careful with this one, because people tend to overestimate their ability with partial reps,

thinking, oh, I'll just do a half squat next, and I should be able to do five more reps, not as usually like two more, or maybe one more of these sets. Well, if it takes the shit out of the muscle. So this technique I like to use in like a hypertrophy block, right? So if I were in a hypertrophy phase and the mindset is now kind of chasing the pump, I'm not really concerned about how heavy of weight I'm moving.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to get as much of a pump as I can. That's when I like to do things like a partial rep like that where I don't really care. I'm not trying to get so much stronger per se in that block I'm trying just to pump as much blood and fluid into the muscle and I think that partial reps do an incredible job of that now Would you count like so say powerlifters have like a technique where they work on certain sticking points in In the the rep would you count that as a partial what a great question? Technically it is a partial rep? What a great question. Technically, it is a partial rep, but not this technique here.

Yeah, well power lifters, I'm so glad you asked that. I didn't even think of that. Well power lifters are doing is something totally different. They're trying to train a particular portion of a rep that may be a sticking point like, let's say the bottom part of a squad or lockout in a bench press. This is not that.

This is literally, I can't do another full rep. So I'm gonna do that in for more volume. For more volume and higher intensity. You know there was a book that came out in the, I wanna say early to mid 90s called, Positions of Flexion, I think it was called. Paul De Mayo was on the covers, now since the C spotty builder.

And the argument in the book was that you don't need to do full reps. It's all about the load. And since you could load the weight much more with the partial rep, let's just load as much as possible, do partial reps. And that's going to lead to all this muscle growth. It doesn't work that way. Full range of motion reps are superior, even when the weight is lighter than partial reps. So this is not an excuse to lift more to partial reps because now you're lifting more weight therefore I'm gonna get better results. No, it is good that Justin brought that up though

because they both are different techniques. Totally. But are similar, right? Because you are doing a partial rep in both cases. But one of them you are loading close to a max load and trying to move the weight with the other one. You're probably using a weight that you're working out with and then you're just like,

you're gonna get more reps. Yeah, getting more reps. It's not even a sticking point. It's more like what you're doing your seat, so power lifters will typically do a partial rep with the hardest part of the rep. Yeah. The way this is, and they'll load it,

and it won't be like a pumping exit, like a bunch of reps, it's like trying to get it out of there. Yes, no, this is more like, I can't do any more reps. Let me do partials with the easiest part because that's what I can do, right? So like if the bottom of a squat is the hardest,

your partial rep at the end of your set is not gonna be at the bottom. It's gonna be a quarter squat at the top, because you're just trying to squeeze out more reps and more intensity. This one again, it's super intense, and this is beyond failure. So typically it's like I fail,

now I'm gonna squeeze out a few partial reps. Again, using it sparingly, it's got some pretty cool benefit. The next one is called Rest Pause, which is really interesting. This is an interesting one. I didn't learn until much later. Rest Pause is like this.

So let's say you're doing your rows and you do your set of rows and then you typically rest two minutes before you do another set. That's a standard amount of rest period in between sets or whatever. Well, Rest Pause is I do X amount of reps and then I put the weight down and rest like 15 seconds and then try and squeeze one or two more reps out.

That's a rest pause. It's literally another way to squeeze out one or two more repetitions past failure. So originally when you put this on there, I wasn't sure where you were going with rest pause. And if I would have known that, I actually would have put cluster sets right next to that because that's a very similar technique Yes, it is right cluster sets are a form of rest pause It is yes, so the those are it's basically the same thing It's just a it's own protocol of how many reps that you're doing is which is you're basically only giving yourself

Four-second rest between those reps. Yes You do a couple reps then you set the bar down for literally 1,000, 2, 1,000, 3, 4, boom, pick it back up, go again. What you'll find is you'll take a weight, right? What's really fascinating with cluster sets is, let's say, just hypothetically, that 80 pound curl bar is heavy for me to do, say, 12 reps. Well, straight 12 reps, right? Just regular 12 reps with a 80, that would be hard.

Could doing cluster sets, I could probably get 25 to 30 reps of that because like every, every fourth rep, I set it down, give myself four seconds, then I pick it back up, do four more, because those little bit of those short rest pauses that I get right there is enough to give me a little bit more juice. And then I'll set a set that I can normally only get about 12 reps. Now it becomes I get like 20 plus reps out that I can normally only get about 12 reps. Now it becomes, I get like 20 plus reps out of that. So you get these incredible pumps. You're able to lift, have your weight for more reps.

It's a great technique to, I think, interrupt like your regular training. And this is kind of where I would use it. So same place that you would probably use these rest paws type of training, I would use. I would do cluster sets now once every couple months. Just give people an example of how seldom lay I use it. And it's only when I feel really good,

and I'm really rested, and I'm feeling strong, and I'm feeling healthy, and then I'll throw one in. And I usually don't do a rest paws or cluster set for a big gross motor movement. It just fries me. I don't typically do this with a... It's a great arm or shoulder. Yeah, like I sometimes...

It's a great arm shoulder cash. The shoulder cash. The lateral, curls, calf raises, that kind of stuff. That's how I typically will use it. All right, this next one, it is an advanced technique. Although you could practice and play with this a little bit if you're not advanced. Now, I will warn you, it is advanced because it can cause some issues with muscle recruitment patterns, it can cause some issues with technique and form because of its effect on the central nervous system.

So this next one is intracet stretching. So what is an intracet stretch? Well, it would be when I do a set of an exercise and I go really, really hard. Right after I'm done with the set, I get into like a weighted stretch of that muscle. This is very painful. This does not feel like your typical stretch that, well, it's kind of relieving or hurts a little bit. This is nasty. So it's like if I did flies, or let's say I did bench press, and I went to failure, racked it up.

Then I grab a pair of dumbbells, and I sit in this kind of stretched position for 30 seconds. And range, sort of isometric pose at that point. Yes, and the fire you feel from this sucks. It's really one of the most painful things you'll feel. Now, what do you get from it? Crazy pumps. I have never felt a pump well I don't

want to say never there's other techniques like BFR that'll do it but this gives you the nastiest pump when you hold a stretch right after a hard set I think I just saw you do that about a couple weeks ago yes you're doing that over here I was didn't we do a series with Ben Poculski where we did we did this on the YouTube he's big on them yeah make sure that Andrew throws that video up now it would see see what it looks like this was new to me I had never Where we did this on the YouTube. He's big on them. Yeah, make sure that Andrew throws that video up. Now, you can see what it looks like. This was new to me.

I had never messed with this. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, it's all waving with it. Even with calves. Wow. Oh, yeah. Because calves, people tend to do it with calves without realizing it. Yeah, maybe unintentionally, I was doing on a CD calf machine,

but not really thinking about it, though, like that. That's a good point. Like, I had never done it intentionally. Like I did after we had met with Ben and talked about it though like that. That's a good point. I had never done it intentionally. I did after we had met with Ben and talked about it. So that was a nice short doing it. It's gnarly, it hurts really bad. And here's the stuff that you want to watch out for. A stretch, a long held stretch,

tends to get the CNS to relax in that muscle. So if you're trying to max load your lift, or you're trying to hit a PR in squats, you're trying to hit like a PR in squats, you probably don't want to do this. This is more of a bodybuilding thing, right? I don't want to hold a quad stretch really long after a set of squats if I'm trying to go for a PR in my next set. It's all about feel, it's all about the pump.

The last thing you want to do is hold a long stretch before doing a max lift. It just turns things off and it can make things a little precarious, which is why, you know, this is in the kind of advanced category. All right, this next one, this one's a lot of fun, which is why people do it all the time, but it is advanced. And it's a drop set. And a drop set literally is, I do X amount of reps with the weight, put the weights down, and grab 10 pound lighter or five pound lighter. Do more reps, can do any more, put those down, grab another one that's five or 10 pound lighter, Do more reps, can't do any more, put those down,

grab another one that's five or 10 pound lighter, and you know, some people call it regular rack. I'm a rack, right? Yeah, I love doing that with, especially for arms, like any kind of shoulders or biceps, and yeah, taking it from heavy, working your way down, and it's one of those, you don't wanna repeat too many times, that's for sure, because it's pretty demanding, and it fries you, but it's a great one to interrupt your regular training session.

Well, this is another one that would fall in the category of, for me, when I'm training for high-perture fee. It lends itself well. So instead of doing like four sets of shoulder raises, you're going to get one. You can't get one all done at once. It's kind of like, and also good for limited time, right? So it's like, like, and also good for limited time, right? So it's like, okay, and maybe because we're talking about this right now, I talked about how I might, maybe I'll do today because I have 20, 30 minutes to work out.

I'll do one tricep and then one run the rack or one, drop set of something like that. And now I have got a pretty good workout in a short period of time and super effective. But to me, that's how, I think it lends itself really well when you're chasing a pump. It's not the best thing for building lots of strength.

Does it mean it can't build strength? Because if you never do it and then you do it, you might see strength gains from it. But I think it lends itself well in a hypertrophy type of phase where you're already doing higher reps and kind of chasing the pump. This is where I would try to intermittently throw that into the routine. Yes, and I like try to intermittently throw that into the routine.

Yes, and I like drop sets more for isolation exercises than compound. Not saying you can't do a compound lift, but if you do a compound lift drop set, you better have some spotters. I learned this the hard way. I remember as a kid. Oh yeah.

When I left the YMCA the first time and signed up at 24-Fitness when I was a kid, I did a drop set with bench press. And I had a bunch of small plates on the sides of the bar so I could do as many as I could, and then push one off, push one off, do more, push one off, push one off. Well, you fatigue really fast,

and I didn't have colors on the bar because I was pushing the weights off, so what happens is, you know, I started losing stability. Oh yeah, and I broke the window. I actually think this is the single best usage of the Smith machine. We, I mean, I know an older podcast. I actually think this is the single best usage of the Smith machine. We, we, I mean, I know an older podcast. What a great point. We've talked about the Smith machine being like one of the more useless machines.

And I know that caused a lot of controversy back then. Um, and because we used to say like how much better free weights was. And I still believe that. But here's a great example of where I think that's a great tool. Because if I'm by myself, I can do a drop set on a bench press. I can do a drop set on a barbell press. And you can do it quick, right?

Because it's you rack it real quick, you roll your wrist, and then you can slide off, slide off, and then you're right back into it again. And so I think it lends itself very, very well for that. And in a situation like that, I am chasing more of a pump. I know that a standing barbell press is more beneficial overall for me strength and functionality. But hey, I'm in a hypertrophase, I'm looking for a pump. I want to do drop sets today.

Here's where I would use the Smith machine. You would find me using it. Yeah, that's good point. Drop sets are great with dumbbells because they're easy to put down and machines. Machines are great because I can literally take the pin and put it lighter, put it lighter each time. Now that we know what I used to do with drop sets,

this was actually a lot of fun. Not very valuable in terms of gains, but just fun when I'd work out with one of my buddies or my cousin, we would do this with curls. So we'd take away, and I would do eight reps. I'd hand it to him, he did eight reps and I'd grab a lighter one. And we'd go back and forth, back and forth until we would,

you know, be down to like 10 pounds. I'd be like, I'd be like, a great partner workout. Yeah, exactly. And this is of course, you got a 10 pound, you know, you're trying to curl 10 pounds at the very end, that's exactly when the attractor girl would walk in

and you're trying to tell her, no, no, no, I can't. No, that's true. No, that's true. 99. 100. Exactly. All right, so this next one is really interesting

because this one got invented out of necessity. It's super slow motion training and this became a thing in gyms in the US during World War II. Now of course gyms were not very commercial back in those days, but the word gyms, but they would ration iron because of the war effort. And so it was hard to get or almost impossible to get big heavy weights. So what did the strength athletes do? They said, well, if I only have 50 pounds here,

what if I do the wrap really slow? So instead of two or three seconds up and down, I'll do 30 seconds up and 30 seconds down. Well, it turns out it actually has got some value. If you've never done this before, try a super slow motion exercise. And it'll definitely, it can definitely set things in motion again. That's a cool part about the weight training. There's a lot of variables you can apply that

will make things harder. This is definitely one of those where if you're just concerned about the tempo, now we slow everything down and you have to control the weight and you're still struggling, but for a longer period of time, so you have that kind of muscle tension that's just firing throughout the entire rep. It's gonna be pretty challenging. This is my favorite to use. It's my favorite to teach. It's also the one of all of these I would say

that I would even still recommend to a beginner. You know, we put this in. Very safe. Good to have you. Good to beginner. You know, we put this very safe. Good to see you. Even though we put this as advanced techniques, and it is because there's other, you know, basics and fundamentals that even a beginner should be doing before they even need to do this. But I find this as a great tool, even for beginners, as a great way to increase intensity

without loading the bar more. It's like, anything super slow-moving to control. That's right. Not to mention, I still think, and I've said, if anything super slow motion, that's a control. That's right. Not to mention, I still think, and I've said this in the podcast many times, that if you walk into a commercial gym, I challenge you to find me more than one person in the entire gym doing a true controlled

four-second eccentric motion, which is basic protocol for hypertrophy. That's not even super slow motion. That's not even super slow motion. So I think it's such a great tool to teach you because I already think that even some of the most advanced lifters do not utilize a four second eccentric motion on most exercises.

So getting a client comfortable with a 10 second eccentric is and getting to know that, hey, this is a way we can train. We can really slow it down and get great strength gains and build lots of muscle from training with this lighter weight and increasing the intensity through slowing down the repetition and it's super safe because I'm moving a light weight. Yeah, in my experience, the tempo you want that's most effective with super slow mo is about 10 to 15 seconds of negative and positive. So that means it would take 10 seconds or 15

seconds to go down, 10 to 50 seconds on the way up. However, super slow motion training will can call for as much as 30 seconds up and down. Now, my experience when you go that long, it's turned now into an endurance exercise and much less of a strength. It's just too long of a wreath. So one minute to do one rep, it tends to.

You know, there's a whole chain of gyms that are catered to the advanced age that it's and I think it's called super slow motion. I think yeah, I think it's called super slow. It's a gym chain. It's fairly popular or it was. I don't know if it still is around that much, but and it caters to the advanced day and that's and it's all that. It's like basically strength training. And I think and again, I think it's a great tool for even beginners because it doesn't have high risk because you're moving a lot lower of a load.

And again, I think more people can slow down. And as a coach and a trainer, it gives you that opportunity to kind of critique the movement while they're in there. Oh, each little piece. Absolutely. All right, this next one's kind of cool because I messed with this as a kid, not really knowing what it was,

but rather because I would just copy the bodybuilders that I would read about. And these are isometric holds. There's a couple ways to do this. And they're always at the end of a set. So you do your set, it's real intense, you're done. There's two ways to do this. One is to simply flex the target muscle

as hard as you can at the end of the set. So I just finished doing curls, I put the bar down, I flex my biceps as hard as I can, and I hold that for 10 or 15 seconds. And now the intensity of the squeeze is important when you're doing this without resistance. The second way that people will do this uses resistance, where at the end of a set, for example, at the end of bench press, when it's my last rep, I just hold it at the top and stabilize it and squeeze my muscles. So now I'm using ex- you using X resistance outside of my body,

and that intrinsic. Personally, I prefer the intrinsic version because the other version of the risk factor is much higher, but they're both pretty valuable. Well, this is actually almost the same as your interest set stretching. You just focused on the other portion of the squeeze.

Yeah, this is the squeeze instead of the stretch, but the same concept is what's happening, right? I said, I think we're just, you're trying to recruit more neurons to that area in that moment of where that muscle is at, right? So is it the elongated position or is it in the fully contracted? Full contracted would be this one, right?

That's the squeeze, right? And this one's, this one, even the posing can be pretty gnarly. If you're not a pose properly, you do a set and then squeeze a shit out of a muscle. So I've done some of the, and two Bruce Lee was big about this Tuesdays like doing bench and then going into like a chest squeeze and a fly

or these holding it and contracting. And it, in terms of like holding like kind of like an intracent one where I'm, I'm doing a bench, but then I'm also holding at the bottom of depth and I'm like holding it for an extra long amount of time And then pressing my way out to I love doing that. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. All right the next one. This one's kind of cool This is a more of and now it's not gonna sound high intensity because you don't go to failure with this But believe me it is this is 10 by 10. It's called so what do you do with this?

You pick an exercise usually it's a compound lift, and the goal is to do 10 sets of 10 reps of that exercise, and the goal is to use the same weight the whole time. Okay, so why is it so hard? Because you use what you, well, you'll find when you do this, is that you need way less weight than you think. Believe it, when you get to the fifth or sixth set, those 10 reps, I'm always off on this one.

I mean, this is GBT right here. So I think that it's awesome, but every time I do it, I am always. Missed calculate, right? Totally miscalculate. I think like, okay, I work out with like 225 on the bench for like a normal four set type of thing. So you all drop it down to 185, you know, that would be fine.

It's like, I'm doing like 115, but yeah, because I had no idea like how much I totally underestimate how I would be doing. Now the Bulgarians used to do versions of this with weight lifting. Obviously it's German volume training. So the Germans would do this as well. East Germans, this is all during the time the Soviet Union.

Now their protocol, protocol South, correct me if I'm wrong. You said, you're only doing like one muscle group in the workout, right? That's one exercise. Now, remember, it came from Olympic lifts and strength athletes, so they didn't even think about muscles, they would just do squats or presses

or overhead squat or something like that. And it's basically practicing the lift over and over again. So now, you should, at the end of this 10 set, extra workout, you should be able to of this 10 set extra workout, you should be able to perform all 10 reps, but don't let that fool you. It is gnarly doing 10 sets of 10 of any exercises so much volume of one movement

that it's an advanced technique because it fries the shed to you. What's some of the value of it though is your CNS adaptations amazing because it's the same exercise for 10 sets. So you get really, whatever exercise you practice, when you do this, if you do it right, you get really, really good at that lift. And it's a great way to boost strength. So I made the mistake of for many years of doing this as my first day back always.

So yeah, I know. It sounds really obvious and stupid now, right? Well, the way we talk about things But my thought process was this like so I would be the first day back And let's say I'd been like a month off of training with that. I'm gonna give back to it And I would go do squats and so what I thought was like I knew I was really really weak Cuz I had done it so I had to do a super lightweight. So I just do 10 reps to 10 I would our 10 sets of 10. I would just I put a really lightweight on there It was normally 135. That's what I would do and I just our 10 sets of 10. I would just, I put a really light weight on there. It was normally 135.

That's what I would do. And I just do 10 reps. And I could do that and then I'd re-racking away. But boy, it was so sore. So sore. This weight too much volume. It was just way too much, and that's why this is a, even though you're moving a lot lighter weight,

it's a tremendous amount of volume for a muscle. One movement pattern. Yes. Over and over and over. Yes, so this is definitely advanced. You want to have been lifting for a while. One movement pattern. Yes, over and over and over. Yes, so this is definitely advanced. You want to have been lifting for a while before you do it. And then the way I live to use it now is, I might do like a week where I interrupt my training and do exactly kind of what you said.

One movement, I'll do squats on one day, then I'll do like overhead press, and then I'll do deadlift, and then I'll do like a bench press. And that is my workout. It's like 10 sets of 10, and I'll do alift and then I'll do like a bench press. And that is my workout. It's like 10 sets of 10 and I'll do a week of training like that and I find I feel amazing. I've done, and it's a great interruption

of like your normal training. It's like when do you ever go to the gym and just do one exercise for the entire time and then that's all you do with it out of there? One of the worst times I ever felt after workout where I knew I way over did it and it actually took me a few weeks just to recover from this one particular workout was I did 10 by 10 with deadlifts

and the weight I showed now this is back when I was real heavy in a deadlifting so I could probably max out pull at the time 575-585 so I'm like 315 that the time was easy for me I could do 10 reps no problem. It's not really that hard So let me do 10 by 10 with 315. I couldn't deadlift properly for three weeks afterwards. It fried my body so much. So I'm just communicating that because it's a lot harder than it may even seem in the workout itself

because it's the same thing. It's the same movement pattern over and over again. It just really fries the body. All right, this last one for me is the one that, not only did I abuse the most when I was a kid, but it's also the one that I don't, I know almost never do now. I almost never do this one now,

but when I was a kid, I did it almost all the time. And that's four straps. What's a four strap? Well, it's when you lift away, you go to failure, and then your friend helps you do two or three, or four, that's what I used to do, four four straps at the end of every single set. Now why do I never do this anymore? I work out alone. I can't do a four strap by myself. I have to have not only that but I

even think that I'm with you. I don't ever do this anymore because what even if you have somebody spotting you if you if you if you really pay attention to your form it's really tough once you've completely fatigued the muscle on the failure. It's hard to not go to shit. It's really tough, once you've completely fatigued the muscle and gone to failure. It's hard to not go to shit, isn't it? It's so hard. You're gonna, this is where you're gonna see what sides a little bit stronger than the other,

because the one that has a fraction of energy or strength left will try to take over the load, and then you just create a bad recruitment pattern. It's like, here you got this great bit, and then I'm out, and it's like, oh, my leftist got a little bit more gas. And then you feel that. You'll feel that shoulder come off or that arm start to lead in the barcums.

So I just, I think force reps are incredibly overrated. You can train a failure without it. You can increase intensity by so many different ways of manipulating. We are just listed off 10 different advanced techniques that you can incorporate into your training. I'm glad you left this as the last one because it is the one of all of these that I can't even tell you the last time that I utilize it. Yeah, I just remember doing this with one of my friends and it was to the point where you couldn't

do the rap. They're literally helping you through the majority of that rep. The following like two days after that was the source that ever been. It was almost like I was completely worthless at that point. So it's like if you want to look at that, it turns out like your progress into the leading into the next workouts. It's, you know, like you got to be really judicious about how you apply this.

Yeah, and you know, the biggest point, I think is the one that Adam made, which is when you're doing about how you apply this. Yeah, and you know, the biggest point, I think, is the one that Adam made, which is, when you're doing a forced rep, the goal with the first off the workout partner is to make the rep hard for you. Your goal is to continue to move the bar or the dumbbell or the weight or whatever. It's so easy for you to form the window.

So if you do do forced reps, yes, push the weight, but do not compromise your form. So it's not get the reps out at all costs. It's get the reps out good. Meaning, if I'm doing a bench press and my friend is doing a force reps so they're helping me just enough to help me move it. And I notice, uh oh, I'm starting to turn one side,

fix it and push a little less hard. So the way I, okay. And that's hard to do. I used to do it all the time. And the way I would coach this is, I used to have to coach the trainers and the way I would coach this is I just have to coach the trainers That were that were spotting me for this and I would say don't let me break my tempo So if I'm doing let's say eight reps, right?

And I know I'm gonna do 10 reps and I know eight I can get on my own with the last two or probably gonna be forced I tell them that pay attention. I want your fingers under the bar at one I tell them that pay attention. I want your fingers under the bar at one. So you can ride me and feel the tempo that I'm moving the bar and I never want to break tempo. So you need to be able to spot me to where I still move the bar at that tempo. That way I don't do that because where everybody goes wrong with this and where spotters are it's tough to spot is they wait until the guy hits failure and he's already, struggled with the way, and then they get in there and they try and pull and help out and then you get this, you know,

left to right, bullshit going on. And then it's just, that's terrible. It's like, you wanna be able to keep that nice tempo, but then you're also trying to squeeze out two, three or four more reps that you're technically not doing. Yeah, that's a good point. Like the reason why I made this one last is

is it also requires a good spotter. Yeah, good spotter. Somebody who knows how to make sure your form is good and knows the right tempo and how to help. Because usually what they do is exactly what you said. They'll leave the bar on you and tell you to wait. You can do it. You can do it.

Yeah, you got this. Yeah, bro, make it move again. Yeah. Or I'm lifting all the weight for you. Okay, that's the point. Like listen, this is right. Okay, that's the point. Like listen to this right. Anyway, there you have it. 10 advanced training techniques that can

spark new growth, new strength, and new progress. Look, if you like our content, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. You can find Adam on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam., you can find Adam on Instagram at my pump.atom

and you can find me on Twitter at my pump.al. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. 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 Mind Pump Media.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic.

Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal 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 and an adjustment as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump!